Shadowboxer (10 page)
Incredibly, waiting for him at the airport gate as he shuffled toward the General Dynamics SV250 suborbital transport was a little girl all in white, her hair pulled back into a painfully tight bun. It was Tusiato, the daughter of Hiko
-san
. The child silently offered Fontecchio a red lacquered box and turned her back on him. He was speechless at the supreme insult.
Weakly, he boarded the stratoliner with the tourists and business executives bound for NorthAm. In the privacy of his seat, Fontecchio thumbed open the cyberlock on the armored box. Inside was his VPR2 and favorite Manhunter lying on a bed of white velvet. A deathday gift for a man who was no longer alive to his friends. And they had sent a child to deliver it. Fontecchio’s resolve cracked under the awful impact of the gift, and he wept for the first time since the death of his parents.
Arriving penniless and friendless in North America, it had taken Fontecchio years to save half of the return fare, even with hoarding his funds by living in dumps like this.
Reaching for the bottle of synth-saki, he gave a start as the telecom beeped. Who could possibly know he was here in Miami? His last wetwork job had brought him here only hours ago. Fontecchio glanced at the dirty wall clock. Lie, he arrived yesterday. The N’York yakuza fixer who pimped for him would have word of his presence on the Matrix by now. Could be biz.
Taking a swig from the bottle, he only got a tiny sip of the horrid, lukewarm liquid. Bah, nothing tasted worse than warm saki. However, out of booze meant he should get back to work. A single night of drunken forgetfulness was all he allowed himself after a job. To do more was always tempting, something he often fought against, but it might threaten his reactions and risk getting killed out here among the barbarians where none would sing at his grave, or burn flowers at a shinto shrine for his spirit. Alone, he would be truly alone forever, if killed here. And that thought was even more intolerable than his disgrace.
Swinging his legs off the tiny bed, Fontecchio pushed it into the coffin wall, and wrapping a threadbare robe bearing the Imperial crest of Japan about himself, sat down heavily before the tiny com unit and hit the Accept key. It took two tries. The screen cleared to the picture of a gray-haired norm almost as skinny as a skeleton. A decker.
“Delphia here,” Fontecchio said, slipping an herbal cigarette into his mouth from the pack in his robe pocket. “And you are?”
“Mr. Johnson. I have heard of you from Dr. Salvatore and Raincloud. You come most highly referred.”
With a pocketflash, Fontecchio lit the cigarette. The pungent cloying fumes set fire to his lungs, but the misty cloud of the fledgling hangover quickly fled under the harsh administrations of the burning herbs. “What is the job and how much?”
“I’ve got work for you with a dwarf named Two Bears,” the norm stated, his hands very white on the old macroplas desk before him. Then he quickly ran down what he knew and what it would pay.
“Interested?” the fixer asked.
Thoughtfully, Fontecchio stared at the telecom. How had he fallen so low? A spark flared for a nano inside him, but he quickly ground it out like the cigarette butt. He lit a fresh stick and pulled the smoke deep into his aching lungs, letting the white smoke out in a stream at the rust-stained ceiling panels.
“
Hai
!” he said, and then added, “where and when?”
Sitting at a table inside a wide tent on the tenth floor of an ancient condoplex at Palm and Cove, Two Bears and Thumbs field-stripped dirty weapons, spraying lubricant where needed and slipping on nylon bushings wherever possible so that lubing would never be needed again. The sourceless lights in the cool tent clearly illuminated the spacious table piled with guns, ammo clips, some nice knives, several grenades, and a couple of credsticks coated with sticky blood.
“Latin Kings didn’t take very good care of their iron,” observed Two Bears, working the bolt on a Ceska. “Dumb slots.”
“It’s why I’m alive and those guards aren’t,” smirked Thumbs, contemptuously peering down the barrel of a Beretta. “A dirty weapon will always jam at exactly the wrong moment. Law of the street number fourteen.”
“That’s hard data,” agreed Two Bears, slamming a freshly loaded clip into the machine pistol and laying it aside. “So nice of the Kings to donate these fine weapons to the run.” With a whisper, the four long monofilament blades slid out of Thumbs’ left forearm. “They didn’t do it willingly.”
“So I guessed,” harrumped Two Bears.
A shrug. “I sliced as few of the guns as I could. But I gotta admit, some of those gleebs refused to let go no matter how much I killed ’em.”
