Kal hated nights like this, so cold and wet that your hands went numb and ice froze the mechanisms of your cheap standard issue pistol, better hope you don’t have to use it. Your uniform soaked through and the wind howling and rain hammering down so hard that you could forget it was just weather and imagine that some god had a grudge against you.

Sensible people were inside and warm on a night like this. Not that Kal had much of a choice. Being a night-watchman on the Seattle waterfront forced him outside on nights when he’d rather be at home in bed, or watching urban brawl on the TriD, or down at McCaullys bar. Anywhere but outside in this bloody weather. Only crazies came out on a night like this.

At times Kal hated his job. Not that he had much of a choice. What other work could a forty-something ex-cop find? At least this way he could afford to keep a roof over his head and food on his somewhat tatty table.

This was the continual litany of grumbles that Kal would recite to himself on nights like this, as he patrolled his way down the section of waterfront that was his responsibility, Kal once again cursed the luck that had put him in this position.

It had been six, or was it seven?, years ago now. He’d just come off duty and decided to stop in at the local Stuffer Shack on his way home. Typical luck for him, some street punks were holding the place up.

Soon as he walked in, head full of visions of beer and snack food, they’d clocked the uniform and panicked.

Unlucky for Kal, one of them had a gun. He remembered a bang, and being hurled backwards into a shelf of magazines. Next thing he’s being carried into a DocWagon with a ragged hole where his left knee used to be, and being asked how he intends to pay for the repair surgery. A cyber-replacemnt? On his wage? Get real.

He’d paid what he could, and a hazard bonus he’d been awarded helped some, but Kal knew he’d never run again. Can’t be much of a cop if you can’t run. The boss had been very nice about it. Instead of sacking him on ill health grounds, he’d ended up being transferred here.

So now Kal would walk (or limp) up and down the waterfront, checking locks and chasing off the occasional vagrant who thought that some suits boat would make a nice place to bed down for the night. At least that’s what he was supposed to do. Usually he just directed them to a nearby drop out centre where they could get a proper bed and a meal.

The troll who ran the centre, Max, would usually send a runner out with a cup of coffee and a hot sandwich for him. A thank you for getting another down-and-outer somewhere where they could be helped.

3:00AM Time to check pier 7. Kal slouched his way through the driving rain, trying to ignore the constant trickle of water down the back of his neck.

Pier 7, popular with the romantics and suicidal types, because it extended out beyond the other piers.

Romantics liked it because it gave an unrivalled view of the bay, they liked to watch the sun come up. Suicidals liked it because of the deep, choppy water it gave them easy access to, they liked to jump off it.

That’s why the management had put up a bloody great chain link fence and a gate. Kal would usually catch someone trying to get over the fence every couple of days.

He walked along the fence, checking that the razor wire at the top hadn’t been cut, that there was no scraps of clothing hanging from it.

Once, he’d found a body, hung from the wire. Some kid had tried to climb, got caught on the wire, had slipped and the wire slashed them to ribbons. By the time Kal found him, there was more blood on the floor than there was left in the body. That hadn’t been a good night to be sober.

No bodies or cut wire tonight though. Kal took a grim satisfaction in the fact. He moved along to check the impressive lock on the gate.

That’s when Kals’ night took a nose dive. The lock was smashed. The gate was open. He knew for a fact that the lock was damn near indestructible against anything short of the most determined assault.

Only crazies came out on a night like this.

He fumbled his pistol from its holster, slipped through the gate and started edging up the pier. Despite the cold and the wind, Kal was suddenly sweating. Only crazies came out on a night like this.

Pier 7 was covered in small huts and workshops and the driving rain was reducing visibility to a few meters, he knew he’d never see them. They’d get the drop on him and he’d wake up in a DocWagon again, If he was lucky. They’d most likely just dump him off the pier. Only crazies came out on a night like this.

He made it to the end of the pier with out seeing anyone, and had just decided that who ever had opened the gate was long gone when he heard a voice behind him.

"Hi"

With out really willing it, Kal turned. There was a man sitting against the wall of the nearest hut, knees drawn up to his chest. He looked quite ordinary, athletic and about 20 years younger than Kal. He wasn’t wearing any kind of wet weather gear. Just jeans and a T-shirt. He did have a coat, but it bundled up on the floor next to him. He was soaked through and shivering hard, but he didn’t seem to mind. Only crazies came out on a night like this.

Kal watched the man carefully, praying that this guy wasn’t going to be violent. He was acutely aware that the edge of the pier was less than a foot behind him.

