Ricky Sharpe just smirked at the burly ork. He knew this street samurai was trying psyche him out, force him to make a mistake. But Ricky didn’t spook easily. Many had tried to take him out in one way or another; all had failed.
Outwardly calm, inside Ricky was a spark ready to ignite. His mojo was primed, on-line, and ready to go, waiting for just the right moment to release. Arms casually at his sides, no one noticed that his right hand had drifted two centimeters closer to the wicked combat knife strapped to his thigh. By contrast, the ork seemed agitated and radiated tension; his fingers flexed involuntarily. Ricky was surprised that the ork hadn’t already popped ’spurs. Were his augmented reflexes dialed-up too high, or was bravado just a cover for his fear? Ricky didn’t know or care. No one disrespects the king in his court, Ricky thought to himself. Teaching this tusker a lesson was going to be fun.
Outside the cantina, the remnants of Hurricane Steven hammered away. Lightning flashed, thunder rumbled. Inside was dead quiet, the crowd barely breathing and giving both combatants a wide berth. The moment was almost here.
An extra bright flash of lightning led a deafening blast of thunder. Ricky struck. Too fast for a normal metahuman to see, his left hand seized one of the shot glasses on the table before him. The cantina crowd suddenly went berserk with cheers; the fight was on. Startled, the ork went for his own glass, but by the time his first shot of tequila went down, Ricky was on number three.
Ricky was in the zone, his movements a prime example of an adept’s power and grace while the ork’s cheap augmentations made him look clumsy and jerky. Within four heartbeats, Ricky had downed his sixth and final shot as the ork reached for number five. Slamming the last glass to the table, Ricky neatly pivoted and his right hand shot out. At the far side of the cantina, his combat blade buried itself dead-center into a battered dartboard. Fumbling his last shot and operating on pure reflex, the ork let his own dagger fly … handle first into the jukebox two meters low and to the right of the dartboard. The blade bounced off and the jukebox came to life, blasting Johnny Banger’s latest hit single “I Do What I Want.”
“Winner!” called out the elven bartender, pointing toward Ricky. Ricky raised his arms in triumph and basked in the cantina’s adulation. The street-sam stood there motionless with his cyber-eyes unfocused, face blank. Then he fell to the floor. In the background, the losers of side-bets surrendered credsticks or wads of local scrip to the victors.
“No one messes with the king in his castle!” Ricky proclaimed as he retrieved his dagger. As he slid the weapon focus home with his right hand, Ricky realized that his left was aching to do the same thing. But the weapon foci’s twin was gone, lost during a bad batch of business in South America just a few months ago. It was like a missing limb—he still felt like it was there, still could feel it on him sometimes.
The clanging of an old-fashioned ship’s bell mounted at the end of the bar interrupted his thoughts. “Okay everyone, last call!” announced the bartender.
Ricky ignored the order and grabbed a bottle of tequila from the top shelf. He’d stay as long as he wanted, just like he’d done for the past few months. Ghost, I love this little drek-hole, Ricky thought.
Throughout the cantina, patrons hurried to pay off tabs or down the remnants of their drinks as the bouncers oh-so-gently encouraged them to get the frag out. Within minutes, the only ones in left was Ricky, the staff—and a lone figure sitting at a back table with a bottle of Maker’s Mark bourbon and two glasses.
One of the bouncers, a human male with too many muscle replacements, took offense to Mr. Bourbon’s inability to follow directions. “Hey, omae, you forget to turn on your ears or somethin’? Or you just too fragging stupid to understand what ‘last call’ means?”
Expression partially hidden by a black ball cap and pair of dark smartglasses, Mr. Bourbon took another sip. Snarling, Muscle Man stormed over, slammed his palms onto the table, and leaned forward; spittle splattering on Mr. Bourbon’s longcoat.
“Listen hoop-licker, I said…”
“Heard what you said just fine.” Mr. Bourbon calmly interrupted. “Jus’ ain’t leaving yet, s’all.”
Muscle Man smirked. “And why’s that?”
“I got some business. With Ricky.”
Ricky’s head turned toward the sound of his name. He didn’t recognize the voice, that odd blend of UCAS Midwestern and CAS Cajun, but there was something about it that got his attention.
Setting his glass down gently, Mr. Bourbon straightened up a bit in his seat and filled the second glass. “No, not me. An associate of mine.” He pulled a battered machine pistol and set it on the table.
Ricky recognized the weapon, and his blood ran cold.
“Now then, you have an outstanding bill with me. How ’bout we settle up on it?” Mr. Bourbon said. From across the cantina, their eyes met for the first time. “Do I know you?”
