Born to run (s-4) Read online

  Born to run

  ( Shadowrun - 41 )

  Stephen Kenson

  Stephen Kenson

  Born to Run

  1

  When Kellan Colt reached the Underworld, it started to rain. Not very much, just a drizzle from the leaden clouds, which were lit from beneath by the neon glow of the metroplex, spattering droplets of light across the grimy windows of the Grid-Cab.

  "Thank you for choosing Grid-Cab, Ms. Webley," the onboard computer chirped cheerfully as Kellan removed her credstick from the slot, her balance now a few nuyen lighter than she would have liked. The cab door hissed open automatically and Kellan climbed out. Someone else was waiting to climb in and the cab chirped, "Thank you for choosing Grid-Cab, please slot your credstick and enter your desired destination:."

  Kellan looked up at the kromeglow marquees that climbed the walls to loom overhead, spelling out underworld 93. The building was a converted warehouse: huge, blocky and made of gray plasticrete, pocked with scars and chips and liberally decorated with graffiti, which only added to its character as a fixture of the Seattle nightclub scene. The line to get in already extended down the block, made up mostly of eager young corp-babies dressed up in their latest street-wear for an exciting night of slumming oh-so-close to the Puyallup Barrens, their idea of life on the edge. Mixed in were the locals, their clothes not quite so perfectly coordinated, their "look" not so practiced. Kellan spotted a couple of dwarves, a few elves looking like they'd just stepped off the runway of a fashion show, even some orks and a troll dressed in leathers and torn synthdenim.

  She ignored it all, jammed her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket and jandered right up past the head of the line like she belonged there, eyes straight ahead, chin up.

  A massive hand grabbed her arm and spun her around.

  "Hey, where do you think you're going, little girl?" The deep voice carried over the noise of the crowd and the pounding beat of the music pouring out from inside the club.

  Kellan looked up into one of the ugliest faces she'd ever seen. He was an ork, which meant he stood head and shoulders above Kellan, above most humans, in fact. His face was straight out of a scary children's story: a broad nose and jaw, sloped brow and white tusks jutting up over his upper Up. His skin was dark and dotted with warts and his brown hair hung in heavy dreadlocks, decorated with shiny bits of metal. His outfit was sharp enough to shave with. He wore a white shirt that strained to contain the bulging muscles of his arms, shoulders and broad chest, and a close-fitting dark vest. His pants were tailored (they had to have been to fit him at all well) and his boots were worn but high quality. She could see that the outfit wasn't brand new, but it was put together in a way that showed the ork (or his employer) had taste, and some cred.

  Kellan shook off the ork's hand and drew herself up to her full height, which still left her staring at the middle of his chest, and met his stare with one of her own.

  "I'm going inside," she said, putting as much frost into her voice as she could manage.

  "How old are you, kid?" the bouncer scoffed. Kellan heard a few jeers from the line, but ignored them, keeping her focus on the bouncer.

  "Twenty-one," she replied without missing a beat.

  "Let's see some ID."

  Kellan produced her credstick and handed it to the bouncer, who slotted it into the portable reader clipped to his belt. Before she handed it over, Kellan keyed the stick to slip the ork some cred, if he wanted it.

  "I'm here on business," she said, just loud enough for the ork to hear. His eyes flicked from the display on the screen of the reader to her face and back without any sign of emotion, then he tapped the screen a couple times.

  "Oh yeah? What kind of business?" he asked casually, not looking up.

  Her initial response was, "None of yours," but she bit that down. There was no point in hacking off the big ork. No real point in lying to him, either.

  "I'm looking for someone," she said. "A chummer named G-Dogg." That got him to look up.

  "Why?" the ork asked with a smile. "He owe you money or something?"

  "Like I said, it's business. He around?"

  The ork shrugged. "Haven't seen him, but G-Dogg hits a lot of clubs." He took the credstick out of the reader and handed it back to her. "If I see him I'll let him know that you're looking for him, Miz Webley. Have a good time." He waved her on toward the door of the club.