The man shuffled over, moving the bundle as he did so. "Why don’t you sit down, man? You’ll be out of the worst of the wind." He gave Kal a friendly smile.

Kal didn’t move.

"Suit yourself. Let me guess. Your the night watchman, and your wondering why I’m on the pier?"

Kal examined the man for a few seconds. Not the romantic type, he decided. Only crazies came out on a night like this. "Your thinking of jumping?"

No answer. The man was rummaging in the bundle at his side. He produced a flask and a plastic cup. He filled the cup and waved it at Kal. "Coffee?" When Kal didn’t move, he edged forward and left the full cup in easy reach and then returned to where he had been sitting. He produced another cup and filled it for himself..

"Mind if I tell you something. Mr. Night-watchman?." The smell of the coffee was making Kals mouth water. Despite himself, he picked the cup up. The heat radiating through the cup started to warm his fingers. If this guy wanted to talk, it might stop him from jumping.

"You wanna talk, lets talk."

"Then sit down, this is a long story, and I don’t want you dropping dead from exposure before I’m done. I’m Danny, by the way."

"Kal."

Against his better judgement, Kal sat. The two of them stared into the rain for a few minutes.

Then his companion spoke again, quietly. Kal had to strain to hear him over the drumming of the rain.

"Did you have loving parents Kal? Did they care for you? Did your mother tell you what a good boy you were? Did your father worry about you when you were late getting home?

As far back as I can remember, right back to when I was old enough to walk, I've had to hide from my father. His idea of a good time was to come home drunk and beat the shit of my sister and me. We had to hide from our own father. Let me tell you it, like I remember it.

"Come outta there! Damn you, Boy!"

Baseball bat raised above his head, Danny stared at the door in fright and hoped the lock wouldn’t give out. It had survived yesterday, would it survive today?

The door handle rattled again, and then there was a loud crash as the person outside hurled their weight against the door.

He heard footsteps moving off down the corridor.
"Gotta come outta there sometime, Boy. Aint got no food in there, have you?"

He did nothing till the voice had faded away, and then very quietly, the twelve year old boy began to cry.

We lived with that for years. To make matters worse, we couldn’t rely on our mother to protect us. She died giving birth to my sister and me. I think Dad blamed us for that. Apparently he was an average Joe before she died and he hit the drink.

We survived by looking after each other, Sarah and me. We were all each other had. For years we would comfort each other, bandage each other and tell ourselves it’d all be all right in the morning.

Eventually we managed to run away, and that nightmare ended, to be replaced by a new one. When my sister and I ran, we decided to go to different places, so that finding us would be harder. She went east, to somewhere in Germany, I came west, to here. America. I’m British, originally. I haven’t heard from her since. The only thing that kept both of us going through the abuse was each other. We looked after each other, stuck up for each other. We were all we had. Now I haven’t heard from her in six years, and I worry for her. I just have to trust that she's OK.

Danny and his sister, both 19 years old now. Stood in a airport terminal. They had finally escaped. Sarah looked at her brother.
"I cant believe we're finally out. Free."

"Me neither. But lets save the celebrations till we're on our planes."

"Are you sure we should split up? I mean -"

"Yes. I know its hard, but he can only follow one of us that way. The other stays free."

"He will come after us, you realise that. Don’t you?"

"Yes. I just hope he never finds us."

The tanoy began blaring its announcement: Now boarding flight 5279

Sarah looked up at an overhead display board. "That’s my flight."

Sarah embraced her brother in a fierce hug. Whispered in his ear. "Thank you. I couldn’t have survived without you."

She picked up her bags and faced her brother again.

She grabbed his hand and forced something into it.

"Keep it, remember me."

"Always."

"Goodbye, bother"

And then she was gone.

Danny opened his hand. A bracelet. A simple metal band made of bronze.

Kal glanced at his companion, who was still staring into the rain. Sure enough, around his left wrist there was a bronze bracelet, scratched and dented by years of wear.

"That why your here, Danny? Is she why your going off the pier? You did the best you could, kid. You went through hell and you didn’t let her down. The two of you stood up for each other through the worst things a child could face. Why give in now?"

"There’s more. When I first arrived in UCAS, I had no where to go. So I started walking. I didn’t feel safe. I was sure that my father following me, so I never stopped in one place to long. I’d earn some money to buy food an’ stuff with, then leave town and keep walking. Always west. In two years I walked completely across UCAS and arrived here in Seattle. I’d been walking so hard for the last few days that I’d not been able to stop long enough to buy fresh supplies, the ones I did have were rotten. I contracted food poisoning, and collapsed on the streets. Luckily someone found me.

