Shrapnel or bullets or maybe both slammed against Dok's ballistic-insulated chest and shoulder and arm as he scrambled around on bis hands and knees to get back to Filly. She was bleeding. There was blood in the hair at the back of her head, and she wasn't moving. Suddenly the worst seemed like a possibility, but Dok knew, God now he knew, that it would be just like Filly to take a hit, even a bad one, without ever making a sound. She was one tough woman.
He seized her from under the shoulders, began dragging her toward the van. No time-no time for first aid now! He had to get her into the van-into the van and then do whatever he had to do! Patch her up good. Keep her alive till they got to a clinic somewhere, if it was really that bad!
It was hard to breathe, so hard…
Suddenly, Rico was there, grabbing Filly around the hips and helping to heft her in through the van's side door.
No time to lose.
None at all.
28
They were most of the night shaking their pursuit and checking and rechecking that they were clear.
The few things Bandit said about the mage who had been at the meet made the slag sound like some incredible master of the arcane arts. Like the guy could've laid waste to the whole parking field, everything in it, and half the Willow Brook Mall if he'd only had the time to get the magic together. Maybe the way things ended pointed out the advantage of learning your stuff on the street, instead of in some high-tower occult academy. On the street, you learned that you were either quick or dead. That was one thing about Bandit. As much as he sometimes seemed to be living in some other world, he knew how to be quick, and he knew when quick meant everything.
Good instincts, Rico thought.
What else could you call it?
Thorvin sent the van flying down the transitways. They crisscrossed the plex and doubled back too many times to keep track. Rico found it hard, impossible, to keep track because he couldn't believe how the meet had ended. It made no fragging sense.
There was also the action in the rear of the van.
Dok worked on Filly for more than an hour, long after it became obvious to Rico that what little Dok could do with the gear on hand just wouldn't cut it. Maybe if he'd had a full surgical kit with respirators and all the drek like in the average emergency ward, maybe then something too good to believe might have happened. The way things were, with all their asses on the line, they had to get clear, and everything else took second place.
Filly never moved. She didn't breathe. She didn't show the least sign of life. Whatever had hit the back of her head had penetrated bone. It had probably been over in an instant, before she could feel the pain, before she even knew what hit her.
If it was gonna happen, that was the way it oughta happen. That was how Rico wanted to go. Here one moment, gone the next. A death with some dignity.
That didn't help Dok.
"She lived how she wanted, amigo," Rico finally said, "She was true to herself and true to you. She was real. She had to be there. She wouldn't've let you go alone. No effing way, compadre."
Shank grunted, nodded agreement, and told Dok,', "We're with you, bro."
Dok turned his head toward the ceiling and closed his eyes and said nothing. Clamped his eyes tightly shut and clenched his teeth together till the muscles in his jaw were twitching. Trying hard to keep things inside. Rico knew what that was like. He also knew it was no use. Some feelings were just too powerful.
It was almost dawn when they got to Little Asia. Thorvin turned the van down the narrow alley to their latest bolthole and parked. No sign of pursuit or surveillance. Rico got out, looked around. The van's side door slid open and Bandit stepped out, also looking around. Inside the rear of the van, Dok sat staring at Filly's body. "Come on, bro," Shank said.
"I wanna be alone," Dok said harshly.
"Come on, chummer."
"Leave me alone!"
"Dok," Rico said, letting an edge slip into his voice, "you're still bleeding. Shank's bleeding. We're all bleeding. You come inside, take care of biz. You want time then, you got it."
The speech seemed to work, but the minute Dok stepped out of the van he started cursing. Getting mad, crazy with fury. His words rose into snarls like an animal might make. He turned and began slamming his fists into the side of the van. Then he rammed his head into the metal. Once wasn't enough. He couldn't stop. Probably, he wanted Filly so bad he'd do anything, take any risk, go up against anybody, kill anybody, to get her back. He couldn't just quietly accept the truth. He had to do something.
A woman was always a woman, even just lying in bed asleep. It wasn't like that for most men, and, Rico knew,
it wasn't like that for Dok. He was a soldier as much as one was a doc. He was a former mercenary. Just saving lives was never enough. He had to prove himself as a man. He had to do things. Crazy, dangerous things like shadowrunning, even if it got him killed. It was more than just machismo. It was pride and self-esteem and an essential part of his identity. He had to do something about Filly, even if anything he could do would be futile.
Even if it was just pounding himself bloody against the side of a van.
Rico watched for maybe three seconds, then grabbed Dok by the arm, jerked him around and thrust him back bodily against the van. Dok struggled, pounding at Rico's shoulders and shouting, but Rico kept shoving, pinning him against the metal. Shank helped. Grief ultimately beat out fury, and that grief was too much to contain.
A man strong enough to love, really love, opened himself to the possibility of pain. A man who could do that didn't give a damn who knew how much it hurt or how the pain showed.
The flood subsided abruptly. Dok sagged, his eyes going wide, his face turning pale. Rico caught him up hard, gripping him around the body.
"I'm hit," Dok murmured. "Christ…"
Rico said nothing.
Shank helped carry Dok inside.
The moment Piper heard the rumble of the van, she snatched up her automatic and hurried up the hall to the alleyway door. A brief glance through the peephole confirmed her suspicions. She pulled the door open, then stood and watched as Dok climbed out of the van, as he cursed and shouted, and, finally, as Rico and Shank carried him toward the door. Glancing back and forth, she felt only confusion until she saw the reddish stains on Rico's cheek and hands, and then the lower legs of someone lying just inside the open sidedoor of the van. On those legs was a pair of dark hi-top boots. Filly's boots. Piper looked at the blood staining Dok's jacket and the rips in Shank's armored vest and the scratches on his arms and knew right then that the meet had gone very badly.
It took her a moment to put it all together: Dok's rage, Filly's boots. No sign of Ansell Surikov.
The slotting corporates had fragged them again. Now someone was dead, another good person was dead, and more were wounded. Piper couldn't just stand there and watch the wounded bleed. The anger and the frustration that came welling up from inside demanded that she respond. It was her duty.
She turned and hurried back down the hall. From her knapsack, she took a clip containing hard ammo, twelve armor-piercing rounds. At the touch of a switch the clip full of soft ammo dropped from her Ares Special Service. She thrust the new clip in, pulled on the slide, and released it. One soft round popped out and fell to the floor. A hard round took its place.
She stepped into the bedroom.
Farris lay there on the floor, on her side, arms cuffed behind her back. The little trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth was nothing compared to what she deserved, and what she was going to get. Those who served the megacorps were no better than the nefarious scum who ruled over the corporate hierarchy. They were the enemies of every moral person, of all metahumanity. They deserved no mercy. For their crimes against the Earth and every future generation, they deserved to die. They deserved to rot in hell.