I worked my way through the labyrinth of crates until I found the Shiver squad supervising more crate removals. They were working where we couldn't see them and I watched as they flagged two more large ones for relocation. Pulling my cell phone, I leaned out of sight and dialed K'rth. He picked up on the second ring.
"K'rth, I'm in Section Green 3C, Row five. The Shivers are at it again and starting to move a few crates to the holding area."
"Ok. I'm on my way."
"No, send Nix since she's quieter and have her come from the south side. Tell Casper about it because we're going to seize those crates once they've got them moved. We're also going to arrest every one of those sons-of-bitches and find out EXACTLY what in hell is going on here."
"Ok," he started. "Alex, be careful."
"Always," I said and hung up.
I counted eight Shivers and nine dockworkers, all of which I would happily consider hostile for the time being. Even if I couldn't get them hauled in for interrogation, I intended to arrange some quality time with the Shiver sergeant and the nervous one to talk things over. I really didn't care which one I got my hands on first.
As the dockworkers pulled the first two crates, I saw that they were checking the next ones in line and knew I'd hit the mother load. The first four crates must have been dropped into our area by accident and we got lucky. Maybe things were starting to look up? Whatever was happening, we were about to get to the part that I was really good at. I'm too much of an adrenaline junkie to have ever made I&I and this whole thing had bored the hell out of me and beat the hell out of my hands.
"Hot damn it's a party," I muttered when I saw the fork lifts angle and pull three more.
Nix came up on me so quietly that I only realized she was there when she tapped me on the shoulder. It startled me and I nearly clocked her out of reflex. The wraith gets a real kick out of that appearing from nowhere crap, but I just shook my head and motioned towards the group. She squatted next to me and broke out her rifle.
"I'm going to try to get one or two of them away from the rest. I want you to stay here and keep an eye on the rest. If they open a crate, let me know what you see and if they move them, let K'rth know about it."
She nodded after each order and watched while I put my mike in place. It might take a little creative writing for the report but I would bust the entire Shiver team as subversives. I doubted that I'd lose any sleep if they turned out to be innocent after the fact.
After ten or fifteen minutes of watching and waiting, lady luck smiled again and a couple Shivers including the nervous one left the group. I patted Nix on the arm and slipped through the crates to follow.
"K'rth, you there?" I asked over my mike. I got static, a rumble, then he came online.
"I'm here," he rasped. There was another rumble and I figured his mike wasn't in place yet.
"One of the guys I really wanted to talk to is heading away from the rest. I'm going to see what he has to say."
"Watch your ass," another voice said and I didn't recognize it. After a moment, I realized it was McNeil. Nice of Casper to tell me that he was part of the squad. Now I wouldn't have to feel bad about pulling a bystander into any shit I stirred up.
The two Shivers casually walked through the rows and got lost twice, forcing me to duck between crates to avoid them when they doubled back. Eventually, they left the labyrinth and walked towards the restrooms and snack machines. The nervous one went to answer Mother Nature's call and I followed him in, quietly locking the door behind me. I waited until I heard him unsuit and get started, then came around the corner. Considering how my last encounter in a restroom went, I felt a little apprehensive.
When I came around the corner, he was fully involved and didn't look up. His gauntlets and helmet were hooked over the handle for the urinal and his lower breastplate was draped over a stall's partition. Propped against the wall behind him was his Browbeater, but I thought the FEN 603 that was hanging in its holster over the armor was far more interesting. That was enough contraband for me to legitimately work him over for a confession. I smiled as I closed with him and thought how it's a bitch to get caught with your pants down
"That was quick," he said, still looking down. "Were they out of diet or some-"
His words froze in his throat when he saw me, then his eyes darted towards the pistol.
"Don't even think about it," I told him, but the look in his eyes told me he was about to anyway. He calmly zipped up, putting the abdomen plate back in place, but was taking a little too long. That was when his body language threw up the red light and I jumped forward.
He lunged for the pistol but I speared him in the center of the back with a kick that slammed him into the urinal. His fingertips brushed the FEN as he went past, spinning it away under a stall so he ducked down for the GASH baton at his knees. I let him grab for it, then stepped in and swept his feet. My heel grazed the floor and connected to his ankle, spinning him like a baton into the partition. This restroom had to be made of a little tougher stuff since the partition held. As he shook off the little stars and singing birds, I made sure the pistol was clear and backed up to give him a chance to stand up. A good hit from a GASH baton can easily crack a skull, but he would have to connect first. Considering the kind of week I'd been having, I just wanted him to try.
