The man called Michael Chodosh was sitting very still on the real hardwood floor of his apartment, trying to focus on his inner self. He was breathing slowly and regularly, keeping his breath in for two seconds before he slowly released the air. Breathing in... hold... breathing out... hold... breathing in...
The quiet chirp from the telecom startled Chodosh. Badly. So badly, in fact, that he was running for his gun lying on the dinner table before the sound had quite registered in his consciousness. Only when wire and headware had done their handshaking, and his specially customized Ares Predator II had reported that it was quite ready for some blood and mayhem did he realize that the sound was the incoming message bell on his telecom.
He put the gun on the table again, and ran over to the couch, picking up the pair of black jeans that lay there, buttoning and belting it so quickly his arms and fingers moved in a blur. He had actually removed all the carpeting in his apartment because he once had slid on it when he had tried to hurry. The deep-pitched chuckle of his dwarven friend Little John, and the montaneous rumbling from his troll friend Dead Beat still stung a little.
Shaking off that particular memory, he strode quickly over to the telecom, and answered it. 5.2 seconds had passed since the telecom first had chirped.
"Chodosh."
"Hello, Michael. Muriel here. Wondering if you were ... oh my. You never told me what bodacious body you had, but now I can see for myself..."
It was Muriel, a female elf that sometimes could provide work for someone with his special talents. A fixer in the shadowrunning parlance. Someone to talk to if you needed something to do to pay the rent. However, Muriel was also fond of men, in any shape and form. Any man would do. And here he stood, with bare chest and bare feet. He grimaced, and sat down on the floor, so that the video feed just picked up his head.
"Aww, what did you have to do that for?"
"You said work, Muriel."
"Well, actually, I didn't, but that's splitting hairs. You see, I know someone who want something done..."
Five minutes later, after the requisite haggling over the price for the job, Chodosh terminated the call, and stood up. It was a shame that his friends were unavailable, what with Dead Beat and Little John in London, and Rake somewhere in NAN - probably Pueblo Corporate Council or something. Even though he always had been a loner, he had felt well when they worked together. But after that case with the dragon in Sahara, they had gone their separate ways...
With a wistful expression, he absentmindedly scratched the ragged, long scar beginning under his left armpit and ending near his hip. That had been a close call. Too close. If it hadn't been for Rake, he wouldn't have come out of that cave alive. He shrugged again. No reason to dwell on that now. He had work to do.
The way Muriel had laid it out, someone had kidnapped the sweet little girl of some corporate hotshot or other. And the hotshot wanted the girl back. Although she didn't say exactly which corp, Chodosh could guess. If it was one of the big eight, he'd guess Ares. Or perhaps Shiawase. The others - MCT, Renraku, Fuchi, Aztechnology, Saeder-Krupp, or Yamatetsu - were too paranoid or just too Japanese to trust outsiders. Or so he guessed. It didn't matter, really. It was just a question of getting daddy's little girl away from the bad guys. Business as usual.
Well, he had been hired solo, and he would do it solo. He shivered, and put his arms around himself. Frag, but wasn't it cold here. He looked over at the thermal reading on the wall. 32 degrees Celsius? But it felt like 12, or perhaps 15... He had had that problem since Sahara. It was like he was always cold...
Abruptly, he crossed over to the fridge, and pulled out a high-energy bar, and a Renraku-Cola. Munching on the bar and drinking the cola, he walked over to his weapons case. Emptying the can, and finishing the bar, he dropped the empty can and the wrapper in the trashcan he so strategically had placed near the weapons closet. Brushing away the crumbs on his fingers, he stood there for a moment, assessing what he might need.
Putting his thumb on the closet's thumbprint scanner, he waited for the closet's internal circuitry to recognize him, and opened the closet when it did. Disarming the booby-trap placed in the closet door, he then looked on the collection of implements of death and destruction that hung or lay in the closet, neatly arranged.
