Shadowrun: Shadowplay Part 4

That meant she had a few precious seconds while the elf brought the Blitzen back to life. She'd chosen her position with that in mind, and the gamble had paid off.

Head up, eyes still on Modal, Sly burst from her hiding place and sprinted across the road. She was behind him, out of his range of vision ... or so she hoped. This was probably the biggest risk. If he caught even a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision, if he turned to look, his reflexes could bring his Ares Predator out of the holster to drop her in her tracks even before he recognized who she was.

Luck was with her, again. By the time she hit the other side of the street, the elf had extracted the computer module from his pocket, but was fumbling with it as he tried to slide it into its mount. Drunk? she wondered. Possibly, considering he'd been in Tiger's place for more than an hour. And if Modal was a friend, the sushi chef would have pushed several drinks on him. From everything she knew about him, the elf would hardly have refused them.

She slowed her pace from a dead sprint to a more normal brisk walk. The Ruger Super Warhawk heavy revolver with its shortened barrel was a rea.s.suring ma.s.s in her coat pocket. She tightened her hand around the grip, made sure the safety was off.

Almost there. The elf hadn't looked up, hadn't noticed her. He was still fumbling with the module, muttering c.o.c.kney oaths under his breath. Five meters, three . . .

She was still a pace away from him when his instincts-honed by years on the street and only slightly dimmed by alcohol-finally kicked in. As he snapped his head around, she saw his dark eyes widen in recognition. Then his hand shot under his jacket, reaching for the Predator in its shoulder holster.

But too late. Sly was already lunging forward, flinging her left arm around his shoulder while grinding the barrel of her Warhawk into his right kidney. "Don't!" she whispered harshly into his ear.

His hand stopped, centimeters short of his weapon. For a moment she could feel the tension of his muscles under her arm as he debated. Then he relaxed with a sigh. He was fast, she knew, but not that fast, and he'd recognized and accepted the fact.

She let herself relax minutely, too. The fear had been very real, the fear that he'd try his modified reflexes against her flesh-and-blood ones. He wouldn't have made it, lived to tell about it, of that she was sure. Her only choice would have been to put a bullet into his spine, even though he was no use to her dead. Her other problem would have been the urgent need to escape from the well-patrolled pier area-a murderer with her victim's blood still on her clothes. Not a pleasant concept. (Less pleasant was the idea of killing someone she'd once cared for as more than a friend . . . but she couldn't dwell on that now.) Modal sighed again. "A face from the past," he said lightly, conversationally. "How is it, Sharon Louise?" To her surprise-and horror-she felt a stab of emotion at the sound of his voice. Sharon Louise. She'd gone by her real name back then, back in Tokyo, before she'd taken Sly as her street moniker. Just Sharon. But once Modal had discovered her middle name, he always called her by both. Sharon Louise. He was the only one who'd ever called her that. Even now, the name brought back memories-his mellow voice in the dark, the feel of his body against hers . . .

"Sly," she snapped, resisting, but only just, the temptation to reinforce the word by jabbing the revolver deeper into his kidney.

He shrugged, seemingly unconcerned. "As you like," he said reasonably. "It's been quite some time, mate." She shook her head irritably, more to herself than to him. "We're taking a walk," she told him.

He was silent for a moment. "If you're going to do me," he said finally, "do me now and get it over."

That shocked her into silence. Not the words, not the sentiment. The idea wasn't alien. She'd have probably felt the same if the tables were turned. If she thought somebody was going to geek her, those last moments would be the worst kind of torture imaginable-the slow walk across the road into the shadows of the warehouses, and then, only then, the bullet into the head or the throat. No, it wasn't the words that got to her.

It was the tone of his voice, the calm, unemotional, almost placid way he spoke them. And the fact that she felt no tension at all in the shoulders under her arm. He was discussing his own death as if it made no more difference than . . . than where they'd go for a drink, than whether they'd sleep at his doss or hers. And that was, on some deep level, incredibly disturbing.

Brutally, she suppressed her reaction. "Your gun," she said flatly.

He hesitated for another second, and she could almost feel his thoughts as he calculated odds. Then he shrugged. "If that's the way you want it." Slowly, with his left hand, which she knew was his off hand, he reached under his jacket and pulled the Predator from its holster, gripping the b.u.t.t with two fingers.