I noticed the Browbeater as he stood and thought "what the hell" then picked it up and leveled it at him. He looked at the weapon for a moment and froze, looking at my eyes then back at the barrel of the rifle. Maybe he believed all the propaganda about how deadly the Gauss rifle's ping pong ball is, but having been hit by one I can say it's highly overrated. It does however, sting like holy hell.
"Oh come on, it's non-lethal. Be a man."
He nodded and goosed the power on the GASH baton as he forward.
About a year ago, I had a short but "intense" relationship with a good looking blonde who turned out to be a Shiver sergeant. It didn't last that long because of some major disagreements about race (mainly K'rth), but I did pick up a few pointers about Shivers, Browbeaters, and APCs. The sex wasn't half bad either.
When he was just outside of striking distance, I tapped the trigger. The Browbeater makes a weird noise when it fires, more like a cough or spit then an actual report. It let out a short cough and hit him straight on and he stopped dead in his tracks to give me a stupid look. Maybe he realized that it really wasn't so formidable after all, but he got confident and came forward like he meant it. One shot from a Browbeater stings, but the real pain starts when you get a full burst. This time I held down the trigger and raked him above the armor. He let out a pitiful yelp then fell to his knees gagging as rounds bounced off him and ticked across the floor. I waited to make sure he had had enough and put a short tap into the center of his forehead just for general meaness. He grabbed his face and folded up into a fetal position, whimpering like a little kid.
"I gotta get one of these," I said as I put the rifle down and stepped up to kick the baton away. I asked "Okay, who the hell are you?" as I squatted beside him.
He started to reach for a boot knife, but I saw it and punched him in the nose, bouncing him off the floor. Now he had a broken nose to hold onto and I picked up the knife gingerly to study it. It was standard soft company issue with no distinguishing marks, so it wasn't much of a clue. I tossed it into a sink and grabbed him by the wrist.
He sat up quickly and lunged, but I kept my hold and turned it into an arm bar, slamming him head first into the wall. He grimaced and tried to shake loose, so I cranked up the tension to hold him.
"Are you in the mood to talk yet, or do I have to break something?" I asked. When he didn't respond, I increased the pressure on his elbow and kicked his knees out from under him. He fell hard into a kneeling position facing the tiles, and I extended the arm up further behind him. With his wrist braced over my shoulder, I could put pressure on the shoulder, elbow, and wrist at the same time and let him feel it for a few moments before I asked again.
"If you're not a Shiver, who the hell are you?" I cranked down until he cried out. "A soft company? Dark Night? Cloak? Who the fuck are you?"
When he didn't answer, I stomped his left ankle. He groaned, but wasn't spilling his guts yet so I gradually increased the pressure on his elbow to the point that one more good push would turn his elbow into powder.
"TELL ME!"
"Aaarrgh-okay! Okay!" he spat. His face was covered with a mixture of blood, sweat, and saliva and the wall tiles in front of him were smeared dark.
"NOW OR I'LL BREAK IT!" I yelled again. There was a thump from the door as someone tried to open it, but the lock held. If it were his partner, I'd know in a couple moments. I pressured the elbow further and he started crying.
"D-D-Dark Night. We're Dark Night" he sputtered.
"Routing War World weapons to Mort? Is that it?"
"Y-yes. We're picking up the last shipment today."
"What for? Where are they going to? Where's your cell's base of operations?"
Maybe I was rattling off too much at once, but I was pretty anxious. When he didn't say anything, I slammed him into the wall with my knee. Meanwhile his friend was getting more anxious and started pounding harder on the door.
'TELL ME WHERE!" I yelled again and put enough force into the arm bar to double him over to the floor.
"G-Glades. The Glades tene-tene-apartments!"
I let go of the pressure and let his arm drop as a realization came over me. My God, I was blind as a bat.
This whole thing was a sham - the yellow BPN broom job that I'd been griping about wasn't just a bad draw, it was part of the Gray BPN Cloak had dumped on me. With a couple sheets of paper and almost no pay, they had given us an long grocery list to follow: wipe out a DN cell, intercept some contraband, and bring in Bayer on a stick. I didn't know what the woman named Mary that they were targeting had to do with anything, but I figured there was a Neon sign around here somewhere spelling the whole thing out. That also meant I had missed something really, really important.
That son-of-a-bitch was here. Bayer had been here all along.
"Where's Bayer? Is he here?" I asked but he wasn't answering. The man was bent over, sobbing and holding his elbow.
