Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Snake Bites Into My Veins
The Old Farmhouse
November 7, 2059
8:45 pm
The old, rotting wood of the wall shattered as the failing arms and legs of a shadowrunner tore through it, landing in a heap next to the fireplace. For a moment all the poor soul could hear was the ringing in his own ears and the cry of pain from his body at the punishment that it had just been subject to. Then the sound of gunfire drown everything out.
Two rounds clipped Nightsky directly in the chest. One tore through the first layer of ballistic weave of an armored long coat put crackled to a sudden halt against a maglock passkey. The second bypassed the long coat all together and flattened out against body armor, breaking a rib in the process.
Smiley laughed like a sadistic madman. His eyes wild with what ever unimaginable horror he had performed years ago flooding his senses. Dual tracking crosshairs from smartlinks danced across his vision. They settled on shadows of people that he had murdered a long time ago. The only problem was that the images he was seeing only existed in his own mind.
"All you fraggers are going to take dirtnaps." The crazed samurai hissed. "Frag the money. Frag Bishop. I'm going to have some fucking fun."
Lenny grabbed the samurai's hand and tried to subdue him. "Smiley! Get a hold of yourself! Shard help me!"
Too late. Smiley was well beyond getting a hold of himself. Smiley spun around and tossed Lenny through a handy wall, snapping his spurs and goring the other man's arm in the process. When it game to going hand-to-hand Lenny was no match for Smiley. The samurai was simply too fast and, more importantly, too vicious.
Shard was not much help. She was huddled into a corner, pulling her arms and legs up against herself in a fetal position screaming, "The fire! It's burning! Some help me! Diasko? Keebler? Anyone?!"
"Shit." Lenny cursed, ripping the clip of hard ammo out of his Predator. He fumbled on his belt for a clip of gel rounds to subdue Smiley. That was priority number one. Put Smiley out of commission then try to get Shard back to her senses. Problem was that Lenny had seen Smiley rip a man in half while the samurai himself was on fire and bleeding from half a dozen wounds that would have killed anyone else.
A snap kick from Smiley's foot rocked Lenny's head back, knocking him flat on the floor. The gel clip sailed out of his grasp. Spots blotted his vision. He was barely able to make out the sinister form of the crazed samurai and the menacing barrel of a heavy automatic pistol being leveled on his head.
"Time to check out, chummer." Smiley leered. "Tell the damned that Smiley sent you."
"First squad with me!" A thundering voice roared from the front door. "Fire in the hole!"
A thunderclap deafened Lenny's world. His ears felt like they were about to explode. Lenny knew the explosion was from a concussion grenade. It went off so close that Smiley buckled and dropped to a knee. Gideon appeared out of the smoke and haze. The barrel of his M23 swept the room in what only can be described as a para-military style.
Smiley's eyes locked with Gideon. At the same time both shadowrunners blurted out a statement so absurb that it made no sense.
"Vault, I think I'm going to have to kill you now."
"Second squad I have Fuchi grunts in the main corridor!"
The hallway exploded in a hail of gunfire. Smiley dived to the left, both his Predators barking fire. Gideon darted right, his assault rifle screaming in defiance. Lenny, stuck in the middle of the flying lead, scamped out the back door and rolled onto the lawn as a melee of high-explosive round stapled into the door.
Nightsky shook his head. His ribs burning with fire and his back aching from a thoroughly unpleasant landing. The dizziness had only just cleared up when Gideon rolled into the room. The orc got to his feet in the blink of an eye, braced himself against the doorway, and opened with his assault rifle until the clip ran dry. Nightsky had been around the ork long enough to know that he didn't empty a clip into something unless it was a serious threat. With that in mind Nightsky grabbed his HK227 and squatted beneath an old couch.
"Gideon, what's you're status? What are you shooting it?"
The ork was halfway through reloading his weapon, empty clip still in his hand. He turned around and met Nightsky's gaze. The adept so no hint of recognition in those eyes. Immediately the ork blurted, "First squad is surrounded. Request backup."
Nightsky barely had time to say "Huh?" before Gideon snagged another grenade and hurled it in his direction. After that Nightsky barely had to time say "Shit!" before it exploded. The blast through the adept for a loop. The concussion proved too much for the old floorboards that immediately crackled under the punishment, dropping Nightsky into the subbasement.
Gideon slapped a fresh clip in. "Second squad taking flanking positions. Fifty-cals at ten o'clock and two o'clock. Third squad secure the perimeter."
"Secure this you over-jabbing elf meathead!" Smiley roared, diving out of the shadows. Both hands raised and glinting with dikoted steel.
