Shadowrun - Wolf And Raven Part 15

My general feeling of uneasiness had been heightened by a bit of distance between Jimmy and me. He definitely was putting his game face on during practice, concentrating a great deal. He told me that he'd just wanted to help that night, and had come looking for me when I'd not been in the locker room after his media conference. He'd headed for the Scoreboard area because that's where he thought Thumper would be. He literally ran into the woman as she fled, swatted her back into the battlefield, and then wanted to help me.

As he told me this I could hear the hurt in his voice that I had asked him to leave. I really wanted to tell himwhy I'd asked him to go, but letting someone know you've gone feral and are likely to tear his throat out is really not the way to seal a friendship. I explained to him that with bodies and the like, I was trying to protect him from scandal or anything that would hurt the team. Thatwas my job there, after all.

He seemed to accept that explanation, which isn't to say he believed it. After that we drifted apart-able to share jokes and all, but it wasn't the same as before. Given all the other pressures on him, I didn't see any reason to make an issue out of it. And explaining things would have required me telling him my secret. While I knew I could trust him with it, learning it was something that had already killed too many of Raven's aides in the past. With Thumper's death to show that folks were playing for keeps on this one, putting that burden on Jimmy wasn't something I was going to do.

I spent most of my time with the pitchers. I played a lot of catch and receivedadvanced instruction in the proper methods of spitting. Chewing tobacco and compost have a lot in common, and you only swallow tobacco juiceonce, which is ample inducement to learn how to spit it as far away from you as you possibly can. Very quickly I switched to chewing gum and got to spitting with a degree of accuracy that I figured would impress even Kid Stealth9.

In this kind of story about baseball, I'm supposed to note that the day of the big game dawned bright and sunny, full of promise and hope, but you wouldn't believe that. This is Seattle, after all, where they print pictures of the sun on soyamilk cartons just to remind folks what it looks like. And our game was in the Dome, at night, which means the most cogent comment on atmospherics is that the roof wasn't leaking in any inconvenient places.

The same could not be said of the team. We were leaking and leaking badly; but we were leaking numbers. San Diego did have an elf with Tom Seaver riding him. He was using the 1971 stats, during which Seaver had a 1.76 ERA and 289 strike-outs. He kept blowing the ball by our guys, or messing them up with off-speed pitches. Those few guys who did make contact all grounded out. Going into the later innings, we were all 9Never did show him how well I spit, however. I kept thinking he might get his tongue swapped out for some cyberthing that would allow him to spit venom like a cobra, if he ever thought of it. (If he hasn't already done it!) aware that Seaver had pitched four shut-outs in '71, but had only thrown three so far this year.

The mood in the dugout began to sour, despite guys turning their caps inside out and wearing them backward-anything to start a rally! I felt frustrated in the extreme because there was nothing I could do in the dugout or on the field to help the team. The Old One snarled at me to convince Bobby to put me in.

/have seen enough of this game, Longtooth. I can make you fast to catch the rabbit-ball, and I can let you club it to death as well.

The image of my trying to take a bite out of a pitch coming in high and tight made me wince.Sorry, Old One, not your game. There was no way I could explain to him that if any of the etheric sensors here caught magic being employed by me we'd forfeit the game. Being on the roster had given me the access I needed to get my job done, but it also placed a limitation on me.

I dropped down on the end of the bench as we went out into the field at the top of the eighth. I started running over things in my mind, looking at them anew, trying to see if there was anything I'd missed. We all knew tampering was going on somehow, but the software was being verified by the league before each game, so it was clean. And it wasn't like the players were picking up a virus on the field . . .

Or was it?What I knew about computers and the way they functioned could be put on a chip and still leave terabytes open, but I did know some of those great, ancient, h.o.a.ry, old statements that had gone from being glib to trite. The eldest among them: Garbage in, garbage out. Based on what Jimmy had told me when he convinced me to hit, I knew players actually did get data fed into them during the game. It allowed them to track the ball when pitched. Pumping other data into hitters would be a simple way to knock their performance off the statistical curve.

But what's the input device?I glanced from the hitter out to centerfield.The Scoreboard, with that single, burned-out bulb!

