There was only so much that their dwindling supplies of Kickstart would fix, Cray felt helpless to do anything more for Rachael tonight and had sent Gary out to look for an ebon or medic to fix her. Outside, he could hear the manchine occasionally scrape up against the Hammer APC, it was almost humourous to remember the massive robot climbing into the Battle taxi to come along for the ride through the tunnels. But he wasnt in the mood for laughing, it was his fault he felt that the troops had died because he’d underestimated the enemy. All for some TV show watched by the bloodthirsty masses eager to see them die and felt it was his fault that Rachael was left alone with the robot instead of some of the troops.
"What a fucking debacle," he sighed and checked the weak pulse and to see if she was still breathing. The drugs they had would stop the bleeding and assist the repair of damaged organs, but not the broken fingers or any of the other things he couldn't see that might be ruptured or broken and replace the lost blood.
It took Gary the better part of the night to come back with someone with the medical knowledge to fix Rachael, Cray got up hearing the Battle taxi rumble up and grind to a halt and went out to see if it was really his. It bore the marks of the numerous close scrapes and was relieved to see the corporal get out with some 16 year old kid in tow, Buzz inspected the new arrival eliciting a squeal of fright from the kid. "Ah dont mind Buzz, just dont do anything hostile around him and you’ll be ok."
"Where the hell did you find it and why does it have the Thresher logo on it? Hey, are you the guys that where on the TV tonight whacking all them slops and nec’s?"
"Is there a problem with that?" Cray growled from the shadows and covered the arrival of the medic from the APC.
"Hah! Hell no, it is you guys! Just put the weapon away Mr Thresher Im not real keen on being shot with DU. Heck I might just do this for free for busting the arse out of them necanthropes! Fuck didn't you guys cause a stir!"
It wasnt a medic and it was definitely an ebon, Cray hadn't been close to a living ebon and wondered where Gary had found this particular feral specimen and if it was safe to let him near Rachael. "He’s got no deathsuit Gary, how do you know he can do the job?"
"Lieutenant Cray, meet Felix. He’s on loan from the Johanna gang, apparently he’s got some cards that let him do ebb stuff without a deathsuit."
"That true Felix?"
"Yes mister Cray, I ain’t here to waste your time. But if your friend is as sick as Gary here tells me then we’d better not waste anymore time out here talking in the rain."
Reluctantly Cray let the ebon into the back of the Hammer to look at the swathe of bandages that was Rachael underneath the sleeping bag. Even more reluctantly he agreed to remove all the DU out of the area while the kid with the chickenbone necklace around his scrawny, pale neck inspected the damage. Letting him rat through the medical supplies looted from the LAD facility was pushing the friendship a little but Felix thought it was prudent in case he could find something of use. After much digging around he found what he wanted in the cramped confines of the Hammer, "you where sitting right on top of it all the time mister Cray. Blood Plasma." Felix proudly produced 4 plastic bags full of viscous looking clear substance from one of the refrigerated boxes. "This should have her up in a few days, she your girl mister Cray?"
"No!" Cray shot back quickly, "definitely not."
"She’s a really good looking sort, you’d be crazy not to try," Felix smiled genuinely.
"No you’d be crazy to try, she’s as mad as, oh never mind."
The ebon smiled knowingly in a way he seemed much older. "I’ll fix the wounds now, can you be quiet while I concentrate?"
"Sure kid, just get on with it."
Felix sorted through the handfuls of laminated cards he fished out from the pockets of his black vest, found the one he wanted and looked at it for awhile and nothing happened a few seconds later which left Cray feeling that they had cheated again. The kid hooked up the drip to the overhanging bunk and ran the butterfly needle into the sleeping Rachael’s arm and sat back looking at the work. "Well, thats that I guess. You want me to stay with her while you heal up? It’ll cost extra and I’ll need to tell my gang that Im here."
"How much extra?" Cray wondered how this particular service was going to cost and how it would come back to bite him in the arse later if he agreed.
"15000 a day, or something equivalent in trade. Ive got a lot of friends out there that may need me and can’t if Im here you've got to understand. We’re straight up us Johannas, we won’t sell you out to the slops that come knockin ‘cause we hate them too. We dont need no trouble from you guys either..."
Cray decided that he wasnt going to part with the cash and the ebon refused to negotiate a lower price. Right now he needed everyone up and ready to go at a moments notice, so instead he dragged out some of the captured ebb equipment he had left that was no good to any of them.
"Ive got this," he passed over the deathsuit to the ebon who at first couldn't believe his eyes. "Mister, that’s just... Look thats worth more than ‘I’ am on the streets and I’ll be honest with you I dont know anyone who can train me how to use it!"
"What if you had someone to train you?" Cray suggested, "it would mean going off-world, off Mort and away from your friends back here."
"Away from Mort?" Felix thought it over carefully for a few minutes and wasnt sure what he wanted to do.
"Off Mort, that would mean that I’d be working for you guys wouldn't it?"
"Yep, it would. But the way I see it you ain’t gunna last real long on the streets here before some nec or slop decides your worth hauling in for some bounty. We treat our ebons pretty darn good, dont believe the shit that SLA says, there ain’t no nec’s there either."