Taking out two clips of EX Explosive ammo and one with gel rounds, he went to get his gun and the shoulder rig, both lying on the table. Exchanging the armor-piercing ammunition loaded in the gun with EX Explosive, and replacing the two extra clips with the ones he had brought from the closet, he figured that that would be enough firepower for this mission. No reason getting excessive.
Walking back to the closet, he then picked out a small knife from the array at the bottom, and strapped it to his leg. As an afterthought, he picked out his customized, black Ingram Smartgun with its oversize recoil reduction system and bulky ultrasound sight and the rig that went with it, and put it on the table before he closed the closet door. Better safe than sorry.
Dressing quickly, he strapped on his usual weapons - the Ares Predator II in the shoulder rig, and the monofilament whip to his right forearm. Picking up his saddle bags, he stashed the Ingram in there. It'd have to ride on the bike. After that, and another trip to the fridge to get another protein bar for the road, he walked out of his apartment, and down to the parking lot.
A gleaming black and green BMW Blitzen 2055 was on the parking lot, standing to one of the sides managing to look fast even when it stood still. Chodosh walked directly over there, and put the saddle bags on the ground. After ascertaining that noone had put any tracers or bombs on the motorcycle, he strapped the saddle bags to the bike, and then put on his helmet.
"Even though you might be paranoid, that doesn't mean they're not after you", he thought to himself, and allowed a grim chuckle. This time there had been nothing wrong.
Once, he had found a kilogram of C12 military-grade plastic explosive under the seat of his bike. Although it was quick work disarming the bomb, he hadn't been particularly surprised. With all the enemies someone in his line of work had, it was more a matter of time rather than anything else before someone tried to kill him, one way or the other. They had tried before, and they would try again. It was just a matter of being good enough, prepared enough, and lucky enough to avoid buying that last piece of real estate.
He roared out of the parking lot, blatantly ignoring the heavy traffic here in downtown Seattle, and streaked through the streets, weaving in and out of the traffic like a snake hyped on designer drugs. Nobody cared, and nobody noticed. In a world where a dragon might fly by, or a magician might decide to call upon the spirit world to avoid getting a parking ticket, nobody cared one way or the other about yet another biker.
It wasn't until he started nearing the Redmond Barrens he started to slow down to something resembling normal speeds. Not that the Redmond Barrens were somewhere nice to be. Rather, he had to start avoiding burned-out cars and gangers messing around in the street. Luckily, the address he had gotten from Muriel wasn't anywhere deep in the Barrens. If it had been, he would have had to seriously worry about transportation.
You just didn't walk or ride on a bike around in a neighborhood where your friendly neighbor was trying to figure out a way to eat you without dying yourself. It didn't matter what Rake once had said about ghouls, that they once were people like everyone else, but had been infected by some virus or other, or if they were the flesh-eating demons from hell that the legends talked about. If you shot them, they died. But they weren't particularly nice about it. Luckily, he didn't have to go that deep into the Barrens this time.
The address he had gotten, turned out to be a largish, red brick building that had seen better days. As everything else in the Barrens also had. The fire escape had been cut down as a precaution against burglars and other lowlife, and lay still as a twisted heap of rusting metal along one side of the building. An extra-large ork in a neon red jacket, leather pants, and knee-high cowboy boots seemed to be that which passed for security here. The only badge of authority he had, and needed, were one large piece of steel pipe and a sawn-off double-barreled shotgun.
Jandering casual-like up to the extra-large ork, Chodosh couldn't help but regret not bringing his stun baton. If push came to shove, he would probably have to kill the ork, and he didn't particularly want to do that. If for no other reason than the fact that he'd have to find someone else to look after his bike while he checked out the apartment number he had gotten from Muriel.
"Hoi, breeder. What'cha want?"
It didn't look like the ork took him as a serious threat. At least he didn't point the shotgun toward Chodosh. Good. He could perhaps exploit that.
"Umm... I, like, is supposed to, like, you know, go in here and, like, meet somebody. You know."
