Steve Kenson's first published work for Shadowrun was an essay in the second edition of The Grimoire. This led to writing the adventure "The Masquerade" in Harlequin's Back and working on over two dozen books, including Awakenings, Magic in the Shadows, and Portfolio of a Dragon. Steve has written seven Shadowrun novels, including Crossroads and the first Kellan Colt trilogy, beginning with Born to Run. He maintains a website at www.stevekenson.com and a LiveJournal at xomec.livejournal.com.
You move down the corridor confidently, not striding, because striding implies a sense of arrogance, not humble duty and responsibility. Still, it's a confidence born of power, of the certain knowledge you can handle anything that might come at you. You know-deep down-that you are up to the challenge, that you were born to be, made to be.
Although you are humble, this place is still beneath you. You step over loose piles of garbage in the hall with the barest sniff of disdain. The place reeks, the stench of human filth and misery is strong in your nostrils, almost threatening to choke you, but you push it aside. You flex your fingers inside their close-fitting, black leather gloves; feel the fine leather creak slightly, the steely strength in your tendons and muscles.
The background noise in the corridor is a mix of broadcast programs and sprawl music barely muffled by cheap, particleboard doors and sheetrock walls worn paper-thin. The noises coming from behind the door ahead and to your left are grunting, animalistic, matching the filth and desperation of this setting. They're tantalizing and disgusting at the same time. Is it distaste for them or for what needs to be done that wells up in your throat? Tasting the flat, metallic bile, you grab hold of it, turning disgust into anger into power.
[LOWER: EMO_TRACK]
Your booted foot blurs as it lashes at the door. You barely feel it as the jamb disintegrates from the strike, splinters of formerly glued wood-substitute flying. The flimsy chain on the inside tears off, still stubbornly holding onto the fragment of the frame it's firmly screwed into, as if to proclaim it is the weakness of the structure and not it that had led to this. Things seems to drop into slow motion, and a part of you watches the splinters and fragments fly, detached, fascinated.
The door flies open, banging against the inside wall, but rebounding only slightly. You're inside before it can do so, the world around you moving so slowly you can pick out every detail. You savor it: the shocked, startled looks spreading across the faces of the man and the woman locked together on the ratty sofa against the wall, the man simultaneously pushing back with his arms to rise while reaching for the crumpled mass of clothing strewn on the floor. Vivid tattoos crawl along his muscled chest and arms: blue-green dragon scales, golden carp, there, between his shoulder blades, a blooming lotus.
Then you have him by the throat, lifting him off the woman, pinning him against the wall next to the couch. Cheap paint and sheetrock chip and crumple where his head hits. He has enough air to grunt once in pain before your fingers close his windpipe and he starts to choke. As if your hand was around her throat as well, a scream arrives stillborn from the woman's mouth as little more than a hiccup or faint yelp. She starts to move, but there's a gun in your other hand, and you level it back in her direction without even looking. The sounds of her movement stop and there's only a faint whimpering.
The man you've pinned glares at you with dark eyes, slight epicanthic folds betraying a mixed heritage that strikes a momentary chord of familiarity, but elicits no mercy or slackening of your grip. You watch with a certain fascinated detachment as a full range of emotions play across his face in just a few seconds: surprise and shock give way to rage at your intrusion, a furious desire to strike out at you, then puzzlement at the inability to escape your grip. Hands claw at the leather sleeve of your coat, feeling more like caresses through the thick material. Confusion starts to give way to panic, a desperate need for escape, for air. The man's face starts to redden. There's a slight ache along the length of your arm, but you savor it, the burning in your muscles as your grip remains, unrelenting, tightening. You do not look away, still aware of the faint whimpering from the couch behind you-gun leveled there-but no other signs of movement. The man's feet bang against the wall, just centimeters off the floor. Someone bangs back from the neighboring apartment and you stifle a laugh: are they hoping to quiet the noise or do they think they're playing a game? They might think it is more foreplay, and not the main event.
