Mel Odom - Preying for keeps

"I'm a dead man," Skater said fiercely, "and those files hit the Matrix the heartbeat after."

For a moment, McKenzie held his gaze. Then, "I don't believe you."

"McKenzie," Dragonfletcher interrupted.

"Let me handle this." McKenzie said. "That's what you're paying me for." He shifted his attention to Skater. "You move another muscle, drekhead, and I'm going to take that chip off your corpse."

Skater faced McKenzie, but he spoke to Dragonfletcher. "Is that how you want it? You want the files on that chip spread all over the Matrix?"

"No. McKenzie, sit down." The elf glanced around, aware that they were attracting unwanted attention.

McKenzie's expression was cold and calculated. Anger burned deep in his dark eyes. "You're making a mistake here. I just want you to know that."

"Depends," Duran said softly. "Could be you're the one making the mistake." His posture remained loose, but his tone left no doubt about his readiness for action.

Suddenly. McKenzie sat. "No sense in fragging up a perfectly good deal when all I've got to do is sit here. Right?" He shook out a fresh cigarette and lit up.

Skater sat down too, but held himself ready to move in an instant.

"What if I can't get the name of the girl's killer?" Dragonfletcher asked.

"I'll give you till ten o'clock tomorrow morning," Skater replied. "If you can prove to me that you spent time and effort on the search, we can deal then."

"Ten o'clock." Dragonfletcher stared at him.

"Another eight hours isn't going to make a major difference to whatever you're involved in," Skater said.

'Ten o'clock is acceptable," the elf said. "Anything after that, we hunt you down and you can try to make good on your threats."

"It's no threat," Skater said. He took a card out of his pocket. "Here's a number where you can leave a message for me. It'll be operational in the morning, from nine-fifty-five to ten-oh-five a.m. You can't trace it, you can't find it. The number and the exchange won't exist until then, and it'll disappear forever afterwards." Archangel was redirecting the com-call trail.

Dragonfletcher put the card in his jacket pocket. "Why the interest in this woman?"

"She was a friend," Skater said. "I don't have many of those."

The elf nodded.

"Take care of this," Skater said, pushing the credstick toward the elf again. "We'll be wanting it back." He could tell from the way McKenzie shifted that he wanted the credstick back himself to make the switch again, but there was no way to ask for it. He knew that Dragonfletcher would check the credstick over, especially since Skater had held it for a time. When the elf did, he'd find the ten percent missing. It wouldn't make sense for Skater to take it and leave the rest, so Dragonfletcher would jump logically to the conclusion that McKenzie had tried to cut himself in for a bigger piece of the biz. Skater wondered how the partnership would weather that revelation.

Dragonfletcher pocketed the credstick but didn't say anything.

Skater stood up and looked at McKenzie. "Maybe we'll be seeing each other again."

"Count on it," the Mafia boss said.

No matter what else happened. Skater knew he'd made a dangerous enemy by double-crossing McKenzie.

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than a fusillade of gunshots suddenly exploded the quiet decorum of the restaurant. Skater ducked immediately and palmed the Predator II from the streamlined holster on his belt.

"C'mon!" Duran roared, grabbing the back of Skater's jacket and hustling him away from the entrance to the lower dining room. He had a Ceska Black Scorpion in his hand spitting flame and thunder.

At first, Skater thought that one of McKenzie's gunners' had opened fire. Then he spotted the grim faces of what could only be yakuza marching into the room, systematically setting up fields of fire and burning down anyone who tried to stop them. The yaks were easy to spot, dressed in black suits and wearing enhanced sunglasses even at night.

The Mafia gunners held their ground, overturning tables to set up makeshift gunports. Bullets chewed into the furniture, but the noise level was low as the snarl of silencers wound through the restaurant.

"Wheeler." Duran called over the commlink, "get ready."

"Call it," the dwarf replied, "and I'm there."

Skater brought up his pistol and fired two rounds at a yakuza who was moving into the main dining area and sweeping the diners mercilessly. He aimed for the man's chest, not wanting to chance a headshot.

The bullets crashed and knocked the dark-suited man back. Skater wasn't sure if the bullets actually struck flesh or just flattened out against Kevlar. Duran released Skater's jacket, evidently satisfied that he was keeping up.

They reached the corner opposite the entrance at the same instant someone cut the power to the dining room. Darkness swallowed the recessed lighting in an eyeblink. Only the floodlights outside the glass wall and the uncertain scattering of muzzle flashes trapped inside the room provided any kind of illumination.

Skater switched over to low-light vision and scanned the impromptu battlefield. Evidently the yakuza had come prepared for the lights-out situation, because they were moving freely. Obviously many of them were wearing low-light glasses. However, a squadron of elves had also rushed onto the scene, outnumbering the yakuza in seconds. McKenzie and Dragonfletcher must have had an army standing by outside the restaurant. The bloody tide of the small war quickly turned.

"Skater fragging sold us out to the yakuza!" McKenzie roared. "It's a set-up!"

Tracking the voice. Skater scanned the dining area and spotted McKenzie kneeling behind a yakuza slumped across an overturned chair. The crime boss had both hands wrapped around a Manhunter that was sprouting a ruby beam.

Light blinded Skater for a second, then he was aware of the ruby dot that took shape just below his left eye. He was moving when he felt the force hit him, knocking his head back against the wall. He struggled with consciousness as his back scraped and bumped him down the wall and the blood ran warm down his face.

Throbbing pain filled Skater's head and he had to fight to get his arms and legs moving. His vision doubled, then blurred, and the low-light enhancers fragged up his depth perception altogether by overreacting to light and shadow.

"Kid!" Duran roared from somewhere nearby.

Skater tracked the ork's voice amid the gunfire and screams. Gunpowder stink filled the air. He turned his head and concentrated on the rectangle of light coming from the wall of glass. Evidently the floodlights out in the Sound operated independently of the ones inside the Gray Line. Shapes slipped across the glass surface and threw moving shadows into the room, but he couldn't distinguish what they were.

A yakuza came out of the darkness at him, chipped eyes gleaming in the dark. He carried a taser, and the dart on the end sparked blue-white electricity.

Skater raised the Predator and fired till the man went down. Dumping the empty clip, he shoved another one home. He activated the commlink. "Trey."

"I'm here, chummer." Trey was positioned out of sight and using an external mike.

Skater threw himself behind an overturned table and had to shove the corpse of one of McKenzie's men out of the way. Bullets and fletchettes thudded into the table top. One of them skidded off the Kevlar weave of his jacket. The side of his face was covered with a warm, bloody mask. He couldn't tell how bad it was, but his vision was coming back on-line. "Time to go."

"I'm ready. On your mark."

At the back of the room, highlighted by the uneven illumination coming from the glass wall, McKenzie's shaman stood making intricate gestures while his razored girlfriend stood guard. She'd taken a clear bulletproof shield from a shopping bag at her feet and was holding it in front of their faces. Bullets drew lines of fire across the surface.