It hit me like a hammer. Ken Wilson should have gone down at the plate, but he got up to bat with his eyes closed. It was only when he was taking bows that he saw the Scoreboard and the signals put him down. And Thumper had been out there changing a burned-out bulb, which wasn't burned out at all, but set up to flash instructions in the ultraviolet light range. Even if folks in the stands or other players noticed it, if it wasn't flashing a code that did something to their stat-soft, they'd be unaffected and would have no reason to remember it.

I blew a bubble with my gum and jumped a bit as it popped. The two catters hadn't been waiting for a chance to rob luxury suites, they'd been making sure the proper bulb was in the proper socket on the score-board. Thumper surprised them and they killed him.Which means that bulb is what's keeping us down.

I got up and started running into the clubhouse. This is not easy to do in spikes. I crunch-clacked my way down corridors, then skidded around corners and scrambled like a cartoon character to get up speed for my next dash. I heard the m.u.f.fled roar of the crowd as we got San Diego out and started to come to bat.Now or never.

I bounced off the corridor wall leading to the score-board area and dashed into it. I saw Palmer Clark waiting by the entrance and realized he'd heard me coming, which gave him time to set up for my arrival.

His right hand fell fast and the muzzle of his gun hit me solidly on the neck. I went down hard and would have been unconscious but for my aborted attempt to stop running when I saw him. My cleats had slipped out from under me, already dropping me to the ground, so the blow didn't hit as hard as it could have. Still, I bounced once and rolled up into a ball against the wall where I'd lurked in the shadows two nights earlier.

From my position there I could see several things, the first and foremost being the Ares Predator in Clark's right hand. The muzzle looked like the south end of the Alaska oil pipeline and I really had no desire to be catching what it would be pitching. Up beyond him, just past the edge of the Megatron, I saw one of the smaller video display units set high above the seats on the third base side. It showed Jimmy warming up and stepping toward the plate.

Clark smiled. "Just as well you're here. I'd planned on framing you in the tampering scandal once I heard you were working with the team. You engineer this point-shaving deal, you get caught and get dead."

"That's what I get for slotting Shoeless Joe Jackson, right?"

"You should be so lucky." As Jimmy stepped into the batter's box, Clark pointed a rectangular remote control sort of device at the Scoreboard. I saw no receiver for it, but from where he stood he angled things down past the fireworks tubes, so I a.s.sumed it was hidden from my view. "There, that should do it."

On the screen I saw Seaver rear back and throw. Jimmy took a wicked cut at the ball, but missed it cleanly. He twisted around and hit the ground. He stayed down for a second, then shook his head and stood again. The umpire called for time while Jimmy backed off and brushed dirt from his clothes.

I smiled at Clark. "He's tougher than Ken."

Clark shrugged. "What happened to Ken was not very subtle, but was necessary as a show of what can be done. This evening, the effects have been more gentle."

Use me, Longtooth. We will get the gun away from him and stop him.

I shook my head and rubbed at the back of my neck. I still hurt from the clubbing and wasn't certain I could concentrate enough to summon the Old One's help. Moreover, I still knew that if I did so, the game would be lost, I'd be dead, and Clark would be free to continue doing what he was doing. A second pitch came in and Jimmy started to swing for it, then held up. The ball grooved straight down the middle and the umpire yelled, "Strike."

Clark smiled. "One more pitch and your boy strikes out. The anguished cries of thousands will be enough to drown out the shot that kills you."

"Think so?"

Clark composed his face into a mask of serene civility. "Count on it."

The wind-up.

The pitch.

I gave Clark a spitter.

The little pellet of gum came in like a hanging curve. He stumbled back from it and batted it away with his left hand. Disgust curled his upper lip and he was about to snap something at me, when he heard a sound that stopped him.

The crack of a bat on a ball.

Funny thing about being that far out in centerfield. On the screen I saw Jimmy swing and connect, but it was a second or so before I heard the sound of the hit. Clark half turned to look at the screen I was watching, and completed his turn about the time the ball cleared the fence.

I don't think anyone noticed that only five of the six mortar tubes sent fireworks exploding over the score-board. The one that hit Clark entered his back, lifting him up off the ground about a meter or so, and spinning him around. As he came back to where I could see his face, I caught a hint of horror and agony in his eyes, then he vomited green fire. His body somersaulted once, then hit the ground and flopped a lot until greasy gray smoke rose from his back and mouth.

Longtooth.

