Chapter Seven
Roses are Red and Violets are Blue
I've got an axe and I'm coming after you!
Fife
Tacoma, Seattle
9:00 am
"That's right." Rat leaned against the wall of the garbage strewn alley. "That's pure cut right there. The best that I've seen in a long time. You've got a thirty minute play on it. You're guaranteed to have a good time."
The large ganger that was dealing with Rat looked at the chip he held in his hands. The ganger bore the colors of the Head Hackers. A particulary brutal gang that roamed parts of upper Puyallup. This ganger was outside his own turf, but no one was going to argue that point with him. He was big as a ork and ugly as a troll. There were three rings in his nose and a fourth in his lower lip. His dyed green hair looked like it had been cut with a weedeater.
The ganger also had some company with him. A young, slightly overweight girl hung off his shoulder like a hood ornament. She also wore the colors of the Head Hackers, but her hair was dyed a strawberry red.
"This good trip?" The ganger said without much meaning to his word.
"It's better than good." Rat said with his pointy little nose seeming to curl up. "It's the best trip you'll ever have. Hey, if your not happy with it, you get your money back." Rat could make an offer like that because he knew that the ganger probably wouldn't remember a thing after he used the chip.
"Okay, that good deal. Me take." The ganger thumbed out a set of bills from his leathers.
Rat took the money greedily and sent the ganger on his way. "Enjoy it, chummer." He called as the girl waved goodbye at him.
There was the sharp noise of a screeching alley cat and a tumbling trash can from behind Rat. He looked to see a tall fellow with a sinister smile on his face. The man was slowly making his way down the alley. Cheap sunglasses hid his eyes.
"Looks like business is doing you some good, Rat." Smiley said in a vicious way.
Rat squinted in the early morning sun. "Smiley? What are you doing back."
The cat that Smiley had disturbed climbed on top of a dumpster. The black critter raised its tail and hissed at the samurai as he walked by. Smiley sprouted the razors on his hand. He snatched the cat with a quickness that could only be matched by his wired reflexes. The cat hissed and clawed at the samurai who mercilessly dug his razors in. There was an audible crack as enhanced muscles snapped the cat's neck.
"Oh, drek." Rat sighed.
"I got to talk to you, Rat." Smiley dropped that cat as his feet, stepping on it.
Rat started to back away. "Smiley! My favorite customer! What can I help you with this morning."
Smiley held out a simchip. "Tell me where my chip is that I paid for and why you gave me this piece of drek."
An innocent smile crossed Rat's face. "Smiley, baby. I thought that.......you know."
"I don't know."
"I thought you wanted something new other than that series stuff you've been slotting."
"What's wrong with The Care Bears go to Attica and Kentucky Fried Care Bear?" Smiley was within two meters of Rat. His harmful intentions were quite obvious.
"Nothing's wrong, it's just that I thought you wanted variety." Rat took a big step back.
"Stop moving away. I'll just have to walk further and that'll piss me off." Smiley warned. He reached out with his hand and snatched Rat by the collar. With the aid of his enhanced muscles he slammed Rat up against the nearest wall and held him there. "What the hell makes you think that I wanted that 2XS piece of drek you gave me!"
"2XS? No, Smiley, it wasn't any drek like that. Honest." Rat pleaded. "Now you let me down?"
"No! I'm not done hurting you yet." Smiley popped his spurs from the back of his wrist. "Okay, Smiley, okay!" Rat pleaded with his hands cupped. It seemed that reasoning with Smiley was about as impossible as telling a politician not to lie. "I was told to give it to you. I didn't think it would do any harm. Said you'd like it."
"Told? Told to give me that drek?" Smiley was furious. "Who told you to give me that?"
"Well-" Rat started, but was interrupted before he could finish.
"Hey, Fragface!" The ganger who had just bought a chip from Rat had been watching how brutally Smiley was acting. The ganger didn't like that idea that his BTL dealer was being harassed. After all, Rat had given him a good deal on a chip. "You better be putting my chummer down before something bad happens to you."
Rat forced a smile. "Heh, Smiley, maybe you better put me down. None of us wants any trouble you know."
"Says you." Smiley scorned and glared at the ganger. "Frag off, drekhead. You want to get involved with his wild drek then I'll cut you down. Otherwise shut the frag up. I'm trying to talk here."
"Stupid fragger." The ganger cursed. He pulled a nasty looking knife from his boot and stalked towards Smiley. "You just talked bad to the wrong Hacker."
"See Smiley?" Rat forced a slight chuckle. "I told you not to make him mad."
Smiley passed an amused look at the ganger. The ganger had the look of a determined man. His chains clanged together as he walked and that knife of his reflected the sunlight nicely. All the while he walked he kept making threats to Smiley. Explaining in gross detail on how he was going to carve him up.