The tapping dance of his feet slows, then stops, the clawing at your arm grows feeble, then his arms fall, limp and helpless. His eyes remain locked on yours, but then start to glaze and roll back in his head as the struggles give way to nothing more than deadweight pinned against the wall. You wait with a terrible patience, drawing out the silence that dares anyone to interrupt it. The only noise is the background babble of music and soundtracks from outside and a few last half-hearted thumps from the other side of the wall.
When you release your grip, it's almost a surprise, like a spring uncoiling. The body drops limply to the floor, like a wet sack sliding down the wall. You lower your other arm for the first time, bringing the sleek, flat-profile pistol down to your side, and turn away from the dead man-knowing his fate with a cold certainty-back towards the woman on the couch.
It's as if you notice her for the first time. She's young, and still fairly pretty for a whore, her neo-Egyptian style makeup giving bold, dark emphasis to her wide eyes and half-blood features, dark hair spilling loose and wild around her face. Again, a slight feeling of recognition stirs deep inside you, along with something else. She has managed to grab the soiled sheet covering the couch and pull it up to cover herself, although the half-hearted effort is largely forgotten in the spectacle that unfolded before her; one small breast peeks out around the edge of the fabric. The nipple is small, dark and still erect…
[PAUSE_PLAYBACK]
"Did you fuck her?"
"What?" Kage murmured, turning away from the dark rain-streaked window toward the figure lounging on the bed behind him.
"I said, 'did you fuck her?'" Tomashi replied with a sigh, punctuating his words like he was speaking to a child or an idiot. It was a tone Kage found irritatingly familiar.
"I…no…" he said quietly, eliciting an exaggerated huff of frustration from the other man, who slapped his hands down on the mattress for emphasis.
"It would have been better if you had fucked her," he muttered to nobody in particular. "That would have been hot. You could have taken her right there after you did him…"
"I didn't," Kage repeated, somewhat uselessly, "I…"
"Shut up," Tomashi countered without any real heat. "Don't spoil it. I still want to run the rest." But as he settled back against the pillows of the bed, Kage's commlink buzzed softly. He answered, eyes remaining on Tomashi who glanced over in idle curiosity.
"Hai," he replied to the clipped voice on the other end of the line. "Hai." Tomashi lifted himself up on his elbows, which emphasized his slight but growing paunch, the look on his face making it clear he knew who was calling. Kage disconnected the line.
"Your honorable father-" he began.
"My honorable father can go fuck himself," Tomashi interrupted.
"He's here," Kage forced in, before his charge could go off on a lengthier rant.
"So?"
"He wouldn't care for…"
"You're right. He. Wouldn't. Care." Tomashi said. He produced a flat-profile pistol from under the pillows on the bed and made a show of checking the magazine and the slide, sighting along its length at nothing in particular in a corner of the room.
"Where did you get that?" Kage asked, already knowing the answer. The weapon was a familiar one. There was a cold knot in his stomach.
"Where do you think?"
"That's not a toy."
"Sure it is, just like you." He swung the pistol around to point in Kage's direction, causing the other man to fight down the urge to reach for his own weapon, holstered under his coat.
"Do not point that thing at me!" he said through clenched teeth, taking a fractional step towards the lounging Tomashi.
"Or what…? You'll kill me?"
Stepping in, grabbing the hand holding the gun faster than the eye could follow, pinning the wrist in a vice-like grip…
"No…" he said quietly. "No, but it's careless, and dangerous, not everyone has my… restraint."
Tomashi just laughed, slowly releasing the hammer of the gun and deliberately raising the barrel towards the ceiling before lowering it to the bed.
"Something to be said for going out in a blaze of glory," he mused, more to himself, looking longingly at the gun. "Better to burn out than to fade away."
If so, you're well on your way, Kage thought. Even if he was able to protect Tomashi from all outside threats, including the strong temptation to beat him within a nanometer of his life, he couldn't do anything to protect him from himself. A fascination with simsense programs had blossomed into a full-blown obsession, perhaps even addiction.
