Nyx Smith - Fade to Black

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Fade to Black

Nyx Smith

Series - Shadowrun

1994

ISBN: 0-451-45287-9

Scanned, formatted and proofed by Dreamcity

Ebook version 1.0

Release Date: December, 26, 2003

Special thanks to readers Scott Lusby, Ted Swedalla, and Dave Zimmerman, John S. Franca-villo and

Fern R. Francavillo for productive and unique critiques of the original manuscript, RNC for keeping me

honest and more, VD, AP & CR for language tips, JF who knows I'm alive, and TZ who might suspect,

RB, SD, KM, FW, JAW and RZ, for, among other things, enthusiasm and support.

And, of course, Oscar, Madeline ... and Ginger Ann ...

Long may you run.

At 01:14 hours, everything went dark: the rooftop lounge, the aeropad outside it, every light, beacon,

and security system guarding the top of the tower.

Gordon Ito slipped on a pair of light-intensifying shades, checked his watch, and motioned the

uniformed security officers out of the rooftop lounge. Only his personal bodyguard remained.

The blackout was on Gordon's order, engineered via a diagnostic program running on the tower's

operations mainframes-initialized in error, should anyone ever ask. The blackout had been a pre-condition

for the meet about to occur. Gordon did not like the pre-conditions, but he liked far less the reasons that had

compelled, him to call for the meet.

Recent events now forced him to roll up one of his games, a covert op. The prospect displeased him,

all the more so because ending the operation would require special action. All evidence of the op had to be

spirited out of the competition's hands, that or eradicated, before any embarrassing disclosures could be

made. This would cost Gordon a few more nuyen from his clandestine operating budget, but that meant

nothing compared to the risks and the potential for disaster. The games he played always involved high

stakes, commensurate risks, and ominous potentialities.

Now, the chopper came into view, a grayish specter cast in silhouette by the radiant illumination of the

soaring towers of lower Manhattan. The rhythmic thumping of the craft's rotors resounded softly against

the lounge's floor-to-ceiling windows. Gordon recognized the chopper's configuration, that of an A.C.

Plutocrat, a big helo with luxury accommodations, usually reserved for the corporate elite.

Carefully, the chopper settled onto the aeropad outside.

"Iku beki desu," said Gordon's bodyguard.

Gordon shook his head. He would attend this meeting alone, as arranged. He would not need the

bodyguard's protection. That much he could be sure of. The person he was about to meet considered him

too valuable a customer-and perhaps too dangerous a potential enemy-to let anything unwise occur.

Outside, the whirling rotors slowed. Gordon stepped forward. Double transparex doors snapped open

before him. As he walked out onto the aeropad toward the waiting chopper, the wind howled and tugged at

his tailored suit. The aeropad sat perched some two hundred and fifty stories above the street, atop Tower

Five of Fuchi Industrial Electronics' monument to economic imperialism. The wind always raged up here,

and it was always cold and harsh. Gordon knew that better than most.

The door in the flank of the chopper swung open like a pair of jaws, the lower section descending to

provide a set of steps. A man too tall and lean and gaunt to be anything but an elf descended the steps, his

long black duster flapping in the wind. Approaching Gordon, he extended the hand-held probe of a weapons

detector, checked the device, then motioned at the Plutocrat with his chin.

"Estd bien," the elf said. "Entre."

Gordon climbed the steps up into the narrow space directly behind the flight crew. Both pilot and

copilot wore helmets with full, nonreflective visors that masked their features completely. The pair sat like

statues, facing their controls and the broad forward windshield of the chopper, never once turning their

heads.

The door to the rear cabin swung open. Gordon stepped through. The elf followed.

The cabin was ostentatiously appointed in black and red and gold-crushed velvet on the walls, full

carpeting, lush drapes. A pair of men in black mirrorshades and sharply cut gray suits waited to the left and

right of the door. One was big enough to be an ork bodybuilder, the other looked Asian and had the build of

a sumo wrestler. Impassive faces, casual postures. Nothing Gordon hadn't expected. Nothing he'd not seen

before.

The woman seated in the captain's-style chair at the rear of the cabin looked Spanish. She had her

sable hair drawn back sleek and flat from her brow. The gold wire lead of a datawire hung from her right

temple. She wore black visorshades, a sparkling red jacket adorned with swirls of black, tight black slacks

and gleaming scarlet boots. Her name was Sarabande. She was kuromaku, a fixer. She motioned casually

to the chair facing her from across a small oval table. Gordon accepted the offer and sat down. The subtle

thumping of the chopper's rotors grew louder as the craft ascended, swinging out over lower Manhattan

and across the Hudson, toward the blighted regions of Jersey City and Newark. Gordon glanced at the

drape-covered windows and guessed at the chopper's movements. He also checked his watch: 01:18 hours.