Not one for conversations, Smiley pulled his Ares Predator from its holster and promptly blew the back of the ganger's head out.
"Drek, Smiley!" Rat blurted as he tried to scamper out of Smiley's augmented grip.
"I told you, Rat, I'm not in a very good mood." Smiley put the pistol to Rat's temple. "Who told you to give me this chip?"
"I-" Rat shuddered. "I can't tell you."
"You tell me or I relieve you of your innards and find out myself."
"GAAAHH!" A scream sounded in Smiley's ear as the female ganger jumped on his back. She started pounding away at him with fists. Unfortunately, all her blows were on the top of Smiley's head. Quite frankly, Smiley didn't have much to hurt up there. Still, the squirming mass made him drop Rat.
Rat, being the upstanding fellow he is, took his opportunity and fled the scene. Smiley yelled at him, but the wild-eyed ganger on his head was pulling his hair. Not wanting to lose anything on top, Smiley grabbed the slitch and flung her into a handy wall.
"I just got my hair back and I'm not letting you frag it up." His attention turned back to Rat who was halfway down the alley. Smiley called for him to stop. Before anything could come of it that ganger jumped Smiley again. This time Smiley wasn't as forgiving. He planted a fist that rocked her world. Then he put a bullet through her bust for good measure.
"You've lost it Smiley!" Rat called from the mouth of the alley. "You're gone. You don't know what your doing."
"Rat, don't run away from me." Smiley said calmly.
"Go to hell."
Smiley jogged after the man. "Roses are red and violets are blue......" He grinned insanely and ran after Rat. "I've got an axe and I'm coming after you!"
"Get away from me!" Rat screamed desperately as Smiley's wires kicked in. The two men ran down the street. Rat was moving as fast as his lankly legs would carry him. "Go away!"
"Off with your head and put it in a bowl." Smiley chanted. The wired reflexes were letting him move a lot faster than Rat could run. "Boil it all up and make a nice hole. Put you in and there you go."
"Fraggit, Smiley, I didn't mean it!"
Smiley grabbed the back of Rat's coat and jerked him back. The samurai took the little man right off his feet and sent him crashing to the ground. Smiley didn't stop there. He hauled his dealer up. With a mighty heave he threw Rat through a store window. Glass shattered like a frail figurine. The hapless shards hit the ground with a gentle tingle. Rat bounced off a display case full of pastries and snack cakes. His nice leather jacket was thoroughly ruined with all sorts of stains.
"How was that for deep impact?" Smiley grinned as he stuck his head through the broken window.
"No, not my store." The owner of the store, a small man by the name of Le'Grue, whined from behind his counter. "Why you bring trouble into my store? My store a good store yes it is. Please leave now."
Rat coughed. "You've lost your mind, Smiley!" He brushed crushed cakes off his coat as he stumbled to his feet.
Smiley leapt through the shattered window and landed on top of Rat. The samurai went through a unique maneuver of rolling Rat into the floor then hurling him into a ice cream maker. The end result was a hysterical Le'Grue and a wet Rat with ice cream leaking on his leather jacket.
"Tell me who gave you the chip." Smiley demanded.
Rat moaned painfully.
"You be doing nothing more of that in here, sir!" Le'Grue warned as he hauled a Remington Roomsweeper from under the counter and pointed the barrel at Smiley's head. "Leave, now."
Smiley grabbed the compact shotgun and stripped it out of Le'Grue trembling hands. The butt of the gun flipped up and caught the store owner right on the temple. There was a deep crunching sound as the metal hit against Le'Grue skull knocked him cold.
"That's enough out of you, Smiley!" Rat reached into his coat.
<Cla-Chunk!> The sound of the sliding action of the Roomsweeper being worked.
Smiley had the shotgun leveled at Rat. "If you think your lucky, then I'm about to make you about a foot shorter."
Rat slowly removed his hand from his coat. He held a small pistol in his fingers. At Smiley's motion he tossed the pistol aside.
"Now, lets talk like sensible human beings." Smiley grinned madly. "Name?"
"I-"
"And if you give me the wrong name I'm really going to hurt you."
Rat hesitated after that. "Geoff Talis."
"Talis? Who the hell is that?"
"How should I know, Smiley? I just did what I was told."
Smiley braced the shotgun against Rat's forehead. "Why did he give you the chip?"
"I don't know."
"Yes you do."
"Honestly, Smiley, I don't know!" Rat pleaded. "He never said. He said that it was just something that you needed. He paid me money to give it to you."
"Where'd you meet him?"
"I can't tell you that, he'll kill me."
Smiley pressed the barrel into Rat's skin so that it made an impression on his forehead. "If you don't tell me I'll kill you. It don't look like your head would handle flechettes too well."