She took it with her own left hand, quickly concealing it under her coat. Then she stepped back, opening a gap of more than a meter between them. From what she knew of him previously, Modal had had his reflexes juiced, but never had any cyber weapons implanted. No spurs, no razors. That had been years ago, though. Sly didn't think he'd have gone under the laser in the interim-implanted weapons weren't really his style-but she wasn't going to bet her life on it. She tightened her grip on the revolver in her coat pocket, shoved it forward a little so the barrel made the fabric bulge. Just for a moment, a reminder that she could still geek him before he could close with her if she had to.

He nodded, acknowledging the wordless communication. "So what now?" he asked quietly.

"We're taking a walk," she said again. "Across the street, behind the warehouse. And no fast moves, okay? I don't want to geek you, but I will if you force me."

He nodded again. "I know," he said calmly. "Okay, it's your party." He swung himself off his bike, calmly started to jander across the road. A little belatedly, she followed, keeping some distance between them.

Halfway across, he turned back. For a hideous moment she thought he was going to try something; she tightened her grip on the revolver. But he just smiled. "I could blow the whistle on you, you know," he remarked, his tone still conversational. "Raise a b.l.o.o.d.y riot, yell, 'The slitch behind me's got two b.l.o.o.d.y guns.'"

"But you won't," she said, injecting more confidence into her voice than she felt.

He walked on, thinking about it for a few moments. Then, "No, I won't," he shot back over his shoulder.

In the relative darkness behind the warehouse, out of sight from the street, Sly began to feel more secure. She pulled her Warhawk from its pocket, trained it on the back of Modal's head.

He turned to face her, eyes steady on the ma.s.sive revolver. "So you do have your own gun," he said. "I was starting to wonder."

She touched the Warhawk's trigger, activating the sighting laser, positioned the ruby dot on his forehead. "Kneel down," she told him coldly, "hands behind your head."

He didn't move. "I don't want to go on my knees."

"I told you I wasn't going to geek you," she snapped. "Get down."

He shrugged, as though it didn't really matter. But he obeyed.

Sly let herself relax a little more. With his wired reflexes, the elf was still hideously dangerous-particularly if he thought she was about to pull the trigger-but at least in this position he'd be slower to move. She released the revolver's trigger, and the laser died.

He looked up at her, smiled. "I guess you want to have a little talk."

She took a deep breath, trying to control her emotions. There was something very wrong here, but she couldn't figure what it was. Modal was just too calm. Not relaxed, for she could see the tension in his body. But it was the tension of readiness, like a panther poised to spring, not the tension of fear. His eyes were fixed on her like gun sights, but they revealed no obvious emotion.

It doesn't really matter, she told herself firmly. I've got the drop on him. I'm safe.

She forced her voice to sound equally calm. "Tell me about Yamatetsu," she said.

He nodded, almost to himself. "You know, then." Know what! she wondered, but tried to keep the puzzlement out of her face. Maybe if he thinks I already know, he'll tell me more.

"I know some of it," she told him. "And I suspect more. I just need to confirm it."

Modal smiled at that. "I always did like your moves . . . Sly," he said-his purposeful hesitation over the name striking home. "Good interrogation technique. Don't let the subject know how much you've already got."

"Yamatetsu," she reminded him. "Are you working for them?"

He hesitated, eyes searching hers for some clue. "Yes," he said finally. Then added hastily, "But not in the way you probably think."

"Tell me," she pressed. "And don't lie to me. If you lie, I'll drop you right here."

He nodded. "Yes," he said slowly, "you would, wouldn't you? Okay, the truth. Yamatetsu's after you. Searching the shadows with a fine-tooth comb. They've got operatives out-their own people, plus maybe a dozen hired runners."

"And you're not one of them?"

He shook his head with a smile. "Not directly," he said. "I don't run the shadows anymore. It's a young mug's game, you know that. There's bold runners, and there's old runners. But there's no old, bold runners." She grimaced at that. He's younger than I am, she thought with disgust. "So how come you're involved?" she asked harshly.

"What do retired shadowrunners do?" he asked rhetorically, "Open a b.l.o.o.d.y boutique? Sell ladies' hats?"

"You're a fixer." To her own ears, the words sounded like an accusation.

