Shadowboxer (7 page)
Another block passed before the dwarf stopped at a noodle stand, becoming third in line for service. Spying a telecom, Thumbs quickly decided to make a call to a chummer who lived practically on top of that public telecom box. Keeping an eye on the dwarf, he punched in the LTG code, and the screen cleared into the image of a sleepy troll in greasy clothes, tousled hair, and a badly broken tusk. On the wall behind him were rain-smeared sex posters and gaping crab holes. No furniture was in view.
“Yeah, who the frag is this?” the troll demanded.
“Beaver, it’s me,” rumbled Thumbs. “Speak fast and earn fifty.”
The other’s gummy eyes went wide with avarice. “For fifty I’d jump offa bridge widout lookin’ ta see if dere was any woter. Whatcha need, T’umbs?” he slurred eagerly.
“Still living on Seventeenth and Cuban?”
“Sure. Ya needs a flop?”
Jail would be preferable to that cesspool. The only reason the rotting doss had no cockroaches was that the crabs used ’em as garnish for the devil rats. “Thanks, but no.”
“T’en whatchawant?”
“Don’t open ya curtains, but look outside and see who’s checking out the busted telecom near the pawnshop.”
Beaver’s face contorted into unasked questions, but he merely nodded, wiping his nose on his sleeve. The tusker returned in a minute. “Man, it’s a party down t’ere!”
“Lone Stars?” asked Thumbs, mentally calculating percentages.
“Der waz. But some suits in a slickmobile chased ’em way. Ya wan me ta go down and act casually like? See wa I kin see?”
Jesus, Buddah, and Zeus, no! Even on a good day, which this was obviously not, Beaver possessed all the adroit acting ability of a busted chair. Maybe less.
“No need. It’s arctic,” Thumbs replied, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the back of a hand. The tiny ridges of the cyberware exits on his arm rubbed his face in a pleasantly familiar manner. So, this halfer had more than just Lone Star after him. A limo on the scene had to mean a corp was in on this too. And that meant real trouble and real money. Thumbs’ price just tripled.
“Ah, Thumbs, like, when can I get my nuyen?” asked Beaver, licking the stub of his busted tusk.
Across the street, the dwarf got served his food and began walking away, slurping down the noodles barely chewed. It was good protective cover—fugitives didn’t stop, for lunch. His own stomach rumbled in sympathy. Thumbs had missed breakfast, and lunch didn’t look like it was coming for quite awhile. “Get ’em from Lucky Pete. Tell him I said it’s chill.”
“Null perspiration. T’anks!”
Without saying goodbye, Thumbs disconnected and quickly moved after the departing dwarf. This could be the score of his life. Maybe he shouldn’t wait to see if the dwarf had more work, but let the guy run to his bolthole and then turn him in to whoever was after him. Surely, there’d be some reward in it.
Thumbs hated the idea of dealing with a corp, even just for a minute and indirectly, but that angle could be safer and would probably pay more. When the time was right, he’d give the halfer one opportunity to hire him, and if he refused, then the corp goons would get him gift-wrapped. But either way, the guy was nuyen in the bank. Then the dwarf turned northeast, heading for General Gomez Park.
Drek! Thumbs slowed his advance, but still kept going. The idiot was heading straight out of Slammers’ turf and directly into Latin Kings territory. Sworn blood enemies of Thumbs’ gang, and rabid policlubbers. Racists with guns, not exactly the sort of folk he really wanted to be dealing with at the present moment. He already had Lone Star and some corp security goons after the little guy.
In a heartbeat, he made his decision. Okay, time to talk with the halfer and tell him about the bottom line. Amid a traffic jam, Thumbs briskly maneuvered his massive bulk between the slow-moving cars, roaring speedsters, and darting beach bikes, trying to reach the hurrying dwarf as his tiny form disappeared and re-appeared within the bustling crowd.
Dodging around a road crew making big potholes out of little ones, the halfer cut through General Gomez Park. Thumbs couldn’t call out. It would draw unwanted attention to him as well. Come on, Shorty, slow down! Thumbs got tense, but didn’t let it show. Little guy could be going anywhere. Stay arctic. Kids were playing on the concrete slabs as a makeshift jungle gym, couple of oldsters with obviously nothing to steal or take were sunning themselves on the splintery benches, and ork gangers in ballistic vests were sweating out the noon sun in the shade of the few leafy oak trees, slightly wilted but still standing valiant against the temperatures from above and dog urine from below.
