Nyx Smith - Fade to Black

He leaned down and put his mouth over the woman's mouth, then slowly inhaled. He kept inhaling till he felt a tingling suffuse his whole body. With that tingling came a pleasure even better than sex, at least in his limited experience. It was more than just physical pleasure. It made him feel full, strong, powerful, almost indomitable. If he let his imagination run wild, a danger Minx had warned him about, he could almost see himself possessing such great power that almost anything…

Minx squeezed his shoulder, and bent to kiss him. They exchanged breaths, exhaling into each other's mouths, then inhaling that sweet, sweet breath.

"Now it's my turn," she said softly, smiling.

Monk nodded. "Sure."

There were other bodies waiting.

They were at Chimpira when the call came in L. Kahn took it via the telecom at his booth. Ravage, sitting beside him, heard the entire exchange. An informant reported that the runners who had been hired to bust Ansell Surikov out of Maas Intertech had just been ambushed up in Sector 9. Police were at the scene, but the informant believed the runners to be dead.

L. Kahn broke the connection, sat still for a moment, then softly cursed. "I hired backup in depth and what happens? Daisaka Security gets them with a gunship. There's no justice. No justice at all."

Ravage agreed, and reached over and picked up L. Kahn's drink, drew it to her mouth and had a sip. L. Kahn frowned and looked at her. It was his unhappy frown. Intolerant

"I've had enough problems lately," he said. "Don't test my patience."

"I get these impulses," Ravage replied.

"You'll have to learn-"

If he had more to say, he didn't get it out. Ravage splashed the drink into his face. As he began reacting to that, she slashed her hand across his throat. The razors protruding from under her synthimplanted nails tore through flesh like a knife through air. No significant resistance.

As the first blood came pumping, pulsing, spraying out through the wounds, she reversed direction, making a fist and slamming it back into L. Kahn's face, shattering bone and gristle and driving his head against the back of the booth. The man bled, banged backward, and slumped in little more than an instant.

Then Ravage hopped up and away, before any of the blood and gore could stain her clinging silver-hued bodysuit.

The pair of orks L. Kahn had hired as extra guards turned to look, then just looked at her and waited. These particular orks had no illusions about their place in the Newark underworld. They understood that when orders came from above, the good soldier simply nodded and obeyed. In this case, they had accepted nuyen from her, from her new employer, before nodding and pledging obedience. With a quick gesture she indicated that they should take charge of the body.

"Toss it in the Ditch."

Sanitation would cart it away.

On her way out of the club, Ravage stopped at a telecom and dialed the number her new boss had given her. The boss' helper answered, a dark-skinned elf. He looked a question at her.

"It's done," she told him.

"Muy bien," the elf replied.

That finished her biz for the night.

The sunlight seeping through the dark, grime-smeared window swelled and faded away. Days were passing, but Rico hardly noticed. He lay on a bare mattress on the floor of a squalid room in an abandoned building. He had a bottle by his side and some food. He had bandages wrapped around his chest and covering more cuts and gouges than he had interest in counting. Some fleeting instinct for survival had compelled him to find a street doc and go to the safest refuge he knew.

When he finally woke up in that alley, he'd gone back for Piper, but by then the streets were deserted, the bodies gone. Even the wreck of the van had been removed. It took the heart out of him. Maybe it had cost him his soul.

Little things came to mind now, how. Piper used to smile or laugh, the way she cast her eyes down when something embarrassed her. For all the razor-edged skill she'd had as a decker, she had been and would always be in his memory a reticent Japanese, a soft-spoken, loving, and loyal woman, more beautiful than any he had ever known. It occurred to him that this crumbling building wasn't far from where they had first met. This very apartment was where they had first made love. The place hadn't been such a wreck those few years ago. It had been tired and worn, but safe. Quiet.

How many months had they lived here? He couldn't remember. He'd been surprised to find the building still standing.

It was all he had left. He hadn't been smart enough to save anyone. He'd let them be used by the megacorps. Sure, they got Farrah Moffit together with the real Surikov-and had turned the pair over to Maas Intertech, but so what?

What did that matter now?

In the night he smashed the bottle and brought the jagged end to his neck, and held it there a couple of minutes. He felt the jagged knife-edge of glass grazing his skin, but he knew that this was futile. He didn't have the strength to do it. He didn't care enough to end it. He lowered his arm and let the broken bottle roll away. It was over. He was already dead. He would just lie here till the final fragments faded into the night.

Hours passed. He became aware of some soft sounds, faraway creaks and squeaks. He thought of rats and devil rats and the other creatures that inhabited the darker corners of the plex, and then the door to the room slowly swung inward.

A pair of dark figures appeared in the doorway, silhouetted by the deeper black of the hall. One looked small and seemed curved like a female. The other one had the heavy build of a big male, big enough even for an ork. "I knew I would find you here."

What the frag… The voice was Piper's. Slowly, Rico sat up, shifting his Jikku eyes to low-light to better scan the doorway. To his astonishment, he saw Piper standing there, and Shank. They looked battered and bloody, but they were standing there alive. Rico struggled to speak He couldn't manage anything coherent He couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"One short sleep past and we recycle endlessly, jefe," Piper said softly. "And I'm going to prove it to you, my love, but first you must let me kiss you."

She shifted closer, smiling warmly.

Her eyes glowed a fiery red.

The chopper settled lightly onto the aeropad atop Fuchi Tower Five. By then, Gordon Ito was up, out of his seat and waiting at the front of the passenger compartment. His deputy director, executive aid, and exec sec all scurried to shut down notebook comps and close briefcases. His personal bodyguard simply rose and moved to stand beside him.

The moment the hatch was open, the steps lowered, Gordon strode down to the aeropad and across to the rooftop lounge. He moved briskly, but did not rush. He had something he wanted to attend to immediately, but that did not call for haste. Nothing could, in Gordon's view. Haste made waste, and in his position, hasty decisions and actions most often promised to result in disaster.

The elevator delivered him twenty stories down to his office suite. Moments later, he stepped into his private office. The tea lady delivered tea. Gordon lit a Platinum Select cigarette, then took up his tea and spent three minutes staring out the wall of windows behind his desk, considering how to proceed.

The decision made, he returned to his desk and brought up the telecom. In another moment the Fuchi logo, veiled by a black triangle, filled the screen. "Mr. Ito."

"Mr. Xiao."

"Konichiwa."

"Konichiwa."

"What brings you to my screen this evening, Gordon?"

"I've just had some intelligence handed to me. I thought you might find it interesting. I'm told that Ansell Surikov and Marena Farris have been recruited by Maas Intertech."