Scratching the point of his boot into the cracked concrete, and avoiding direct eye contact, he tried to look as non-threatening as possible.
"Not if I say you don't. Huh huh huh."
The expanse of yellow and brownish teeth that was revealed when the ork did his take on the old grin was really something Chodosh could have done without. Not to mention that Chodosh really regretted not having those nasal filters installed - or at least have an extra-strong breath mint to offer the ork.
Make that at least ten.
"Umm... I think that, you know, like, we could perhaps come to, you know, an agreement, like, I give you 20 nuyen, and you like, let me in and stuff?"
Of course he didn't think he'd get in for less than 40, but it was always good to start low, and then rather go up rather than try to get the price down.
"Make that fifty, and you have a deal, breeder."
"Umm... Okay, but then you'll have to promise that you'll look after my bike for me."
Although the ork just grinned wider at this, Chodosh didn't particularly care. If he tried to mess with his bike, or his saddle bags, he might get a surprise. One of the high-explosive ones. He hadn't exactly removed the kilo of C12 that he had found under the seat - just rewired the detonators a bit.
Chodosh shrugged, and gave the ork 50 nuyen, careful to conceal the fact that he had a lot more cash than 50 nuyen on him. If the ork knew he carried more than 4000 nuyen on him, he might have to flatline the ork when the ork tried to rob him, and then he would be back to square one.
Entering the corridor leading to the various apartments on this floor, with the stair to the next floor at the end of the corridor, Chodosh regretted for the second time in as many minutes for not shelling out for those nasal filters. He wasn't sure exactly what had died in here, but something had. And then something had ate it, pissed, and jandered along again. Considering the unidentifiable lumps along one wall, it just might not have constrained itself to just pissing...
Careful not to step into anything, Chodosh carefully made his way to the stair, and carefully stepped over the drunk lying in the corridor. He seemed to mumble under his breath, with the stink of alcohol temporarily overpowering the general odor of the corridor. Looking sharply down on the drunk, Chodosh frowned. The drunk promptly fell silent.
Checking for any surprises up the stair, he then came out on the first floor corridor. Although yet another stair led up to the second floor, the apartment he was looking for should be on the second floor. Stalking along the marginally cleaner corridor, he quickly found number 23.
Listening at the wall near the door told him nothing. It was deathly silent in the apartment, as far as he could tell. Only amateurs listened at the door itself. The thermographic signature bled through much faster, and a door didn't present much of an obstacle to a bullet speeding to meet your head. Better to listen at the wall, and accept that you didn't hear anything as often.
Focusing himself, he crouched down and moved in front of the door. Letting his breath slowly hiss out through his mouth, he abruptly stood up, kicked the door so hard that it split down the middle, and rolled in a combat roll into the room. Although it was faintly lit by one forlorn, naked lightbulb hanging from the roof, it was more than enough light to see by. One woman lying on the couch, drugged. One man, looking vaguely like a ganger, standing beside the door, looking vaguely concerned by the cleft door. And to one side, a door half ajar leading into total blackness - another room, probably.
Pulling a knife, Chodosh advanced carefully on the man. The man, of Japanese ancestry, still looked somewhat confused. Testing the skill of the man, Chodosh made a feint towards the man's stomach. Suddenly, a palpable change came over the man as he gracefully grabbed the wrist of the hand holding the knife, and then simultaneously pulled Chodosh first toward himself and positioned his left leg behind Chodosh' left, and then he pushed! hard.
Although Chodosh was heavier than he looked, and the man didn't look particularly strong, Chodosh found himself flying upside-down face-first toward the wall of the apartment. Physical adept! he thought. Only a physical adept would have the skill and power to do something like that to him, without really concentrating on it.
He pulled his gun while he was still airborne. A fraction of a second later, the wire in the gun and the headware had said hello to each other, and determined that the gun was fully loaded and ready to rock. More out of instinct than anything else, Chodosh twisted impossibly fast, aimed for a fraction of a second, and fired. Then, he hit the wall... hard.
