The Midnight Conspiracy (Part II)

Some people will say that Seattle’s a beautiful place in the winter. I am not one of them. Unless you find crumbling high rises and flickering neon lights amidst the desolate ruins of better times attractive, Seattle’s nothing more than another sprawl. And there’s nothing better than shadowrunning in the sprawl.

As I laid back against the foam and plastic easy chair in the back of Strafe’s van, I reflected on the day’s events. In short, my life had turned to drek in a matter of hours. I mean running the streets is tough as is, but it gets damn near impossible when somebody is setting you up. That’s what I guessed must have been going on here.

A few hours ago, I’d received a call for a job. Some “Johnson” wanted me to geek a couple of runners who’d rubbed him the wrong way. No problem, being Mr. Payback is part of the business. But, when we got there the targets were waiting for us! When the smoke cleared, we quickly realized that we’d walked into a trap. Question was, who’d set it?

We were looking for the answer to that question and a few more as we headed to the designated drop zone. The Johnson had given me a number to call once the work was done. Surprisingly enough, I’d made contact with his payoff man and set the meeting time. In all probability it was another trap, but hey, a trap can’t be a trap if you know what kind of drek you’re walking into. Besides, it was the only lead we had towards finding out what was going on.

It must’ve been somewhere around twelve o’clock when we reached the drop site. The watch display on my portaphone had been destroyed during the ambush, so I really couldn’t be sure. Experience has taught me that the only time you trust is your own. The man on the phone said to meet him at club Penumbra at twelve. Strafe and I had been sitting at the bar for close to a half hour. By his count it was 12:30 and our man was still a no show. I’d spent my time talking with Kong, the bartender who just happened to be an old friend of mine who just happened to be a troll. Not that I don’t like trolls. They do have their good qualities, it’s just hard to find under all of that brainlessness and muscle. Kong was the one exception. Not only was he smart, but like a good bartender, he had his ear to the wire twenty four hours a day. A little touch of my credsticks and his knowledge became my knowledge.

Word on the street was that my buddy Riser had been “killed” again. No surprise there. Killing him was easy. Keeping him dead was the hard part. No, the surprise was that people were saying that I did it. Well, at least that explained the gruffy looking ganger in the corner who had been watching me all night. Great. Now I was up to my neck in this drek and sinking fast. I was definitely being set up. The story was that two weeks ago I’d come upon Riser in a spat with three Cutters. Being a Halloweener myself, I’d jumped in on his side and helped him waste the Cutters. Apparently after that I turned towards Riser and dusted him off too. The Halloweeners were keeping the whole thing under wraps according to Kong. Some squatter confessed to seeing the whole thing. He said he had seen Riser talking with the Cutters before it all went down. It sounded like Riser was selling out. That explained why nobody knew about what had gone down. The info was only now beginning to leak unto the streets. Two weeks ago he said.

Well, up until two nights ago, I’d been in jail.

You see, there was this small disagreement with a fed. To make a long story short, I tried to shoot him in the face. Unfortunately, the bullet only grazed his head and the next thing I know, I’m in jail. Assaulting a federal agent or some such drek. A couple of nuyen here, a sprinkle there and a call to my associates in the Yakuza and I had a ten year sentence knocked down to four months. I know detective Drummond was still smarting from that one.

Time to review my enemies. Drummond? No, it couldn’t be him who was setting me up. He’s too much of a straight edge to play the game by street rules. But if not him, then who? He was the only enemy that I had. Well, the only one that was still alive at least. So, here I was, back to square one. Drink in one hand and a bunch of unanswered questions in the other. I’d begun to wonder if Seta had fared any better talking to his “magical” sources. Strafe left five minutes later. Something about seeing his fixer about an actual paying job. I got his message loud and clear. When you’re being set up, there’s nothing worse than bringing your friends down with you. So, here I was all alone again. My first impulse was to call Fastdos and have him pick me up but, it was a nice night; about as nice as they come around here. So, I decided to walk to the monorail station and take a nice ride home. My mistake…

I could see my breath forming into little white clouds as soon as I left the place. Out of sheer boredom and the need not to think about anything, I made a game of it. I was trying to see if I could make doughnut rings out of my breath the way I did with cigarette smoke. Suddenly, the dry screech of car tires against pavement snapped me out of my pseudo trance. I spun around just in time to see a sub-machinegun erupt into sparking flame. A row of bullets slammed into my chest and knocked me flat on my back. I could faintly hear the jeers of the gangers who had nailed me amidst the pounding of my skull and the squealing of their tires.