Tomashi had long since given up popular sims like Shadow Super-Mage Talon and Ninja Slayer IX. Even the so-called "California Hot" and "Kong Chips," with their barely legal signal levels and boosted emotional gains, were not enough to satisfy him. Tomashi was into what many called "real sim." It wasn't the pre-packaged, carefully edited programs sold in stores, recordings of staged events and the experiences of simstars, but raw "wet record" sims of real action, real events, of the kind of life he didn't have.
He tried a different tack: "Your father is concerned about you… and so am I."
"My father is concerned about his reputation and his legacy," Tomashi countered bitterly, "and you're paid to be concerned about me."
"No, I'm not," he countered, just as coldly, "and you know it."
"Sure you are. You're paid with your life, and your honor, and all those things you can do." He gestured vaguely towards his own head with the pistol he held in his hand, as if all those things were stored up there, which, in a way, they were. "I have a pretty good idea just how much all of your mods cost." He waved his free hand-and not the gun-in Kage's direction.
"I'm sure you do," he shot back, "especially…" but then a knock sounded at the door and Kage went to it, shooting the slightly younger man a penetrating look. It was a familiar routine and his duty gave him something to hold on to in situations like this. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched his spare pistol disappear beneath Tomashi's pillow. He'd have to deal with that later.
Even though they were as safe in the oyabun's home as they could be anywhere, Kage approached the unknown behind the door like a possible threat. It was his job. He opened the door a fraction, his concealed hand hovering near his weapon.
"Yojimbo," the man on the other side said, and he bowed slightly in response.
"Kanaga-san," he replied neutrally, sliding the door open further for the kobun to enter the room, if he wished.
"The Chairman wishes to see you."
Kage wondered if he detected a hint of gloating in the kobun's voice. He knew full well Kanaga was a traditionalist who did not approve of half-breed "samurai" guarding the oyabun's son. He frequently criticized Chairman Shigeda's policies, in fact; Kage never understood why the oyabun tolerated him, but Kanaga was efficient, and the Chairman liked men willing to challenge him, to a point. Such tolerance was a part of the "New Way" Shiegada-sama and his organization espoused.
He bowed in acknowledgement of the message, as if delivered by the voice of the oyabun himself, and Kanaga turned and walked away from the door. Kage gave a quick glance back before he followed, but Tomashi was already settling back onto the pillows and restarting the sim-feed. He sighed, closing the door behind him as he left.
The room down the hall was the oyabun's personal study, and sometime office, although he conducted little official business there. It was appointed in a lean, minimalist style enhanced by virtual installations. Displays, input devices, and other necessities could appear as needed via the oyabun's personal commlink and the other discretely hidden Matrix nodes in the room. Kage knew full well that he entered through an invisible web of scanning beams, tiny cams, and mics-every action observed and recorded. Another typical night for me, he mused somewhat bitterly. He was only grateful Tomashi hadn't thought to activate his sim-rig to record this as well.
The oyabun did not speak at first, leaving Kage standing just inside the panel doors as Kanaga withdrew and they whispered closed. Although they looked like traditional rice paper, they were actually a far tougher polycarbonate composite. The Shigeda-gumi was a progressive one, after all, and the Chairman (he preferred that title whenever possible) sought to blend old and new practices suited to the Sixth World. The virtual rendering decorating the wall opposite the windows was symbolic of this: based on the first famous commuter-captured photo of the Great Dragon Ryumyo in Japan, displayed across the Internet in the days just after the Awakening at the end of 2011. The iridescent dragon and the sleek bullet train were a contrast between the ancient and modern, the mythical and technological. The paired swords displayed on the polished wood credenza were replicas using modern carbon steel with monofilament diamond edges. The calligraphic wall scroll, on the other hand, was authentic, from the 1800s, as Kage recalled.
Chairman Shigeda stood in front of the window to the side of the room's low desk, arms clasped behind his back, looking out into the rain spattered darkness through the carbon-composite windows in a manner Kage found achingly familiar.
"My son," he began in a low, firm voice, "is not worthy of your efforts, Yojimbo."