"you okay?"

Danny tried to turn away from the voice, all he wanted to do was curl up and go back to sleep.

Insistent hand shook him,

"Wake up, damn you!"

Danny mumbled incoherently, and tried to focus on the face above him, but his vision was all blurry, all he could see was vague shapes.

"Your real ill kid. Gotta get you outta this rain."

Before he passed out again he felt himself being slung over someone’s shoulder, and voice saying: "Damn! you weigh nothing, when did you last eat?"

They took me to a drop out centre where I spent two weeks recovering. Once I was better, I decided to go and thank who ever it was had took pity on me. The guy who ran the centre, a troll called Max, gave me their address and I decided to pay a visit."

Max. Kal realised that Danny was referring to the same place he sent people to.

"I’d been told nothing about who it was who had hauled me outta the gutter, but I guess I thought I owed them, so I went to see them, boy did I get a surprise….

"Come on up." The intercom crackled.

Danny opened the door and started up the stairs inside the tower block.

"Five floors up, second door on the left" Was the directions Max had given him. Apart from that all he had was a name, Lileth. He guessed Max was deliberately holding out on him for some reason, and had told Lileth (Whoever that was...) exactly who Danny was and what he wanted.

Five floors up, Danny walked along a dirty corridor until he found the door we wanted and knocked.

The door swung open, onto a darkened room.

He could hear a gurgling. Water draining down a plug, Danny decided.

A voice came from a lit doorway ahead, a female voice. Max hadn’t told him what sex Lileth was.

"In here, in the kitchen, come on through."

Danny wandered forward, stepped into the light. And got his first ever look at the person who had taken pity on him.

Long hair, falling almost to her waist, tied back to keep it out of the way. Slim, and about his height.

Quite attractive to, he decided , as she turned to face him.

Lileth looked at him and smiled, "Your looking better than you did when I hauled you outta that gutter."

Danny nodded, not sure what to say. "Why did you do it?"

Lileth tilted her head to one side, a datajack set in her temple glinted in the light.

"You were dying right on my doorstep. I couldn't leave you there."

"I guess I ought to thank you..."

Lileth smiled at him, "Don't worry about it, besides seeing you on your feet is all the thanks I need."

Danny blushed, thought he wasn’t sure why, and pushed his fingers through his hair.

 

It turned out that she was a shadowrunner, and she got me in on it as well, as a way to make some money. I got to be pretty good at it."

Kal tensed. A shadowrunner! He’d read about them in the tabloids, cold blooded murders who slaughtered anyone that got between them and whatever or whoever they had been sent after. Then he compared this mental image to the soaked shivering man sitting next to him.

"You really shadowrun?"

Danny nodded, without looking round he passed his bundled coat across to Kal.

"Take a look "

There were several items wrapped up in the coat by the feel of it. The bundle was certainly heavy. He unwrapped it. The first item turned out to be the coffee flask, Kal relaxed.

Then he caught sight of the next item, which was also the largest. An assault rifle, beautifully maintained and cared for, it had obviously seen a lot of action.

Danny looked at the rifle with something like pride. "Built that myself. Based round an Ares Alpha Combat Gun, but with a shortened barrel and bullpup configuration to improve concealability. That decrease the range by about 10%. Integral Smartlink II, range-finder and grenade link expert systems.

Wishbone ammo-feed, giving me a selectable clip for increased versatility.

The grenade launcher was normally loaded with things called Gut-Wrencher bombs. They contain a hellish little cocktail of chemicals that include pepper spray, a powerful laxative, something that made you vomit, loose control of your bladder and well,…. Lets just say its messy. Most people puke and crap themselves empty, then dry-heave until they pass out.. Not pleasant. It woulda been cheaper to put frag bombs in there, but despite what you may have heard about shadowrunners, I try to avoid killing wherever possible."

Kal looked up. "But you have?"

Danny returned to staring into the rain. "Yeah, I have. Twelve times. Two were mercy killings. The poor bastards were dying anyways, I ended their suffering. The others?, well, it was kill or be killed. Before you get the wrong idea, its not something I’m proud of. I’m not a runner who bases the success of a mission on how may people I killed. I considered it a good run if that damn gun never got used at all."

"Then why have it?"

"Insurance. When the runs gone all to hell and your retreating under fire, its nice to have some heavy firepower to cover your ass. That rifles got a roar on it like a building being demolished, it made people keep their heads down. But anyway, back to my story.