“Cutters protect their own!”

I barely had enough sense to crawl behind the parked Volkswagen Electra as their Americar swung around for another pass. I checked my duster. A little bent out of shape but it held up under the impact and saved my life. Again. Suddenly I understood a whole lot about how people become attached to things they own. Like a Teddy Bear or a jacket or a gun. I groped around inside my leather jacket for a second or two before I finally got hold of my Predator II.

This was Halloweener turf. Normally any Cutter caught on this turf would be caught dead. But it looked like the ‘weeners were gonna let this game be played out to the last card. As the Cutter gunman leaned over the roof from the passenger side window I painfully leapt from my crouched position, peeling off a couple of shots before I sank back to the floor. The car squealed and spun again. My brain swam with thoughts and I heard a second burst biting into the Electra. These gangers couldn’t be gangers. At least, not Cutters. Cutters always wear green and gold when doing gang work. These guys were dressed in black like professionals. Runners?! This was another trap. But who…

WHAM!!! I was rifled from my position behind the car as the brute force of a collision skidded it up onto the sidewalk. I froze, mostly from the surprise of it all, while the Electra’s passenger side door. As hard headed as I felt right then, I probably left a dent but I couldn’t tell. I was fading fast. I tumbled to the floor, my vision blurred, and watched the now fuzzy figure of the shooter hovering above me. I could almost feel his wicked grin. This was gonna be the man who took out Johnny Raver, and I didn’t even know his name.

Suddenly there was the sharp crack! of gunfire and then, darkness.

I awoke on a cold metal slab with a bright white light flaring up my cybereyes. I sat up, rubbing my sore shoulders with a hand and stretching my neck.

“What happened?” I called out absently. Much to my surprise, there was a response.

“You almost got yourself killed, Rave.”

“Riser?” I called out past the light. “I figured you weren’t dead.”

“Smart.” He said, “It’s a shame you’re not that smart about what kind of jobs you take.” I smiled sarcastically and let him continue. Between cooling sips of Stuffer Shack Java he told me that I’d been in and out of consciousness for nearly two weeks. He’d lucked on to me right in the middle of the drive by and saved my skin. There was another one I owed him.

He told me about his meeting with the Cutters. It’d gone down just the way I’d heard except, he wasn’t selling out. He was trying to find out what the Cutters had to do with me. The gangers got nervous during the talk and decided to roll him, but Riser was quicker. Then out of nowhere, “I” appeared on the scene. The gangers recognized the John Doe, screaming, “There’s Raver!” and opened up on the both of “us”. Riser realized this doe wasn’t me but when he turned around to drop the question the only answer he received was bullets. Riser took one in the shoulder and ended up limping out of the fight. He didn’t die of course. Instead he managed to get an I.D. on the perp.

Jam.

It wasn’t a name I knew but I planned on getting to know him real fast.

Someone knocked on the door, and for the first time I took a look around the room. It was a shabby office marked up pretty good with Halloweener tags. Obviously a gang den. The door opened and in walked a drop dead beauty. She had short black hair that cropped and framed her porcelain face, but it was her eyes that drew me in. Those hypnotic green eyes. I knew them from somewhere, but where?

“Johnny Rave, I’d like you to meet Star.” Riser said, catching my stare. “She showed up about three days ago. Wanted to get jumped into the Halloweeners. A couple of the guys vouched for her. She’s clean.” Star only smiled.

“The lady is a spell slinger. She’s agreed to help you sort out this mess.”

“What about Strafe and Seta?” I questioned. “Strafe’s disappeared and Seta is in the hospital. Got blindsided by a mage.” I swear that girl almost smiled when Riser said that.

“Everything’s been taken care of, your girlfriend knows you’re ok and I picked up your Westwind. It’s parked out front. You’re set, chummer. All you need now is luck.”

Looking at my new partner, it was clear that I’d need something more than luck to get me through this one. Jam had been posing as me and now someone was trying to kill one of us. If I was gonna save my skin I had to get some answers, and I knew just where to start.