The upper stories of Tower Five would be back on-line by now, fully illuminated and operational, while

some slag down in Facility Control would be wondering what the hell had happened. "Your business?"

Sarabande said. "On chip."

"Muy Men."

Gordon opened the synth-digit replacing the end of his left pinkie and drew out an optical chip couched

in a wafer-thin plastic carrier. He held out the chip-carrier. The elf examined it and passed it to his master.

A compact console rose from the center of the table. Sarabande slotted both carrier and chip into a

receiving port. Several minutes passed. Gordon waited.

"A very complete dossier," Sarabande said finally. "The work to be done will require extensive

preparation and will entail a high risk. What price will you pay?' Gordon replied, "Whatever it takes."

"I will require an immediate advance of three hundred thousand nuyen."

"I want multi-level back-up and I want the job expedited."

"Five-hundred thousand nuyen."

"And you guarantee completion." Sarabande showed no reaction. "The work will be attempted by

competent parties taking all reasonable steps to ensure success," she said. That is your guarantee." Gordon

nodded. It would do.

The bar was little more than a counter jammed into an alley between a noodle bar and a booth selling

bootleg simchips. The silver-eyed trog behind the counter had a set of snap-blades strapped to -his right

forearm and a Remington Roomsweeper bolstered low on his left hip, He didn't take nothing but certified

cred. The tequila he served was synthetic, lousy and cheap. So was the soykaf. For the price of a drink or a

kaf, you got to elbow in between the other "clients" and stand there under the awning and watch and wait.

Rico ordered a shot and a kaf, then stood watching the throngs cramming the alley, shuffling by,

sometimes near enough to brush his front.

This was Sector 3, Newark metroplex. Free zone. SIN-less territory. No passes, no badges, no

restrictions. No System Identification Numbers. No straight suits. The people who lived here couldn't hack

it in Manhattan because they had no corporate connection, no background, no SIN. No official anything.

Every slag and slitch had their program for survival. Those who walked the razor knew the rules of

the game. Here in Sector 3, if you wanted to live, you carried metal, heavy metal, and you didn't make no

secret about it. If you had implanted chrome, you made sure everybody knew it, or at least had reason to

suspect it. If somebody met your gaze and held it, you didn't look away for even an instant, because an

instant was all it took. This was 2055. There were slags walking the streets who would cut out your heart

and feed it back to you before you could know you were dead.

Rico leaned back against the bar, one hand dangling near the butt-grip of the Ares Predator 2 slung

from his hip. He kept his eyes moving. He didn't show anything with his face.

Before long, the silver-eyed trog leaned over the bar to say near Rico's ear, "The man's ready,

chummer." Rico nodded.

The alley led onto Ridge Street. Rico joined the jostling, hustling stream of people heading that way:

chipheads, gangers, groupie wannabes, day laborers, cheap muscle, anonymous gutterpunks. Every slant of

human, ork, elf, troll, whatever. They went dressed in cheap paper uniforms, studded synthleather, gleaming

mylar, glistening spandex with chains and ribbons and glowing fiber optics. Face tats and body color. At

least a few of these slags were here because they wanted in on the biz. Sector 3 might be impoverished,

over-crowded, crime-ridden, the seventh and lowest circle of a decaying urban hell, but it was one of the

best markets in the plex. Anything could be had for the right amount of nuyen. And some things could be

had for practically nothing at all. People said this part of the plex used to be lined with little two- and

three-story houses, brownstones, tenement apartments. Nice places where nice families lived. Rico doubted

it. The traces were few, and most of what people said usually amounted to pure drek, like what comes out

the butt-end of a bull.

Sector 3 was all steel and crete now, rising up seven stories with retrofitted pipes and conduits, all of it

scorched by the acid of the nightly rains and stained black and brown by soot and all the other garbage in

the air. Garish neon signs glared from every direction, the night burned as bright as day. Stores and shops

filled the ground floors of the buildings. Booths and stalls flanked the sidewalks. Ad stands lined the curbs,

sound tracks reverberating, echoing. The street itself was divided in half by four- and five-story coffin

hotels mat ran from corner to comer, served by rusted metal gangways. Vehicle traffic was banned. You

caught an auto-cab in the underground, or the subway, or you walked Rico paused to look as the staccato

stammer of automatic weapons arose suddenly from the general direction of Abington Avenue East He

saw only the mass of people surrounding him, passive, stone-featured faces. He took his lead from the

crowd and continued on. The rising shriek of belt-screamers alerted him to the DocWagon High Threat

Response team coming his way, bruising path through the congested street. The two orks with the team ran

interference. Rico shoved into the crowd at his left to get out of the way, then turned the corner onto

Treadwell Street.