"On the b.l.o.o.d.y nose," he said with a grin. "I'm still in the game, I can use all my old connections, but I don't have to hang my a.r.s.e out and wait for somebody to shoot it off."

She nodded slowly. "So Yamatetsu came to you to hire street ops." She thought out loud. "Who's Yamatetsu Seattle? Jacques Barnard, still?"

"You're out of date. Barnard got b.u.mped upstairs three months ago. He's in Kyoto now, no doubt living in the lap of b.l.o.o.d.y luxury. It's Blake Hood. A dwarf and a real charmer. Blakey makes Jacques Barnard look like a nancy-boy."

"How many runners?"

Modal shrugged. "Blakey likes to share the wealth. He never gives everything to one fixer."

"How many contracts did he offer you?"

"Eight. And he was offering top bra.s.s, too."

Sly could hear her pulse in her ears. Eight high-priced runners. She probably knew some of them. Like they said, Seattle wasn't a big town, not in the shadows-and that made it worse. No pro was going to let sentiment get in the way of biz, and the people who were after her might know her habits, know where she dossed down. Frag, she thought, I could have talked to one of them tonight. Quickly she reviewed what she'd said on the phone to the members of her information net. Too much, probably.

Who the frag am I going to trust? she asked herself, feeling her fear like a dirty s...o...b..ll in her belly. n.o.body! Tox!

She glared down at Modal. "And of course you filled those eight contracts," she accused bitterly.

"Of course," he answered reasonably, "It's biz, isn't it? And even if I didn't, Blakey would just go to another fixer, wouldn't he?"

She had to accept the truth of what he was saying, but that didn't make her feel any better. "You were looking for me yourself, weren't you?" she grated.

His eyebrows rose at that. "So you were at The Armadillo. I thought you were."

"Why?" she growled. "What were you going to do? Scrag me yourself? Pocket the bounty?"

Modal was silent for a moment. "I don't know what I was going to do, and that's gospel." He shook his head. "The bounty would have been nice. Ten K's a lot of scratch, and times are lean. But G.o.d's truth, I don't know what I'd have done. Scragged you? Warned you? I don't know."

Sly found herself staring into the depths of those black eyes. They were still clear, showing not the slightest trace of fear or of any other emotion. He could be lying, but she didn't think so.

But . . . drek, ten K. A ten-thousand nuyen bounty. Somebody wants me bad.

"Why?" she demanded again, but this time the word was a different question. "Why's Yamatetsu after me?" He shrugged.

Anger flared in her chest, almost, but not quite, overpowering the fear. "Aren't you at least curious?"

"Not really." Modal's voice was calm, uninflected. "It doesn't really matter. There're dozens of people on the street looking for you. Whatever the reason, they'll find you soon enough, and you'll go down."

She stared at him again. With a different intonation, those words could have been a threat. But the way Modal said them they were merely a bald statement of fact. Which only made them more terrifying.

"Do you know?" Modal's question was mildly curious, nothing more.

I think I do. Sly thought, imagining she could feel the weight of the two datachips-the one containing Morgenstern's personnel file, and the other one containing Louis' encrypted file-in her pocket. Imagination, of course; each chip, even in its carrier, weighed less than a feather. For an instant, she felt an almost overwhelming impulse to confide in Modal, to bounce her suspicions off him. But of course that made no sense. He could just as easily turn round and tell Yamatetsu how much she'd figured out. She shook her head.

"Oh, well." He shrugged.

And that, of course, brought her to another question. Just what the frag was she going to do about Modal? Turn around and walk away? Possibly. But she'd confirmed to him, accidentally and indirectly, that she was pretty tight with Theresa Smeland. That meant he could pa.s.s that gem on to Yamatetsu. And how would they handle it?

Probably the same way they'd handled Louis. She couldn't do that to Theresa. Sly could drop out of sight; there wasn't anything-not really-holding her to Seattle. But Theresa had The Armadillo, no doubt had much of her net worth sunk into the bar. Doing the quick fade would, for Smeland, be the same as Sly leaving behind her "retirement fund." That would leave Smeland with only what she could carry, plus whatever liquid a.s.sets she had, while the business she'd built up would be gone. Great way to reward a friend for being a friend, huh?

And Modal himself. Frag it.

