All characters and stories and trademark of Aaron “Necreus” Claypool and Tony “Griffon” Pulido
On December 23rd 2051, Atlanta-based Shiawase security
forces exchanged gunfire with local residents in the slums of Stanford
Heights. It is recorded as one of the
bloodiest movements of corporate-resistance in urban history. More than a hundred people were killed in
the skirmish, which lasted only minutes.
Members of the Atlanta trid-press have named the conflict “The Stanford
Heights Rumble”.
* * *
Cheney stood in the middle of the train-yard, one hand gripping a briefcase while he tucked the other into the pocket of his overcoat. The face of the Black Knights was a rather short man with a head of thinning, brown hair and a pale complexion. Only an hour after sunrise, the weather was still cold enough for him to see his breath.
“How you holding up, kid?”
he asked of a young boy who sat in a rusted cart, his feet dangling out the
end. The boy, no more than ten with
jet-black hair, was covered with a tremendously over-sized, nylon jacket that
he wore like a blanket.
“I said, are you all right?”
Cheney repeated. The boy just nodded a
little as he wrapped himself tighter in the huge jacket. Cheney turned away from him and gazed over
the semi-urban landscape. Over the
lines of abandoned trains and smog-stained warehouses, he saw a white Lincoln
driving through the roads of muddy gravel.
“Looks like your daddy’s
friends are here,” he told the boy whose eyes lightened as he hopped off the
train-car. Cheney held onto the kid’s
shoulder as the Lincoln neared them and stopped. Two men stepped out from either of the rear doors. Both of them had dark hair with large
sunglasses and expensive suits over muscular builds. One of them was significantly older while the younger of them
carried a brown-leather briefcase.
“Bobby,” the older of the
men called out. Cheney released his
shoulder and the boy ran to him.
Staring at the words Mr. Slam
written on the back of his oversized jacket, Cheney saw the boy being helped
into the car. Once the boy was safe
inside, the two men approached Cheney.
“As you can see, the kid’s
all right,” the face of the Black Knights said. “He was a little bruised when he got him, but our mage patched
that all up.”
“Mr. Caprina will appreciate
that,” the older man said.
“Really, does that justify a
bonus in our pay?” he asked, giving a laugh before his question could be
addressed.
“I’m quite serious,” the
older man replied. “Mr. Caprina had
severe doubts about a corporate covert team willing to help… our association.”
“We didn’t help your
association, we merely helped a guy get his boy back. If it so happens he’s part, or even the head, of an Atlanta-based
crime syndicate, and that his son got nabbed by a competing syndicate… well,
all that is irrelevant. Just as long he
has the money,” he said with a lifted eyebrow.
The younger man held out his briefcase and snapped it open. He revealed a black cred-stick secured in a
mold of foam rubber. “And besides,”
Cheney continued. “We were always more
fond of the Mafia in Atlanta than the Yaks.
Those guys can be real bloodthirsty.”
“So, how many of the gook
bastards did you waste?” the younger man asked, speaking up for the first
time. Cheney just looked down as he
took the case from him.
“Well, I’m sure you need to
get the boy back to his dad,” he continued, ignoring the question. “So, I won’t keep you here anymore. You have yourselves a merry Christmas,” Cheney
said with a pleasant smile. The two men
just nodded and walked back into their car.
“Oh, one thing,” Cheney
added. “To answer your question, we got
a sale on gas grenades and stun batons.
And we didn’t need to kill a single one of those gook bastards. Mr. Caprina
might appreciate that too.” The two men
glanced at him with blank faces but said nothing to him as they closed their
doors. The Face of the Knights kept
smiling as the Lincoln drove off, leaving him alone in the trainyard. Looking around, the rest of the Alpha Team
soon emerged out of hiding.
First, there was Smith who
was a man in his late forties with long, graying hair and carrying a cobalt
assault rifle across his shoulder. His
left arm was cybernetic—a cruder model from the early days with gray metal and
a dull shine. From behind another
train-car, Warren stepped out. His hair
in thick dreadlocks, Warren was a man of the darkest complexion, whose age just
escaped that of being called young.
Holding his Enfield shotgun just underneath the drum clip, he looked at
Long who slid, without sound, from beneath the train trailer where the kid once
sat.
A young woman of Asian
features and skin tone, Long’s only visible weapon on her red leather cat-suit
was a sheathed broadsword. With a stern
expression, she looked to the darkness beyond the hatch inside the same rail
car. With footsteps drumming against
the car’s steel floor, Mr. Slam emerged.
A troll with almost majestically large horns and dry, crusted skin; Mr.
Slam was still surprisingly short for one of his kind—towering only eight and a
half feet; but of girth nearing his height.
He held on to a tiny piece of paper, bearing the shape of an animal,
clamped in the tips of his massively thick fingers.
“What’s that you got there,
an eagle?” Warren asked, pointing to the paper animal.
“Yeah, Natalie really likes
the birds,” Slam said with a smile and folded the origami animal into his
pocket. Smith strolled over to their
Face as he lit up a cigarette.