Smiley barreled into the mercenary with all the momentum of a freight train. Gideon fought off the samurai's razors with his gun, but deep gashes opened up on his arms and face. Halfway through rolling around on the floor Smiley ripped the assault rifle out of the ork's hands. The pair didn't stop scuffling into they rolled into the wall. There Gideon managed to get enough leverage to put a boot against the samurai's metal-laced sternum and kick the madman away.
Smiley skittered across the floor, his razors reflexively sheathing to prevent harm to himself. He bounced off an over turned couch and snapped to his feet. Seething with cruelty, he slowly turned on Gideon. A wide, sadistic grin on his face as he popped a dozen or more sharp implements form his flesh. "You're one dead meatpuppet, Vault."
Gideon crept up on a knee, drawing a long cougar knife from his boot. "Sgt. Gideon here. I've got a Fuchi cyberzombie with me."
8:48pm
The radio crackled to life from it's momentary lapse of silence. Suddenly everything was pouring in all at once. People were talking in the same time. The melee of verbal assaults resulted in a chaotic series of messages that overlapped one another.
Smiley: "Time to suck cheese sharkface!"
Lenny: "Smiley, what's wrong with you?"
Shard: "Wait don't leave me!"
Smiley: "Mwahahahaha! *BLAM!*..*BLAM!*..*BLAM!*"
Nightsky: "Smiley what the fuck-*CRASH!*"
Smiley: "I'm the only one walking out of here!"
Lenny: "That's enough, Smiley!"
Smiley: "Fuck the money. Fuck Bishop. I'm going to have some fucking fun. All you fraggers are going to take dirtnaps!"
Lenny: "Smiley get a hold of yourself! Shard, help me!"
Shard: "The fire! I'm burning! Someone help me! Diasko? Keebler? Anyone?!"
There was an uneasy moment of silence. Tart and Alona exchanged worried glances with each other. Riggs stared at the radio receiver. Completely at a lost to explain what was going on.
Gideon: "First squad with me. Fire in the hole! *BOOM!*"
Smiley: "Vault, I think I'm going to have to kill you now."
Gideon: "Second squad, I have Fuchi grunts in the main corridor."
Nightsky: "Gideon? What's your status? Who are you shooting at?"
Gideon: "First squad surrounded. Request backup. *BOOM!* Second squad take flanking positions. Fifty-cals at ten o'clock and two o'clock. Third squad secure the perimeter."
Smiley: "Secure this you over-jabbing elf meathead!"
Gideon: "Sgt. Gideon here. I've got a Fuchi cyberzombie with me."
Tart and Alona both locked expressions with Riggs and said at the same time, "What's happening to them?!"
"I don't know!" Riggs cambered, striking the transceiver key. "Lenny come in? Lenny what the frag is going on down there?" He lit up on the button. There was no response to his question. He pressed again. "Gideon? Smiley? What are you up against?"
"We have to do something! We have to help them." Alona pleaded.
"Bossman told me to wait here and hold." Riggs replied.
"I don't care what he said they need help now!"
"Now, now, girl, you don't know how we run things. Bossman said that timing as a big part of this. Just sit down."
"The hell with timing! They're dying out there!"
Riggs' brow furrowed. Part of him wanted to jump right in. Still another, more selfish part wanted to keep his cool and wait for Lenny's call. "Look, slitch, I know what I'm doing! I've been doing it since you were in diapers. It's the ability to remain cool in the face of panic that makes me, and the rest of the team, damn good at what we do."
Alona looked at the dwarf like he had just sprouted a second head. "Are you out of your bleedin' mind!?"
"Sit down and stop causing trouble!" Riggs snapped, pointing a pudgy digit at the passenger seat.
Alona chewed her lip, looked at Tart, then back at the dwarf. "You're just going to leave them out there with whatever they are facing?" She asked the decker who didn't reply. "I may not know what I'm doing, but I know when people are in trouble." Alona grabbed an MP5 off the dash. One that Tart had put there not ten minutes ago.
"What the frag are you doing?" Riggs started to get up, but the tangle of datacords running from his jacks and plumpness of his frame left him trying to fumble his way out of the drivers seat. By then Alona had grabbed a heavy jacket off the floor and ducked out the side door. "Hey! Get back here!" Riggs called out, but he was too late. Alona was already making her way up the hill. "Crazy slitch she's going to get herself killed."
Tart looked at the dwarf. Her gaze was submissive as usual. That made Riggs feel a little better.
"Well, at least you have some wits about you." Riggs grinned.
Tart abruptly took off her seatbelt, grabbed a flashlight, and jumped out the open door.
"Tart!" He called as the young woman clawed her way up the hillside, leaving the dwarf alone in the van. He cursed allowed. The radio still crackling static. He cursed again, pounding his fist against the dash. Out the window the shadowy shapes of the two women disappeared among the trees.
"Oh, frag it all to hell." Riggs grabbed his jacket and remote deck. With a huffed her leaped out the door after them.
