Shadowrun - Wolf And Raven Part 20

Then Sampson showed up and the Weenies started being a lot more aggressive. Raven decided to see what he could do to discourage them, and thus had begun the investigation of Mr. Sampson. Apparently something had turned up to link Sampson to Oak Harbor and I was glad Raven was following up on the lead. Still, getting left behind made me feel like I was being punished when I hadn't done anything.

I stopped for a second.Wolf, sending Raven that message this morning can hardly be considered nothing.

The message had said that I'd decided to ask Lynn to marry me and, for that reason, I felt I had to sever my connections with Raven and his crew.

I smiled as I reread Doc's suggestion that I continue to see Lynn. Short of having me trussed up and hauled down to the southwestern deserts that had sp.a.w.ned him, Raven knew he couldn't have kept me away from her. It pleased me to see that he took real joy in seeing that I'd found the happiness he denied himself.

The alarm on the telecom went off, and I realized I was going to be late if I didn't get moving. With the stroke of one b.u.t.ton, I zapped the message, then retreated to my bedroom. I stood there, staring at the clothes hanging in my closet, and shook my head in dismay. If haute couture ever discovers kevlar, I'll be doing turns on Paris runways. But though I was amply supplied for playing the well-heeled soldier of fortune, I had virtually nothing to wear that could be described asnormal.

I shook my head again.That's because you ARE a soldier of fortune, Wolfgang Kies. For the past eight years you 've worked with Raven in his battle to keep the chaos of the Awakening from swallowing up what's left of humanity. You and the others have helped hold the line that keeps normal people safe from magical monsters and technological monstrosities. There's nothing wrong with being a warrior, and your clothes have allowed you to survive dressing for the part. . .

I finally settled on a pair of jeans Lynn had cajoled me into buying on our last outing-so I'd have some that had more fabric than holes, she said. The gray t-shirt I selected had two advantages: it was clean and it was woven of kevlar. Though I didn't expect trouble, I'd not become Raven's longest-living aide by being completely stupid. Lastly I chose my black leather jacket to wear over it, even though it had a red and black raven patch on the left shoulder.

Having solved that problem, I hit the shower for a quick, somewhat bracing scrub-down. I had a devil of a time trying to wash my back and actually gave up after not too much effort. As long as I was going to be confessing things to Lynn, I figured I could add in needing help with that little job and see if she'd offer a.s.sistance.

Thattactichad worked before. I toweled myself dry and found myself standing before the mirror, doing the obligatory, Double-X chro-mosomally challenged person's flexing and posturing. I'm not as tall as some men, but taller than most. I have a lean, muscular build that had prompted a few folks- the aforementioned Charles the Red being one-to think of me as easy pickings until we tangled. Brown hair covered my torso front and back, yet it couldn't hide the myriad scars that crisscrossed my flesh. Each one reminded me of some adventure I'd had with Dr. Raven-and even a few from before I hooked up with him.

A fairly recent scar, a puckered, pink dot with a line bisecting it right beneath my left nipple, stood out because the chest hair around it hadn't fully grown back in yet. I'd gotten that scar from a bullet shot at me by a big-time hunter who wanted to bag a human. She'd gone from hunter to hunted-if one can say that maggots actively hunt-and her compatriots curtailed their poaching of human targets in one of my most recent adventures with Raven.

Scars. They meant I'd survived. No one could say that I hadn't given better than I got in all these adventures, but something inside of me was weary of it all.

There'll come a point when you don't live long enough to scar.

I forcibly turned my mind away from maudlin thoughts. I dressed quickly and headed out of the apartment. At the door I hesitated and almost tucked the Beretta Viper2in my waistband, but I knew Lynn would hate it. Not wanting to give her any reason to be even slightly displeased with me, I left the gun on the foyer table and went out into the cool autumn afternoon air.

I set off at a leisurely pace and tried to keep my mind clear of any matters vexing or bothersome, but that wasn't as simple as it might seem. I tried to think of Lynn- 2Despite the vaunted opinions of some, carrying even an old gun like the Viper 14 is better than going unarmed.

which was easy-but my thoughts quickly veered off into the vortex from which Raven's message had diverted me.

"Maybe I could ease into it. ... The next time we go shopping I'll just pick up some dog biscuits or flea and tick shampoo ..." I laughed aloud at that thought, but a sinister thought followed close behind.

Dr. Raven knew my secret-he'd helped me conquer the darker, savage, wolf side of myself before I could cause too much damage. Through Raven I learned of the Wolf spirit dwelling within me and because of Raven I was able to use the wolf's strength and speed as other warriors used cybernetics to enhance their abilities in combat. In enabling me to gain control, Raven had very definitely saved my life, sanity, and soul.

