Chapter Six
"Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Boise Safehouse
Auburn, Seattle
April 18, 2059
6:30 am
"Gak!" Riggs spat. "Smiley, what the hell are you doing?!"
"You told them!" Smiley kept repeating in an insane roar. The eccentric samurai grabbed a steel table and flipped it over. Cyberspurs and recently installed hand razors popped in and out of their housings. "You told them you told them you told them you told them!"
"Get a fragging grip, Smiley!" Riggs babbled as he darted out of the way just as Smiley pulled at a pipe running into the floor.
The force that Smiley exerted was enough to loosen the pipe. Water started to leak from where the seal had been broken.
"Don't do anything you'll regret!" Or anything he would regret. Riggs was all alone with Smiley since Gideon and Lenny had left thirty minutes ago. They were off to check on the meet location in downtown Seattle. They wouldn't be back for hours.
Smiley tore the pipe loose sending a spray of water onto the garage floor. The samurai was a blur of spinning clothes and wires as he brought the pipe down in line with the dwarf's stumpy head.
Riggs managed to roll underneath a table before the pipe struck him.
"You told! You told! You told!" Smiley kept babbling.
"I didn't tell anybody anything!"
Smiley bent the pipe over the table that Riggs was trying to keep between the two.
"Drek, Smiley!" Riggs was genuinely afraid for his life. Smiley had slipped a nut and didn't look too friendly at the moment. As Smiley threw the table aside Riggs managed to noticed the cord running from the datajack behind Smiley's temple. The cord ran to the pocket on Smiley's long coat where an unusual lump was visible.
"Crush you!" Smiley raved as he grabbed Riggs by the collar. The samurai's wires and cybernetics made him more than a match for the rigger.
As Smiley hoisted Riggs into the air Riggs tried to fight back, but he wasn't doing much good. Riggs knew that he didn't stand a change of knocking the samurai out. He had to come up with another idea and he hoped that he had it with the wire that was running from the datajack.
The demonic samurai chanted as he held Riggs against a wall. Spurs and razors sprouted out of Smiley's hand and in line with Riggs' face.
"SMILEY!" Riggs screamed as loud as he could. At the same time his plump fingers managed to get a hold of the cord and rip it from Smiley's jack. Immediately the samurai jerked and his eyes looked more alive. He still held Riggs in a death grip, but he wasn't raving like he was. "Smiley? You with me or have you flipped your top?"
Smiley looked confused. He was holding his teammate up by the collar inches away from gutting him.
"Come on, man." Riggs coached. "Take deep breaths for me. In and out."
Smiley slowly let Riggs down.
"There you go, big guy." Riggs said. He slowly reached into Smiley's coat pocket and pulled the lump that he had seen out. What he found was a yellow simsense deck. A chip had been slotted and was running a loop program.
Smiley still seemed a bit unstable, but no more than usual. The razors in his hand retracted and he got off his wire-high. He put his hand to his datajack. There was quite a headache there.
"Looks like somebody slipped you a bad chip." Riggs said as he held up the simsense deck. "You still with me?"
Smiley shook his head again. ".......chip?......" He muttered.
"Yeah, a chip."
Smiley took the deck from Riggs' hand. He pulled out the chip and looked it over. It was a shiny blue and yellow with little streaks running across it. "This not my fragging chip. Where the frag is my chip?" Smiley babbled.
"Er...." Riggs stuttered. "What exactly was your chip."
"This not my shit." Smiley held the chip up. "Didn't run like my chip." The chip, like so many others, had a title on it. "This one's called Traitor. That's not my fucking chip."
"What was your chip?"
"Care Bears go to Attica." Smiley replied.
"Well, maybe you should put this aside for a while, huh?" Riggs put his hands around the simdeck. "Just until your head clears."
A look of hate came over the samurai's face. Riggs immediately let go, but the hate wasn't directed at him. "Rat gave me a bad chip." Smiley shoved the simdeck into the rigger's hands. "Rat doped my chip." He said viciously and stalked around the ruined garage.
"You all there, Smiley?" Riggs said hesitantly.
"Not until I hurt someone." Smiley replied. "Not until I hurt Rat." He added and prowled out of the basement.
"Oh, drek." Riggs sighed. "Lenny's not going to like this."
Nightsky's Doss
Tacoma, Seattle
6:50 am
Tart rolled over and stared at the ceiling. She had been awake for a few minutes now. A nights sleep made her feel a lot better. Muscles still ached here and there, but everything was in one piece. Her side still hurt where that man had kicked her and she her lip had swollen a little where she had been punched. All things considered it could have been much worse.