I rested my head back against the wall and closed my eyes to let that image fade to black. "Yes?"

/see why you like this game.

* * * I saw Jimmy about a day later. I was leaning against his ride and smiled as he came walking over.

"Never got a chance to tell you, that was a great dinger yesterday."

"Thanks." He glanced at the ground, then put his satchel down and folded his arms across his chest.

"They told us some of what was going on. They said Clark had extra code inserted into the statsofts that wasn't picked up in the verification process. Said that allowed him to code orders for us and load them in through the Scoreboard."

"Right." I shook my head. "Should have guessed what was going on all the way along. The only folks outside the league who benefited from the statsoft situation are gamblers. They can run the stats and figure out how a game should end up, then adjust odds accordingly. Doing what he was doing, Clark showed he could skew those probabilities big time."

"Think he was betting on the games?"

"Possible. Apparently he still slotted one of the Pete Rose years he used to play." I shrugged. "No gambler will admit to taking his bets, but I think he was after something bigger. I think he saw Rose as being victimized by gamblers and wanted to avenge him. By showing he could skew the results, he was in a position to blackmail gambling concerns and get payoffs from them to do nothing."

Jimmy nodded, but the stiffness in his posture didn't ease. "Funny how letting someone else ride you can get you mixed up."

"Generally why there's only one personality allowed per body." I smiled, but Jimmy didn't return it.

"They said you got to Clark before he could zap me with his thing. a.n.a.lysis of the code he broadcast said I would have struck out, not hit a homer."

"Really? They didn't tell me that."

"Is what you told them the truth?"

I shrugged. "Truth is open to a lot of interpretations. The only truth I care about was the round-tripper you notched in the eighth. It gave us the win, puts us in the pennant hunt."

"But you know."

"Your secret? Yeah, I know." I nodded slowly. "When you didn't strike out, I saw the surprise on Clark's face-for all of a second-and I realized we're a lot alike. What you see now is the real me, but what you saw the night Thumper died, that's part of me, too. A secret part of me. Not even Val knows about it, nor Lynn. It's me when I'm beingnatural."

I smiled up at him. "You're anatural, too. You're not what people expect. You may load the software so it can be verified, and you've had that much work done on you, but you're not using wired reflexes to hit or field. You're just you."

Jimmy's face hardened. "Ever since I was a kid I was in love with baseball. It's a game for kids and folks who can still take joy in the things that kids take joy in."

"Instead of those who slot Kidjoy 1.3?"

"Right, exactly." He snorted a little laugh. "I saw baseball as a game for people, not machines, and my father agreed. He works for the company that owns the team, so he's been able toadjust all the records that show how much work was done on me and the league thinks I'm just like everyone else. But I'm not.

Now you know my secret, so my career is over."

"And you know mine." I gave him a quick grin. "I'll trust you if you trust me."

"That's it?"

"Is there something more I should want?"

"I think so. I mean . . ." Jimmy ran a hand back over his close-cropped hair. "Whenever I thought about what would happen when someone learned my secret, I figured they'd want money. Baseball makes billions."

I stepped forward and clapped him on the arms. "Yeah, but like you said, it's a game for kids and those who can still take joy in kid things. Consider me a big kid. I've got no use for money. I'd rather have a friend."

"Yeah, kinda more precious than money, isn't it?" "It's a supply and demand thing, I think."

Jimmy stooped, picked up his bag, then draped an arm over my shoulder. "So, pal, food?"

"And women?"

"Works for me." Jimmy smiled and tossed me a wink. "Nice to know I have a friend who thinks of everything."

Fair Game It looked like the prayers hadn't helped after all.

The mouth of the alley didn't boast much of a crowd. The onlookers had all seen a dead body before.

As this one had all its parts and wasn't anyone famous, the gawkers had nothing to stare at. The fact that most of them were allergic to the strobing blue lights on top of the Lone Star cruiser knifed across the sidewalk and shining its headlights on the manmeat also helped thin the rabble. No one lingered in my way as I crossed the curb, squeezed by the cruiser and into the alley.

The ork cop looked up at me, raindrops streaking white in the headlights' glare. "Know him, Kies?"

Harry Braxen blinked and narrowed his eyes against the warm rain. "Take a good look."

