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Debt of Non-Blood - 4

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Debt of Non-Blood – 4

I bid one last look to the black silicon sky, with it's lines of data pulsing constantly, and it's stars of nodes.  There was peaceful digital perfection here, and I knew it'd be the last bit of peace I'd allow myself for some time.  The moment over, I returned to my 'link, and popped back into my body, the car going past the former Renraku Arcology.  After Renraku's insane AI, Dues, had locked it down and performed insane experiments on the metahumans trapped inside, and the UCAS Army had to rescue them, it has been the property of the UCAS government.  It was now the Arcology Commercial and Housing Enclave, and, boy, did Renraku ever ACHE over that one.  Their shiny Corporate Fortress becoming a public mall, and welfare housing.

The time was 10:41:12.  Hours to go before I could do anything real in the pursuit of these chips.  I set the autopilot to a nice, roundabout way home.  I called the family homestead on the way back home, but only got the machine.  Not really a surprise, Grandpa was hard to contact, or even narrow down where he was at any time.  Not bad for someone pushing 90-years old.  I left a message with the details, and informed him that I was taking care of it.  No use having two people take the city apart brick by brick in anger.

Getting up to the condo, I stripped down, put on the housecoat, checked the Colt L36's action and load, and got myself a bottle of Tullamore Dew.  And just stared at the blank white wall, sipping from the bottle, until 13:33:08.  Then went to bed, setting my alarm to wake me up at the fall of the sun.

Night would come soon enough.  At one time, attacking at dawn was the best strategy.  That time was long past, wars were no longer fought like that.  They were done in back alleys with switchblades and cheap throwaway pistols in the dark of night.  The time of the predator.

I knew exactly what I was doing.  I was bringing a war.

A smile crept to my face.  It had been too long since that particular demon had been released...
***
Driving the Jackrabbit through the Redmond Barrens was a reminder of the duality of life in the 21st century.  The haves versus the have nots.  I was on the border with Bellevue, the Auto-gatling guns following the sporty compact car as I drove by.  On this side on that wall was spent shell cases, empty chip cases, used family planning products.  On the other side of the well-protected walls were beautiful gardens tended carefully by automated drones.  I stood between that wall, with one foot on each side, really.  Half in the Light and half in the Shadows.  Equally dual, a broken person.

Well, it was time to let my Shadow out, and let him run and play in the playground of violence and destruction.  But first, I'd need back-up, and a limiter.  This near the border, I was still able to get a signal for my commlink, so called in my personal choice for both.

He picked up on the first ring, “Yeah?” was the simple question, no name, no nothing.  His old dataterm was connected to a hardline connection that was still spoofing the matrix provider after all these years, and displayed his ugly ork mug.

“Murphy, it's Money.  Got biz goin' down?”  I asked, going right to the point.  Murphy and I were probably the weirdest things in the Shadows, we were friends.  For a Johnson and a Shadowrunner, that was dangerous.  You get affiliated with each other, and other Johnsons and 'Runners don't want to touch you as you seem tainted.  However, both of our reputations were impeccable, and it increased our street cred at that.  We were meanness on the hoof alone, together, drek was going down.  And we'd be walking away from it when no one else could.

More duality at work, we came from different worlds, people supposed to be at odds with each other, yet we got along well.

“Nah, wuz gonna hitz da clubs an' all dat.  Buh dat can wait.”  He said, in his usual mealy mouthed way.  Murphy was probably one of the best read people I knew, having had a sleep regulator installed in order to work more hours on stakeouts, but also to allow more time to read during his off time.  But his poor upbringing came through in his speech, and made a lot of people underestimate him.  He was a third-generation Shadowrunner, his Father and Grandfather teaching him the trade.

“OK then, want work?  I got dead family, Murph.  Remember Beetle, the Chipmonger at the Crime Mall?”  I asked.

“Alwayz guud fer wurk.  An' yeah.  Big fragger, almost orky sized.”