  "Thanks," Kellan said. The ork turned back toward the line, where the next pair of club-kids were loudly protesting his decision to let her cut the line.

  "All right, next!" he said. "Let's see some ID."

  Kellan walked through the front doors and entered the Underworld.

  The first thing that struck her was the sound, a wall of noise coming from the towering amps flanking the broad stage. Flashing lasers pulsed in time to the beat, and a montage of video clips splashed across the floor-to-ceiling screens along the back wall.

  Beyond the lobby, a broad staircase curved around the crowded dance floor off to the side of the stage. A band was wailing out tunes at a volume that seemed to make the rafters shake, and the crowd responded with enthusiastic moshing. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the elf fronting the band; his natural charisma made him a perfect lead singer. And she was not surprised to see a sasquatch backup vocalist, since their ability to imitate any sound practically guaranteed they'd end up in the entertainment industry. She'd never actually seen one live before.

  Standing in the doorway, Kellan sighed as the light and the noise enveloped her. She'd made it. Of course, her attitude and a decent fake ID, along with some well-placed tips, had gotten her into more than a few clubs back home in Kansas City, but this was fragging Seattle. It was the big time. The Seattle Metroplex was a happening place, a little slice of the United Canadian American States out in the midst of the potentially hostile Native American Nations, right near the elven nation of Tir Tairngire and the California Free State. Gateway to the Pacific Rim, where the shadows were deep and dark, and there were chances at big scores, not the small-time biz of Kansas City.

  "Seattle:" Kellan breathed, looking around the club and just taking it all in. The place was jammed with people, most of them dressed in the latest club fashions, all of them gyrating to the music.

  Kellan considered the contrast between her clothes and what everyone else was wearing. She wore a beat-up leather jacket over a white T-shirt that hadn't been washed in quite some time, tucked into some old jeans that were a little too big for her and cinched at the waist with a secondhand belt, and heavy work boots on her feet. Obviously, what she lacked in style, she made up in attitude. After all, she was in, and the fashionable were still waiting.

  Unconsciously, one hand reached up to brush across the jade amulet she wore on a heavy gold chain around her neck. It was by far the most extravagant element of Kellan's outfit. She still wasn't quite used to its weight, but it felt so right around her neck. From the moment she'd seen it she'd known that it was meant for her. She just wished she knew more about it. Hopefully, that was one of the things she would find out in Seattle.

  It had been in a package that had just shown up at her aunt's one day. It was a lucky thing Kellan had actually been home at the time, or she was sure that her aunt would have pawned the contents and she'd never even have known it existed. Her aunt would have used the money to buy some cheap liquor, to help her forget about all the money she'd shelled out for Kellan's care over the years. Which she never let Kellan forget: she was constantly harping on how Kellan was nothing but a burden to her ever since her mother had left her there.

  There was no return address on the package, but the postmark showed that it was shipped from Seattle. Inside, Kellan found the amulet and a few other thin
gs: a stun baton, a tightly folded armored vest, some grenades, a survival kit, a certified credstick with a balance of a few thousand nuyen, and a computer-printed note. "This stuff belonged to your mother. Thought you might want it."

  There was no signature, no indication of who might have sent it, but Kellan was smart enough to grab an opportunity when she saw it. She packed up her few possessions and got the hell out of her aunt's place within a week. She was finished with being told that she was nothing but a burden, when she was paying most of the bills. She was fed up with the service jobs where privileged corp-kids sneered at her or, worse yet, treated her like she didn't exist.

  She swore to herself that she wasn't going to end up like her aunt, working in some dead-end job, struggling to make ends meet, and pouring what little nuyen she had left over into getting drunk so she didn't have to think about what a waste her life had become.

  Kellan was going to make something of herself. That mean earning some cred, and for an undereducated kid with no legit prospects, there were only two ways to do that; selling herself on the streets, or working in the shadows. She had no intention of doing the former, and with the gear that came in the package, Kellan had enough of a stake to get a start as a shadowrunner.

  She proved herself on a couple of runs in Kansas City and earned enough to supplement the nuyen she had and make some connections to get to Seattle, where the package had come from, where the real action was. Now she was here.

