Nyx Smith - Fade to Black

Dok rammed a fresh clip from his belt into the Ingram, then his head snapped back and he plunged to the ground. Rico didn't hesitate.

As he moved beyond the front of the helo, slugs pounded into his chest. The impacts stole his breath. He staggered and fell to one knee. It didn't feel like the bullets had penetrated his armored jacket, but it hurt. Mother of God, how it hurt. He forced himself forward, grabbed Dok beneath the shoulders and started dragging him back toward-the van. More slugs slammed into his chest and shoulders, Another moment and he'd probably be dead, laid out as limp as Dok, but then Shank was there, grabbing Dok around the chest, lifting him off the ground and shoving Rico toward the van.

They had only one chance left. They had to dive like devil rats into the transitways before armor-piercing slugs or a wire-guided missile took them out They had to go where the helos couldn't reach them. It was up to Thorvin now.

And it didn't get any closer than this.

Farrah Moffit huddled in the corner formed by the rear of the dumpster and the wall of the alley. Bandit hovered, sitting cross-legged, just far enough above the ground to see over the dumpster to the street. Hours had passed and that was bad. If he didn't get back to his body soon…

Moffit broke down again. She had a strange way of crying, like a series of violent coughs, one rolling swiftly into the next. The upset seemed genuine. Her first episode had started when he asked her what had happened to the slag called Cannibal and to the other man, the one lying dead in the lounge with Moffit. She seemed deeply disturbed. Perhaps she had led a sheltered life in her corporate towers, insulated from the realities of the plex. At least she didn't make too much noise.

Some more time passed, then a rumbling arose, then Thorvin's van pulled into the end of the alley.

Rico got out and looked around.

"They're here," Bandit said.

Farrah Moffit rose and went to the van and all but fell sobbing into Surikov's arms.

Bandit rejoined his waiting body.

Dok looked dead.

It didn't end till they did the final check on Surikov.

The slag had a snitch, a microtransmitter implanted at the back of his neck, just like the other Surikov, Michael Travis, who they'd busted outta Maas Intertech. Farrah Moffit had told them to expect that. All the senior research staff at Fuchi had them, she said. She herself didn't rate high enough for that.

Getting the snitch out took some work. Rico had some experience with emergency med, but Shank had more so he did the job. Dok's equipment did most of the actual cutting. By the time Shank was finished, Surikov was pale and faint, but Dok's gear indicated that he'd get over it.

They lost their pursuers. They picked up Farrah Moffit, and Bandit too. A second Bandit. A Bandit that looked like a ghost. A Bandit that hovered, floated over the ground, and finally disappeared into the body of the Bandit that had been with them from the beginning. It was eerie and would have been freaky only Rico had seen things like this before.

Astral projection, it was called.

They headed for the bolthole in Rahway, Sector 13. It seemed called for. They were shot to piss, the rain had come and gone, and they all needed some sleep.

One last piece of work: they called Osborne to set up the exchange of Surikov and Moffit for nuyen. The meet was set for that night.

When Rico finally lay down, it was almost noon. He seemed to fall asleep in just moments. Piper shed her clothes in the dark, then carefully lay down beside him, shifting in against his side, lowering her head lightly to his shoulder. She lay there with him throughout the afternoon, moving little, resolved to let him sleep.

She could not, would not allow herself to sleep. These final few hours before their meet with Maas Intertech might be their last time together, intimately, as man and woman. She tried to savor every moment, tie feel of his body, his musky aroma, his warmth, the soft sound of his breath. She called to mind everything she had ever admired about him. She struggled against the tears that welled time and again into her eyes. She prayed silently to the kami for deliverance, but had no real doubt about how the night would end.

Life provided few pleasures, and scant love. Too soon it was all over. She struggled against regret and bitter sorrow.

She had known all along how it would end, this run, everything. Fate would not be denied. The corps had all the power. Maas Intertech, through its parent organization Kuze Nihon, had virtually unlimited resources. The complete operational forces of Daisaka Security might be waiting for them tonight when they arrived at the meet. What chance did they have against such an army? They would be crushed like worms beneath the feet of giants. She only wished she'd met Rico sooner, that she'd spent more time at his side. He was the only man she had ever really loved. There would be no life without him.

One thought brought a fleeting token of contentment If she died tonight, she would die not for Ansell Surikov or Farrah Moffit She would die not to further the battle against the oppressive megacorps, and not to save the planet Rattier, she would die for jefe , for her lover. She would die defending all mat he believed in and all he considered good. She would die for him, and for him alone.

Nothing else seemed to have any meaning now.

The argument started as dusk descended into darkness. Shank looked at Thorvin, and Thorvin shrugged.

"I don't believe it either," Thorvin said.

It began with Piper declaring, loudly, somewhere down the hall from the main room, that she would accompany the rest of the team to the meet with Maas Intertech. She could do nothing in the matrix. At the meet, she could at least cany a gun. Rico told he, curtly she wasn't going. She protested. He cursed. They both started to shout. It was the first time Shank had ever heard Piper yell.

By nine p.m., they were standing in a room with plastic flowers, perfumed air, and quiet music at the Chapel of the Eternal Light in Sector 7. For five hundred nuyen, they got the same deal for Dok that they had gotten for Filly. Only this time, when the pre-recorded trideo service ended, nobody had anything to say. Dok had said it all himself when he ran like a wild man out onto the tarmac, shooting his SMG. It was about Filly and revenge and doing what you had to do, damn the consequences. Damn even death.

After the service, a slag in a neat black suit came with an urn full of ashes. Rico thrust a fistful of the ashes into Surikov's pants pockets.

"Don't ever forget," he said. "What you're getting didn't come free."

Surikov paled, and said, "No. No, indeed."

The meet came down in Sector 9 amid the gang-ravaged projects of Owens Park. The street was just one block long. Piles of building debris, the empty shells of gutted autos, and every kind of junk and garbage lined the street. Plastic sheeting and thin macroplast panels covered the windows of the buildings, all abandoned but for squatters and derelicts.

Heavy clouds lingered overhead, backlit by the moon and reflecting a strange, almost unearthly light.

Nobody seemed to be around.

At just past midnight, a pair of white, short-frame Toyota limos turned the corner and came slowly up the block. They stopped across from the van, near the opposite curb. Rico waited and watched. Thorvin had a drone in the air, keeping everything under surveillance. Bandit was in a trance, watching astrally. No warnings from either of them. Maybe Osborne was straight.

Maybe things would work out.

The rear door of the lead limo swung open. The slag who stepped out was nothing like the punk-like clown Osbome had brought to the first meet. This one was a real cutter, cool and corporate, easy in his movements, watchful and wary without showing more than he had to.