Valerie Valkyrie, Raven's newest aide, knew nothing of my affliction, nor did Tom Electric or Plutarch Grao-grim, even though the three of us had worked together for the last several years. Kid Stealth probably did have some idea that there was something special about me from the time when he was stalking Raven's crew, but he'd never mentioned it. Jimmy Mackelroy had a vague idea about me being different, but I knew his secret, so we were even and, even more in his favor, he wasn't really inquisitive about my peculiarities.

The others who had learned the truth about me were the real reason I wanted to find a way to leave Lynn in the dark. The Silicon Wasp, Robin Carter, and Mr. Stilts were all members of Doc's entourage who'd known my secret. Each one had taken the secret to his grave, and there were simsense starlets whose careers had lasted longer than my friends did once they knew. I knew it was only coincidence, but learning that secret seemed about as safe as drinking a plutonium c.o.c.ktail. Though I should have taken heart in the fact that Raven had survived the longest of all, somehow I harbored the fear that knowing the truth had killed the others.

As much as I wanted to share my secret with Lynn, as much as I wanted to share my life with her, I didn't want to add any more pain to her life. I'd sooner have shot myself than cause her any hurt. And, of course, being male and in love meant I knew there was a solution to the problem somewhere. All I had to do was find it and use it to keep Lynn safe.

I'd met Lynn through my a.s.sociation with Dr. Raven. Etienne La Plante, one of the larger pieces floating to the top of the cesspool that is Seattle's underworld, fancies himself a commodities broker. Whereas legitimate folks are content to deal in grain, simsense chips, or other such staples, La Plante goes in for more exotic merchandise. Arms trading and narcotics are his bread and vegemite, but he makes his profit moving bodies through white slavery rings. Pretty women, or men, for that matter, can fetch a premium in the penthouses of the corporate towers around the world.

La Plante's henchmen-orks with brains smaller than your average lug nut-had kidnapped Lynn to provide La Plante with merchandise to soothe the ruffled sensibilities of an angry client. After Kid Stealth had discovered La Plante had something special going down so, he and I and his buddies, the Redwings, hit an old resort complex called The Rock. We ran into something a bit nastier than we'd expected, but Doc Raven showed up in time to prevent Stealth and me from adding our names to the list of deceased aides.

After we rescued Lynn, Raven and I took her back to the apartment she shared with her parents in the Fuchi tower. She was still pretty out of it because of the drugs La Plante had used to sedate her, but Raven p.r.o.nounced her fit and said all she needed was lots of sleep. I volunteered to stay in case of any more trouble-to the relief of her parents-and spent most of the next thirty-six hours holding Lynn to keep the nightmares away while she slept.

All in all that wasn't incredibly different from similar things I'd done for other victims of Seattle crime. It sounds smug to say that I'd gotten used to people being grateful and looking to me as some sort of savior, but it's true. You have to get used to it because the connection always ends. There's always another person with a problem, or another mystery that needs solving. I'd been through the same thing dozens of times before.

Only this time it was different. This time it involved Lynn and involved me getting involved with Lynn.

I looked up and found myself at the corner of the small strip mall the Fuchi folks had put into the ground floor of Employee Tower Number One. I winked at the two woman greeters stationed on either side of the door, then hurried across the crowded lobby to the small bakery that employs the whole Ingold family. I waved at Phil as he poured kaf for a couple at one of the rear tables, then caught his daughter as she threw herself into my arms. I hugged her tight and kissed her, then set her down and stared at her, scarcely believing she was truly there and really did care for me.

Lynn wore her burnished copper hair pulled back in a ponytail that hung all the way to her shoulder blades. The top of her head came up to my nose. The scent of her perfume brought back pleasant memories of intimate moments that threatened to make me blush. Her broad smile and pert nose accentuated the lively twinkle of her green eyes, and the sprinkling of freckles across her cheeks made her seem happier yet.

She wore jeans and a red-checked shirt with complementary kerchief that meant she was going to try to talk me into going to a neo-Western dance club. After the Ghost Dances had killed so many people and prompted others to go native, things concerning America's Wild West had been downplayed. Time breeds a certain amount of contempt, and this neo-Western club called itself "Oklahoma." Everything had been styled after an ancient musical, which meant the men wore shirts made of tablecloths from Italian restaurants and every other vidiot packed a six-gun with a low-grade laser triggered by revolver blanks.

