Fade to Black s-13 Read online

  Something clanged loudly against the side of the van. With that rose a howling that sounded decidedly unnatural.

  Thorvin paused and looked up.

  When the van starting rocking back and forth like a boat turned crossways to a heaving sea-accompanied by a storm of clanging and banging-he dropped his chrome ratchet and can of lubricant and ran, tool belts clanking, to the front of the van, hopping over toolcases, a stripped-down engine block, an eviscerated Suzuki Aurora, a partly disassembled Kaydee A.C. condenser twinpak, hubcaps, nuts and bolts, an antique C.R.T., and an old General Products multifuel power generator, like a freaking kangaroo!

  The ghoulies had come a-calling. Thorvin leaped up into the driver's seat and slapped the black lead from the driver's console into the datajack at the side of his neck. His vision blanked, then returned. The van's external vid-pickups replaced his eyes and ears. The van had become his body.

  The ghoulies were there all right, all around him. Pounding on his armor-reinforced, metal-alloy flanks. Using fists, bricks, and metal bars. Skeletal jaws flapping, fingernails like talons, clothes hanging in rags, they looked like rotting corpses just emerged from their worm-infested holes. And Thorvin knew what they wanted. They liked their meat raw. Human was best, decayed and rotting even better, but in a pinch, if enough of them got together, they'd go for anything, even something alive. Even a freaking dwarf!

  Just the thought of those slimy, decaying monstrosities clawing at his metal-alloy skin sent chills up his rear doors. Back. Whatever. No effing way they'd get inside. He had a Magnum V-12 850-horsepower blower-driven petrochem heart. For blood he had Super-98 octane with injected nitrous oxide. He set his power plant to roaring and slammed his tranny into drive. His rear wheels churned, screaming, sending up a billowing storm cloud of smoke, seizing the road and hurling him ahead.

  The gleaming red graphic indicators overlaying his external view went wild. Velocity shot toward 200 kph. Engine revs pegged max. Targeting indicators guided by his onboard combat comp streaked left and right, winking and flashing. A raucous symphony of electronic warning tones, beeps, and bleeps rilled the back of his head, his real head, somewhere inside… not quite forgotten.

  Things bounced off his van-body, banged and slammed and then fell away. Building debris, derelict cars, assorted junk, garbage, and other things, not junk or garbage. Things that squished and splatted. Like bodies. There must be a whole tribe of the freaking zombie cannibals hanging around, closing in from all sides. That's what he got for treasure-hunting so near the freaking cemeteries. Suddenly, one stood in the road directly in front of him, a shambling monstrosity with spindly limbs hefting what looked like a freaking shoulder-mounted Panther assault cannon.

  Thorvin's own nervous system pegged max.

  The M-134 minigun in the pod on his roof popped up and stammered rapid-fire. The ghoulie in the road jerked and spun, then slammed against the crash-grille guarding Thorvin's front end.

  An ocean of red-tinted slime splashed across Thorvin's external sensors. Mentally he flinched. The van swerved and pitched, bounding up then slamming down. Things crashed. Fortunately, his all-terrain General Products F-6900 self-healing tires could really take a pounding. He switched on his forward-looking infrared radar and found himself hurtling straight into a building wall.

  Panic time.

  He cut his wheels right, roared up an alley, smashed through a pair of cyclone fences, and shot out onto a broad open space like a weed-infested parking field.

  Bad move.

  A half-dozen beat-up, smashed-out petrochem heaps were wheeling around the crumbling, debris-strewn concrete. As many as a dozen motorcycles whizzed back and forth. Every driver and every passenger held some kind of weapon-handguns, rifles, shotguns, SMGs. Thorvin recognized the colors even as the thundering barrage of gunfire assaulted his audio pickups. He'd steered himself right into a freaking war! Chiller-thrillers versus a go-go-gang, the Toxic Marauders versus the Rahway Blades.

  Great Freaking great.