“And we got their credsticks too!”
“Those? They’re fakes to scam tourists,” said Thumbs. “Nice work, but useless.”
“Pity.” Two Bears started to disassemble a Light Fire 70. “Fat Jake sure isn’t going to be happy about this.”
“Think he’ll queer the deal?” asked Thumbs, a worried note creeping into his gravelly voice. He’d connected up with Two Bears after mopping the floor with the Latin Kings’ lookout team across the street from the Casa Cabana. Then he’d hung around the area until the halfer reappeared and he could approach him. The little guy hadn’t needed much persuading. He said his name was Adam Two Bears and that he was putting together a team to help him find out the identity of someone or something called IronHell.
“Nyah. He doesn’t know we’re working together, so why should he?” said Two Bears, placing slides and chips carefully in order on a clean cloth. “But just in case, be ready to geek any others who arrive until I decide they’re friendlies.”
“You’re the boss.”
“Yeah, right.” Two Bears squinted at the big troll so absorbed in his work. “You know, I damn near had a coronary when you appeared in the alley behind the Casa carrying a pile of guns.”
“You did look pale,” said Thumbs, busy stripping a pistol. “Aw, crud, bad spring. Gotta toss it.” He did so, adding to the small pile in the macroplas box in the corner of the tent. “But I figured you’d pay to find out about the corp limo. And if I can get nuyen for toasting some downtown yammer-heads, that’s granite. Merry Xmas.”
“Data is gold. Say, why’d you take these?” Two Bears asked, nudging a stack of loaded clips. “Nice, but we don’t have any iron to fit them.”
“Hey, less toys in the hands of the unfit. Besides, I know some folks we can sell them to for a few extra nuyen.” Thumbs gave a wink.
“Flash move,
omae
.” Two Bears was impressed. “You ever miss a chance to make a profit?”
“Gimme a doubloon and I’ll tell ya.”
Chuckling at the touristy reference to nuyen, Two Bears wiped the silicon off his hands with a napkin and bit into a steaming golden burrito lying on a sheet of waxed paper. “This is good,” he said, munching happily. “Father John’s?” Thumbs dry-fired a pistol next to his ear, listening to the
works. “A little tight. Gotta reset the ejector. Where’s the
tools?”
“Here. Father John’s?”
“Course. Is there any other burrito stand in town fit for a chummer to eat at?”
“Not unless you got a taste for devil rat.” Two Bears wolfed down the rest, then cleaned the grease off his hands, and then started checking the next weapon, a lovely Crusader with silencer. “This one’s for me.”
“Done and done. Check the trigger action. It felt sloppy when I pried it out of the guy’s grip.”
“Yeah
,
it is loose. Good call. Hex wrench?”
“Here. Damn, we’re out of bushing. Pass the silicon spray.”
The can was relayed again. “Once the fragging decker gets here we’ll do a search on the limo that showed up after you blew up the telecom. Maybe it’s from IronHell.”
“Gonna be tough.”
“ ’Cause of the way IronHell zapped Sister Wizard so fast?” Two Bears shook his head. “That’s got to be some serious IC protecting whatever file she got to.”
“Nyah, it’s going to be tough because I didn’t get a registration.”
Two Bears grunted, both hands busy gently adjusting the tension on the bolt spring. “Drek. Any special markings?”
“What?” asked Thumbs, assembling the mechanical works of a pistol without looking at it. “You mean something like a nice big neon sign saying, ‘This is a covert operations limousine. Please do not notice the men with guns.’? Sorry, but no.”
Two Bears plunged a wirebrush down the barrel of the Crusader, and carbon deposits sprinkled down like black snow. “Too bad,” he sighed. “Woulda been nice.”
“Lock. Morons are easy to outwit.” Thumbs reached for another gun, but the pile was gone, so he took one of the unbent knifes from the fight and started stropping the military blade on a whetstone from his vest. “By the way, chief,”
he said. “What’s with this tent inside a building? The roof leak that bad?”
“Low-level stealth tech. The fabric masks our heat signature to hide our numbers,” answered Two Bears, stuffing clips for the Crusader into his pockets. He slung the chatter-gun over one shoulder, and it hung to his knees. “Norms,” he muttered. He removed the weapon and adjusted the strap length. “Plus it effectively muffles conversation against masers bounced off the windows.”
“Yeah, I noticed they’re painted. Does that help?”