At mid-block was a four-story brownstone with a porch and steps sided by black metal railing-a

remnant of the times long gone, if what people said was so.

On the brownstone's porch waited a pair of razorguys in studded blue synthleather. They were prime

cutters, chromed to the max and willing to prove it. Rico knew that for a fact, he could have guessed it at a

glance. The cutters held themselves like real gillettes, like they had whatever it might take to meet." any

challenge from the street. They watched Rico start up the steps with what looked like casual indifference,

but as he reached the porch, they stepped into his path-no hesitation, no doubt about what they were doing.

Stop or fight, that was the message.

Sometimes a man had no choice but to fight. This wasn't one of those times. Watching the cutters'

eyes, Rico said, "I'm expected."

"We know," one said quietly.

Moments passed. Rico waited. Custom had to be satisfied. Certain things had to be done in certain

ways. You didn't just walk up the steps to the man's house and breeze right through the front door. Rico

knew all that and had no objections. If nothing else, respect demanded it.

Another prime cutter came to the door, looked out, motioned Rico inside and led him through the

house. No one asked to check his weapons or suggested he give them up. Respect worked both ways.

They came to an expansive atrium rising to a translucent roof four stories overhead. Colorful exotic

birds flitted around, darting among the limbs of a few tall tress or watching from various perches high up on

the walls. The birds alone were probably worth a fortune. The rest was like something you'd only see on

the Museum Channel: bushes, flowering shrubs, beds of flowers. A waterfall. A path winding through it all

like a stream of pure white liquid marble. Rico's escort paused at the entrance to the garden and motioned

him ahead.

The path led to the center of the garden, a circular patio surrounded by pillars set with busts of slags

from ancient history. Rico recognized two of them-the busts of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. The

man he was here to see liked to talk about slags like that sometimes.

The man was known as Mr. Victor. He sat looking at Rico from the round transparex table at the

center of the patio. He wore his thin black hair drawn back flat against his head to the nape of his neck,

where it blossomed into the brief bushy extravagance of a ponytail. That was the only extravagant aspect

of his appearance. The rest was severe, even grim. He wore a suit and tie of jet black, a crisp white shirt,

no jewelry of any kind. Based purely on his appearance, he might have been an undertaker or a corporate

exec. In truth, he was far more.

He smiled in greeting and waved briefly at the other transparex chair at the table. Rico nodded and

moved to sit. "How are you, my friend?" Mr. Victor said. "I'm good."

"One of the best." Rico shrugged.

"Only the truth, my friend." Mr. Victor smiled faintly, then snapped his fingers sharply and gestured.

The house-boy standing nearby brought a tray of coffee, which he served in small china cups. Not kaf, not

synthetic. The real thing, its aroma rich and flavorful. Like wine, Rico thought. Wine from the finest

vineyards of France. It smelled that good. The taste was indescribable.

Mr. Victor waved a hand and the houseboy went away. "I regret that I had some other business to

attend to this evening," Mr, Victor said. "That is why I could not see you immediately. Forgive the delay."

"Seguro," Rico said, nodding definitely. "But you don't owe me no explanations."

"I owe you much," Mr. Victor's expression turned sober, men abruptly filled with disgust. "These slags

I saw before you came... they make me ill. They are not men, you understand? They are like dogs. Eager

for any scrap I will feed them. There is nothing they would not do for a price."

Quietly Rico said, "They have no honor." Mr. Victor nodded, "No honor. No morals. No respect For

themselves or anyone else. One job is the same as the next. They would kill their own madras for enough

nuyen. They call themselves runners. 'Shadowrunners.'" Mr. Victor turned his head aside and leaned over

and made as if to spit "They step over the line into darkness, these dogs. They are criminals. I would not

deal with them except that I have nothing against setting dogs on other dogs. Criminals against other

criminals. I hope you do no hold that against me, my friend."

"I should judge what you do?" Rico replied. "I don't think so."

"That is your right. Your right as a man. I respect you. I respect your opinions. Tell me what you

think."

Rico did not have to think long. "I think you got good reasons for whatever you do. How you deal with

criminals is your business. Not mine."

"You hold generous opinions, my friend."

"Maybe. Where it is due."

Mr. Victor sat still a few moments, looking off across the garden. When he spoke, he kept his voice

quiet, private. There was a sadness in his tone. "It's difficult to find work for a man such as you. There is

always work in the shadows, but some jobs you will not accept. I am always on the watch for the right kind

of work, you know this. Jobs appropriate not just for you, but for you and your team of specialists."

Rico nodded.

"You have heard the name L. Kahn?"

"Seguro," Rico said, again nodding. The name L Kahn was well known throughout the Newark

metroplex. With that name came many rumors but few verifiable facts. Rico understood the name to be a

Johnson, like a cipher. A name to be used where real names were never used. The man behind the name

"L. Kahn" was said to have juice, connections, money. It was said that he had contracted for some of the

biggest jobs ever pulled in the Newark plex.