"Shigeda-sama…" the oyabun's hand went up, cutting off any further protest and indicating he was not looking for vain denials of what they both already knew.
"Still," he continued, as if not interrupted. "Tomashi is safe in your care. I know this. You were made to be his perfect companion and protector… as his mother wished."
His perfect plaything, Kage thought, but kept the comment to himself.
"Your service has been right and honorable, but my son has not followed your example as I had hoped. I must now send him away, and you with him."
Kage's head involuntarily lifted, eyes flicking toward the window. Fortunately, the other man had not turned around and did not see, focused on whatever images were there for him in the darkness beyond the glass.
Chairman Shigeda was a relatively young man for his esteemed position, and believed it was important to maintain appearances. He dressed in a Western fashion, in a dark, tailored suit with a cream-colored, perfectly pressed shirt and a handmade silk tie. His collar and cuffs were long enough to conceal the irezumi, the traditional tattoos he wore, and his black hair was neatly trimmed and styled.
Kage considered the contrast between them, dressed as he was in a flowing armored coat, even indoors, with the close-fitting dark clothes underneath made of modern armor-cloth blends. He wore serviceable combat boots rather than imported leather shoes, and was permitted not even the tattooing of a lowly initiate, as he could not be acknowledged as anything other than what he was: Not of pure blood, but with mixed Japanese and Western features. His head was shorn, for simplicity and utility, making him look much like a dark-clad, lethal Buddhist monk, sworn to follow his path for life.
They were a study in contrasts, and yet there were things in common: a strong set of jaw, the steady gaze, the proud carriage, if you knew what to look for.
"It will be easier for you to protect him elsewhere," the Chairman said, somewhat sadly.
"To protect him from what, Shigeda-sama? Is there a threat I should know about?"
"There is always a threat, Yojimbo, but yes, I have heard rumors. Others may move against me. When that happens, it would be best if Tomashi were elsewhere."
"Yes, Chairman," the bodyguard said with a bow. It was the only possible reply.
"Go and pack what you need. I will speak to my son alone. You will leave tonight."
"Yes, Chairman," he bowed deeply and backed out of the room, the doors whispering open behind him, then sliding closed, cutting off his last view of the study and the man he had served his entire life.
Yojimbo, he was called, "bodyguard," in the old Japanese fashion. It wasn't a name, merely a title, no different than calling a chair a chair or a sword a sword. Tomashi called him Kage, "shadow," his ever-present companion since he was allowed out of his mother's sight, his ever-present champion. Kage Yojimbo, shadow bodyguard. His life was lived in the shadows: the shadows of other men, the shadows cast by the gumi, the Shigeda clan.
His quarters were even more Spartan than the Chairman's study: just a sleeping mat, a wall cabinet for weapons and personal items, and a small, recessed closet. Necessary displays and the like were all virtual, projected via his headware and commlink as they were needed, although they rarely ever were in here.
There was little actual packing to do: Yojimbo kept necessities packed and ready to go at a moment's notice. Still, he welcomed the order as an opportunity to take a few precious minutes to himself to gather his thoughts more than his meager possessions. He would take his essential weapons, of course: the matched Fichetti security pistols with extra magazines, collapsible shock baton, the concealable ceramic and carbon fiber blade. The Chairman hadn't mentioned the need for heavy ordinance, or else he would have provided it. Besides which, Kage was his own best weapon.
You were made to be his perfect companion and protector… The Chairman's words were truth. Kage closed the door of the cabinet and looked down at his hand, flexing it slowly as if seeing it for the first time, feeling the power of the myomer-fiber enhanced muscles, the nano-composite laced bone. He recalled the middleman's throat, held in his vice-like grasp, dangling off the floor…
"Did you fuck her?" Tomashi asked. He recalled the woman, half-covered in the forgotten sheet, all her attention fixed on him, her dark eyes bottomless pools. He remembered the gun in her hand from underneath the sheet, how easily he took it from her, stepping in, grabbing the hand holding the gun faster than the eye could follow, pinning the wrist in a vice-like grip. He could have broken it with just a twist or a squeeze, could have pushed her down, but he didn't. She didn't beg for mercy or even look away, capturing his eyes with hers. She pressed the gun into his hand instead.