Blanche came out from the back of the shop and smiled when she saw me. She and Phil both looked happy and content and perhaps a bit proud that their only daughter was seeing someone from Dr.

Raven's band of heroes-mind you, that's not as good as someone from the corporate boardrooms, but it beats most of the gillettes running around the streets. Their occupation had made both of them plump as gingerbread people, but I've always distrusted anorexic cooks anyway. They'd invested the last twenty-five years in their daughter, and their love for her showed plainly on their faces.

I shook Phil's hand as he came over. His grip, a bit dry from the flour coating it, was strong nonetheless.

"Afternoon, Mr. Ingold, Mrs. Ingold. How are you?"

Phil mumbled something I didn't quite catch as Blanche distracted me. Staring at her daughter as only a mother can when trying to remind her to do something, Blanche's gaze flitted to me, then back to Lynn. I frowned. "What's going on?"

Lynn glared at her mother as only a daughter can do, then looked up at me and sighed. "My parents are celebrating their thirtieth anniversary next week and they wanted to make sure I invited you to the party, which I would have done a bit later. They also want you to extend the invitation to Dr. Raven and your compatriots."

Blanche unconsciously clasped her hands together in an att.i.tude of prayer and crushed them to her ample bosom. "That Dr. Raven, such a nice, ah, man."

I suppressed a laugh. Raven is a rare commodity-a Native American elf who's physically big enough to bench press the tower. He's also devilishly handsome- a fact that had not been lost on Blanche Ingold or many of the other women he's met. That was one of the reasons I'd studiously avoided having Lynn renew her acquaintance with him.

Phil looked over at his wife and sighed. "I hope you get that Kid Stealth to come. I've still not thanked him for saving my little girl."

I felt the shiver run through Lynn. Her father put it down to memories of her ordeal, but I knew it came at the mention of the Kid's name. Lynn's very much a pacifist, and Stealth, well, I think he considers violence some sort of performance art. His openings are a splash, and only close after the coroner uses a lot of sutures.

I gave Lynn a rea.s.suring squeeze, then addressed her parents. "I'll see what I can do. Raven and the others are out of town for a while. I hope they'll be back in time for your party. We'll let you know if they can make it."

Lynn's father laughed. "They can come even if they don't call ahead-Blanche, she always makes too much food for parties. I can remember a time . . ."

Lynn slapped me playfully on the stomach. "That's our cue to leave." She kissed her father on the cheek, then grabbed a jeans jacket and brown paper bag from her mother. She kissed Blanche and made her promise not to wait up.

Blanche gave her an extra little hug, then let her go. "Be careful. I worry even though I know you're in good hands."

I slipped my left arm around Lynn's slender waist and guided her through the lobby. "I take it from your outfit you want to go to that saloon you like?"

She gave me an impish smile. "You're not much of a detective for all the work you've done with Dr.

Raven."

I shrugged easily. "He just keeps me around for heavy lifting and comforting damsels in distress." I narrowed my eyes and tried to figure out what nefarious plan she had brewing in her mind. "If there's a mystery here, I can't solve it. Don't tell me you've been hired by the Yamaguchi-gumi to square dance me to death!"

Lynn shivered eloquently. "You know, my love, that / know how much you hate Oklahoma." She glanced back over her shoulder at her parents. "However,they don't know that. I thought perhaps we might catch a bite to eat, then just retire to your place ..."

"Well, my back does need washing . . ."

"My specialty."

"Maybeyou think so . . ." Lynn blushed and smacked me playfully on the arm.

The awkwardness of her sharing living quarters with her parents had been dealt with before through similar subterfuges. Because her parents had been employed by Fuchi for all of their adult lives, they got a sizable apartment in the employee tower, and it came with cleaning services and child care that made it possible for employees to devote themselves fully to serving the company. The Bakery and other company shops provided anything and everything else the employees might need, and children were encouraged to remain at home-especially if they decided to work for the company as Lynn had.

For a moment my mind drifted back to my younger days on the streets. Born in a tenement with no state or corporate official there to register me, I started early in life as a shadowrunner. No official records existed of Wolfgang Kies, which meant I was free of hara.s.sment by the city unless I attracted their attention. It also meant I could never integrate myself with numbered society-like the Fuchi folks-because I didn't officially exist. Whereas legitimate and tracked citizens had a myriad of safety nets built into the system to keep them alive, shadowrunners had to slip through the cracks.