Charging straight through the DMZ of the park, the dwarf was watched by a hundred eyes, but nobody stirred from the precious shade to roust a tourist. At night, he’d never have made it whole or alive to the old marble fountain. Long dry and now full of sea gulls. Noisy, smelly, and they tasted awful no matter how much ketchup you put on ’em.
Along the way, a dozen gutterkin reached out to beg, or offer a guided tour, sex, guns, chips, and other things that would have made the average visitor recoil. Here the halfer gave himself away by not blanching at the offerings. Only a local would be so hardened, and a couple of the smarter squatters backed away, probably suspecting a covert op from either Lone Star or municipal security preparing another of their infamous blanket arrests where everybody ended up in The Citadel for questioning and fragging few of them ever came out again.
Watching everywhere for the hated Latin Kings, his hand resting inside his vest on the butt of the big Ares Predator, Thumbs sighed in relief as the halfer darted across SW Nineteenth Street. In spite of his best efforts, Thumbs lost him a moment later in the milling throng crossing the streets. Moving quickly along the store fronts to try and catch up, he caught a glimpse of his prey through the gaping doorway of a pink-painted derelict building. Through it he saw the dwarf entering a glistening white building festooned with coconuts and flamingos, which stood alongside a row of less fashionable structures on the next street over. The Sunshine Bowlarama. Not a simsense parlor, but actual physical bowling. Balls and pins. Very retro. Just for juves and nostalgia freaks, of course.
Cutting through the doorway, Thumbs decided to slow down for a precious minute, so as not to trod on the dwarf's toes. But before he could follow Shorty inside, the halfer came out again, zipping up his shorts as he headed directly next door. An unmarked building sporting all the usual effluvia of a cheap bar, but no sign.
The Casa Cabana. No wonder the guy hit the lav before going in. Thumbs felt the urge to do the same thing. It was the hardsite for the Latin Kings. Was the halfer a suicide? Drek. Maybe the dwarf was a nutter after all. Thumbs knew little about magic, so he didn’t know if a cloak spell disguising a norm as a dwarf could be that perfect in every detail. But why the frag would the halfer want to try to get into the LK’s den? To see how quick they could geek him? No, Thumbs must have been wrong about this guy. The halfer had to be tripping in the twilight. A skydiver. Software corrupted. Loft for rent. Better living through chemistry.
Thumbs shrugged. Had to be. Minutes passed and when no explosions erupted from the establishment to mark the abrupt demise of the halfer, new possibilities began to occur to him. Crossing through the ruined building for a better looksee, Thumbs suddenly ran into a shambling figure swaddled in rags, who charged from behind a pile of rotting mattresses wielding a spear made from a broom handle tipped with a busted beer bottle. The razor-sharp glass lanced for his vulnerable throat, but Thumbs easily sidestepped the clumsy charge. As the would-be killer went by, Thumbs thumped him once on the head with a fist bigger than an airline pillow, and his attacker collapsed at his boots with a shuddering moan.
Ignoring the corpse, Thumbs moved to a better vantage point to watch the Casa Cabana. Maybe, just maybe, the dwarf wasn’t simply an omelet brain, but novasmart with
cojones of beryllium steel. Who’d ever look for a dwarf on
the run in the HQ of a policlub? Jesus, Buddah, and Zeus, it was fragging brilliant. Smoking! Einstein on overtime! And if the guy was really that desperate, then Thumbs’ price just tripled again.
The whispering sigh of uncoiling rope pricked his ears, and Thumbs turned around just in time to see half a dozen forms in street combat gear descending from the ceiling. A steady flashing came from one of them, and the dusty dirt around him puffed little geysers. Then something hummed past and hit him in the chest, his vest slapping against his right side with triphammer force. Thumbs dropped to one knee, unable to breathe for a moment.
Madre mia!
A silenced rapid-fire. This close to their HQ, had to be perimeter guards for the Latin Kings. Frag! Nobody let squatters live in their lookout, so he’d naturally assumed that the presence of a gutterpunk meant it was a clear zone. Fragging gleeb had only been a diversion!