“He's dead.  Beaten to death by some 40 kilo weakling on some bad hooped chip.  I'm going to find the supplier and demonstrate as to why it's a bad idea to mess with what little family I care about.”  I said, grinding my teeth all the way.

“An youse need someones tah back yeah up?”

“No, I need someone to hold me back before I repeat what happened three years ago.”

“Damn...  If it dun be dangeruz werk, den I want be havin' extra.”  He said, the only negotiation he usually did with me.

“You'll earn it.”
***
I was on the way to Murphy's place when I got a text from the Coroner.  He had finally ID'd the punk, who had a criminal record.  A Halloweener, named Slick apparently.  If he was out of his make-up, that meant he was out of his colours as well, something no respectful ganger would ever do.  They'd rather fight then get their colours stripped.  But it was a start.  I texted a thanks back to him, as I manoeuvred through the ruined street, appearing like a war zone.  Actually, it was a war zone, and all that lived here were veterans of the highest order.  The ones that didn't learn died, quickly.

Murphy was waiting for me outside, his sister screaming obscenities at him from inside the tenement building his extended family had claimed for itself, and had fortified.  She didn't like me much, but that's only because I was human.  Her first birth had been difficult, and she'd gone to one of the free clinics that just opened up in the area, before people found out it was a front by the Humanis Policlub, a group of anti-metahuman scumbags.  Her first litter was her last, for they helped her with the birthing, and then sterilized her.

I didn't take it personally, and she certainly wasn't upset to see my cred on Murphy's stick when he got home.  He also had a tendency to be less shot up when it was one of my jobs, too.

A massive ork, working on troll size, Murphy appeared to be what he started as, dumb Barrens muscle.  Good as a moving gun platform for the shotguns he carried around with him, and the fraging sword he packed as well.  With the return of magic, there were things that couldn't be harmed by bullets, but cold steel got their respect just fine, and the archaic weapons were having a renaissance.  Of course, I lost count of the number of switchblades and straight razors I have concealed in my leather armoured duster, so who am I to talk?

I popped the trunk for him, and he secreted the pair of shotguns, Defiance T-250s, he had with him, and dropped in a few boxes of shells as well.  If we came into trouble while on the road, he was a crack shot with his family heirloom, the first generation Ares Predator that I knew he had in a shoulder rig.

Settling into the passenger seat, he gave me a smile, and stretched.  The Jackrabbit was a “Troll Modified”, which meant mostly that the suspension was strengthened, and the front seats enlarged, but only the smallest troll could feel comfortable.  It was about the perfect size for Murphy, however.

“Soes, whuzzapinen'?”  He asks, pulling out and checking the action on his Predator slowly, so as to not alert me.  I gave him a quick run down of what happened.  He simply nodded, “Soes we dun see da 'Weenies?”

“We'll ask them politely about Slick.”  I explained, leaving that as the plan.

“Ahn when dey don answer?”  He said, feeding a straightline.

“Then we ask hard.”  I grined out, and peeled out into the night.
***
Finding the Halloweeners wasn't hard.  You drive around the Jackal's Lantern until you see some red face paint, like that of a pumpkin, nestling in an alleyway.  When I spotted one, I knew was far enough away from their stronghold that we could make a quick escape before heavy re-enforcements came.  Light re-enforcements was why I brought Murphy along.  Parking and getting out, I called to them, making the international sign of money.  I'd done biz with the Halloweeners before, recently too, but I'd heard there was some kind of dust-up going on in their organization.  I had been planning on making sure they remembered what they owed me anyhow, this was as good a time as any.

“What you doin' here, Mr. Noname?”  The lead one at the mouth of the alley asked as I approached, Murphy keeping a respectful distance away, but with his Ares Predator out.  They knew I wasn't alone, and that I had support.  It's all about posturing and position when dealing with any kind of negotiation.  In the Shadows, it's just physical more than mental.