Heading down to pier 59 and the Aquarium park with my arm around a beautiful woman, I looked at the city in an entirely new way. Sure, it was the same, dreary gray sinkhole of concrete. Yeah, street toughs with more chrome than your average kitchen still lurked on street corners and in shadows. They still had the hollow, haunted look of despair in their eyes that they would die with-and that I had worn until not so long ago- but it just didn't seem to matter to me anymore.

Shadowrunning is fine when your life is a dead end, but when you can see a future, it just seems like a childish game.

The Wolf spirit inside me spoke in a harsh whisper.A

warrior who views war as a game is a warrior who will not see death when it comes for him.

We reached the park and walked to the benches beyond the area where the local wireheads had jacked into the public access systems. Those with datajacks installed, like Lynn or Valerie Valkyrie, just plugged themselves directly into the game tables. Others rented electrode rigs from a ramshackle kiosk to do the same.

Two kids were playing some variant of chess in which holographic pieces battled each other-they attracted a small crowd that cheered when a piece died a particularly grisly death. Others did their own things, oblivious to spectators. One guy who wore his purple hair in a spiked mohawk with piglet curls fore and aft seemed familiar, but I couldn't place him immediately. He amused himself by projecting images of city officials and hapless sheep into diagrams from an on-line edition of theKama Sutra. I recognized what he was doing as I had once similarly amused myself on summer days of my misspent youth.

Lynn sat on the bench and opened her bag. She took out an old crust of bread and broke it into small bits. She tossed them out in a haphazard pattern at first. Then, as birds congregated she sowed her crumbs in a way that kept the bigger birds back from where the smaller ones came to feed. She gave me a hunk of bread and frowned disapprovingly as I tossed a large piece halfway between two monster blackbirds.

"Wolf! You're supposed to break it up into smaller portions!" Her p.r.o.nouncement came as if it were one of the laws of the universe that I'd missed somewhere in my meager schooling.

"You want to run that by me again, with the help files active this time?"

She rested her hands in her lap, which prompted one bold sparrow to light on her knee and pick at the crust she was still holding. She laughed, then composed her face and turned to lecture me. "You have to use small bits because, as my mother taught me, birds that fly away with your food in their mouths take your prayers to heaven with them." She nodded once as if that answer explained everything, then started scattering crumbs again.

I opened my mouth to ask a question, then stopped. Over the years I'd been with Dr. Raven I'd had the gaps in my knowledge of the world filled in, for the most part. Ever since the Awakening-when magic again appeared in the world-the G.o.d Lynn and her family worshipped had lost lots of ground. Still, with all the things I'd seen in Raven's company, and even though I seriously doubted her G.o.d existed at all, I couldn't discount the possibility she was right. Weirder things had happened.

"Sorry," I muttered. "I just can't resist watching two dinosaurs fighting over bread."

Lynn rolled her eyes to heaven and tossed a little novena to a wren. "You're not going to try to convince me that birds were once dinosaurs again, are you?"

I quick-scattered a rosary's worth of crumbs in a wide arc, then brushed my hands clean on my thighs. "I double-checked all that stuff I mentioned last time. Deinonychus is the name of the dinosaur that had a wrist joint that looks the same as the wing joint in the Archeopteryx, and the Archeopteryx has feathers and wings, hence is seen as the first bird. See, dinosaurs and proto-birds had this common ancestor in the Jura.s.sic period. .."

She frowned. "Why would I remember deinonychus as a word?"

I shrugged. "It was a particularly bloodthirsty carnosaur. It ran fast and had this nasty, sickle-shaped claw on each of its feet that it used to disembowel..." As I hooked my right hand over to represent the claw, I saw her pale just a bit, and suddenly I realized why she knew the word.

I reached out and hugged her to me. "I'm sorry. Forgive me."

She kissed the side of my neck. "Nothing to forgive- you didn't mean it."

But I did it anyway.Lynn had first heard the word deinonychus when I clarified why Kid Stealth ran with such an odd gait. During her rescue she'd seen only glimpses of him and never got a good look at his t.i.tanium legs. She'd actually seen more than she knew, and put the weirdness down to the dope in her system. When I explained how Stealth had chosen legs styled after those of a deinonychus, she asked me to stop, but she still dreamed of him for the next couple of nights.

She pulled away from me and set about feeding the dinosaurs again. Her smile returned and she pa.s.sed me another piece of bread, but I shook my head. "Lynn, there's something I have to tell you about me." I faltered. After seeing how she reacted to the mention of Kid Stealth or anything that might remind her of violence, there seemed no easy way to tell her about the true Wolfgang Kies.