Instantly, the Predator was in his hand and it thunderously boomed twice, the muzzle flash illuminating the dim interior of the burned-out building to near daylight levels for half a tick. Each time a figure flew off the ropes, an explosion of red blood from the unarmored throats marking a lethal hit.
Chatter guns don’t mean drek if ya can’t hit the target,
Thumbs thought smugly, forcing himself to breathe as he moved painfully with every discharge so they couldn’t track his location. Spend time on the gun range, or forever in the dirt, as his daddy used to say. Nuff said.
The remaining four reached the ground, and were in a circle firing wildly, high and low. Crouching behind a chunk of busted concrete, Thumbs hastily buttoned up his ballistic vest and heard flechettes ricochet twice off his impromptu barrier. Bad. This was bad. Three visible exits, but he was nowhere near any of them. No back-up, no grenades, not much ammo, and it was their home turf. Reinforcements could be on the way already. Pulling the long monofilament-edged knife from his boot, he hacked off a chunk of concrete and threw it across the open expanse of the dilapidated structure. It hit with a loud clunk-clatter-crash, and two of his attackers turned to fire that way, the others expertly concentrating on the exact opposite direction, neatly cutting off his bid for the open doorway.
The wall aft of Thumbs and his concrete shield got hammered hard with dozens of rounds, and twice more his vest slapped him on the back, but now it was closed tight so the impacts were only an annoyance. Would have been closed before too, but it was just so freaking hot today! Ballistic cloth was thicker than end-of-the-year miso soup, and a troll’s gotta breathe. Well, not according to the Kings he don’t, that is.
Maintaining their circle formation, the policlubbers were spreading out, firing irregularly to conserve ammo. Nobody called out for surrender or quarter. Thumbs knew he was a metahuman in racist territory. If they got him, his pointed ears would be nailed to their Wall of Honor. Horns carved into pistol grips, tusks sold to tourists, and the rest of him would go to feed their dogs and gators as a special treat, trying to cultivate in the beasts a taste for metahuman flesh. As if the freaking things needed any additional encouragement.
Cutting off two more chunks of concrete, Thumbs sheathed the blade and then threw one of the chunks to his left and waited, standing erect. As the policlubbers fired in the same response pattern, he pulled back a powerful arm and threw the second chunk with all the strength he possessed. It hit one of the guards squarely in the face, and the man’s head snapped back so hard Thumbs could hear his spine audibly break. As the body dropped and the others turned for a moment to see their comrade mysteriously fall, Thumbs shifted position to a stinking pile of assorted junk where the dead gutterpunk had been hiding. Okay, three down, three to go. Without a doubt, he’d had fun before, and this wasn’t it.
Firing twice more, then again, and again, Thumbs saw one guard crumple and another have her knee blown off before they all started firing in his direction. In counterpoint, the wounded fem started screaming curses in every language she knew.
Hastily, Thumbs was reloading, pocketing the spent clip, when something hissed and crackled around the hot barrel of his Ares and the gun was brutally yanked from his grip. His eyes searched the darkness as he shifted position and the air hissed again. Stun baton? Drek! Reinforcements must have arrived! Drawing his knife, Thumbs shoved his back to the dirty wall, frantically searching for a way to escape, but saw only darkness and enemies completely surrounding him. No other choice then. Arctic. He touched the third molar on the right Side of his mouth with his tongue and felt his body vibrate with power. The reflex trigger would accelerate his reactions to triple-speed.
“Rock and roll!” he screamed, charging headlong at the guards at thrice norm speed, his cyberblades swinging like a hundred scythes.
Checking the safety of his Fichetti needler, perfect for flatlining people but lousy on telecoms, Adam Two Bears pushed open the double doors to the bar and boldly walked on in.
Icy air wafted over him, and he fought back a shiver only partially caused by the low temperatures. All talk stopped the moment he entered, and a dozen faces went grim as death, hands darting below table tops and into jackets. Two Bears knew the only reason he was still sucking air was the city map in his pocket, a reminder of the Miami gov’s fire-bombing of anybody who harmed tourists. Even still, he was on thin ice here. Cross the line, drek, come close to the line and they’d be mopping his brains off the floor.