Ricky kept it frosty. “I don’t know what your game is, so how about you just get your sorry hoop out of here. No one’s gonna let you ...” He let the thought dangle as his hand strayed toward his blade.
“Oh contraire,” Bourbon interrupted. “I think if dey knew ’bout your work in South America, dey’d be the first ones to skin you.”
“Zero-Two to Zero-Six; Major, you got party-crashers inbound, ETA less than two minutes. You need to evac now!”
“Still securing the wounded, need at least three. Can you stall them?”
From behind her Desert Strike’s scope, Sergeant Major Raina Watkins licked her tusks like a tiger when it smelled prey. “Oh, I’ll make them seriously regret their current course of action.”
“Copy that. Keep your ’link open and be ready to move once we start exfil.”
“Assholes and elbows on your mark, sir.”
Within the confines of her perch atop an abandoned apartment building, Raina re-adjusted her shooting position to get a better angle on the hostiles. They were at least platoon strength, sporting light mil-spec armor (with no identifying marks) and standard small-arms. But there were two machine gunners and one trooper packing a Ballista Missile Launcher. Raina scowled. The rescue teams would be sitting ducks when they tried to move with the wounded.
It was a basic rescue mission, skulking into Zona Centrico to get Fifth Team, which had been ambushed attempting to escort a VIP to a safehouse. Raina had been sent ahead to conduct recon and set up overwatch. Until now, the mission had been textbook. But in combat, Murphy was never far away.
Through her scope, she saw the hostiles move with order and discipline. Fire Teams leap-frogged each other to provide covering fire. They must have been tipped off to Fifth Team’s location because they headed right for it.
“Sorry, chummers, not today.” Raina said to herself. She touched a small pouch on her vest that contained a worn, battered unit patch and recited: “I am the Shepherd, the Wolf-hunter, and none shall harm my flock …”
Magic spread throughout her body in a warm rush, washing away any lingering pain or aches from sitting in the same position for almost a day. Her senses sharpened; the sniper rifle in her hands felt like a true extension of her body. Through her astral perception, she didn’t see any magicians. Too bad. They might have stood a chance.
The hostiles were over one hundred meters away, but the Desert Strike’s targeting receptacle easily aligned with the side of the rocket trooper’s head and then drifted down his back. With squeeze of the trigger, Raina’s rifle coughed once. A half-second later, the ammo magazine containing high-explosive rounds exploded like a bomb. Four enemy troops caught in the hellish blast radius fell to the ground. They didn’t get back up.
The rest of the hostiles opened up in all directions, desperately trying to lay down suppression fire. But Raina was in no real danger. She smoothly targeted one of the machine gunners; his head exploded in a flash of gore and kinetic energy. Three more times Raina squeezed the trigger, and three more enemy troops died. Their commander ordered a retreat as their discipline started shifting to panic. The survivors popped thermal smoke to cover their egress, but Raina could still see some of them. She could have taken out at least two more, but her mission was complete. She was a solider and a professional, not a murderer.
“Zero-Two to Zero-Six, call me an overachiever, enemy forces bugging out. Now’s a good time to get the frag out of there.”
“Copy, that Zero-Two. All packages are wrapped and ready to ship. Rendezvous at Rally Point: Alpha in four minutes. Don’t miss the bus!”
“You kidding? You owe me a bottle of the good stuff for this, sir!”
Magic still active, Raina rose from her perch and suddenly felt movement behind her. On pure reflex she jerked to the side and felt a sudden, lancing pain in her leg. Falling back down, she saw a throwing dagger buried to the bone in her left thigh. Without thinking, she reached down and pulled it out; a sharp gasp of pain burst from her lips as she realized how stupid that was. Pressing her free hand to the gushing wound, she scanned the area for her attacker and saw nothing, except two more daggers imbedded in the plascrete ledge.
“Damn, you’re good,” said an unfamiliar voice “No one’s been able to dodge any of them before. But I still think I came out ahead on this one.”
Raina’s head snapped toward the echoing voice just in time to see a human male wearing an Urban Explorer jumpsuit vault himself up and over the building’s ledge. With a tight flip, he landed in a crouch, arms crossed over his chest as he glared at her. “And here I thought today was going to be boring. Oh, great shooting by the way, very accurate. Although I have my own preferred method of killing.” His arms flared outward, spinning a pair of wicked-looking combat knives in his palm. Raina frowned. Even without her astral senses, she knew another adept and a pair of weapon foci when she saw them. Frag me.
“So now, if you’ll just hold still, we can get this over with quickly. Or, struggle a bit if you want, but you’ll just die tired. Either way, I need wrap this soon to catch Aztlan Nights on the trid.” He said surging forward with blinding speed.