"Okay, Smiley." Rat said. The thought that Smiley would kill him anyway lingered in the back of his mind. At least if Rat told Smiley what he wanted he would get to live a little longer. "Geoff's is a buyer of mine. He's got a little place over on Trisby Street. Nice little apartment, can't miss it."
Smiley nodded. "Okay, Rat." He removed the barrel from Rat's head. "Thanks for being honest."
Rat let out a deep sigh of relieve. An ecstatic feeling came over him because Smiley was leaving and Rat still had everything in one piece.
"On the other hand." Smiley said as he was walking out the door. Rat looked up just in time to see Smiley trigger the shotgun into his groin. Rat squealed in pain as the shotgun blast ruined any chance he would have at a family life. "That's for giving me the chip in the first place." He left Rat writhing on the floor of the store. He had unfinished business to settle and did not care who he had to tear through to get it done.
Loveland
Puyallup, Seattle
April 18, 2059
9:10 am
Abigail took a deep breath as she lumbered up the crumbling stairs. The building that she lived in was very old. No body lived in the top floors anymore. The lower floors held a few inhabitants, but they were mostly drug and chip addicts. Not exactly the best people for a girl like Abigail to be around.
It had been a full day before she dared to set foot in her apartment. She had spent most of the night riding the subway around Puyallup. In the early morning hours, around four, she had fallen asleep under a stairwell not far from the part of Loveland that was run by the Yakuza.
She was cautious of her surroundings. The carpet in the hall was just as filthy and stained as ever. There were shouts from a few of her neighbors, but that was not unusual.
When she reached her apartment she found that her door had been shattered. The insides to her one-room home were a total wreck. All of her belongings were scattered on the floor. The posters that she had on the walls were torn up. The small closet had its contents emptied out. The window was also broken. Abigail knew that her home had been searched. There were also a few of her things that were missing. Street thieves had came in after whoever had broken down her door left. The thieves cleaned out all of her valuables. What they rejected was left in messy clumps on the floor.
Abigail rushed in after she saw that no one else was around. She darted into the bathroom and went for a loosened board behind the toilet. Sadly the board had already been moved. The money that she kept there had been stolen. Abigail cursed at this development. She had hidden over five-hundred nuyen in there.
She went back to the main room and pulled a broken chair into the closet. While standing on the chair Abigail reached for the ceiling tiles. She pushed one of them aside and desperately felt around with her bare hand. A smile crossed her face when she found what she was looking for.
"Yes!" She exclaimed.
She pulled out a small shoe box. Inside the shoe box was the a tiny camcorder. Abigail opened the recorder and found the tape to be in one piece. She held up the tape like it was a rare gem.
"See if you can talk your way out of this one, Wesson."
Fife
Tacoma, Seattle
9:45 am
"Looks like Smiley's been here." Gideon mumbled as he surveyed the scene.
Two Lone Star officers stood at the mouth of the alley. Police line was strung around the alley to keep a crowd of onlookers from getting too close. A ambulance was parked about half a block down from the alley. Paramedics had their hands full with two patients. One of them looked to be okay except for the dent on his temple. He sat outside a small store holding an ice pack on his head. The other patient was a lot less subdued. He was literally screaming his head off. The patient was strapped into a Gurney with an IV and a unit of blood hooked up. The paramedics were trying to move him into the ambulance. The patient apparently had other ideas. He was holding onto a portable telecom booth and screaming into the receiver. Every time one of the paramedics tried to move the patient he would slap at them.
"You think that's Rat?" Lenny motioned at the patient hanging onto the telecom booth.
"Could be." Gideon replied. "You got Lone Star right down the street, though. Don't need to cause any trouble here."
"Hey, maybe Smiley's moved on." Riggs offered a unsteady grin. "Either way it looks like Smiley got his wish. He got to hurt Rat."
The paramedics finally pulled the patient away from the telecom and pushed him into the ambulance. The ambulance closed up and headed out for the nearest medical facility.
"Guess Smiley can't do anything more than he already has." Lenny said.
"Looks like it." Gideon mumbled as he sat back in his bucket seat.
Lenny nodded. "Riggs?"
"Yeah, boss?"
"Take us out of here."
"Where too?"
"Head for downtown."
"Good, we get something to eat and we hit the meet." Riggs said. "I like that type of thinking. Not a good idea to eat at the meet cause what if it's like poisoned. I heard of Johnson's that'll poison your drinks before. Scary stuff you know. Real freaky what they'll do to save a buck."
"Riggs?" Lenny interrupted.
"Yes, boss?"
"Just drive."
"Okay, bossman."
9:50 pm
"You told him what?" Geoff screamed into the receiver. "Rat, I didn't give you five hundred nuyen so you could tell that sick fragger wear I was. I gave it to you so you would switch his chip."
"Frag you!" Rat cried into the telecom. "Smiley just fragged me and half the block up good. He fraggin' shot me!"
