Robert Charette - Never deal with a Dragon

Sam sat up groggily, shaking his head to clear it. For a moment, he was confused, but the smell soon brought it all back. A quick glance told him that he and the Amerindian were the only two people in the room.

“Where are the others?”

“We thought it best to move them to a safer place till we get back.”

Sam nodded as Ghost padded silently across the room. Perhaps the man spoke true. Or perhaps the runners were holding the others hostage for his good behavior. He didn’t want to believe that they had killed his fellows to be free of the need to guard them, but that possibility nagged, too. Crenshaw’s cynical voice echoed in his head. Could he really trust these people?

Sam creaked his way across the old boards. In the outer room, he found Sally, Ghost, and the Ork all strapping on various bits of gear and checking their weapons.

“Where’s Dodger?”

Sally gave him a smile. “Don’t worry. He’s in a place where he can jack into the Matrix undisturbed. He’ll be riding shotgun in cyberspace, just like last time.”

“Are the others with him?”

“Let’s not get too inquisitive,” she advised.

Having inserted a knife into his boot sheath, Ghost scooped a bundle from the floor and tossed it. Sam fumbled the catch, surprised by its weight. The black paper garment was obviously covering some bulky object. He poked at it, revealing the soft gleam of metal. Sam unwrapped it further.

“A slivergun,” Ghost informed him. “Can you use it?” Sam looked down at the evilly gleaming weapon. “No.”

“Great,” moaned the Ork. “He’s gonna get our behinds fried, Sally.”

“If he does, he goes with us,” she replied. “You do understand that, Verner?”

He did. All too well. He tried saying so, but the words stuck in his throat. He nodded instead.

“And don’t forget it,” the Ork snarled. “I’ll be keeping my eye on you.”

Under that watchful eye, Sam carefully placed the pistol on the floor and pulled on the coveralls that had enshrouded it. After sealing them closed, he buckled on the belt and holster he had missed in the excitement of discovering the gun.

“Ooh, look,” the Ork cooed. “A ferocious shadowrunner. I’m so frightened.”

“Dump it, Kham,” Sally ordered. “Verner will do all right if you ease up a bit.”

She settled her weapon belt across her hips and, in a swirl of fringed duster, turned for the window. Sam started to follow, but came up short as a hand gripped his arm. He craned his neck around to find Ghost’s ragged grin. A poke in his ribs directed his gaze down toward the gun the Amerindian was holding. Sam swallowed hard. He didn’t want it, but if they trusted him to carry it, he probably should trust their belief that it might be necessary. He took the weapon, settling its unfamiliar weight into the holster.

The fire escape creaked and rattled under the combined weight of the shadowrunners. Sam feared that it would rip loose from the crumbling brick wall and pitch them all into the alley. To his surprise, the rickety construct was still intact when they reached the bottom.

Three motorcycles waited in the alley. Two of the bikes were sleek Yamaha Rapiers, their chrome and plastic smooth and unmarked. The third was a heavy hog its nameplate proclaiming it a Harley Scorpion. The machine was all motor, iron, and mysterious clamps and fastenings.

“You ride with me,” the Ork grunted as he swung onto the big Scorpion.

Sam climbed up behind the odorous metahuman. There was nothing to grip but the Ork himself, a decision Sam had barely made when Kham jumped the bike forward. Sam nearly tumbled off as they rounded the corner. The petrochem roar of the Rapiers soon joined the howl of the Scorpion, and they cruised in vee-formation down the streets of the Barrens.

The ride through the streets showed Sam the same face of Seattle he had seen on their walk to meet the fixer, at least until they left the urban wasteland of the Barrens. Once into the more civilized districts, the street crowds thinned and the noise and glare diminished. Somehow the runners did not look out of place. There were still other bikers in leather and long coats. The hard-edged types that had filled the streets of the Barrens were leavened with more ordinary folks, salarymen, families, and ordinary workers out for a good time.

Seattle was a border town, isolated among the wild lands of the Salish-Shidhe Council. It was an outpost of the United Canadian-American States in the midst of a foreign land, a trading post within the world of the Pacific. As such, it could be a rough-and-tumble place, just like in the old days of the wild west, Sam decided, when a man or woman often carried the law in a holster.

Even so, the corporations frowned on anything that might seriously affect business, and so there were peace officers. Private cops and the Lone Star patrols kept the heavy weaponry from the streets and protected their masters. What people did to each other did not concern the corporations, but what they might do to corporate holdings or personnel did.

Sam found this balance of wildness and civilization strange after the ordered peace of greater Tokyo. The strangeness had a vitality that the Japanese capital, with all its culture, sophistication, and history, lacked. Maybe he was beginning to like Seattle.

The closer they came to the central business district, the more civilized the street traffic became. Electric cars and public transport became common sights as the bikers became rare in proportion to the prowl cars bearing the Lone Star logo. The numbers of folk on the street shifted more in favor of the corporate workers, but the outre element never quite disappeared. The odd and the strange hung at the outskirts of Sam’s awareness in a way he had never experienced on the streets of Tokyo. He found it exhilarating.

Well into downtown Seattle, they turned onto Alaskan Way and headed south. Ahead, dwarfing the nearby buildings, loomed the arcology. Shining out from the mostly darkened north face of the structure, the cool blue of Renraku’s name in English and Japanese complemented the gold glow from the company’s dot-and-expanding-wavefront logo.

Once, Sam had found those symbols comforting, a sign of home. They looked gigantic and unattainable floating above Seattle. And ominous. He imagined the circle that was supposed to be the source of the communication waves as a radar dish, its arc-shaped waves as all-seeing energy seeking out those who might harm the corporation. His earlier excitement fled, banished by nervous fear. Despite the crowded street, he felt naked and exposed. The Red Samurai must surely be watching their approach.

If they were, they took no action. The runners cut out of the traffic onto a side street, dodging through alleys among the dockside warehouses. They slowed as they neared the loading docks of their destination, Kinebec Transport, but the great corrugated doors remained unmoving.

“Damned Elf missed his cue again,” Kham muttered, his voice almost lost in the noise from his bike’s engine. “Probably off chewing dandelions.”

Ghost signaled a circle around the block, drawing an oath from the Ork. “We’ll attract attention.”

“No help for it,” Sally shouted over the bike’s noise.

On the second pass, the third of the six doors yawned open as they rounded the corner. The runners guided their bikes inside and killed the engines. The massive door rumbled down, swallowing the echoes and shielding them from the street.

Ghost led them unerringly through the darkened building to a maintenance panel. Some last work with a multi-tool had the panel down, allowing them to make their way to the lower level along a ladder of rusty rungs welded to the support girder. A hundred or so meters later, he took them up another ladder. The building they entered smelled of the sea. Sam could hear the faint lap of water against pilings.