  Lost in her thoughts, Kellan nearly walked into a guy standing at the railing above the dance floor. She turned, prepared to apologize or defend herself, but it wasn't necessary. She saw the vacant stare and the narrow cable that snaked from the chrome jack behind the guy's ear down to the little box he wore at his belt. He was a chip-head, living in a virtual world of recorded simsense played directly into his brain. He swayed and shuffled in a slow sort of dance that had nothing to do with the music in the club, lost in his digital fantasy. Kellan jammed her hands back into her pockets and resolved to pay attention. Enough thinking about the past. Kansas City was behind her. She was in Seattle now, and it was time to see if she could get down to business.

  Off to the side of the dance floor was a crowded cluster of tiny tables and chairs made by dwarves with a sense of humor. A crowd pressed in all around them, and Kellan wove her way through toward the bar that curved along the side wall. As she angled her body to slide between two scantily clad orks, a strange figure near one end of the bar captured her attention.

  It was a ten-meter-tall statue finished in chromed metal that looked vaguely like a Buddha, with a bald, bullet-shaped head and a big belly swathed in a long, belted robe, with sandals on its bare feet. Loops of neolux tubing were wrapped around the statue's arms and legs and a speaker in its belly blasted out the sound from the stage. The look on the statue's face wasn't the serene expression Kellan associated with Buddha statues, though. It was simultaneously sly and stern, as if the fellow was in on some secret joke. As Kellan watched, puffs of smoke jetted from around the statue's feet, catching the laser light from the scaffolding above. Glowing words played across the chrome surface, appearing and disappearing so quickly that they were almost subliminal. They slid across the shining metal, proclaiming, question authority, 93, and love is the law.

  "Don't stare for too long," a voice cut through the noise. "The Beast has been known to hypnotize newbies who stare."

  Kellan turned back toward the bar and realized she was standing right next to it. She had managed to make it through the rest of the crowd while entranced by the sight of the statue. An elf stood behind the bar, leaning a bit toward her, hands resting on the countertop, one holding a rag he was using to wipe it down. Like every elf Kellan had ever seen, he looked like a simstar: tall and handsome, his straight black hair worn shoulder length and tucked behind his pointed ears. He gave her a dazzling smile and tapped the bar in front of him.

  "What'll it be?"

  Kellan slid her credstick into the reader on the bar and tapped the display screen.

  "How about a beer and something on the side?" she asked.

  The elf kept smiling and raised one delicate eyebrow. "Sure thing. The beer is five nuyen, but the chaser will cost you fifty."

  Kellan tapped the screen. "Done. You know a chummer called G-Dogg?"

  Up went the eyebrow again. "Yeah, I know him. Why are you looking for him?"

  "Business," Kellan replied curtly. "Is he here?"

  He shrugged expressively. "I don't know. Haven't seen him around tonight, but G-Dogg is a busy guy, you know? He works a lot of clubs: Penumbra, Dante's Inferno. He might show up later on, or he might not."

  Kellan suppressed a sigh. "Okay. Well, can you tell him I'm looking for him?" she asked. She tapped a few more keys on the screen, shooting her contact info to the bar's comp. "That's my number."

  "Sure thing," the bartender said. He set an open bottle on the bar and popped a chip into the comp's port, tapping the screen to transfer her contact info. Kellan withdrew her credstick, and the elf removed the datachip and slipped it into his pocket as Kellan picked up her drink.

  "If you need anything else," he said, "just holler."

  "Thanks."

  Kellan tasted her beer. It wasn't bad, but Kellan wasn't there to drink. She was there on business, but how was she supposed to get anything done if she couldn't even make a decent contact? She caught herself then, realizing that she was still thinking like a KC runner. Seattle's shadow community was huge-she shouldn't expect to find her target the first place she looked.

  She'd come to the Underworld because she'd heard that G-Dogg was the man to talk to for a shadowrunner new to the Seattle scene; that he knew things and people who could set up an initial contact. Kellan's hand closed around the credstick in her pocket. The balance was getting pretty low. She needed to score some work, and soon, or else she was going to be back out on the streets. She didn't even have enough money left for a return trip to Kansas City-not that she ever planned on going back there. She was going to make it in Seattle no matter what, but to do that she needed to hook up with the right people.

