Robert Charrette: Never trust an elf

Kham walked up the steps, listening to the gibes of Guide's companions as they started in on the boy. They'd sort it out. If an ork couldn't survive his own gang, he didn't have any business looking to tackle anybody else.

As he stepped through the door, the familiar scent of ork and old food washed over him, blotting out the refuse scent of the street. The light was brighter than in the street, but not enough to bother him, nor was it enough to really illuminate the squalor. The main room, what had once been a show room, was littered with debris and randomly scattered piles of bedding, but, he was pleased to see, no garbage. The chamber was furnished in early junkyard; its broken-down chairs, stained and ripped couches, and tables of jumbled scraps gave it an air of bedraggled but comfy chaos. In one corner an unwatched monitor, the coils of its illegal cable hook-up snarled around its base, blared out the latest video from Maria Mercurial, courtesy of one of the music channels.

Someday, he promised himself. Someday they wouldn't have1 to live here.

He could hear shouts from the kitchen. Teresa was calling one of the kids down for snitching from the pot. Almost immediately a knot of kids came brawling through the archway. Catching sight of him, one of them shouted, "Kham's back!" As the brawl tumbled past him and into the stairway hall a small missile launched itself out of the melee. Kham caught the hurtling ork child, his oldest son Tully, and pivoted in place, swinging Tully at arm's-length. The child squealed in delight.

Twice more around, then he tossed Tully high, catching him under the arms and lowering him to the floor. "More!" the child yelled. Kham complied, as always. Out the corner of his eye, he could see Shan-dra, Tully's littermate, staring from the doorway. Setting Tully down and tousling his hair to stifle his cries of "More!", Kham spoke to his daughter. "Hello, Shandy."

"Hello, daddy."

Crouching closer to her height, he said, "Come give me a hug."

Shandra hugged herself and shook her head.

It was the way she was most of the time now. He hoped it was just a phase. He straightened and took off his jacket, hanging it on a peg and slinging his weapon belt over it. He held his arms out to his daughter. "Come to daddy." She remained where she was, staring. He followed her gaze, dropping his eyes to his artificial hand. The chrome gleamed softly in the low light, a shiny ghost of the flesh that had been. He took a step toward her and she bolted back to the kitchen.

"You don't need her, Daddy," Tully said, affixing himself to Kham's leg.

Kham scooped him up. The boy gave his father a squeeze around the neck, then settled back to nestle in the strong sweep of Kham's arm. Tully reached out a hand and ran it along the smooth plastic of the flesh-metal interface and down over the rigid alloy of Kham's hand. "It's hard, Dad. Like you."

"Ya gonna be hard when yer big, Tully?"

"Uh-huh."

"That's my boy," Kham said, with a delighted smile.

Kham heard familiar footsteps approaching. Lissa. He turned to face her. She was as beautiful as ever, if a bit tousled from her work in the kitchen. Her tusks, | delicate and fine, gleamed like old ivory. They showed j particularly clear when she was frowning, which she J was now. She stopped about a meter away and put one | hand on her hip while the other unconsciously ca- I ressed Shandra's head. Clinging to her mother's leg, the girl sobbed softly. Lissa said some quiet words to — her before looking at Kham. |

"About time." "

"Had a meet."

She looked at him for a moment, then bent down and whispered to Shandra. The girl nodded her head and ran toward the kitchen. Lissa straightened to face Kham again. "You've got a run then."

"Most likely. Got another meet tonight."

She folded her arms. "This better not be another story, Kham. We need the money.'

"We'll get it."

"And I don't need the grief." Taking a step forward, she tugged Tully from his arms. Setting him down, she said, "Get along, Tully. Teresa needs your help in the kitchen."

"Aw, Mom."

"Go!"

Tully sulked off.

"We were playing," Kham said.

"He's got work, even if no one else around here does. You think this hall runs itself?"

Kham knew from experience that she didn't really want an answer to that question. In fact, she went on to answer it herself in an all-too-familiar tirade. He shouldn't have been gone so long. He shouldn't get in the way around the hall. He should've brought home some money. He shouldn't keep the kids from doing their chores. And on and on and on. He nodded in the right places and shook his head in the other right places. He lost his appetite as his stomach went sour. Why did it have to be this way?

For all her harping, he still loved her. He wanted to tell her that. He reached out a hand to gather her to him, realizing too late that he had reached out with his right. She flinched away from him, a flash of horror reflected in the chrome of his hand. Then she stood her ground and let him gather her in his arms.

"I love ya," he said.

She said nothing.

"It's gonna be all right."

"How can you say that, Kham? Everything's different now.''

Her voice was shaky. He knew she was worried, scared for the kids mostly. That was what made her shrill so often now. He caressed her hair with his right hand and she shivered, so he stopped. "Nuttin's changed."

"It has," she said softly.

He knew her words for truth. Ever since he'd gotten his cybernetic replacements, Lissa had been different,

cold and distant. She shuddered when he touched her with the replacement hand. It was easier sometimes not to touch her at all.

"Dere's lotsa guys wid enhancements on da streets. Orks, too. Their chicas don't got problems wit dem." "It's not real."

"But I ain't no vat-grown corp monster. I'm still me. Kham, yer husband. An artificial hand and syn-tetic muscles in my leg don't change dat." "I haven't left you, have I?" "No."

"I've been a good wife, haven't I? I take care of the kids. I feed this crew and run herd on this brawl you call a hall. You can't say I don't."

"No, I can't." They both knew that the street was not a nice place, and there were damned few shelters that didn't want a SIN before they did anything for you. It was all part of the system, which didn't work for orks like them.

"If it wasn't fer da implants, I'd be a crip. I wouldn't be able ta take care of ya and da kids." "I know that." "I still love ya and da kids." "I know that."

But Lissa didn't sound like she really believed it. "I didn't abandon ya, like John Parker did his woman when he took up shadowrunning. And yer not a widow, like Teresa, Asa, or Komiko. What if I'da died on dose runs last year fer Sam Verner? What if I'da died aboard dat damned, drowned sub like Teresa and Komiko's men? What woulda happened ta ya and da kids den?"

"I don't know."* "An honest answer at least." He held her tight, careful to keep his replacement hand from touching her flesh. "But I did survive dose runs even dough da first cost me my hand and part 'a my leg. Drek! I survived da run and was back up in time ta go on annoder inta dat damned bug-filled submarine fer da dogboy. It takes a tough guy ta get back up dat fast, and I'm tough. I'm a survivor, babe. I'm a rough, tough ork like I gotta be."

"Not every ork is as tough as you," she said, breaking free of his embrace.

"Don't I know it."

"Well, you don't know everything!" She ran away, crying.

Kham just stood there, confused and frustrated. He never seemed able to find the words Lissa wanted to hear. He thought about going after her, but what good would it do? After the meet, when he had some money, things would be better.

As he stood there lost in his thoughts, Jord and the rest of the hunters came into the hall, prancing and shouting. "Hey, dad! Look what I caught," Jord yelled, swinging his prize by the tail. A cat.