I didn't need more than a second. His pink eyes staring up at the gray Seattle sky, the albino looked more like a wax statue than the remains of a human being. His white hair had been sheared into a mohawk, and the rain failed to wash the glued spikes down. His lips had never been that colorful, but their unhealthy blue blended nicely with the grayish pallor of his skin and the mists coming in off the Sound.

"You knew him too, Braxen. You saw him in the Barrens the day Reverend Roberts did the martyr dance."The same day I told a little boy to say his prayers so the albino would be okay. "His name was Albion. I don't think he had a SIN."

Braxen made a note in a small notebook. "Any guess why he got it?" "Why?" I shook my head and reached instinctively for the silver wolf's-head pendant at my throat. "Not a clue."

"Determining how he got it is simple," offered my shadow. Inching forward to squat down on birdlike t.i.tanium legs, Kid Stealth pulled aside the wet newspaper pages covering Albion's windward flank. He revealed a hole in the side of Albion's washed-out Mercurial t-shirt. Despite Braxen's weak protest, Stealth used his metal left hand to rip the t-shirt open and point out the bluish hole in Albion's chest.

"Entry wound, .30-06 with a light bullet and light charge. Stressed copper jacket, I would a.s.sume, designed to fragment on impact."

Stealth cranked his head around to look at Braxen. "Most of the kid's blood will be in this lung. He got hit, started bleeding, and ran himself to death."

Braxen nodded but made no notes. He and I both knew that if Stealth-one of the world's experts on innovative means of rival-retirement-pointed it out and it concerned death, he wouldn't be wrong.

"What kind of gun?"

Stealth's foot claws grated slightly on the cement as he straightened up again. "Customized rifle. Long barrel to maximize accuracy and muzzle velocity. Good work."

The cruiser's headlights made Braxen's tusks stand out against his swarthy flesh. "You do the work?"

"I'm not a toymaker."

"Wasn't a toy that killed this boy, Stealth."

Stealth shrugged as if to say "have it your own way." He jammed his hands into the pockets of his trench coat and sat back on his haunches. The headlights left him a silhouette except for the reddish light burning in his Zeiss eyes.

I knew from the set of Stealth's shoulders that he wouldn't be saying anything more to Braxen. "Harry, your forensics people will verify what Stealth is saying."'

The ork cop shook his head. "No, they won't. No autopsy for this one." "What are you talking about?

It's a suspicious death, isn't it?" I glanced down at Albion's body. "You need an autopsy for your investigation."

"Whatinvestigation, Kies? This kid's got no SIN. He doesn't exist as far as the system is concerned. He isn't even a statistic."

I wanted to grab him, but two things stopped me. The first was the realization that Braxen was absolutely correct. Without a System Identification Number, neither Albion nor any of the other denizens who lurked in the shadows of the sprawl had any official existence. Schools wouldn't take them, hospitals wouldn't treat them, help centers ignored them.

Well I knew, for I myself had grown up without a SIN.

There was no way the system was going to investigate the death of someone like Albion. Had he been an elf or ork or Amerind, his own folk might have taken an interest in him. Lone Star, however, was a private corporation hired to keep the peace in Seattle, not to clean up after some murderer who got careless when dropping his trash.

The second thing that stopped me was Braxen's tone. For all of his being a cop, Harry Braxen wasn't like most of the blue crew. He'd grown up in Seattle and, as an ork, knew all about discrimination and the callousness of the system. He'd known who Albion was the instant he'd seen him, but he had probably called me down to identify the body to get me interested in the case.

"Spill it, Harry. I don't like standing in the rain."

Braxen squatted next to the body and I dropped down beside him. Kid Stealth's shadow hid both of us and Harry kept his voice low enough that only Albion and the Murder Machine could hear us. "Could be this is the fourth body I've seen dropped like this. Two gillettes down by the docks and one dreamchipper up in Bel-mont. She was the first and we got some datafiles on her before they lost her body. Files were dumped." "She have a name?"

"Athena Neon is what I filed her under. She had a neon rose tied with a yellow ribbon tattooed on her b.u.t.t."

I nodded slowly. "It went down the same way?"

"Identical except for maybe one detail." Braxen reached out and turned Albion's face to the left and then to the right. "Can't tell with him, but the other three had all lost a lock of hair. One of the gillettes was a guy I'd popped the month before. That was how I first noticed it-his rat-tail was missing."