"IS BAYER HERE?" I yelled again. I heard three "cracks" from the door to the restroom and snatched up the Gauss rifle again. His partner had gotten impatient and decided to find out what the problem was. He was using something more lethal than a browbeater to blow the lock.
"Bill, you ok?" a voice yelled and I glared at the kneeling man. His eyes met mine and he smiled. He wasn't much of a fighter, but he was a vindictive bastard.
"THERE'S A SLOP HERE! GET HELP!" he yelled and I front kicked him into the wall hard enough to stun him. Stepping forward so that I could cover both him and the entryway, I really hoped his friend didn't have any grenades. I heard his buddy come to the corner and halt and saw a flicker of green armor.
"Hey Slopertive," the voice said. "I've got you cornered. You might as well make this easy."
The man in the floor started to crawl away and I stomped him to keep him in place. I might have been cornered, but I wasn't without options. There's one thing that these Browbeaters can do that a conventional weapon can't and Shivers call it "pinging". It involves a hard wall and the weapon's ridiculous rate of fire. The woman I dated said that some perps get killed this way and I was dying to try it to see if she was pulling my leg or not. Hell, I didn't need both alive anyway.
I flipped the fire selector off safe and aimed at the wall parallel to the one he was standing behind. The surfaces were hard enough that this might just work and honestly, I couldn't wait to see. I held the trigger and watched the stream of balls smack the wall and ricochet around the entryway. They had lost most of their power by the time they made it to him, but it was enough to piss him off royally and he jumped into the open to take a shot. I swept him with the direct fire from the weapon, knocking a heavy pistol from his grasp and shattering tiles around him. Even though he was wearing standard Shiver blocker armor, the barrage of balls shattered the helmet's laminate, splintered the breastplate, and sent him backwards in a heap. By the time the hopper was empty, he was laid out in a pile of tiny green plastic lumps and barely moving. I sat the rifle down and nearly did an Angus two step.
"Damn, that was fun."
While I was hosing his buddy, Bill the imitation Shiver had started to crawl under the stall to get at his fallen pistol, so I stepped around and stomped his wrists. After kicking the handgun away, I cuffed his arms around the base of the toilet and kicked him once more for good measure. The only way he was going to get free was to pull the metal toilet out of the floor or chew his wrist off. I didn't think he had much of a chance of either and kicked him once more just because I wanted to.The other man was still dazed, so I pulled off part of his armor and cuffed him behind his back. Slapping him in the face, he started to come around and looked at me with sleepy, anger-filled eyes. I guess the three of me knocking him back into conscious wasn't his idea of a nice wake up call. His mouth and nose were a dripping bloody mess and it looked like he was missing some teeth.
"Mike Bayer. He's in the Sergeant's armor, isn't he?" I asked.
"Go thuck yourthelf," he spat.
I pulled him forward by the hair and heel kicked him into the corner. He mumbled as his eyes fluttered, but wasn't going anywhere soon so I around then pulled my phone and called Shiver Central to request a pickup of a couple of Interceptors and to bring extra bodybags. Of the few things I could remember about Bayer, I knew that he was both headstrong and more than a little dramatic. I doubted that we'd be able to take more than these two alive, but that wasn't much of a loss since the fewer Interceptors left in the world, the happier I'd be.
"Everybody, we got a situation here. The Shivers and possibly the dockworkers are Dark Night. K'rth I need you to-"
"Look asshole, I'm still squad leader and I give the orders," Casper cut in. I was sure I heard McNeil laughing in the background. Suddenly she dropped the attitude and got concerned. Maybe she remembered that she wasn't really the squad leader after all.
"Are you sure about this? If we crack some Shivers by acci-"
"LOOK!" I yelled, and then dropped my tone. "The two I just bagged are Interceptors and they're smuggling heavy weapons right through the CCD and right past us. The whole damn thing is a Cloak screw job and we're on the receiving end. I'm on my way."
Something about my tone convinced her that I wasn't mistaken and she began barking orders. As I left the restroom, I kicked myself again for not realizing that the whole thing sooner. I guess I never thought anyone would got to that kind of effort just to make me jump through hoops and now I really wanted to know why. Maybe I could ask Bayer before I killed him?
I trotted away from the restroom and headed back to where I had left Nix, then something besides Casper's chatter came across the mike.
"Cole, you aren't going to believe what they're unpacking" the Wraith started. "OH FUCK! I'M TAKING FIRE! FUC-
IT'S A banshee roar, a thousand times louder than a gauss train, echoed through the warehouse and turned my blood cold. It sounded like the horns of hell and I was running right for them before I knew it.
Comments to rw