"Me and Lileth became inseparable. I suppose that in my own way, I fell in love with her. We ran the shadows together for two years. We were good. Very good.

Then on our last run together, things went wrong. Badly wrong. It was an ambush and we had to bail out. I was covering our retreat when it happened.

The room beyond the door was in darkness, so Lileth, the first through the door, never saw the corp guard waiting in the darkness, the first bullet caught her in the shoulder, spinning her around. The second hit her in the throat.

Yelling incoherently, Danny dived over her falling body, knife in hand and aimed straight at the mans neck.

As he tore into the hapless man, blind fury overtook him, and he tried to ignore the gurgling noise behind him.

When I was done with the guard I tried to patch her up, get her on her feet, so we could get out. At first I didn’t realise how badly injured she was. But when I did…..

Fingers grabbed at his hair, smearing his face with blood.

Danny knelt over Lileth, almost frantic, and tried to close the wound in her neck. But it was too big. Too big.

Lileth was gasping for breath, arterial blood pumping out on to the floor. She grabbed at Danny’s head and forced him to look at her face. With a supreme effort of will she forced herself to talk almost normally.

"You cant help me, I'm dead. Run. Get outta here."

Danny shook his head.

Lileth coughed, bring up more blood, and stared into Dannys eyes.

"You must. Or you'll die here to."

Danny didn’t move, her head cradled in his lap, his hands pressed over the hole in her throat.

Lileth reached up and caressed Dannys face.

She could feel herself weakening fast.

"Danny, there’s something I never told you, I was never sure how you'd react, cos your so withdrawn at times"

She coughed again, and the coughing went on for almost a minute.

"I'd never forgive myself if I died without you knowing."

Her sight was getting blurry, the room was nothing but a vague shape.

"I love y-"

Lileth died.

Danny sat there for quite some time, her head in his lap, His eyes closed.

"I know" He said quietly. And for the first time in a long time, Danny cried.

"Lileth does not rest easy in her grave, and her blood is on my hands. I should have been first through that door. That was my job. I was the point man. That bullet should have hit me.

I drifted between other shadowrun teams for a while, never staying for long.

One guy I worked with for a while was an adept called Jai, and we got on well. But I always figured he was in the wrong line of work. Unlike me, he had the potential to be something more. Something better.

He was killed in a shoot-out with LoneStar. I read the reports. A police mage was able to trace him through a weapon focus sword he used. They ambushed him, took him down. He didn’t go quietly though, He nailed four of them and hospitalised three more before they got him. ‘Killed whilst resisting arrest’ is what the reports said."

Kal said nothing.

Danny stood, stretched. He reached down and picked the assault rifle out of Kals unresisting hands. He walked to the end of the pier, rain hammering him and the wind tearing at him, threatening to blow him off.

"Now perhaps you understand why I’m here. I’ve had enough. I want out."

He stood on the very edge, the toes of his boots sticking out over the water.

Kal scrambled to his feet, but didn’t approach, if he spooked Danny, he might take that final step. Besides, the kid was twenty years younger than him, in prime physical condition and a shadowrunner, which meant he had to be cybernetically enhanced. If he tried to wrestle him away from the edge, it would be Kal who went in, not Danny.

Danny stared out to sea, his back to Kal. "Like I said, I’m here to put an end to it all. I can’t take anymore of this life and this is the only way I can think of to end it."

Oh crap, thought Kal. He IS gonna jump. Tomorrow he’ll be just another body that was found floating in the bay.

Danny took a pace back then stepped forward swinging his arm like a discus thrower, he hurled the rifle far out into the waves. Over the howling of the wind and the drumming of the rain, neither of them heard the splash.

Kal blinked, he’d expected that Danny would use the rifles weight to make sure he was dragged under. Not that that would be a problem tonight, with the waves as violent as they were.

Danny stood there for almost a minute, right on the edge. "I’ve had enough of this life and it ends tonight." He turned and stalked past Kal, paused to pick the now soaked coat and coffee flask up.

"I’m retiring. Thanks for listening, Kal."

Danny disappeared down the pier.

Kal checked his watch. 6:07AM He’d been sat there for almost three hours talking. The rain was beginning to let up now and he could see down the length of the pier, all to way back to the shore. He could just about see Danny, walking along in the street lights, head thrown back, letting the rain run down his face.

"Good luck, kid" He whispered

Kal looked out to sea, the sun was just peaking above the horizon, turning the sea into liquid gold. He could see why the romantics liked it.