"I can arrange for you to meet this man."

Rico didn't doubt it. Mr. Victor had juice of his own. "What's the deal?"

"My friend, I am a businessman," Mr. Victor said. "I am the man in the middle. I bring prospective

clients together with specialists such as yourself. Whether the client is a businessman like me or the party

offering an original contract is of no importance to my trade. You see why I am reminding you of this?"

"You only got some of the details."

"Si, a few. L. Kahn asks to be connected with an experienced team possessing a broad range of

capabilities. He has said that the contract is for a high-risk job, and that the pay will be commensurate to

that risk. I am led to believe that the assignment comes from high places. A success here could add great

weight to your reputation."

"What's the run involve?"

"It was described to me as being in the nature of a recovery job. Naturally, I thought you would

approve."

"What's being recovered?"

"That is for L. Kahn to say."

"Could be a datasnatch."

"It could be many things, my friend,"

"I heard L. Kahn contracted for the Winter Systems job."

"That is only rumor."

"Still..."

Winter Systems had contracts for police services in Manhattan, Union City, and other places around

the New York-New Jersey megaplex. The Winter Systems job had involved the kidnapping and murder of

several Winter Systems execs, and, incidentally, a conspiracy that had touched practically every major corp

in the megaplex.

The murders were what mattered to Rico. He did not do killing for hire. Neither did he do kidnapping.

Neither did anyone in his group. "You trust this slag L. Kahn?"

"Can anyone be trusted, my friend?"

"Some can. Some can't."

Mr. Victor paused for a few moments, then said, "As you well know, there are no guarantees in this

life. I would say that L. Kahn can be trusted. More than some, less than others. I have not heard that L.

Kahn has ever broken a contract or betrayed a trust. You must decide for yourself, my friend. Merely tell

me now whether I should arrange a meet."

Rico thought about it, and nodded, "Si."

"Consider it done, my friend."

Thorvin didn't much notice the first few bangs and pings against the sides of the van. He was busy.

He'd managed to pull the G-6 torque converter out of the drive train of an otherwise ruined Gaz-Willys

Nomad. That was like finding gold. The G-6 was built like an anvil, durable as a slab of tempered steel.

Finding one amid the wasted, ghost-haunted toxic graveyard of Newark's Sector 13 was a freaking miracle,

though it didn't really surprise him. He'd been hunting through the crumbling projects and derelict tenements

around the old airport for years. That was how he'd dug up the City of Linden no-parking sign, now hanging

in his garage. And who saw any of those standing around anymore? Thorvin knew there were treasures

here, minor mechanical marvels, gleaming motes of engineering majesty not apparent, much less

comprehensible to the ordinary eye. He just hadn't expected to stumble over, of all things, a G-6 torquer.

The prizes to be had in this sector ran heavily on the side of wafer-guided electronics, appliances, household

drek.Something clanged loudly against the side of the van. With that rose a howling that sounded decidedly

unnatural.

Thorvin paused and looked up.

When the van starting rocking back and forth like a boat turned crossways to a heaving

sea-accompanied by a storm of clanging and banging-he dropped his chrome ratchet and can of lubricant

and ran, tool belts clanking, to the front of the van, hopping over toolcases, a stripped-down engine block, an

eviscerated Suzuki Aurora, a partly disassembled Kaydee A.C. condenser twinpak, hubcaps, nuts and bolts,

an antique C.R.T., and an old General Products multifuel power generator, like a freaking kangaroo!

The ghoulies had come a-calling. Thorvin leaped up into the driver's seat and slapped the black lead

from the driver's console into the datajack at the side of his neck. His vision blanked, then returned. The

van's external vid-pickups replaced his eyes and ears. The van had become his body.

The ghoulies were there all right, all around him. Pounding on his armor-reinforced, metal-alloy flanks.

Using fists, bricks, and metal bars. Skeletal jaws flapping, fingernails like talons, clothes hanging in rags,

they looked like rotting corpses just emerged from their worm-infested holes. And Thorvin knew what they

wanted. They liked their meat raw. Human was best, decayed and rotting even better, but in a pinch, if

enough of them got together, they'd go for anything, even something alive. Even a freaking dwarf!

Just the thought of those slimy, decaying monstrosities clawing at his metal-alloy skin sent chills up his

rear doors. Back. Whatever. No effing way they'd get inside. He had a Magnum V-12 850-horsepower

blower-driven petrochem heart. For blood he had Super-98 octane with injected nitrous oxide. He set his

power plant to roaring and slammed his tranny into drive. His rear wheels churned, screaming, sending up a

billowing storm cloud of smoke, seizing the road and hurling him ahead.