  A cycle came screaming toward him. Bullets pinged and panged rapid-fire off his front grille. Winking red targeting markers homed in on the cycle. Thorvin opened up with his minigun and hurled himself into a skidding, tire-screaming half-circle.

  The cycle exploded.

  Thorvin fired himself back down the alley. A storm of rocks, bricks, chunks of metal, and other junk crashed against his sides and roof as he roared out onto the street. Ghoulies again. Just freaking great. He set his power plant to whining, and went squealing around the very next corner, almost, but not quite, hopping up onto two wheels.

  That was Peerless ADH antishock stabilizers for you. Nice. Very nice.

  "Shank."

  What was that? Somebody saying his name? He didn't know who or why and he didn't really care, anyway. He ignored it. "Shank!"

  "Dammit, Shank, wake up!" Somebody grabbed his shoulder and started shaking it hard. He couldn't just ignore it. He guessed who was probably doing the shaking and realized that ignoring her would be useless. Evonne was usually okay, chill enough to live with. But when she got something stuck up her butt, bad enough to risk waking him up, she could get him so mad that beating her brains out, or worse, almost seemed like a good idea.

  Luckily for her, he had nothing to prove. Evonne needed what little brains she had.

  The cursing got louder. Hands gripped his arms and began pulling him up, making him sit up. Water splashed into his face, maybe half a liter. It was kind of refreshing, really. He rubbed his eyes, stretched his arms and yawned, and looked around.

  The amber-tinted lamp by the bedside cast a glow through the room that showed Shank all he needed to see. He was in his bedroom, which was simply furnished, sheathed in synthfurs and deeply carpeted. Evonne and her sister Kefee stood beside the bed. Evonne looked angry, Kefee upset. None of that was so unusual that Shank paid more than passing notice.

  What he really noticed, and not for the first time, was what a hot-looking biff Evonne was-built to last, right down to her girlish set of fangs. A real turn-on, especially when she got sleazy, and even more so when she got mad. Her sister Kefee looked kind of frail, more like a human biff, not very enticing. "They're back!" Evonne growled. Shank ran a hand back over his hair, scratched behind his right ear. "Who?"

  "The bangers?' Evonne growled, more forcefully than before, staring at him like he should just automatically know what she was talking about. "They're stuffing Chak! Right in the alley!"

  Stuffing Chak…?

  Evonne thrust a hand up and out to her left, toward the alley. Kefee just looked scared and said, "Shank, please!"

  Right.

  Shank shook himself awake. Everybody had obviously decided that the problem, Chak getting stuffed, beaten, or whatever, was something Shank ought to handle. It was probably Evonne's idea. No point in arguing. She was probably right. Shank had kind of inherited Kefee and her kids when Kefee's man got wasted in a Bronx firefight. Chak, her oldest kid, was still pretty young, only nine or ten, and, ork or not, that didn't make him much of a fighter. Not even against ordinary humans. Maybe one-on-one, but not against a whole gang. A gang would call for some serious head-banging.

  Shank heaved himself to his feet and headed for the door. The women stepped quickly out of his way-and good thing, too. It looked like he had a fight coming on. This soon after being woken up, he had no trouble getting into the mood.

  The passageway outside was jammed, mostly with kids and more women. This week most of. the adult males from Shank's hall, the ones any good in a fight, were in the Roselle Park jail, off Raritan Road. Something to do with stuffing a bunch of mafiosi. The maf shoulda learned by now to keep their butts the hell outta Port Sector.

  "Coming through," Shank grumbled.

  People got outta his way, and those who didn't got bumped. They were all jamming up toward the end of the hall to peer around the corner and up the stairs toward the alley. A helluva lot of good that did. Shank waded through the final meter of bodi
es, then turned the corner and plodded up the stairs two at a time. The steel trap door at alley-level stood open. Shank trod right on through.