Melee combat wasn’t Raina’s forte, but she was far from helpless. As the adept charged, he swiped his blades in a crisscross pattern for distraction just before his right hand struck low toward Raina’s femoral artery. Anticipating the move, Raina ignored the display and (barely) blocked the attack with her rifle; the adept was fast. She whipped her rifle up, catching the adept in the chin. Stunned, he took a step back. Raina seized the moment, driving the butt stock into his face. There was a satisfying crunch of cartilage as blood spurted from his nose.
The adept staggered back and cried out—not in pain, but pleasure. He shook ecstatically while wiping blood all over his face. Raina had seen this before, and the sudden horrible realization of what the adept was chilled her to the core. She quickly raised her rifle to her shoulder, only to see the barrel was damaged. Frag me twice!
The adept quickly regained his composure as Raina quick-drew her Crusader machine pistol and fired. Three rounds struck the adept center-mass and he fell to one knee, but the jumpsuit’s armor held. Already feeling the first effects of blood loss, Rania lined up a head-shot, hand slightly shaking. The adept just laughed.
“Not bad at all” he said with gleeful murder painted on his face. “You almost got me! I’m quite anxious to see what you do next.” As he spoke, he brought forward a knife, point up. Raina started to dodge when she realized the knife was being used as a pointer. She heard the dull “whump” in the distance followed by a tell-tail whistle. Looking up, she saw a spotter drone a mere twenty meters above.
It was time to go. She swan-dove over the side and fell into a pile of garbage four stories below—a pile she’d arranged earlier for just such a circumstance. Above, the first of the artillery shells slammed into the apartment, obliterating the top floor and sending debris flying. Quickly rolling off a safety net she’d hidden, Raina glanced upwards and saw the whack-job adept bounding off the apartment building and its catwalks all parkour-style. She had one option: run.
Fueled by magic and desperation, Raina sprinted as fast as her legs would take her. She ran around blasted walls, destroyed vehicles, and mangled bodies. But the adept stayed right on her heels.
“Whoa! Hold up there, sugar-tusks! I don’t want to hurt ya. I just want to rip your heart out!” he yelled as he leaped off a pile of bodies. Raina replied with a burst from her Crusader, but the shots went wide.
“I’m starting to think you don’t like me!” he yelled, then let three more daggers fly. Unable to dodge, Raina felt two sink into her lower back and one in her injured leg. Stumbling, she dropped her rifle and slammed against the burnt-out hulk of a Devil Rat APC. Leaning heavily against it, Raina raised her Crusader. Injury, blood loss, and exertion had taken their toll; shock was setting in. Her vision swam, and the ARO smartgun receptacle in her smartgoggles made her nauseous.
The artillery had stopped, but the adept was slowly advancing on Raina, focus spinning in his hands. Summoning whatever strength she had left, she stood up against the APC and steadied the Crusader with both hands, putting the targeting receptacle right on his face. “Stop,” she said.
The other adept chuckled. “So, setting up a final showdown, eh. You’re betting—hoping—that you can shoot me in the head before I can sprint over there and gut you like a fish.”
Raina’s vision swam.
“Stop. Now.”
“Oh come on, tusker-babe, you’re gonna die soon anyway! Why not let me make it quick?”
“No. Stop right now!”
“Not a chance. You honestly think you can even hit me with that?”
“No, just stalling.”
A bit of blood dribbled from her mouth as she nodded upward. The other adept looked up and saw the spotter drone. His eyes went wide. Then he heard the whistle.
Raina didn’t know how long she’d lay there. The sound of crackling audio in her earbud brought her back to consciousness. Too weak to move, it was all she could do to roll on her back.
“… is Zero-Six, do you copy!”
Her jaw worked a few times before she croaked a reply “Zero … Zero … Two here.”
“Raina, I’m still in the area and receiving images, but your GPS is out.”
But then a cry of pure rage split the air. Tilting her head, Raina saw the adept about twenty meters away, his jumpsuit burnt and tattered revealing lacerated skin and burnt flesh, shifting through rubble and scrap. He turned toward her, murder etched on his face. “This is your fault! It’s gone because of you!” He stalked forward, only one blade in hand.
Darkness formed at the corners of her vision, and there was not a thing she could do about it. “Zero … Nate … did you get?” she croaked.
“Yeah, mission accomplished. Now give me your damn location or turn on your GPS!”
“Not this time, sir. I’m done. Sorry, Nate. I won’t be able to make the big party.”
“What? No, Raina, no! Hold on, hold on!”