The gleaming red graphic indicators overlaying his external view went wild. Velocity shot toward 200

kph. Engine revs pegged max. Targeting indicators guided by his onboard combat comp streaked left and

right, winking and flashing. A raucous symphony of electronic warning tones, beeps, and bleeps rilled the

back of his head, his real head, somewhere inside ... not quite forgotten.

Things bounced off his van-body, banged and slammed and then fell away. Building debris, derelict

cars, assorted junk, garbage, and other things, not junk or garbage. Things that squished and splatted. Like

bodies. There must be a whole tribe of the freaking zombie cannibals hanging around, closing in from

all sides. That's what he got for treasure-hunting so near the freaking cemeteries. Suddenly, one stood in

the road directly in front of him, a shambling monstrosity with spindly limbs hefting what looked like a

freaking shoulder-mounted Panther assault cannon.

Thorvin's own nervous system pegged max.

The M-134 minigun in the pod on his roof popped up and stammered rapid-fire. The ghoulie in the road

jerked and spun, then slammed against the crash-grille guarding Thorvin's front end.

An ocean of red-tinted slime splashed across Thorvin's external sensors. Mentally he flinched. The

van swerved and pitched, bounding up then slamming down. Things crashed. Fortunately, his all-terrain

General Products F-6900 self-healing tires could really take a pounding. He switched on his forward-looking

infrared radar and found himself hurtling straight into a building wall.

Panic time.

He cut his wheels right, roared up an alley, smashed through a pair of cyclone fences, and shot out

onto a broad open space like a weed-infested parking field.

Bad move.

A half-dozen beat-up, smashed-out petrochem heaps were wheeling around the crumbling,

debris-strewn concrete. As many as a dozen motorcycles whizzed back and forth. Every driver and every

passenger held some kind of weapon-handguns, rifles, shotguns, SMGs. Thorvin recognized the colors even

as the thundering barrage of gunfire assaulted his audio pickups. He'd steered himself right into a freaking

war! Chiller-thrillers versus a go-go-gang, the Toxic Marauders versus the Rahway Blades.

Great Freaking great.

A cycle came screaming toward him. Bullets pinged and panged rapid-fire off his front grille. Winking

red targeting markers homed in on the cycle. Thorvin opened up with his minigun and hurled himself into a

skidding, tire-screaming half-circle.

The cycle exploded.

Thorvin fired himself back down the alley. A storm of rocks, bricks, chunks of metal, and other junk

crashed against his sides and roof as he roared out onto the street. Ghoulies again. Just freaking great. He

set his power plant to whining, and went squealing around the very next corner, almost, but not quite,

hopping up onto two wheels.

That was Peerless ADH antishock stabilizers for you. Nice. Very nice.

"Shank."

What was that? Somebody saying his name? He didn't know who or why and he didn't really care,

anyway. He ignored it. "Shank!"

"Dammit, Shank, wake up!" Somebody grabbed his shoulder and started shaking it hard. He couldn't

just ignore it. He guessed who was probably doing the shaking and realized that ignoring her would be

useless. Evonne was usually okay, chill enough to live with. But when she got something stuck up her butt,

bad enough to risk waking him up, she could get him so mad that beating her brains out, or worse, almost

seemed like a good idea.

Luckily for her, he had nothing to prove. Evonne needed what little brains she had.

The cursing got louder. Hands gripped his arms and began pulling him up, making him sit up. Water

splashed into his face, maybe half a liter. It was kind of refreshing, really. He rubbed his eyes, stretched his

arms and yawned, and looked around.

The amber-tinted lamp by the bedside cast a glow through the room that showed Shank all he needed

to see. He was in his bedroom, which was simply furnished, sheathed in synthfurs and deeply carpeted.

Evonne and her sister Kefee stood beside the bed. Evonne looked angry, Kefee upset. None of that was so

unusual that Shank paid more than passing notice.

What he really noticed, and not for the first time, was what a hot-looking biff Evonne was-built to last,

right down to her girlish set of fangs. A real turn-on, especially when she got sleazy, and even more so

when she got mad. Her sister Kefee looked kind of frail, more like a human biff, not very enticing. "They're

back!" Evonne growled. Shank ran a hand back over his hair, scratched behind his right ear. "Who?"

"The bangers?' Evonne growled, more forcefully than before, staring at him like he should just

automatically know what she was talking about. "They're stuffing Chak! Right in the alley!"

Stuffing Chak ...?

Evonne thrust a hand up and out to her left, toward the alley. Kefee just looked scared and said,

"Shank, please!"

Right.