“What did you think?” he
asked Cheney. “That they’re more upset
because they needed an independent team to get back Caprina’s boy, or that we
didn’t kill off half of the Yamamoto faction to do it?”
“Tough choice,” Cheney
answered, his thoughts preoccupied as he looked out in the distance. “Is that
Green and Pink over there?” Cheney
pointed to an unused, stone overpass covered with graffiti. “I think I can see them.” The Face waved towards the bridge but could
not see Green waving back at him.
“I don’t know why we
bothered to come out here in the first place,” Green said as he stared through
the scope on his rifle, holding up an arm to Cheney. Green, who was the youngest of his teammates, stood close to six
feet with a small but lean build. As
always, he wore his trusted, faded-green, flannel shirt. He turned to Pink with whom he addressed his
question, a slight length of his brown hair caught out of its bun and flowing
in the wind.
“Well, we happen to be
dealing with less than reputable fellows,” Pink answered as she looked at her
team through a set of binoculars. “You know Smith’s motto of expecting the
worst and hoping for the best.” Pink
was an elf slightly taller than her companion.
She wore a set of thick, black, cat’s-eye glasses with her long, dark
hair tied up above her shoulders.
Brushing a few strands out of her face, she bent down and put away her
binoculars. Standing next to her, Green
shook his head as he started to tuck his sporting rifle into a black plastic
case.
“This may sound weird, but I
don’t worry to much about these mob-jobs.
They seem to know where they stand.
If a deal ever goes sour, I’d bet it would be from…” Green’s words
trailed off as he watched Pink bending over, busying herself in the satchel at
her feet. Green quickly snapped his own
eyes back to his gun-case when the elven mage looked up at him.
“What were you doing?” she
asked.
“Nothing,” he answered,
adjusting the collar on his flannel. “I
wasn’t doing anything.”
“Yes, you were,” Pink said,
her eyebrows now jutting sharply as she spoke.
“You were looking at me.”
“Of course, I was talking to
you.”
“That’s not what I
meant. You were…” Pink rolled her
eyes. “… looking at me.” In her reprimand, Pink’s face was becoming
red.
“All right,” Green finally
admitted. “I was checking you out. Do I get a formal execution, or am I shot
out here in the street?”
“Are you trying to amuse
me?”
“I know nothing amuses
you. Why should I even try?”
“I swear, Derek, you are
such a little child. I don’t know why I
bother to talk to you.”
“Why, thank you, Pink. And I think you have kooties,” the young
gunner stuck out his tongue to his elven companion who just scoffed and
returned to her satchel. “What you need
is to do is get laid, maybe then you’d loosen up.” His last were words grumbled lightly, not meant for her
ears. Ears which, due to her elven
heritage, were exceedingly keen. As an
expression that was more than her usual irritated appall came over her, Green
knew she heard him. She said nothing,
only grabbing her duffle bag and walking off the bridge.
“Nice one, Derek. Real nice.” Green said to himself as he
kicked the stone half-wall and tried to spit out the taste that the foot in his
mouth had left.
Cheney, setting his
briefcase on top of a steel drum, opened it and produced a laptop. Inserting the black credstick given to him
by the Caprina family, he typed in a few codes. With a final strike of the enter
button, he closed up the laptop and looked contently at his companions around
him.
“Simple as that, we are now
three million nuyen richer. Not bad for
a night’s work.”
“In that case,” Smith
began. “We’d better be off. I’d like to get back to Denver early this
afternoon and be home tonight.” The
team leader announced his plan to all around him but quickly noticed Cheney’s
face. “What is it?”
“We won’t be able to leave
just yet. Our flight isn’t booked until
later tonight.”
“Are you being real?”
“I didn’t know the exchange
was going to be this early.”
“Well, book us a new
flight.”
“Not during the holidays,
everything’s filled by now. It’s no big
deal, we just have a few hours to kill.
Surely, you can endure a few more hours with your companions,” he said
with a flair of sarcasm.
“As long as I don’t have to
spend too much of it with you”
“Ooohh,” Cheney whimpered
sarcastically. “That hurt.”
At his own expense, Cheney
treated his teammates to breakfast in an uptown restaurant called the Chez
Lauren. The establishment was a sleek,
silver-painted and with crystal décor that was the next generation in
upper-class restaurants. The soft,
bland melodies of Christmas carol muzak chimed through the air.
The Back Knights naturally
brought an abundant amount of attention from the other patrons who were mostly
white-collared suits. They stared at
the seven Knights with odd and intimidated faces as the covert team carried on
their conversation without care.
“Why don’t you let it go,
Slam,” Warren said to his troll companion.
“I’m telling you, it’s
wrong,” Slam said, one hand pointing a finger at the physad.
“What are you two yapping
about?” Smith asked as he picked up the last bites of his omelet, his voice
only slightly curious.
“Slam’s mad at me because
I’m not marrying Sandra even after having a kid with her.”
“If you want that kid
growing up that way, fine. But then
you’re gonna let him call you by your first name. And once you try laying down the law to him, he won’t even bother
looking you in the eye,” Slam persisted, his face keeping a serious nature that
Warren lacked.
