Anthology - SHADOWRUN - Spells and Chrome

The kid kept bracing his feet against the edge of the unit and pushing off, which pissed me off until I turned around and backed into the unit, feeling around under the edge for the release.

I found the button and pushed it. As I stepped forward, to get out of the way, the kid threw himself to one side so hard I almost fell on my face.

Believe it or not, I actually panicked for a moment, afraid I was going to fall on the kid and hurt him.

Fortunately, I caught myself, though I twisted my ankle, and my foot folded underneath. I hopped a couple of times to catch my balance again, without putting any pressure on my foot, but it felt like I'd broken every bone in my foot and torn every tendon in my leg.

I hate getting old.

Behind me, the rustle of heavy fabric and a rush of air told me the balloon was inflating. Turning, I watched it pop free and rise above it, a dozen cables holding it to the box.

They make pretty fine plastics for all purposes these days, but cloth doesn't reflect radar and, filled with helium rather than hot air, it wouldn't show a heat signature either.

The kid jerked again and I caught myself on the already-damaged ankle.

"Goddamnit, kid," I growled, my eyes tearing up from the pain. "You act like you never want to see your mother again."

He stopped struggling, just like that.

Who'da thought it'd be that easy? Kids.

Once all the lines were clear and the balloon loomed over the box, I stepped over the edge and settled down inside it. What with the helium tanks, there wasn't much room for me and the kid. The frost on the tanks warned me not to touch them. Fire-burn, freezer-burn: burn is burn and it hurts. Avoid hurt.

In the middle of the floor of the box was a handle. One twist and the box came free of the roof and off we went, rising silently into the air.

I almost dared to breathe.

Until I heard the helicopters.

Maybe they were friendly, maybe not. Probably not.

Riding a balloon is deathly quiet. Since you move with the wind, there is no sound from that. You are far enough up that you don't hear much of anything from the ground.

I sat up enough to peer over the edge of the box and saw the lights of the city creeping by below us. All I could hope for was that without radar or IR to find us, the helicopters would fly right by.

Still, I reached over and eased open the valve on the nearest cannister. Helium hissed and I could feel the minutest rise of the balloon. The choppers will be low, looking for us, so the higher we went, the less likely they would find us.

Not to mention that having a helicopter blade slash the gasbag would change the ending of the story.

I settled back for the ride. I felt the kid shiver against my chest, and I looked down to see he had wrapped his arms around himself.

The bottom-most pocket on my right leg contained my first aid kit. Kind of silly to carry it, since most times you either got away clean or were leaving body parts behind, but I had a mylar survival blanket in the kit.

My ancient fingers almost fumbled enough to lose it but I managed to get it wrapped around us enough to save some heat. The kid didn't stop shivering, but the shakes weren't as bad.

My knee and ankle were both killing me, my body felt like I'd been pulled backwards through a knothole, and what I wanted more than anything else was a big glass of single malt.

But I'd pulled it off. Got the kid, kept the data.

Just needed to drift across Lake Washington and wait for AIS to pick us up.

The kid had fallen asleep against my chest, still shivering a little. But I had done it. Succeeded. Won.

That had seemed a lot more important when I was younger.

I got bored a lot of times, hiding out all these years, wishing there were some op I could join and feel a bit of that old excitement. Now, though, I just wanted to crawl back into my hole. I was way too old to be doing this stuff and whatever thrill it had had for me as a kid, it just scared me now.

Realized that I hadn't even asked the elf who'd hired him. Well, I never expected getting any name besides 'Johnson' anyway, even assuming the rohypnol would have made him talk.

I hate making mistakes. John Wayne didn't make stupid ones like that.

Could have made some use of the bonus from that, too, but I would have to settle for what I was going to collect when I turned the kid over.

All in all, though, I love it when a plan comes together.

Wish there were more of us still alive who remembered where that line came from. Wetwork By Stephen Dedman

Stephen Dedman is the author of the novels Shadowrun: A Fistful of Data; The Art of Arrow Cutting; Shadows Bite and Foreign Bodies, and more than 100 short stories published in an eclectic variety of magazines and anthologies. An avid GM, he has also written for GURPS and V amp;V, and has been shadowrunning since 1990. For more info, check out www.stephendedman.com.

The rain thundered down, as loud on the roof and sidewalks as hail and so thick that George White couldn't see the other side of Western Avenue through the ballistic glass panel in his door. He sighed, and wondered whether he should close early: Seattlites were accustomed to rain, of course, but he couldn't imagine anybody venturing out in weather like this to buy army surplus camping gear, or anything else he sold. He yawned, then started channel-hopping on the sports networks in the hope of finding either a good urban brawl game or a swimsuit special, until the door opened and someone hurried in. White looked up, his fat face bland as usual, and glanced at the customer. Unsurprisingly, he was wearing a long raincoat with a waterproof hood that hid most of his face.

A chiphead, thought White, or some other addict, with something to fence. And if he's desperate enough to come out in this weather, he really needs the nuyen fast. "Help you?" he asked cheerfully.

"I hope so," said the man, looking around the shop while he fiddled with the drawstring on his hood. "You sell guns and ammo, right?"

"I sell them, yes," said White warily as he grabbed the taser he kept under the counter. "If you have the right ID."

The man walked towards him. "I need some special stuff," he said quietly. "Mil-spec, hard to get. I heard you might have what I'm after. Didn't you used to be a supply sergeant?"

"Yeah, in the reserves. Do I know you from there? I'm not that good with faces." He looked the man up and down, re-assessing him. He seemed watchful, but not nervous, like someone who was used to guard duty. And he had weird parallel scars just above the top of his collar, as though he'd been clawed by something very nasty. No, not scars, White realized: rents. Open wounds, except that they weren't bleeding.

"No, it was just something I heard around the… traps."

White nodded slightly. "What do you want?"

"Caseless ammo for an M24A3 carbine. 6mm Gyrojet Plus. Any sort of missile launcher that works underwater. And other stuff-ration bars, inflatable boat, that sort of thing."

The merchant blinked. He had a long-standing policy of never asking a client why he wanted a particular item, but something about the man made him uneasy. "Going fishing?" he asked, his voice dry.

"You can't be too careful nowadays," came the reply. "Sea leeches, sea drakes, saltwater serpents, unicorn fish, torpedo sharks, kraken… it pays to be prepared."

The merchant relaxed. "I have a Spike in stock, heat-seeker, dual-purpose high explosive warhead, reduced backblast. I can get others, if you need more, but it'll take a few days. Same with the caseless. The gyrojet… sorry. I've never had one in here."

The man smiled. "Wrong," he said, pulling a revolver out of his coat before White could react. White barely had time to recognize the gun as a Taurus Multi-6 before the man shot him through the eye. • • •