She brushed her hands off and cupped my jaw in them. "Wolf, I know you've been forced to do things you're not proud of. I know you've killed people and things while working for Dr. Raven, but I also know you did that to help others, like me. I cannot and will not let that drive a wedge between us-that's a decision I made the first time I agreed to go out with you."

She pressed her fingertips to my lips to stop me from saying anything. "I know you, perhaps better than you know yourself. I know you're a good man, a strong man, and I know I love you. There is nothing you could say that would change that or make me think any less of you."

I sat there stunned for a moment or two as I realized the true depth of her feelings for me. Somehow I'd a.s.sumed there was no way she could feel the same way about me as I felt about her, but that proved to be a fallacy that exploded with the greatest of ease. Still, she didn't know about my lunar mood swings, and that revelation would sorely test the strength of her convictions.

I started to speak, but something caught my attention above and beyond Lynn's head. Two hollow-eyed kids came around the corner of the trode kiosk, then ducked back when they saw me. Alarm bells immediately went off in my head because even though they'd washed off most of the jack o' lantern makeup the Hallo-weeners affected, their jackets were black and orange- Halloweener colors.

"Are you done feeding the birds?"

Lynn immediately caught the concern in my voice. "What is it?"

I looked around and saw more potential Weenies loitering in the background. "Gangers. I don't like it."

She sighed with exasperation to cover her nervousness. "Wolf, thisis a public park. They have the right to use it."

I nodded. "True enough, but this just doesn't feel right."

Again she tried to play it light. "I think you just want to get me back to your place ..."

I stood and held my hand out to help her up. "No denying that. Why don't you scatter the rest of the bread in one huge papal audience, and let's get out of here. We'll keep it natural, as if nothing's wrong ..."

"Wolf, you're scaring me." She crushed the bag, then up-ended it and let the crumbs spill out. "Let's go, if we must."

The fear in her voice gave way to anger. I knew it wasn't directed at me exactly, and I immediately focused my reaction to it on the Weenies who had started to follow us. At the same time I wanted to kick myself for having left my Viper behind3. The situation that appeared to be shaping up was not one in which I wanted to be unarmed.

The Wolf spirit's voice echoed through my head.You need not be weaponless, Longtooth. Embrace me and I will deal with your enemies.

"No!"

Lynn looked back at me. "What?" Despite her fear, I saw her concern for me reflected in her green eyes.

3See, I wasn't kidding, was I?

I shook my head. "Nothing important." I glanced at the forest of gray buildings at the landward end of the pier. "I'm not sure if we're being followed or not, but there's a quick way for us to find out."

She hesitated for only a second. "Lead on."

I guided her toward the crosswalk as if nothing unusual was happening at all. The Weenies stayed with us, but lurked at the back of the crowd gathering to cross the street. I worked us toward the curb, then pulled her into the street. "Run!"

The irate honking of horns and the squeal of brakes drowned out any shouting from the other pedestrians as we dashed into traffic. Lynn let her fear run riot and the adrenaline made her nimble and oh so quick. She cut around the front of a Ford Americar and between two Honda minivans while I vaulted a silver Porsche Mako. The driver shook his fist at me through the windscreen, then went white as a bullet shattered the safety gla.s.s.

The next two silenced shots went high, but I saw them hit the Sumitomo Bank building. Adrenaline lending wings to my feet, I caught up with Lynn and grabbed her right hand in my left. Without warning I stopped and swung her around into the alley behind the bank, then I paused and made yet another in a long line of mistakes. I turned back to see who was pursuing us.

The lead grunge snapped two shots off with his silenced Ingram Mk. 22 before another Mako-this one white and sporting a dorsal fin telephone antenna-took him like its namesake would take a swimmer on an Australian beach. The lower portions of his legs whipping around like nylons on a clothesline, the ganger bounced from the hood to windscreen, then up over the top of the car. I'm not sure where the antenna caught him, but it looked crimson to me as the car continued through the intersection.

One of the two bullets peppered me with concrete shards and lead splatter as it hit the wall near my head. The other one hit me square in the ribs and spun me back into the alley. I ricocheted off the opposite wall, then sprawled unceremoniously on stinking bags of garbage.

Lynn dropped to her knees and reached out to me, then her hands recoiled in horror to cover her mouth as she saw the bullet hole in my jacket. "Oh, G.o.d, you're shot!" The blood drained from her face and I sensed she wanted to run, but refused to give in to her panic. "I have to get help ..."

I held a hand up as my body once again let me breathe. "Wait... I'm battered but not bloodied." Gingerly I opened my coat and the .45 caliber slid across my t-shirt and to the ground. "See, no blood, no foul."