Shank shook himself awake. Everybody had obviously decided that the problem, Chak getting stuffed,

beaten, or whatever, was something Shank ought to handle. It was probably Evonne's idea. No point in

arguing. She was probably right. Shank had kind of inherited Kefee and her kids when Kefee's man got

wasted in a Bronx firefight. Chak, her oldest kid, was still pretty young, only nine or ten, and, ork or not, that

didn't make him much of a fighter. Not even against ordinary humans. Maybe one-on-one, but not against a

whole gang. A gang would call for some serious head-banging.

Shank heaved himself to his feet and headed for the door. The women stepped quickly out of his

way-and good thing, too. It looked like he had a fight coming on. This soon after being woken up, he had no

trouble getting into the mood.

The passageway outside was jammed, mostly with kids and more women. This week most of. the

adult males from Shank's hall, the ones any good in a fight, were in the Roselle Park jail, off Raritan Road.

Something to do with stuffing a bunch of mafiosi. The maf shoulda learned by now to keep their butts the

hell outta Port Sector.

"Coming through," Shank grumbled.

People got outta his way, and those who didn't got bumped. They were all jamming up toward the end

of the hall to peer around the corner and up the stairs toward the alley. A helluva lot of good that did. Shank

waded through the final meter of bodies, then turned the corner and plodded up the stairs two at a time. The

steel trap door at alley-level stood open. Shank trod right on through.

The group was right there, barely three meters away, clearly visible against the dusky gray of a

moonless night. Chak looked to be the one on the ground taking all the punches and kicks. None of the

gangers seemed to notice as Shank stepped up behind them. That made things pretty fragging easy. He

reached out for the nearest two and banged their heads together. They dropped bonelessly to the ground.

The other gangers noticed him then. Mostly they just looked at him and stared. And gaped. Very scary.

Shank grabbed the nearest one by the arm, jerked him off his feet, swung him around, and then slammed

him into the building wall on the right. That one fell, too. Not very tough, these bangers. Not very fast either,

all things considered. And not very smart,

One lifted a knife toward Shank's nose, and snarled, "Skin you alive!"

Shank grabbed the wrist behind the knife, then jerked the whole arm into the air, lifting the ganger right

off his feet. The slag flailed with his free arm, slapping, punching, and even tried kicking. Shank snorted.

What a joke. One punch to the face and the ganger slumped. Shank let him fall.

That left three of the gangers standing. One pulled a gun and pointed it directly at Shank's face, which

was really a pretty stupid thing to do. If you wanted to shoot an ork, you aimed someplace that might hurt,

not at his rock-hard skull. Shank ducked and reached out and the gun went off. He felt a wave of heat rush

past his left ear, but that was it. A second shot went off, but by then Shank had his hand wrapped around

the barrel of the gun. Which was all the hold he needed. He jerked the gun free, then grabbed the ganger

by his jacket collar.

"Bye-bye," he said, and heaved the slag against a convenient wall, the wall on the left, just to keep

things even. The ganger slumped to the ground the same way the others did, like a sack of raw meat. And

that left only two still standing. "That pair began backing away, looking scared. Shank pointed the gun, a

Colt Manhunter, something particularly appropriate for an ork to use, and said, "Move again an' you're

dead." The two gangers froze.

By then, Chak was on his feet and looking back and forth like he didn't know what to do, which

probably he didn't. The kid's face was streaked with blood and looked kinda swollen, but it'd take more than

that to put him out. Never mind who he had for a mother, Chak was husky for his age and he had balls.

Cojones, some would say. That translated into staying power.

Shank resisted a smile. To tell the truth, he liked the kid. Chak was always asking about his tattoos and

the dust-ups he'd been in with the Dragon Regiment and other mere units down in Aztlan and other places.

It was hard to resist naked admiration.

"You all right?" Shank asked.

Chak nodded, breathing hard, maybe a little too hard to speak clearly.

"Get a rope and a knife."

"Kay ..."

Chak nodded and hustled off, but was back in a minute or so. Evonne and her sister and half the

crowd from the hallway below followed Chak up the stairs. Shank motioned for the crowd to stay put. He

had a gun in his hand and work that needed his attention. He wasn't about to put up with any squawking or

unwelcome questions or suggestions. At a wave, Chak brought the knife and rope.

"Tie 'em," Shank told him. "Them two first."

Shank motioned at the pair of gangers still standing. Chak set to work binding their wrists behind their

backs, and none too gently. Shank didn't care about that. Those fragging gangers deserved it. That and

worse. What worried him was what to do next.

Executing prisoners wasn't his style. He'd had a bellyful of that down in fragging Azzie-land. He'd

once thought he'd seen it all, but that was nothing compared to what butchers the Aztlan troopers could be.