“Well, I'm calling in more of those favours the gang owes me.  I need to find out about one of your formers, one who had a bad chip addiction.”  I said, entering the alleyway.  The guy at the mouth flanked me, keeping his back to the building beside me, some kind of cheap coffin hotel.  There was only one other in the alley that I could see, with a few more that might be hidden.  I flicked my eyes to thermographic view, and saw that there wasn't any other heat sources aside from a sewer.  Only two, easy enough.

“Favours...  Favours...  Oh yeah, the favours that Slash-and-Burn owed you.  He dead.”  Frag, the problems with the gang had been a fight over leadership, this changed things.  “And Nightmare...  Nightmare don't know you from devil rat drek.  So we don't owe you nothing.”  The leader said, snarling right in my face, his fetid breath a combination of rancid meat and stale cigarettes.

“Yeah, well, it's too bad for two things, first off, it was the gang that owed me, not Slash, not Nightmare, the Halloweeners, which means you still owe me.”  They snarled at that all the more, making threatening motions, “And second, you seem to have forgotten just how dangerous things are.”

“We ain't scared of the Trog.”  The mouth said defiantly.

“Who said anything about him?”  I asked sweetly, my head jerking to the right, and my perception slowing down.  My right arm flashed out, palm open, slamming the punk hard in the chest.  My augmented muscles and titanium-enhanced bone structure caused his stock ribcage to splinter slightly as he was crushed against the wall.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him spit up some blood, it slowly flying through the air as I slowly and purposefully stepped forward to the real leader here, the guy safe in the alley.

His eyes went wide, and he started fumbling around at his belt, finally drawing an old, beat-up Ares Predator-II pistol, pointing it at me like it was some magic talisman to scare away the demons of the world.  It would work against most.

Against me, it only made me pull out my own equalizer.  “Snick” went the switchblade in my hand, drawing his attention completely as I quickly moved a single long step, right up to him.

“I, I got a gun, man!  You're a fool to bring a knife to a gunfight!”  He cried, trying to regain some momentum in this discussion.

“Then shoot.  Go ahead, shoot.  And, after you've shot me, and made me all the angrier, I will cut you long, and slow, and deep.  I will cut you in a way that even if a street doc were here right now, he couldn't save you.  And then you'd be faced with a choice, keep your guts inside your body to live that much longer, or let them fall out, feeling the cold invade the core of your being, in order for a quicker death.”  His face was reflected in my mirrorshades, feeding only his own fear back to him, intensifying it, “Or you can drop the gun right now, tell me what I want to know, and be a good little delivery boy, with a message...  That it's the Halloweeners that owe me.  You tell everyone in the gang, then, and only then, do you tell this Nightmare person.”

“Nightmare will kill me.”  He said, letting the pistol droop by it's trigger guard.  I simply stared at him.  The gun hit the ground with a metallic clatter, and he told me about Slick, and how he'd run during the problems, and went with some other gang, the Opiates.

I picked up the old pistol, and backed away from him, not turning my back to him.  Murphy was just chuckling at the scene, enjoying the moment like another person would enjoy a sitcom.  The punk, however, still had some fight in him, “We aren't going to forget this!”  He cried, trying to put some courage into his voice.

I turned my back to him now, tilting my head slightly towards him, “What are you not going to forget?”  I ask, keeping my voice as level as possible.

“That...  That we owe you.  And that I tell Nightmare last.”  He finally relented, the willpower beaten out of him.  That got a huge guffaw out of Murphy.

“Good.  Get some help for your friend here.  I think he ran into something.”  I said finally, getting back into the Jackrabbit.
2070: Seattle Metroplex, UCAS

Hitting the streets. And the streets are too intimidated to hit back.

Shadowrun is a registered trademark of WizKids Inc. All Rights Reserved. This work is not intended to infringe on any copyright, and is used without permission.

Just a bit of Fan Fiction, folks. Please consider it free publicity!

Unedited folks. Just putting it up because folks are chomping at the bit for it. ;-)
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DarionDamage's avatar
i like murphy's way of speech xD