Nightsky's new home was a lot better than his old haunt in Redmond. It smelled of fresh wood and composites. Much unlike the filthy odor from the barrens. Instead of a crumbling apartment buildings, Nightsky now lived in a sturdy concrete structure that offered plenty of room. There was a vast, open feeling throughout the building because of the lack of furniture. There were four rooms. The central room was the largest with a fifteen-foot ceiling and a twenty by thirty-five floor space. Adjacent to this room was a small area where Nightsky kept most of his gear. On the opposite side was a bedroom and bathroom. There were two doors. The front one was made of heavy gauge steel and locked with a maglock that Nightsky had installed. To make things more secure there was a motion sensor at the base of the door. The back door was locked with a maglock and bolted shut. It had a much more dangerous security precaution attached to it. What few windows there were had bars and drapes. Nightsky had also obtained some monowire which he strung between the bars.
What a night, Tart thought to herself. I can't believe what I did. What was I thinking?
Tart had been blaming herself for what happened. She had broke the secrecy that had kept for so long. It nearly costed her life. Fuchi still remembered what she had done. It was unlikely that they would be forgetting anytime soon. If Lenny had not caught on to things she would probably be in a Fuchi holding pen somewhere.
Tart rolled onto her side. She could see into the main room where Nightsky was going through motions with a monosword. A smile crossed her face. If Nightsky had not shown up at her apartment Tart would have woken up in a very different place. The adept had come through in a clench.
The smile on her lips vanished when she considered what Nightsky had done. Without hesitating he killed the man that was kidnaping her. He didn't even stop to consider his actions. Absolutely cold blooded without a thought of remorse.
Was that what made a shadowrunner, Tart thought to herself. Last night she put all of her trust in Nightsky. This morning her sense of security was replaced by the reality of what Nightsky, as a shadowrunner, did for a living.
Come to think of it, all of the shadowrunners that she knew were like Nightsky in varying degrees. Lenny seemed to be a caring and straight forward man, but Tart had seen his dark side. Lenny had killed and done horrible things. Tart bore witness to some of them. Gideon was no different. Shard, for all of her grace and beauty, wasn't above anything. In Redmond she showed that she was capable of a great many inhuman things. The way that Riggs worked seemed to distance himself from the act. He worked through drones and remotes. Was it like he wasn't doing the deed himself? Tart thought back to her experience on Highway 90 a few weeks ago. Riggs had used the weaponry on the Bison to blow up a Lone Star cruiser. He killed the officers in there and ran them down like so many bugs on his windshield. Tart shuddered as she thought about Smiley. He was probably to most extreme example. He didn't have any compassion or caring. He just charged right in and didn't care who he had to go through to get where he was going.
Was that what shadowrunners were? A gaggle of glorified murderers? Each of them committing the most horrible acts on the fellow (meta)human beings? Was there any distinction between them and the psychopath who kidnaps children and carves them up with a butcher knife? More specifically, was there any good in any of them?
Tart rested her head against the pillow. It felt warm and comfortable.
Was there good?
Images from the past few months flowed through Tart's mind. Tart thought about last night. Nightsky had killed that man, but only because he was hurting her. Nightsky didn't hurt the man at the Cafe. He left him alone even though it would not have been any problem for him to end that man's life just as easily as he had before. She thought about when she was on Highway 90. She thought about how Lenny said that he wouldn't let her go and that he would keep her safe. Tart didn't believe him, but she put her trust in him and it worked. Gideon was gruff and imposing, but he had a soft side. Tart had caught glimpses of it every so often. Riggs could have also blew up the other Lone Star cruisers chasing him down Highway 90, but he chose not to. Instead he lost them in Glow City. Tart remembered how Shard had held her after they stopped in Glow City that night. With her magic she held Tart's cuts and bruises. She gave her the strength to carry on. There was Smiley too. Was there any good in Smiley? Probably not in what he did, but why he did it. In Redmond, when everything was falling apart in the factory, Smiley was there. He stayed and fought and gave it everything he had. He did it because of his fellow shadowrunners. He stood with them when it was all falling apart. Maybe there was a little good in Smiley as well.
Good? There's always a little good in everybody, Tart concluded.
"Tart?"
Tart found Nightsky standing above her.
"You awake?"
She rubbed her eyes. "Yes, I think so."
"It's time to get up." Nightsky instructed. "Get dressed and we'll go to the pad. Lenny's waiting for us there."
She said up on the mattress and stretched a little. She was wearing a large t-shirt instead of pajamas. "Okay, I'll just be a minute."
"Take your time." Nightsky replied as he shut the door.
Boise Safehouse
Auburn Seattle
8:00 am
"He did what?" Lenny blurted as Riggs explained what happened with Smiley.
"He was a raving lunatic, what part of that didn't you understand. He slipped a bad simchip and all of a sudden he was freaking out." Riggs shouted as he tried to weld the broken water pipe back into place. "You think I could have busted this pipe and made a wreck of this place by myself?"
"I knew Smiley was going to lose it like this." Gideon cursed.