He'd have none of that here. What were his options? He could call the cops, but they couldn't give a slot

about some minor-ass gang problem, not here in Sector 12. And he couldn't just let the gangers loose. By

sundown tomorrow, they'd be hot on the butts of the kids from his hall, and Chak especially. Worse, he'd

never hear the end of it. Evonne would see to that. He had to do something along the lines of making a

permanent fix.

But what?

Goddamn his thick skull, anyway. If he'd been born any dumber, he'd be dangerous just taking a crap.

And some of the slags in his old regiment used to rag him about that, too.

Evonne said, "Shank-"

"Can it."

She did.

Right then, something with about a billion-candlepower's worth of headlights, driving lights, fog lights,

off-road lights, and side- and roof-mounted spotlights, pulled into the end of the alley and came rolling

straight toward him. Shank realized what was behind all the damn lights just about the time the blinding

brilliance of it all forced his eyes shut The thing rumbled like a CMC Banshee winding up for an attack run.

It was about as close to a real panzer as anyone could get in the Newark plex without the local militia

calling out the helicopter gunships. This one had started out as a shorty Landrover, and still resembled a

basic stock model, but just about every part had been replaced, upgraded, or refitted. The custom cargo

cover on the roof concealed a pair of weapons pods, plus there were gunports all around and other features,

custom features.

Rolling to a halt, lights going out, the van became a ghost, dark and grim, blending with the cool gray of

the night.

Shank wasn't scared drekless, or even a little, because he'd helped the halfer now hopping out of the

van with some of the van's custom installations. "Hoi, fang face."

"Horn head."

Who said orks and dwarfs couldn't be chummers? Thorvin might be squat and ugly and kinda

single-minded at times, but he was as tough as brick and loyal as nightfall. In Shank's book, that made for a

first-rate chum.

"What's with the garbage?" Thorvin asked, nodding at the gangers, toolbelt clanking as he strode out in

front of the van.

"They're slotting me off."

"That's a freaking surprise. You gonna ice 'em?"

"Thinking about it. What're you doing?"

"Whaddya think? I'm picking you up."

"Oh yeah?"

"We got a meet."

That sounded good. It meant their top gun had finally got them some biz, or at least some kinda offer,

and about fragging time, too. Money didn't go far in the plex, never far enough. Especially when you had

another slag's wife and kids to worry about "Where and when?"

"We gotta pick up the man and the deck. Sector 3. Soon as you put on some clothes."

Clothes. Right. "Been over to Sector 13 lately?"

"That's a freaking stupid question."

"Ghouls still hanging there?"

"That's another freaking stupid question."

"Let's dump the garbage there."

Thorvin frowned, looked at the gangers, then back at Shank.

"Load 'em up," he said.

The booth was small, just big enough for one person. Brown synthwood paneled the walls. Piper

closed the door, then turned and knelt on the cushioned foot of the narrow kneeling bench.

She spent a few moments composing herself, pressed her hair back behind her ears, then slipped the

end of a credstick into the chrome-edged port on the side of the bench.

The vidscreen before her came to life. "A New Day" slowly resolved hi bold letters at the center of

the screen, then faded. The "day" began with a boiling orange-red sun rising out of a pristine sea, waters

fresh and sparkling, an ocean teeming with fish and thousands of other forms of life. The sun assumed a

golden tint as it rose higher into the crystal-clear blue sky, and hundreds of thousands of birds flew up over

the horizon to wheel in enormous flocks across die glittering ocean.

Music, till then only a distant murmur, arose full and majestic, vibrant and alive, celebrating the glory of

life in all its multitudinous forms.

The voice of John Donne IX, a direct descendant of the Saint, and leader of the Church of the Whole

Earth, arose with the music, beginning with a direct quote from Holy Sonnet Number 10: "One short sleep

past, we wake eternally ... and death shall be no more ... Blessed be the Recreator... the living earth... and

the eternal cycle of life, recycling without end ... "Amen ..."

In time, the sermon concluded and the music softened.

The scenes of a lush and beautiful world continued, sweeping from one view to the next Piper lowered

her eyes and began to speak.

All the world's problems, as she saw it, stemmed from one thing: greed. People wanted. They were

never content with what they had. So titanic corporations sucked resources from the Earth and left only

toxic wastes behind. So ordinary people ignored the evidence of their senses, screaming at them from every

direction, and worked only to improve their station, their jobs, their material possessions. No one cared

about the planet, the poisons in the air, food, and water. Doing anything about that would waste valuable

resources, like money, and time, precious time. The power mongers at the top of the food chain had

convinced everyone of that. They used the media to exploit people's weaknesses. They saw to it that the

common working people would feel too weighed down by the struggle of daily living and the-desire to

always have more, more, more! rather than worry about mere ecology.

People were weak. Few had the means to combat the tyrants of economic politics, fewer still had the

will, the strength of spirit. Too many had been crushed and ground into dust by the steel and concrete

jackboot of the megacorporations.