His eyes were still on her-steady, untroubled. But there was something else in them, even if she couldn't discern any emotion. A look of awareness, of understanding.

He knows, she thought. He knows what I'm thinking. She couldn't meet his gaze, looked away. Looked at the rough ground, covered with garbage. Looked at the back of the disused warehouse, up to the lights of the city that showed above the hill leading to Elliot Avenue. She tightened her grip on the Warhawk. Frag it till it bleeds. . . .

"Geeking me would be the easy way out," the black elf said evenly, echoing her deep, painful thoughts. "But it's not the only way."

She looked at him again knowing that her silent entreaty, her inner plea for him to explain another way out showed in her face. "Talk," she said roughly.

"You can't just let me go free," he said, his voice as calm as if he were discussing the weather. "You think I'll go to Yamatetsu with what I know. I know your moves, Sharon Louise, I know where you hang. I know a lot of your mates. And I know you're here. If you let me walk, even if you take all my gear, I can get to a phone in two minutes. Yamatetsu could have this place flooded with street ops in another five. And how far could you get in seven minutes? Not far enough. Right?"

She nodded miserably. He was just reciting the reasons why she had to kill him. Was he depending on any feelings she might still have for him to keep him alive? (Were there any feelings? Yes, frag it, there were.) But if he was, he was misjudging her. She'd hate herself afterward if she had to kill him, but she could do it. If necessary. And she would. Her finger tightened on the trigger. The laser dot trembled on the kneeling elf's chest.

"But there's another way." Even this close to death, his voice gave away nothing, neither fear, nor supplication.

"Talk," she demanded again. This time her voice was a whisper.

"Use me, Sharon Louise," he said, the name paining her like a knife twisting in her gut. "Turn me. Make it so I can't work with Yamatetsu. Make it so I don't have any choice but to work with you."

"How?" The plea almost caught in her throat.

"I could say, 'Trust me'," he said with a chuckle. "But I know what that'd get me." He looked down meaningfully at the laser dot. "Trash me with Yamatetsu. Compromise me, make it look to Blakey like I've sold him out to you. He'll buy it. He doesn't trust anybody, and he knows we were . . ." He let his voice trail off.

She was silent for a moment. She couldn't feel her hands, was numb from the elbows on down, but she could see from the movement of the sighting dot that they were trembling. It makes sense, she thought. What he says makes sense. She wanted to believe him. She wanted . . .

"I'll tell you how. It'll work, Sharon Louise."

"Sly!"

"It'll work, Sly."

Suddenly, rage flared up inside her, a consuming fire of overpowering anger. She moved the gun off-line, pulled the trigger. The big revolver boomed, kicked hard in her hand. She heard the bullet slam into the ground beside Modal. He jumped at the report, at the sound of the heavy slug splitting the air near his ear. But his gaze remained fixed on her face, his eyes and face showing . . . nothing.

"Feel something!" she screamed at him. "Feel something! It's like you're a fragging zombie! What the frag's wrong with you? I could kill you!"

"I know." Still not the least trace of emotion.

She forced the rage down. Painted the bridge of his nose with the laser, knowing it must be flaring in his eyes. His pupils contracted, but that was the only reaction. "What is it?" she whispered. "Tell me."

"Always emotional, Sly," he remarked conversationally. "Always letting emotions get in the way. Just like I used to. Don't you get tired of it? Doesn't it slot you up sometimes?"

He didn't wait for her answer, asked another question. "Ever hear of 'deadhead'?"

Taken off balance by his query, she shook her head wordlessly.

"It's a drug," he explained flatly. "It decouples the emotions. They're still there, but your conscious mind can't access them. When you're taking them, you can't feel your feelings. No fear, no anger. Most of all, no sadness. Can I?" He moved his left hand slightly.

She tightened down on the trigger, felt it move. Another bit of pressure and it would break, putting a bullet into his head. She nodded.

Slowly, carefully, he reached down and extracted something from the outside pocket of his leather jacket. Held it toward her. A small plastic vial, containing dozens of small black pills. "Deadhead," he explained needlessly. He set the vial down on the ground, put his hand back behind his head. "I've been taking them for three years."

She stared at the pills, then looked back into his eyes. "When did you start?" It was an effort to force the words out.

"Soon after."

"And what ..." She couldn't finish the question.