"You know what you have to do," she said, and it had taken him aback. Did she want to die? Her tone was different, haunted. Then he saw the neural socket behind her ear, the particular glimmer to her eyes. She was bunraku, a flesh-puppet, her brain wired with software to make her whatever fantasy her client wanted. Was it the software speaking to him, or the true woman coming through? His hand closed around his own Fichetti pistol, alone in his room, recalling how he had gripped the gun, taking it from her unresisting hand, and stepped back.
"Do what you have to do," she said in the same tone, not looking down or away for what seemed like a very long time. It was Kage who finally broke their gaze. He turned and walked out, leaving the woman behind. Tomashi was going to be disappointed, and worse, angry at him, not only for the witness he left behind, but for the opportunity he passed up to improve the "show" for him. But Kage found he didn't care.
"Your service has been right and honorable…" the Chairman had said, and hot tears stung the bodyguard's eyes. If only Shigeda-sama knew. He was as much a whore as that woman, as much a puppet for the entertainment of a spoiled child. The boy Shigeda's wife adored beyond all reason, the boy the oyabun indulged, the boy Kage swore to protect with his life's blood. With the sim-rig, Tomashi was inside of him, as surely as if…
The sound of the gunshot had Kage moving almost before he was aware of it, a lifetime of training taking over in an instant. As he ran down the corridor, pistol in hand, there came a second shot, then a third. He counted five by the time he reached the doors of the Chairman's study and they obediently slid open for him.
Shigeda-sama sat behind the low desk, blood spread dark across the front of his immaculate dress shirt, his face frozen in an expression of shock, mouth open, and eyes wide. He hadn't even had time to call out.
When the doors opened, Tomashi turned towards Kage, gun held before him like a talisman, twin of Kage's own.
"Do what you have to do," he muttered, finger tightening on the trigger as he raised the weapon. He jerked and the shot went wide when the bodyguard's first bullet took him in the eye, staggered back towards the desk, then sprawled across it when another shot hit him in the chest, then another. He was laid out in front of his father, gun falling from his nerveless fingers to the floor with a clatter. The older man's head was thrown back, mouth open, as if in mourning.
Time started again. Kage took in the bloody tableau for what seemed like an eternity, dimly aware of the sounds of alarm in the house, of people shouting and running. Then awareness opened like a flower blooming in his mind and he turned away, scooping up the fallen Fichetti and letting the panel doors close over the scene. It was more than just fortunate that he was packed and ready to go. It was providence.
"You will leave tonight," the Chairman had said. His words were truth.
The design of the low desk in the Chairman's office was modern and Western, its dark glass surface a standard display and touch interface. Kanaga Sato brushed aside newsfeed windows and status reports with a flick of his fingers, scattering them like neon leaves as an incoming comm window opened from the dark depths of the glass.
"It is done?" a man's voice asked in Japanese, and the kobun nodded. "Good. Oversee the investigation. When the dust settles, you will have my support… Chairman-san."
"Thank you, Shotozumi-sama," Kanaga said with a slight bow towards the desk. The window closed, leaving only his reflection in the dark depths.
The slow smile spreading across the kobun's thin-lipped mouth froze at the press of something cold and sharp against the side of his throat. He didn't turn around, barely moved except to slide his right hand slowly over…
"Don't," came the flat voice from just behind his left ear, the pressure on the blade increased just slightly. The hand stopped, hovering where it was.
"Yojimbo," Kanaga said quietly. "You're still here."
"Was I expected to run?" the bodyguard replied softly. "Was that how it was planned?"
"I don't…" the bladed pressed again, and he stopped, swallowed.
"I know this place better than anyone," Kage continued, "well enough to know how difficult it would be for an assassin to get in without help."