Blackness exploded behind his eyes, and threatened to black out the real world completely. As Chodosh shakily got to one knee, he looked at the man that had thrown him there - no ganger, but some sort of physical adept. The man looked somewhat confused again, and vaguely tried to staunch the flow of blood from one of his eyes. His legs turned to jelly, and he fell like a puppet with its strings cut off - noisily, and in a heap.
That had been a setup! If that guy was dressed like a ganger, but was serious muscle capable of throwing him around like a rag doll, then... the door!
Turning quick as lightning, he opened fire on the doorway just as a large Asian human with an assault rifle kicked it completely open. Stitching him four times before the human could react, he didn't accomplish anything but gurgling a bit and firing in the roof as random electric impulses made his arms spasm in the final death cramp.
The shuriken whizzing out of the dark doorway embedded itself in the wall beside Chodosh. Nobody showed in the doorway. Switching to thermographic vision, Chodosh could vaguely make out a human-sized heat signature to the left side of the door.
Trusting that he would be able to punch through the plaster walls with his gun, Chodosh shrugged and emptied the clip into the wall beside the door. Before all the empty casings had stopped ringling on the floor, he had reloaded and run over to check the other room. Another Asian, an elf this time, kitted out in black lay there, complete with a black hood, straight sword on his back and another shuriken in his hand. Another ninja elf. Just to be on the safe side, Chodosh kicked both the elf and the human in the head. Hard. If they were alive, they weren't any longer.
Turning out and running into the corridor, Chodosh then put two bullets in the "drunk" that came running up the stair, SMG at the ready. The drunk keeled over, and fell in a heap in the stair. Checking the SMG, Chodosh saw it was an SCK 100. Strange. Allegedly, the SCK Model 100 was the favourite weapon of the Renraku Red Samurai. And the drunk was Korean, now that he looked more closely.
Oh well. Stuffing the SMG in his pocket, he moved into the apartment again. Relieving the human and the elf of some choice bits of equipment, he then walked over to the woman on the couch, and checked her out.
Young, blonde, perhaps in her early twenties, bod to die for. Yep, looked like her. Gagged and bound on hands and feet, she couldn't very well do anything but look at him with big, blue eyes while he checked for any trap on the couch or on her. He drew a big blank. Mumbling a low apology to the now almost frantic woman, he applied a grip restricting the flow of blood to the brain. After five seconds of even more frantic struggling, the woman fainted. Good.
Picking her up as if she was weightless, Chodosh put her over his right shoulder, keeping his left arm free. Hiding his gun by just holding it behind his back, he then walked down the stairs, just as the large ork came casually strolling through the ground floor corridor. His surprise when seeing Chodosh was quite evident.
When the ork then tried to bring his shotgun up, Chodosh shot him through the head. Though extra-large, his head wasn't much stronger than anyone else's. The ork died. Chodosh stepped out in the open, and walked over to his bike.
Arranging the woman so that it looked like she was leaning toward him, and securing her by tying her hands to his belt, he then started the bike and started driving down the street, out of the Redmond Barrens.
He'd have to find someone else that could deliver the woman, he decided. Even though he might be a tad too paranoid, the quality of the assets that had tried to kill him in the apartment had been too high to take any chances. He'd also have to talk to Muriel, and ask her to check things out a bit more carefully next time.
It was likely that this was a two-sided deal - both an ambush and a genuine run. Someone had arranged for the kidnapping in such a way that they could set an ambush for someone. Perhaps him, perhaps someone else. He smiled grimly. Perhaps they'd learn not to try and ambush him now.
The woman started to regain consciousness, the fresh wind in her face helping the process along. With a casual motion, Chodosh flipped open a small medikit stored on his bike, and took out a tranq patch. Better to keep her unconscious in case she, too, was a part of the ambush. He put the tranq patch on the inside of one of her wrists, and soon she relaxed again.
It looked like if it might start to rain again. Oh well. It was business as usual...