  The group was right there, barely three meters away, clearly visible against the dusky gray of a moonless night. Chak looked to be the one on the ground taking all the punches and kicks. None of the gangers seemed to notice as Shank stepped up behind them. That made things pretty fragging easy. He reached out for the nearest two and banged their heads together. They dropped bonelessly to the ground. The other gangers noticed him then. Mostly they just looked at him and stared. And gaped. Very scary. Shank grabbed the nearest one by the arm, jerked him off his feet, swung him around, and then slammed him into the building wall on the right. That one fell, too. Not very tough, these bangers. Not very fast either, all things considered. And not very smart,

  One lifted a knife toward Shank's nose, and snarled, "Skin you alive!"

  Shank grabbed the wrist behind the knife, then jerked the whole arm into the air, lifting the ganger right off his feet. The slag flailed with his free arm, slapping, punching, and even tried kicking. Shank snorted. What a joke. One punch to the face and the ganger slumped. Shank let him fall.

  That left three of the gangers standing. One pulled a gun and pointed it directly at Shank's face, which was really a pretty stupid thing to do. If you wanted to shoot an ork, you aimed someplace that might hurt, not at his rock-hard skull. Shank ducked and reached out and the gun went off. He felt a wave of heat rush past his left ear, but that was it. A second shot went off, but by then Shank had his hand wrapped around the barrel of the gun. Which was all the hold he needed. He jerked the gun free, then grabbed the ganger by his jacket collar.

  "Bye-bye," he said, and heaved the slag against a convenient wall, the wall on the left, just to keep things even. The ganger slumped to the ground the same way the others did, like a sack of raw meat. And that left only two still standing. "That pair began backing away, looking scared. Shank pointed the gun, a Colt Manhunter, something particularly appropriate for an ork to use, and said, "Move again an' you're dead." The two gangers froze.

  By then, Chak was on his feet and looking back and forth like he didn't know what to do, which probably he didn't. The kid's face was streaked with blood and looked kinda swollen, but it'd take more than that to put him out. Never mind who he had for a mother, Chak was husky for his age and he had balls. Cojones, some would say. That translated into staying power.

  Shank resisted a smile. To tell the truth, he liked the kid. Chak was always asking about his tattoos and the dust-ups he'd been in with the Dragon Regiment and other mere units down in Aztlan and other places. It was hard to resist naked admiration.

  "You all right?" Shank asked.

  Chak nodded, breathing hard, maybe a little too hard to speak clearly.

  "Get a rope and a knife."

  "Kay…"

  Chak nodded and hustled off, but was back in a minute or so. Evonne and her sister and half the crowd from the hallway below followed Chak up the stairs. Shank motioned for the crowd to stay put. He had a gun in his hand and work that needed his attention. He wasn't about to put up with any squawking or unwelcome questions or suggestions. At a wave, Chak brought the knife and rope.

  "Tie 'em," Shank told him. "Them two first."

  Shank motioned at the pair of gangers still standing. Chak set to work binding their wrists behind their backs, and none too gently. Shank didn't care about that. Those fragging gangers deserved it. That and worse. What worried him was what to do next.

  Executing prisoners wasn't his style. He'd had a bellyful of that down in fragging Azzie-land. He'd once thought he'd seen it all, but that was nothing compared to what butchers the Aztlan troopers could be. He'd have none of that here. What were his options? He could call the cops, but they couldn't give a slot about some minor-ass gang problem, not here in Sector 12. And he couldn't just let the gangers loose. By sundown tomorrow, they'd be hot on the butts of the kids from his hall, and Chak especially. Worse, he'd never hear the end of it. Evonne would see to that. He had to do something along the lines of making a permanent fix.

  But what?

  Goddamn his thick skull, anyway. If he'd been born any dumber, he'd be dangerous just taking a crap. And some of the slags in his old regiment used to rag him about that, too.

  Evonne said, "Shank-"

  "Can it."

  She did.

  Right then, something with about a billion-candlepower's worth of headlights, driving lights, fog lights, off-road lights, and side- and roof-mounted spotlights, pulled into the end of the alley and came rolling straight toward him. Shank realized what was behind all the damn lights just about the time the blinding brilliance of it all forced his eyes shut The thing rumbled like a CMC Banshee winding up for an attack run. It was about as close to a real panzer as anyone could get in the Newark plex without the local militia calling out the helicopter gunships. This one had started out as a shorty Landrover, and still resembled a basic stock model, but just about every part had been replaced, upgraded, or refitted. The custom cargo cover on the roof concealed a pair of weapons pods, plus there were gunports all around and other features, custom features.