"Assassin?" Kanaga said in mock surprise. "Everyone knows what happened, or soon will. After all, your weapons were used in the killings. Tomashi…"
"Tomashi had his bad qualities," Kage said, "but one thing he could never do was stand up to his father. He wouldn't-couldn't-have done this on his own. He wasn't in his right mind when…"
"When you killed him?"
"When you forced me to kill him."
"How do you know I had anything to do with it?"
"I didn't, for certain, until just now. I only suspected." Kage's free hand touched the edge of the desktop, out of the corner of Kanaga's field of vision. "Oyabun Shotozumi-sama seemed pleased."
Kanaga swallowed slowly. "And now you're here for revenge?" he asked.
"No, answers."
"To what?"
"How… and why?"
"I think you know the second one already."
"Yes… I knew you were a traditionalist, Sato, but I never thought…"
"I would take action?"
"That you would betray the Chairman," he corrected.
"He is the one who betrayed us," Kanaga hissed through gritted teeth, "betrayed our traditions!"
"Oh?" Kage observed. "Like the tradition of using others as puppets? How did you get him to do it, Sato?"
"It wasn't hard," the kobun replied with a slight shrug. "You made it easy, in fact."
"I…" Kage breathed, then sighed. "The sims."
Sato smiled without humor or warmth. "Yes. A subliminal program, a viral subfeed."
"That woman…"
"A puppet," he replied. "Like Tomashi… like you."
Kage recalled the woman's intense stare, the endless depths of her dark eyes, the signs she was bunraku.
"Why didn't it affect me?"
"The program needed to be compressed into a tightly contained data pulse to be transmitted by the carrier's corneal emitters. It only extracts and runs in the simsense playback, and even then only during direct experience of the wet record. You would have had to replay the sim, which, of course, there was no reason for you to do. If you had, it would have served just as well. Its effect is quite limited, but profound. Fortunately, it didn't need to last long. Once I found out about Tomashi's new 'hobby,' it seemed like a prime opportunity."
"You know what you have to do," she had said, pressing the gun into his hand. She hadn't been talking to him. He thought of Tomashi, reliving that moment as the invasive program unfolded and ran through his brain.
Kage pulled the knife away from Kanaga's throat slightly. His hand was shaking and he focused to steady it, and keep it from slashing across the steady pulse of the artery there.
"So," the kobun said with remarkable calm. "You have your answers. What now? The man you protected is dead. The man who employed you is dead, and the rest of his men know their place and will shoot you on sight. It's only a matter of time before they realize you're here, if they haven't already. You'll never leave here alive. Do you kill me now and go out in a blaze of glory?"
He stopped when Kage drew his pistol and leveled it at him, stepping around to the side of the desk, keeping his eyes-and his gun-fixed on Kanaga.
"I should kill you," he said. "In fact, honor demands it, does it not? But you were right about Tomashi's habit being an opportunity. I've had some time to think things over while waiting for you. For the first time in my life, I'm free of obligations, free of debts, and tired of being used. That's why the sim of this conversation is being transmitted and stored someplace safe." The new Chairman's eyes widened only slightly, but it was enough for a moment of understanding to pass between him and the former bodyguard. "If anything happens to me… I won't be the only one to go out in a blaze of glory. Sometimes it's better to just fade away."
He stepped back from the desk towards the doors of the study, and they slid open. Kage's eyes-and the unwavering gun barrel-remained locked on the man behind the desk until he was through them and they closed in front of him.
Sato immediately opened a new comm window on the desktop.
"Yojimbo has just left my… the Chairman's office," he told the man on the line.
"What are your orders, sir?"
"Let him go. He's nothing, and no one, now." The other man hesitated, confusion clearly written on his face, but only for a moment. He was trained to follow orders, not to question them.
"Hai!" he replied, nodding sharply. Sato closed the window and sat back in the chair, his own, rather than the one Shigeda died in. He would need to get a newer one, befitting his new station, he mused. He glanced out the darkened windows; the rain had stopped, although droplets of moisture still ran down the outside of the glass.
Fade away, then, he thought to the now nameless, masterless man headed out into that empty night. Fade away, into the shadows.