"Where is he, Riggs?" Lenny questioned. "Where'd Smiley go?"
"He kept saying something about the simchip and a guy named Rat. Maybe Rat's the one he buys his chips from or something. Smiley seemed pretty unhappy when he found out what the simchip was. He said that it wasn't his." Riggs explained. "Smiley said that he wasn't going to feel better until he hurt someone."
"Smiley's chip dealer gave him a bad chip? Now Smiley wants to settle the score?" Lenny shook his head.
"That's what I get when I put two and two together." Riggs said.
"The man's a rabid dog, Lenny." Gideon maintained. "He'll end up getting himself killed and anyone who's with him."
"Smiley can take care of himself." Lenny said. "I hate it when he runs off like this. I wish to high heaven that he would wait until we get business taken care of."
"Smiley's always had poor impulse control." Gideon mumbled.
"Nothing we can do about that." Lenny said. "Even if we do find Smiley he won't come with us and focus on his job until he's got his personal problem settled."
"So your saying that it's okay for him to go out and flatline someone then come back to us bringing what ever heat he's picked up with him?" Gideon questioned the wisdom of the action.
"Then how do you plan to take care of him? Smiley will come back here once he's got his business taken care of. If you want to go get him before he has a chance to do anything you'll only cause more trouble than it's worth."
Gideon grunted. "Think maybe it's better to have trouble from one Smiley than whoever he manages to piss-off in the process."
Lenny scratched behind his ear and checked his watch. "We've got four hours until we have to be in downtown. Taking travel time into account, where do you want to start looking for him?"
"Where's he get his chips?" Gideon asked.
"He kept talking about a guy named Rat, like I said." Riggs hopped up on a table. "That's probably who he got the chip from."
"Rat, huh?" Lenny repeated. "Name doesn't ring a bell."
"The nut's got a place over in Fife." Gideon added, referring to Smiley. "I came by there last month. I know where it is."
"You thinking that he might have gone home before setting out after Rat?" Riggs wondered.
"Might have." The ork rumbled.
"Or there might be something there that'll tell us where he went." Lenny supplied. "Or at least where Rat might be." Gideon and Lenny exchanged glances. "Fife is it?"
"Yeah."
Lenny turned his attention to the dwarfish rigger. "Riggs, how long would it take us to get there?"
"From here to Fife? We could hit the mainstream roads. Get on one-sixty-four and head into Tacoma." Riggs counted off on his fingers. Each road that was named had its own finger. "Then we get on southbound at Highway Five. From there's it's just spitting distance."
"I didn't ask for directions, Riggs, I asked for time."
"Oh, a little over half an hour with traffic."
"Plenty of time."
Gideon's enhanced hearing picked up a faint sound from upstairs. He couldn't make it out at first. The sound was sent through a few filters and cleaned up a bit. "Hold up." The ork said firmly. "Upstairs, front door, footfalls." He informed.
Lenny glanced at the stairs and slipped the Predator II out of its holster. "The Bison, Riggs." He said as he headed up the stairs.
Gideon grabbed his M-23 off of a worktable and followed Lenny.
The two shadowrunners hit the main floor landing and paired off. Gideon cut the kitchen and into the lounge. Lenny took the main entryway, moving with the ease of wired reflexes. When both runners were in position they gave a go signal through their micro-transceivers. Gideon dropped to his knee in the archway to the main door. His assault rifle was held steadily in his hands. Lenny flattened himself against the hallway wall and held his pistol at the door. A red triangle from the smartlink lite up in his vision.
"Drop'em if you're carryin'em!" Lenny ordered.
"Whoa, Lenny!" Nightsky burst out. He held his hands out in view as both Gideon and Lenny were poised to cut both him and Tart down. "It's us, tone the wires down a little."
"Nightsky?" Lenny dropped his aim. Tart looked like she was about to faint. The movements of both men had gave her a good scare. "Sorry about that."
Gideon stood with the assault rifle held at his side. "Been a rough morning around here." He cupped his hand over his micro-transceiver and told Riggs that everything was okay.
"I'll bet." Nightsky said as he gently pushed Tart in front of him. "Look who I found last night."
A sigh of relief flowed from Lenny. One part of him was upset, but the other part was happy to see Tart in one piece. "You've been making a lot of waves lately, Tart."
"I know." Tart lowered her head in shame. "I'm sorry about that."
Lenny focused on Nightsky who was carrying a black duffel bag. "What happened at Tart's place last night."
"Some guy beat me there. I caught him as he was walking out with Tart. Tart wasn't very conscious at the time and had handcuffs on." Nightsky walked past Lenny and into the kitchen. "I dropped him, but we had to get out of there fast just incase he had any friends hanging around."
Gideon followed Nightsky into the kitchen. "What did you do with the body?"
"Disposed of it as best as we could in the time we had."