  Rolling to a halt, lights going out, the van became a ghost, dark and grim, blending with the cool gray of the night.

  Shank wasn't scared drekless, or even a little, because he'd helped the halfer now hopping out of the van with some of the van's custom installations. "Hoi, fang face."

  "Horn head."

  Who said orks and dwarfs couldn't be chummers? Thorvin might be squat and ugly and kinda single-minded at times, but he was as tough as brick and loyal as nightfall. In Shank's book, that made for a first-rate chum.

  "What's with the garbage?" Thorvin asked, nodding at the gangers, toolbelt clanking as he strode out in front of the van.

  "They're slotting me off."

  "That's a freaking surprise. You gonna ice 'em?"

  "Thinking about it. What're you doing?"

  "Whaddya think? I'm picking you up."

  "Oh yeah?"

  "We got a meet."

  That sounded good. It meant their top gun had finally got them some biz, or at least some kinda offer, and about fragging time, too. Money didn't go far in the plex, never far enough. Especially when you had another slag's wife and kids to worry about "Where and when?"

  "We gotta pick up the man and the deck. Sector 3. Soon as you put on some clothes."

  Clothes. Right. "Been over to Sector 13 lately?"

  "That's a freaking stupid question."

  "Ghouls still hanging there?"

  "That's another freaking stupid question."

  "Let's dump the garbage there."

  Thorvin frowned, looked at the gangers, then back at Shank.

  "Load 'em up," he said.

  4

  The booth was small, just big enough for one person. Brown synthwood paneled the walls. Piper closed the door, then turned and knelt on the cushioned foot of the narrow kneeling bench.

  She spent a few moments composing herself, pressed her hair back behind her ears, then slipped the end of a credstick into the chrome-edged port on the side of the bench.

  The vidscreen before her came to life. "A New Day" slowly resolved hi bold letters at the center of the screen, then faded. The "day" began with a boiling orange-red sun rising out of a pristine sea, waters fresh and sparkling, an ocean teeming with fish and thousands of other forms of life. The sun assumed a golden tint as it rose higher into the crystal-clear blue sky, and hundreds of thousands of birds flew up over the horizon to wheel in enormous flocks across die glittering ocean.

  Music, till then only a distant murmur, arose full and majestic, vibrant and alive, celebrating the glory of life in all its multitudinous forms.

  The voice of John Donne IX, a direct descendant of the Saint, and leader of the Church of the Whole Earth, arose with the music, beginning with a direct quote from Holy Sonnet Number 10: "One short sleep past, we wake e
ternally… and death shall be no more… Blessed be the Recreator… the living earth… and the eternal cycle of life, recycling without end… "Amen…"

  In time, the sermon concluded and the music softened.

  The scenes of a lush and beautiful world continued, sweeping from one view to the next Piper lowered her eyes and began to speak.

  All the world's problems, as she saw it, stemmed from one thing: greed. People wanted. They were never content with what they had. So titanic corporations sucked resources from the Earth and left only toxic wastes behind. So ordinary people ignored the evidence of their senses, screaming at them from every direction, and worked only to improve their station, their jobs, their material possessions. No one cared about the planet, the poisons in the air, food, and water. Doing anything about that would waste valuable resources, like money, and time, precious time. The power mongers at the top of the food chain had convinced everyone of that. They used the media to exploit people's weaknesses. They saw to it that the common working people would feel too weighed down by the struggle of daily living and the-desire to always have more, more, more! rather than worry about mere ecology.

  People were weak. Few had the means to combat the tyrants of economic politics, fewer still had the will, the strength of spirit. Too many had been crushed and ground into dust by the steel and concrete jackboot of the megacorporations.