"Stop whining, Rat." Geoff kept stuffing bullets into a clip while he was talking with Rat. Geoff didn't want this. The last thing he wanted was for Smiley to come knocking on his front door. All he wanted to do was give Smiley the chip and let him freak out in public. Lone Star would handle the rest by putting a bullet in the chiphead's brain. Now things were a lot different. Smiley was in a bad mood and he was in the looking to hurt someone. He nearly killed Rat. Geoff shuddered at this because Rat at least knew him. What would Smiley do to Geoff? Someone who had never meant before.
"Stop whining? STOP WHINING! HE FUCKIN' SHOT ME IN--"
"I said shut your hole, Rat!" Geoff slammed the clip into his handgun. "You're lucky I don't come down there and finish the job he started."
There was some screaming on the other side of the phone. Geoff heard Rat mention something about paramedics. Then it sounded like Rat dropped the receiver.
"Rat? Answer me?" Geoff cursed. "Are you still there?"
"<Gasp!> I'm here." Rat spat a few more choice words at the paramedics. "But I can't feel a thing below my waist." The medics had given him some high-caliber pain killers.
"When did Smiley leave? I need to know how much time I have before he gets here."
The sound of a scuffle came over the telecom. The receiver was dropped again. Apparently Rat lost his struggle with the paramedics. There was the faint sound of a siren pulling away. Geoff cut off the call.
"No sense to waste the time I got." He set out gathering his things into suitcases. He'd get back at Smiley later. Right now he had his own neck to consider.
Geoff was in the middle of stuff his clothes into the suitcase when his doorbell rang. A shot of pure fear ran through his body. There was some banging on the door. With each bang the door shook violently.
Geoff swallowed hard. The pistol in his hand felt cold and distant as he chambered the first round of the clip. Each step he took to the door made him feel vulnerable. Sweat trickled from his forehead as he reached for the doorknob. He flung the door open and pointed the pistol out at eye level.
But there was no one there. Geoff stuck his head out the door and looked around. The apartment door opened onto the street. He didn't see anyone around for blocks.
"What the hell?" Geoff looked around again. "Somebody's playing games."
He left the relative safety of his doorway and checked along either side of the apartment. He looked down the alley only to find it deserted. Satisfied that everything was clear Geoff went back inside. The door was locked and chained for extra security. To be doubly sure, Geoff took a chair and braced it against the doorknob.
"That'll keep him out."
"It will?" Smiley sneered in the darkness.
Geoff spun around only to meet the samurai's fist. The barrel of a Roomsweeper came down on Geoff's hand with enough force to break the bone. The pistol that he had been holding clattered onto the floor.
"How the fu--!" Geoff screamed as Smiley knocked him into a wall. His world blacked out for a second as the Roomsweeper connected with the top of his head.
"Who the frag are you?" Smiley demanded as he kicked Geoff out of the hallway and away from the front door. "By the way, you should never wander off and leave your door open. You invite all sorts of people to walk right in."
Geoff coughed and gagged. His nose felt like it was broken and his head felt like it was about to split into. "Frag you!"
Smiley brought his foot down on Geoff's head. It nearly knocked him out. "I want answers!"
"You didn't <Hack!> want answers when you killed my brother!" Geoff retorted. He was trying to crawl away on his elbows as Smiley circled him.
"What makes you think I give a frag about your brother?"
"Oh, you wouldn't, I know you wouldn't you heartless animal." Geoff coughed horribly. "My brother hired you for a job and you repaid him by throwing him off a balcony."
"What the hell are you talking about." Smiley put a boot in Geoff's mouth for his trouble. The blow knocked out a few teeth.
"My brother hired you about a month ago. Said it was a simple job, easy money. All you had to do was murder someone." Geoff spat at him. "Easy for you because you don't care who you hurt. Only you got carried away. When you came back to meet my brother you lost control and threw him off a balcony."
Smiley thought for a second. "Weezer?"
Geoff coughed up a mouthful of blood and spat it on Smiley's boots. "Yeah, that's what you knew him by. He had a name. He was my brother, after all. His name was William Talis, but you don't care, do you?"
Smiley's had the look of hatred on his face. "That fragger, Weezer, tried to cheat me out of my money. I did what I was hired for and he wanted to cut me out of the deal. Got what he fraggin' deserved he did."
"You sick fragger. All you shadowrunners are alike."
Smiley knelt down. "If it makes you feel any better, Geoff, after your brother hit the ground and went down and cut off his head and used it as a hood ornament for a night."
Geoff spat in Smiley's face. A thing wade of oozing red salvia oozed off Smiley's cheek. Smiley wiped it off with his hand.
"I may have flatlined your brother, but I meant it in the nicest way." He raised the Roomsweeper, swinging it like a club. "Now, this is going to hurt you a lot more than it's going to hurt me. Hold still."
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