Raina reached up and dislodged her earbud, just as the other adept straddled her abdomen. It might have hurt, but she was already numb. Still, as he leaned in close, Raina met his gaze and decided to hold on for as long as she could.
“Now, what did I say earlier about your heart? Oh yeah …” The adept thrust his dagger into Raina’s chest.
“You know what, I’m sick of this. Bruno, get him out of here” Ricky said.
Bruno the over-muscled bouncer smiled as she reached for Mr. Bourbon to show him the door. Abruptly. He collapsed to the floor, unconscious. Mr. Bourbon slowly retracted his arm.
“Anyone else wanna get stupid? This is between me and Ricky, comprendre?” Bourbon said.
The cantina workers were frozen in place, unable to speak. So was Ricky. He’d never seen an unarmed strike that fast before; for the first time, he wasn’t sure he could take someone. Still, he kept his cool.
The elven bartender who found the courage to speak first. “Please, señor, just go! You have the wrong man! Ricky could not have done the things you said!”
In reply, Bourbon reached into his longcoat and pulled out a long, wicked combat dagger. He gave everyone a good look before he thrust it into the table. “Look familiar?”
The staff gasped at the sight of the blade. It was an exact match for Ricky’s.
“How many people did you carve up with these blades, Ricky? Dozens? Hundreds?” Bourbon’s fingertips held the blade and casually turned it. Ricky’s eyes never left it; he was already turning red, his calm veneer fading.
“Hey look, chum,” said one of the other bartenders “You could have gotten that anywhere.”
“Maybe. Ask Ricky? He seems interested in it.”
Ricky just stood there, hand hanging near his thigh, sweating with its tight group on the blade.
Mr. Bourbon slowly stood. “Want to know where I found this? I was only a half-a-click away. When I got dere, I found dis instead of you. Your trail was easy to follow. Took me two days skulking through an active war zone, but I found your doss. Yeah, I seen what you did to her and da others, or what was left of dem. And the altar. What did the press label you, Butcher of Bogotá?” he said.
“Still doesn’t mean anything,” said the other bartender.
“Doesn’t mean … they never proved … found HA!” Ricky suddenly barked, his face a mask of madness and anger as he looked at his other blade with longing. “Ah, fuck it. Give it to me.” His voice took on a high-pitched tone.
“Ricky?” said the elven bartender, slowly backing away.
He ignored her; all he cared about was reclaiming what was rightfully his. “Give it to me. Now”
“Best you all leave,” Bourbon said. The staff quickly complied.
Alone, they stared at each other. Ricky shook with anger, while Bourbon was calm and steady.
“So how’d you find me?” Ricky asked.
“Image link in her goggles. Saw the whole thing. After that it was a simple matter of knowing who to talk to, and how much to pay. A lot of people want you dead.”
Ricky chuckled “Nothing new. Just have to change identities again. So what now? We have our little standoff, a duel to see who’s better?”
Bourbon just stood there.
“What, suddenly can’t speak? Couldn’t get you to shut up a few minutes ago and now you won’t say a fucking thing? And for what? Some fucking worthless tusker bitch?!”
Bourbon’s right hand drifted toward the Crusader on the table.
“Oh! I see. This is some sort of honor thing, right? You’re an ‘Avenging Angel’ or some drek, huh? Okay, Gumbo-man, I’ll play your little game. And tell you what. I’ll do the ‘honorable’ thing. I’ll offer you the same terms I offered her. So let’s see who’s faster, you with that piece of drek gun, or me with my …”
There was a sudden sharp crack. Ricky’s body jerked violently as his brains evacuated the back of his skull. Bourbon stood there, a smoking custom Colt 2066 heavy pistol in his left hand. Ricky stood for a few seconds more, then his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He fell to the floor.
“Honor doesn’t apply to rabid animals. They get put down.”
It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for on Ricky’s body. It was in the right chest pocket of his jumpsuit. He pulled it out, along with several other items, including a wedding ring, an earring, an old USA silver dollar, a small plastic dolphin, and a lock of hair in a tiny plastic bag. All were trophies from other victims. He said a quick prayer for all of them, hoping he’d granted them justice as well. He took a moment to gaze at his objective; a battered and worn patch depicting a grim reaper looking over his shoulder, with a stylized “61” at the bottom. He clutched it tight, eyes watering behind his smartglasses. Taking a deep breath, he pulled out two similar patches from his own pocket; his and his father’s. Placing the three together, he secured them all as he activated his commlink and walked out of the cantina. The rain had stopped.
“Bravo Zero-Six to Freebird. Mission complete. The bill has been paid.”