"What did you do?" Gideon wanted to know.
"We took a lot of printouts and the telecom chips from Tart's apartment and burned them with some stuff I found in the cupboards. Put the body in the bathtub and did the same thing."
"Get anything off the body?"
"Just a credstick and a pistol. There wasn't any identification. No way to tell who he worked for."
Lenny took Tart and let her upstairs. No doubt there were some choice words that he wanted to share with her. Tart still looked a little shaken up from the events of the past day. She had been holding her side ever since she arrived. There was a medkit upstairs that could use to help with the pain.
"Give me the 'stick and the gun." Gideon instructed.
"What?" Nightsky questioned. "Why?"
"Just do what I say, Michael."
"Okay, Gid. Frag, I come in and you two draw down on us and now you treat me like an amateur." Nightsky pulled out the pistol and handed it to Gideon butt first. It was a little harder to give up the credstick.
"Because you just made an amateur's mistake." Gideon took the gun and the credstick. "These things could have been bugged. I'm going to run a scanner over them."
"Bugged?" Nightsky followed the ork downstairs.
"Yeah, been seeing a lot of it recently." The ork headed over to the Bison that Riggs was crawling out of.
"Well if it isn't Nightsky the twinkie-killer." Riggs scorned. "Been assaulting any snack-cakes today?"
"Get over it, Riggs." Nightsky replied and turned his attention back to Gideon. "What were you saying about a rough morning around here?"
"Let Riggs explain it to you." Gideon replied as he broke out the bug scanner.
Nightsky glared at the dwarf. "Well, Riggs?"
"Oh, what?" Riggs babbled. "You didn't hear? Smiley flipped out this morning and wrecked the place. That damp floor isn't from spring cleaning you know." The floor was still a little wet where Smiley had broken the water pipe. "Smiley slotted a bad simchip and wigged out on it. He was about to turn yours truly into tomato paste. Thanks to my quick thinking I got out of a bad situation by pulling Smiley's line to the simdeck out."
"Where is he?"
"That's the problem. Smiley babbled something about a guy named Rat and about how he wasn't going to feel better until he had a chance to hurt someone. He ran off after that."
"What's Lenny going to do about it?"
"Not sure yet. There was some talk about going looking for him, but we don't have the time to search the entire sprawl. We got business at noon."
"Business?"
Riggs slapped his hand to his forehead. "Drek, Nightsky, where have you been for the past day and a half? We got a meet this afternoon in downtown Seattle with a Johnson named Gabriel Frost."
Nightsky held up his hands. "Nobody told me."
"Then maybe you should ask more often."
Gideon came out of the Bison. He handed the pistol and the credstick back to Nightsky. "They're clean." He informed. "I'd transfer the funds on that credstick before I used it though. Smart thing to do. Lot of corporate sticks are set to go bad after so many days. It might also have a program on it that sends a message whenever the 'stick is used."
Nightsky put the two items away. "Nothing's ever safe, huh?"
"Not in this life."
Lenny came down the stairs. There was a look of determination on his face as he strolled towards the trio sitting outside the Bison.
"Saddle up you three." Lenny said in a commanding voice. "We're on our way to Fife in Tacoma."
"Tacoma?" Nightsky questioned.
"So we're going after Smiley?"
"We're going to see if we can track him down before the meet, Gideon." Lenny explained. "Any gear that you want at the meet take with you now. We're not coming back here until were finished with the business today in downtown."
"What about Tart?" Nightsky wondered. "Are you leaving her out of this one?"
Lenny shook his head. "No, she's upstairs. I've got her looking for some more information on our would-be employer. She'll be perfectly safe here while we track down Smiley."
"Are you sure about that? What if Smiley were to come back here?"
"I don't think what happened this morning was entirely Smiley's fault. Riggs said that he was probably under the influence of that simchip. He hasn't done anything in the past to endanger any of us, so I think everything will be fine."
Nightsky looked confused. "If everything's going to be fine, then why are we going after Smiley in the first place?"
"Just to make sure he doesn't bring any more trouble down on his head or ours." Gideon supplied.
"Okay, but I still don't think it's a smart idea to leave Tart here. What about that guy from last night? He wasn't working alone. Wether he was a company man or not, somebody hired him to pick up Tart." Nightsky's statement was directed at Lenny.
Lenny seemed to consider the words. He weighed the choices that he had. There was a chance that whoever wanted Tart was still looking for her. What happened last night was no random event. "Okay, Nightsky. You stay here with her. The meeting is going down at noon today at Lo Chang's Chinese Eatery in downtown. Corner of Spring and 13th. Do you think you can find it?"
"I'm sure I can. I'll be there half and hour early."
"As for you two, Gid and Riggs." Lenny addressed the pair of shadowrunners. "Load up, we hit the road in five minutes."
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