8:50pm
Lenny sprinted around the corner of the house. An Ares Predator II gripped so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Lenny had always considered himself a smart man. He wasn't dumb enough to dive back through a door where two hardened shadowrunners were busy exchanging fire from high caliber weapons. He had no idea what was going on. Smiley had just snapped. The samurai was always walking the razor's edge of sanity. He had finally taken a nose dive off the deep end. That left Lenny in the unenviable position of subduing the eccentric samurai. Gel rounds wouldn't stop him. They would piss him off. More than anything Lenny wished he had brought a capsule clip with him. What lead can't beat let chemistry take over. A few capsule rounds of gamma-scopolamine would put Smiley down.
Then Gideon had gone ballistic, tossing in concussion grenades and firing full auto with his assault. That complication was not welcomed. The fact that Gideon was aiming for Smiley and sheer dumb luck had prevent high-explosive rounds from cutting Lenny's career short right on the spot.
To make matters even worse Shard was a complete incoherent mess babbling about fire and being left behind. This was definitely turning into a day that Lenny should have spent in bed. He had to salvage his team before they tore each other apart.
That was the number one thought on his mind as he rounded the corner to a side door, raised back a foot, and smashed it open. He braced himself against the outside wall, expecting a hail of gunfire. When no shots were fired he kicked in the thermographics in his cybernetic eyes and bolted into the opening.
He stood frozen in place. He was in an apartment. Nicely furnished with real hardwood flooring and fine furniture. The lighting was low. The hum of soft music came from the bedroom. The window showed the Seattle skyline. Minus the Renraku Acrology. He knew this place. The window, not the skyline he knew, but one he remembered. It was the way Seattle looked fifteen years ago. This was the place he use to know. The life that he use to live.
He ran his hand along a glass table. The feel, the texture against his skin, brought back memories of a life spent on another side of society. A stake of BTL chips rested on the middle of the table. The tools that he had used to purchase this life. At the time he had no care for the burdens his actions places on other people. All that he cared about was the homes and the things he had waiting for him there. It did not matter what the price of it was. The ends, specifically his ends, justified the means.
Lenny inhaled, taking in a breath of wha the use to be. The scents came back exactly as he remembered them. The smell here, musty, yet fresh with the scent of new wood and paint. His old him. There is no hazy smoke from cigarettes. The aroma of fine wine lingered on the edge of his consciousness. That would be replaced with the staleness of cheap whiskey and the ash of tobacco in a few years. Another fragrance twitched his senses. A sweet scent mixed with lavender, roses, and a hint of strawberries. Lenny opened his eyes. This scent wasn't in his current life at all.
Someone moved by the bedroom door. Lenny brought his Predator up. It was a reflex action. His mind had automatically processed it as a threat. That little bit of humanity that whispered to him that it was wrong to kill was put on hold as the desire for survival kicked in. A desire that had been cultivated in his life as a shadowrunner.
A voice as smooth as silk and as pleasent as a spring day called out to him. "What's the matter, Lenny? Did you miss me too much?"
Lenny's skin went cold and clammy. "Serena?"
There she was. Just like he remembered her. She leaned against the doorway, her back arched, shoulders against the frame. Long, supple legs bent ever so slightly so show the smooth musculature of her calves. Long, flowing black hair that came below her waist, breaded into a long pony tail that he found irresistible. The red and black lingerie swelled seductively around the mounds of her perfect breasts. The gentle roll of her hips against the door brought back urges that Lenny had thought long dead. The smile on her face, inviting yet mischievous, stirred his very soul as her piercing green eyes saw right into him. He had loved this woman. Loved her body and soul with all of his heart. It was for her that he would do anything. He would protect her with his life or sell his own soul to the devil to keep this vixen safe and happy.
"Well? Aren't you going to tell me how your day went?"
Lenny lowered his gun. His heart pounding in his chest, pulsing behind his cold, cybernetic eyes. "Is.........is this real?"
She walked toward him. Her body moving in such a familiar way that it felt like nothing had changed. She reached out with her hand. Lenny did not resist as she rubbed her fingers along the gentle stubble of his cheek. "What do you think, love?"
"I don't know." He strained at her touch. As if willing his skin to stay close to hers. It felt so right. It was how things were. How things should have been.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and cooed softly. "I've been waiting for you. You were suppose to be home hours ago."
Her touch was so warm. Her scent filled him. He put his arms around her, finding familiar places he thought he could only touch from memories. He pulled her to him, pressing her body against his. It felt so right. He wasn't living in a memory anymore. This wasn't part of his fonder thoughts that he had tucked away so long ago. This was real. He could touch her skin, smell her hair, see her bewitching eyes, and hear that voice that sounded like she could put all the pain and suffering he had ever known into one word that made it all fall into place. This was real.
He cried for the first time in fifteen years.
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