Fade to Black (2 page)

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, then 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."

"
Sí
, 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, "
Sí.
"

"Consider it done, my friend."

3

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.