A few minutes later Cray had found himself in the possession of one ebon recruit, the price to relieve him of the Johannas was exorbitant but it wasnt unreasonable he thought. A posse of the black trenchcoat wearing Johannas stopped by to collect the payment of a power reaper machinegun off the Hammer and 3000 rounds of ammunition for it. They wanted some armour as well so Cray ended up giving them 3 suits of the remaining SHIVER body blocker armour which they no longer needed and didn't push the price any further with Buzz around to assist in the negotiation.
"How did the deal go Ma’am?" Cray called the fixer at the allocated time he was supposed to the next day from a payphone in the lower downtown district that hadn't been as violently vandalized by the inhabitants.
"Good, good Mr X. You have yourself a ticket. We’ll meet and I’ll tell you more, where would you like to meet?" Mary-Lee chirped happily back over the crackling line.
"Meet you on Degrees St, level 10. 2 hours."
"Roger that Mr X. 2 hours it is."
Cray and Gary borrowed some clothes off the Johannas and even got a small cadre of bodyguards follow them into the territory, more likely to keep an eye on them rather than for any personal protection. There was a distinct absence of any SLA employees down here making both of them nervous if they where absent for any particular reason that they should involve them. Mary-Lee came sauntering out of the rain into the cafe with an umbrella held by one of the two bodyguards packing shotguns under the raincoats.
"Good to see your still around Mr X," Mary-Lee passed a glance over to Gary and decided that he wasnt the one who would be doing any of the talking, "your SHIVER armour could be a real liability round this part of town."
"Ah, I know, so how did the deal work out?" Cray handed her a menu with the list of equipment in tons that he needed to move inside.
"Thats a bit pricey but I think we can arrange that considering what you've already paid, how many bodies we looking to take on this tour?" Mary-Lee got one of her people to get a pot of coffee.
"Only 4 including me."
"Thats down a bit from the last estimate. Find out you didn't need some of them?"
"That can happen."
"I’d like to pick up the merchandise as soon as I can, when can we trade? Today would be good."
"When we’re on the shuttle, not that I dont trust you to hold up that end of the bargain but we’ll be good for it on the day if you are."
Cray noticed a slight smile crease the undamaged side of Mary-Lee’s face and she nodded before handing over a set of data disks with the information on them for their extraction.
"Sounds good then, I’ll have a man pick up the gear on the day near where you’ll leave from. Can only manage a 10 minute window though for the flight so you’ll have to be on time otherwise they wont hang around waiting and the deals off, we take the gear anyway."
"Yeah, ok I can live with that. We’ll be there."
"Guess I might actually get to know who you are finally huh?"
"If you’re lucky and be a good girl," Cray smiled back.
He was immediately concerned when he saw Felix sitting out on top of the battle taxi and Buzz lurking nearby, not that it was possible to have Buzz existing in any other way except for being extremely violent. "Why aren't you in there looking after her?"
The boy looked up from his meditations in the dirty underground carpark and shook his head, immediately Cray feared the worst.
"You're right, she is crazy. Stuck a big gun in my face and told me in no uncertain terms to get out."
He laughed and figured for the first time in ages that something was finally going the way he wanted, this seemed to relax the ebon and he hopped down off the APC now that he saw they weren’t upset with him.
"I’ll go in and talk to her, stay here for now."
He knocked on the door of the vehicle while Gary went over to talk to Felix and get some dinner ready, worried that there was no immediate reply he went in. Only to find Rachael pointing the gun at him and looking rather disheveled as he’d ever seen her under the sleeping bag.
"You've got a real nerve leaving me here with that street vermin and an ebon no less! Now where’s my clothes? I want to get out of here! And why are you dressed like street vermin yourself?"
The gun disappeared but the temper didn’t seem to abate any less, "oh for fucks sake Rachael, just shut up a minute!" More shocked than insulted she actually did what he said and remained quiet giving Cray enough time to collect his thoughts.
"The ebon is with us, he’s the one that spent the better part of the last 48 hours making sure you didn't die. So at least be nice to the kid, for once in your life. Why am I like this? Because half of Mort is out looking for us right now and we’re deep in gang territory. Yes, you can have your stuff back but you’re in no condition to run around and cause me any more grief, until I say so and Felix says your ok to move. Half the section is dead, we’ve got a flight out of here in 5 days time. Until then you stay here and dont cause anymore shit, you might also like to radio command and let them know we’re good to go."
Cray reigned in his temper before it got the better of him, Rachael just lay back on the bunk and hid under the covers to avoid having anything more to do with him.
"I’ll send the ebon back in here in a few minutes, cause him any trouble and I’ll sedate you myself."
"Hah, that told her boss! Do you treat all the girls that rough?"
Gary stifled a laugh from erupting and Cray didn't quite know what to say to their new colleague and sat down in the battle taxi peeling back the label off his evening meal. It was beef again, he was sick of beef.
"No, Im generally an amicable sort of guy. Just that particular model of person tends to piss me off quicker than most."
There would be hell to pay though when she was up and active and Cray considered maybe sedating her until they where well away from here. He even worked out how much they had in the way of drugs and was disappointed to find out that they didn't have enough.