either direction, finding garbage piled up outside the back door of a Chinese restaurant, finding things he didn't want to get too close a look at. Finding nothing else.
For once, Moses was glad he couldn't smell anything.
'Did you bring the beetles?' Moses repeated. He heard the faintest of whirring and clicks. The dwarf was checking him out, too. 'I'm alone. No guns.'
'I know.'
'The beetles.' Moses added a hint of desperation to his voice, like he was a junkie in desperate need of a fix. He was, but not for the beetles. He remembered the goat horns he had on layaway. If he didn't pay them off and get them installed soon, he'd lose his deposit. 'Did you bring the beetles?'
'Better than life,' the dwarf cooed, stepping closer.
'Better than human,' Moses said, thinking about the horns and the fins and echolocation bioware and maybe some extended volume for his lungs and elastic joints for his knees.
'Better than anything,' the dwarf said. 'Yeah, I have beetles. You have nuyen?'
Moses pulled out the troll's credstick. Good thing he'd run into the troll. He'd forgotten his meager credstick back at his place. He hadn't forgotten it the last time he pulled this stunt, or the time before that or before that. Had to have a credstick to make them think you were actually buying something. Had to have the black market contacts to get the names and locations of beetle-sellers. Better-than-life chips were still illegal and you couldn't buy them just anywhere. He didn't want the chips, just the credsticks the beetle-seller would have on him. It was a theft that would never be reported. Moses had done this a dozen times. Or was that two dozen?
'Yeah, I got the nuyen. Let's see the chips first.' Moses waved the stick higher. He knew the dwarf had some sort of enhanced vision that would let him pick out the details. 'Why don't you-'
The back door of one of the bars opened, spilling sickly-yellow light out into the alley and reflecting off the puddles. Moses caught a glimpse of a snake, but it wasn't a pretty one. Only neon bred the pretty ones. He tried to look away, but it was a snake, and Moses was supposed to have snakes, wasn't he? Maybe if he cocked his head he could see it breathe. Maybe if-
The dwarf barreled into him, fist slamming into his stomach, plating absorbing it, but the momentum sending him back. Moses' tail lashed out, whipping around the dwarf's muscular forearm. It was a cyberlimb, all metal, no flesh, fingers ungodly strong and grabbing at the tail, squeezing, breaking some of the mirrored scales.
'Damn you!' Moses cursed. He couldn't afford to have the tail fixed, not with all the other plans for modifications. Not unless the dwarf had lots and lots of nuyen for selling beetles. Moses' bone lacing made him strong, and he used that might now to bull-rush the dwarf, bringing his knee up into the smaller man's chest, pushing him down into the puddle to smother the ugly, yellow snake.
The dwarf had dermal plating, too. So Moses changed his tactics, pounding his fists against the dwarf's wide, ruddy face.
Voices intruded, maybe the man who'd opened the back door and birthed the ugly snake. Someone with him, voices panicked at what was transpiring in their alley. Make it fast, Moses thought. Don't need someone calling Lone Star. Not that he was doing anything illegal. This was self-defense. The dwarf started it. Moses just intended to finish it.
'And Moses said unto the Lord in Exodus four-ten, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou has spoken unto they servant; but I am slow of speech, and slow of tongue. But let me be fast of fist. Let my wired reflexes fly.'
Moses pounded harder until he heard bone crunch. The dwarf didn't intend to just stay down and die, though, struggling frantically to reach something at his side, succeeding, and pulling free a heavy pistol that he shoved up against Moses' side. The dwarf fired three times, the first two bouncing off the dermal, but the third punching a hole in the plating and sending a round deep inside.
Moses registered the pain, but shoved it to the back of his mind and continued to pound, listening to voices spilling out in the alley, listening to the dwarf curse, and hearing another round fire and find its way inside. Then he heard the dwarf cough and felt blood spit up against his face and onto his lips. Good thing he couldn't taste. Dwarf blood would probably taste bad.
The dwarf heaved once beneath him, and then fell still. Moses dug through his pockets, finding credstick after credstick after credstick. Twenty five of them-his math subprocessor unit counted things instantly. The proverbial motherload. He shoved them in his own pockets. They wouldn't all fit, so he stuffed the extras in his kangaroo pouch, which had been a handy modification. Then he pushed off the ground, one hand pressed against his wounded side.
The voices came closer, accompanied by feet slapping through puddles filled with ugly yellow snakes. The backdoor to the bar was propped open wide and sickly light poured out.
'Are you hurt?'
'Who are you?'
'What happened?'
There were more questions from the quintet of barmaids and bartenders. Moses ignored them all and whacked his free palm against the side of his head, kicking in the GPS and tugging him back out the alley, onto the sidewalk and around the corner of the all-night pharmacy.
Maybe he should go in the pharmacy, he thought. Buy some painkillers and bandages.
But Doc's wasn't terribly far away, five or six blocks tops. Doc could repair the damage from the dwarf's slugs, put him under for that and do some modifications and hair-grafting at the same time. He certainly had enough nuyen on all these credsticks. Get it all done at the same time. Had the dwarf shot up some of his computer interfaces? Were more systems damaged?
'Nuyen. Nuyen. Nuyen. Got me lots of that.' Moses staggered up the street, past the body of the bled-out troll that was still lying on the curb, passersby walking around it. No sign of Foxy Foxtail, whom he probably saved.
Lightning flickered high overhead, followed by a boom of thunder that drowned out the music spilling from bars and sex shops. It would rain soon, thank the Lord, Moses thought. Rain and fill the low spots so the snakes would have more room to swim.
He watched the snakes as he went, pushing himself between the throng out on the sidewalk, struggling to watch the snakes between all the feet. Bright blue, grass-green, violet, day-glo pink, chartreuse, they shimmied all along Western Avenue. Moses followed the cherry-grape one, and with his free hand fingered one of the many credsticks in his pocket.
How had he gotten so many credsticks?
What was he going to spend them on?
Hair, he remembered hair. He came down here to get him some of that. Hair and… hair and… pearlized goat milk for his sister Ruth. Intreat me not to leave thee, Ruth. Where thou lodgest, Ruth.
'Where do you lodge?' Moses mused.
He'd deliver the milk tonight, if only he could remember her address.
Caliban
I have a problem paying 1000 nuyen for a cup of fancy, swill-tasting soycaf. So when some gacked up ork blows it into ceramic fragments before I can even choke it down-it sort of sets the mood for the rest of the day.
I make a better cup at home-but I wasn't at home that morning. I was in Los Angeles-the last place I ever wanted to be. I'm more at home in Seattle-a long way from my present location. I was doing a friend a favor, and getting shot at in the process.
Welcome to 2072.
My name's Derek Montgomery, but most of my chummers call me Dirk. I've sort of built up a reputation as a shadowrunner over the past sixteen years. I never call myself that-I'm a detective for lack of a better word.