  That was when a troll lurched out of the crowd around the tables, looked around for a moment then focused on Kellan like a heat-seeker.

  He was big and ugly, and made the bouncer out front look handsome by comparison. His head was low and squat, almost football shaped, with downward-curving horns on either side and one protruding tusk broken and capped with chrome. His domed head was shaved down to dark stubble and his big, pointed ears held numerous heavy metal rings. So did his bushy eyebrows and his broad, flat nose, which had a ring through it, like a bull. He wore a heavy leather jacket draped with chains from the shoulders.

  "Hey, baby, haven't seen you around here before," he slurred in a deep, gravelly voice. He stood nearly three meters tall. Kellan looked him square in his stomach, a slight paunch that protruded over a wide, black leather belt. Even with the distance between them, his breath was strong enough to knock down a wall. He reeked like a brewery and staggered slightly, like he'd just drunk one.

  "And you won't again," Kellan said, pushing away from the bar and leaving her beer there, barely touched. A massive, leather-clad arm blocked her way.

  "Where you goin'?" the troll said. "You haven't even told me your name. I'm Horse." He smiled, showing her a mouthful of yellowed, broken teeth, and bobbed his head in an exaggerated nod, winking at her. "That's right, honey, it means just what you think."

  "Yeah?" Kellan asked. "Well, maybe you should find yourself a nice centaur or something."

  "Huh?" the troll grunted, grabbing for her arm. "Don't be that way, baby. I just wanna- urk!" He stopped short when Kellan snapped her stun baton up between his legs.

  "That big enough for you, baby?" she said. " 'Cause I'm betting that it's more than what you've got. Now, unless you take your hand off me right now, drekhead, they're going to change your name from Horse to Mare."

  "Fraggin' smoothie slitch:" the troll mutt
ered, one hand balling up into a fist. Kellan squeezed the trigger. There was a sizzling crack and the troll howled on an impossibly high note, barely audible above the pounding music, then fell like a massive tree. He lay there, twitching, as Kellan backed away a few steps. She heard a smattering of applause and a few approving hoots from women in the crowd next to the bar, then she turned and stalked back toward the entrance. People cleared out of her way, though only the clubbers closest to the bar even noticed the big troll rolling around on the floor groaning.

  The ork bouncer at the door noticed Kellan as she headed out.

  "Hey," he said. "Have any luck?"

  "Yeah, all bad," Kellan replied, jamming her hands into her pockets. The drizzle had turned into a steady rain, drumming on the street, seriously dampening the spirits of most of the wannabes still waiting in line. Kellan strode past the line, pulling her phone out of her pocket to call another Grid-Cab. She thought about hitting another club, but she really just wanted to give it up and go somewhere warm and dry to crash.

  She heard a commotion back toward the club entrance and looked back to see Horse and two other trolls outside, looking around the darkened street.

  Horse was yelling. Then he spotted Kellan, grabbed his buddy's arm and pointed.

  "Oh, drek," Kellan said. Then she turned and ran as the three of them came charging after her.

  She ran as fast as she could, dodging around people on the street, but the three metahumans coming after her moved fast despite their massive size, and they clearly knew the area better than she did. She cut left into the first alley she found, hoping to lose them, only to discover a heavy chain-link fence blocking the end of it. She hit the fence at a run and started to climb, but it was slick from the rain and her boots weren't made to grab the mesh of the fence. She slipped when she was only halfway up, and a heavy hand grabbed the back of her jacket, dragging her down.

  Kellan wriggled out of the jacket and dropped to the ground, leaving the big troll holding nothing but a handful of synthetic leather. Horse slammed into her, pinning her back against the cold, wet metal of the fence, his reeking breath in her face, his bulk making the mesh dig painfully into her skin. Kellan's stun baton was in the pocket of her jacket, out of reach, along with anything else she could use as a weapon.