“Some, but not much,” he admitted. “This was an old meeting spot for the local gangs, neutral territory available for anybody’s use.”
A rueful grin. “But that didn’t mean the chummers wouldn’t snoop on one another every now and then.”
Testing the edge of the knife on one of his spare thumbs, Thumbs looked around again. “Tox, I’ve slept in worse dosses. And this is toff compared to my little visit to the Citadel.”
“Yar, but no protective wards,” said Two Bears, the Crusader now hanging at his waist. “Without magical defense, we’re sitting naked in a glass house.”
“A chill thrill, most anti-arctic.”
Sweeping the tools into a plastic box, Two Bears latched the lid shut and laid the box on the floor. “Agreed. We need a decker, fast, and after that, the best damn mage we can find.”
“But none of your usual support,” mused Thumbs, working the metal with a steady rhythm. “You sure ’bout that?”
“Definite.” Two Bears picked up a container of soykaf, snapped open the cap, and took a sip. “Gak, this is awful! Tastes like the solvent.”
Sheathing the blade in his boot, Thumbs kept a straight face. “That is the solvent. What you been soaking the guns in?”
Just then, the elevator at the end of the room gave a musical ding and the doors parted. Both men sat upright with loaded weapons in hands as they watched through the opening. A woman emerged and hesitated a moment before approaching the tent. She wore a jumpsuit with matching vest, and carried a tan shoulder bag large enough to hide a medium-sized space shuttle. Her hair was jet black, and her skin was nicely tanned.
“She looks like a tourist,” said Two Bears incredulously, screwing the silencer tighter on the Crusader.
“Yeah, but that bag’s big enough to carry a deck or even a machine gun.” Thumbs eased the safety off the Predator and put it out of sight below the table.
“Small gun in the waist holster.”
“Right side. Check. And no highlights in the hair.”
“A dye job. She might be the mage. Or have a bomb.”
“You think?”
“Dunno. But if the hammer drops, go for a head-shot so she can’t cast a spell. Just in case.”
“Will that work?” asked Thumbs. He knew little or nothing about magic.
“Dunno. But at least it’s a plan.”
The woman stopped outside the tent and paused once more, maybe wondering if she was in the right place. Inside, Two Bears and Thumbs calmly waited to see what she would do next.
* * *
A tent inside a doss?
thought Laura Redbird. Then she berated herself.
Silver, the name is Silver now, chica! And don’t forget it
. Or else she’d say it out loud and blow her cover.
Nervously, she shifted the strap of her shoulder bag to a more comfortable position. Calling in some favors and borrowing a few hundred nuyen from an elf shyster whom she occasionally cleared of municipal tax problems, Laura . . . Silver had been able to parlay her old obsolete deck into a hot Fuchi 8. Not a Fairlight by any means, or even a Fuchi 9, but then, she wasn’t one of Babbet’s Bastards, the rogue gang of wildhoop deckers who cut more IC everyday than a professional figure skater. An eight would do fine.
“Hoi, Two Bears?” she called out.
There was an awkward minute of silence.
“Come in,” said a soft voice.
“Slowly,” added a deeper gruffer one.
She entered without stooping. The inside of the large tent was spacious and well lit, with clusters of Everbrights hanging from the central pole. A poker table was off to one side, with an elderly dwarf and a fragging huge troll covered with tattoos sitting side by side. She didn’t know either one—strangers, thank the gods. There were some food wrappers on the table, the air pungent with the distinct smell of gun lubricants, metacrab burritos, and cheap soykaf. A pile of busted weapons filled a macroplas box in a corner. Housecleaning?
“Good afternoon,” she said, staying where they could both see her. The opening ceremonies of a first meet were always critical. She was dressed in tourist casual, her Amerind hair dyed solid black, trying to appear Latino. It was a classic mirror ploy. If a person naturally had, say, black hair, and she dyed it black, then any trained observer would spot the lack of natural highlights and deduce that black was not your natural color, but a dye job, which perfectly hid the fact that black was the original color. A double reverse, or in street parlance, a mirror. The trick often worked against the truly paranoid, or fools. Which gave it a wide range of success in Miami. However, Silver was nervous with the disguise, and a good, dependable handgun would have gone far to making her feel better, but it had boosted all of her creds to obtain the used deck in her bag. Besides, she had the Colt .38, though the cold weight of the crude mechanical wheelgun wasn’t very comforting on her hip.