“For God’s sake you sound
just like a crazy old man. It’s not
like Sandra ever talked serious about it.
She’s more terrified of matrimony than I am. She’s not like…” Warren searched for an ideal example. “…oh, let’s say Carolyn.” Warren tilted his head toward Smith as he
mentioned her name. “I bet she was
planning her wedding ever since she was six.”
“Five actually,” Smith
corrected his friend. He laughed with
his mouth closed as he recalled his wife talking about her first wedding
plans. “The original ceremony called
for her riding down the isle of a pearled chapel on the back of a unicorn. I can imagine her disappointment when she
ended up tying the knot in a hospital chapel.
But I’ll agree with you on one thing, Warren. If Sandra wanted to, she’d have your ass in a tux and a ring on
your finger without breaking a sweat.”
“Doesn’t mean they’ll keep you,”
Cheney said as he read a newspaper provided by the restaurant. “Three times married, three times divorced
and working the fourth ex-Mrs. Cheney.”
Looking up from the paper, he noticed Long gazing outward, her body like
that of a statue. “You must be really
contemplating about what you’re ordering for dessert, aren’t you Long?” Cheney
said with a friendly manner.
“I’m listening to the ways
around me,” the swordswoman answered.
Cheney creased his brow and turned towards where Long stared. They saw a busboy clearing dishes from a
recently occupied table. He was a kid,
no doubt still in his teens with a smooth face and blonde, spiked hair.
“What’s that supposed to
mean?” he asked, looking back at her.
Smoothing out her jacket,
Pink stepped out of the bathroom. Still
looking down, she didn’t notice Green coming at her side until he had one hand
on her shoulder.
“Look, I’m really sorry
about what I said on the bridge,” Green told her, putting his hand down as soon
as she stopped moving. “You know that
my mouth and my brain never want to work together and I’m gonna get a doctor to
look at that. In the meantime, am I
forgiven?” The young Knight smiled broadly and watched Pink turn her eyes away
and flash a smile that lifted the burden of his thoughtless words.
“Perhaps I was a little
harsh with you; maybe I should loosen up.”
“Well, how about you start
by having a nice conversation with a friend,” Green offered as he extended his
arm and made a slight bow. “After you.”
“No, I insist, after you.”
Pink replied. Green gave a grunt as he
started walking.
“I guess I’m not the only
one who likes checking out their teammates,” he said as he made a slight strut
in his steps, breaking only to flinch as Pink slapped him on the back of the
head.
“What are you staring at?”
Green asked as he noticed his companions looking towards the front of a
restaurant.
“Long was just admiring how
that busboy has been standing there for the past five minutes and hasn’t put
away a single dish,” Warren answered.
“All he does is shift things around, look at his watch and stare at the
stiffs at the table next to him.” The
young gunner saw him looking to a table with three men in suits enjoying a
meal.
“Good thing you noticed,”
Green said, mocking enthusiasm. “Now we
can talk to his supervisor and have his ass fired for eves-dropping.”
Before Green could sit down
and ogle the dessert menu, there was a sound of screeching tires from
outside. Through the glass wall of the
front, the Knights saw a capped, pick-up truck, white with spots of rust; brake
with two wheels upon the sidewalk. The
back hatch dropped open as four men in various forms of black outfits and
ski-masks leapt out. In their hands,
they carried pistols and sub-machine guns.
Still in their seats, the
Black Knights reached for what pistols they carried with them even at the most
leisurely of times but did not reveal them to anyone inside the
restaurant. At the table that the
busboy was eyeing, two large men stood up around a smaller and much older man.
“Get behind us, sir,” one
said as he produced a polished, six-shot hand-cannon from his coat. The throbbing bursts of automatic gunfire
roared through the restaurant. To the
surprise of the Black Knights, the busboy produced a machine-pistol from his
dish-tub and fired at the two guards.
The spray of lead tore through their bodies, which flew against the
lavishly furnished walls, their white dress shirts quickly marked with
red. The eruption of bloodshed sent the
customers into a panic but the Knights remained still at their table. Marked with splotches of blood, the older
man jumped from his seat but the busboy pointed the machine pistol at him,
forcing him to freeze.
“Nobody move!” one man in a
black ski mask shouted as his three friends stormed into the restaurant. Two of them kept their guns level, waving
them around at the patrons of the restaurant who mostly just sat bug-eyed. The Black Knights, their hands concealed by
the white tablecloth, held on to their pistols as one of the black-clad men
hurried to the old man.
“Snap out of it, boy,” the
masked man said to the busboy, who reeled in shock of having killed two
people. As the busboy broke out of his
trance, the masked man brought the clip of his gun against the old man’s temple,
grabbing him by his arm before he could fall.
“You’re coming with us,” the
masked man shouted. He and the busboy
forced the old man forward, moving past the Black Knight’s table. Their eyes looked to Smith who gave a subtle
nod.
“Oh, God help us,” Cheney grumbled. His companions leapt up in a single instant, pointing their guns at the figures in black.
To be continued…
All characters and stories and trademark of Aaron “Necreus” Claypool and Tony “Griffon” Pulido