Something had to be done. The megacorps had to be stripped of their power and pared down to size.

People had to be given back control over their own lives and the life of the world in which they lived-the

very planet all metahumanity depended on for survival.

Tears streamed down her face as finally Piper shouted, pounding on the arm rests of the kneeling

bench with her gloved fists.

It left her feeling cleansed, strengthened, empowered.

She was doing all she could. Almost every night. She only prayed that, in the end, her efforts,

combined with that of many hundreds, even thousands, would be enough to save the ravaged Earth.

When she stepped from the booth, the narrow church was nearly deserted. The sunset service had

ended some time ago. Only a few stragglers still sat in pews facing the altar and, above it, the enormous vid

display of the Whole Earth-white clouds, blue ocean, and brown soil-ringed by the green yin-yang arrows,

cycling eternally, representing the cyclical nature of life. Piper brought her fingertips together, forming the

Globe with her hands, then bowed and turned to go.

A priest in robes of the four cardinal colors-white, blue, brown and green-awaited her at the rear of

the Church. He was known as Father John, as were all priests of the Whole Earth Church. Piper did not

know his real name, but that did not matter. He formed the Globe and bowed as she approached. She did

likewise.

"There's a special meeting tonight," Father John said, quietly. "Our brothers ask that you attend." This

came as no surprise.

Practically anyone with any skills at all would be continually in demand somewhere in the Newark

plex. Newark had an excess of per diem meat. "Excess people," they were called. The special meeting to

which Father John referred would undoubtedly be a meeting of the group known as Ground Wave, the local

cell of the Green 4800, an organization of international scope. Ground Wave had need for deckers, ones

with the proper perspective. Ones with Piper's degree of experience and skill were needed desperately.

Piper bowed, and said, "I'm sorry, Father. Please excuse me. I cannot attend this evening."

"I trust you've not had a change of heart."

"Of course not." The idea was almost insulting. "I have other obligations."

"What other obligation is there but to the restoration of the Whole Earth?"

That was something Piper could not argue, for Father John would not understand. Life came with

many obligations. One might be paramount, but the others could not simply be ignored. She needed money,

for instance, if only to eat, if only so she might continue to further the cause. "This is very difficult," Piper

said, again bowing. "You're right, of course. I wish I could explain further. It is my fault. Completely my

fault. Please excuse me."

Father John hesitated, then nodded. "I presume we may count on you again in the future?"

"Of course." Piper bowed, trying to conceal her expression, her struggle to suppress her annoyance.

Father John seemed intent tonight on irking her or on afflicting her with guilt. Of course he could count on

her in the future. She'd been working with Ground Wave for more than a year. Piper had more experience

with anticorporate activity than anybody in the group. Unfortunately, she was used to this kind of talk. Used

to people speaking presumptuously and rudely. Used to people with immensely egocentric personalities.

People with the viewpoint that whatever happened to be right for them must be right for everyone. She

attended frequent cha-no-yu, the tea ceremony, if only to remind herself that some people, anyway, were

at least basically civilized.

"Dozo, gomen kudasai," Piper said, excusing herself, bowing and forming the Globe. "I must go now,

Father. Good evening."

Father John bowed and formed the Globe. "Good night."

The street outside was busy. A veritable river of people flowed steadily along the sidewalk. Traffic

filled the narrow roadway, barely moving at a crawl. Garish neon and laser adverts in Japanese and a dozen

other Asian languages climbed the fronts of buildings as high as nine or ten stories. Piper made her way up

the block and joined the crowd waiting at the corner with Custer Avenue.

Abruptly, a man wearing the signature red and black suit jacket of the Honjowara yakuza stepped off

the curb and into the road, blowing a shrill blast on a whistle while extending his arms out fully to both sides.

Traffic halted. Piper moved with the crowd that flowed out and across the street. A number of people

loudly praised the Honjowara-gumi as they passed the man in the red and black jacket.

"Domo arigato," the man said politely, bowing in response to each laudatory remark.

Yakuza, Piper knew, might be vicious gangsters, but they were also very conscious of their public

image. The Honjowara-gumi had made this part of Sector 6, Little Asia, centered around Bergen Street,

one of the safest hoods in the plex. They performed many public services and would allow no one to abuse

their citizens. Gangs and other criminal elements entered the district at their peril.

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FadetoBlackNyxSmithSeries-Shadowrun1994ISBN:0-451-45287-9Scanned,formattedandproofedbyDreamcityEbookversion1.0ReleaseDate:December,26,2003SpecialthankstoreadersScottLusby,TedSwedalla,andDaveZimmerman,JohnS.Franca-villoandFernR.Francavilloforproductiveanduniquecritiquesoftheoriginalmanuscript,RNCfork...

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