He didn't look over his shoulder. The wind whistled through the dozens of holes in his moth-eaten clothes. He knew Alex and his crew would be following him. Looking back would just slow him down. All he had to do was get to the fence first.
Tires squealed. Something was approaching from behind, quickly. The empty streets made him an obvious target. He had to get somewhere more public, where there might be a crowd to get lost in.
He ducked around a corner as a few pistol shots whizzed over his head. The car made the turn after him, but Cassowary had already reversed himself, running back down the street he'd just came from. Halfway down the next block, he ran through a geyser of steam into an alley. The car pursuing him hadn't been able turn around in the narrow street and get back in time to see where he went. He might have just bought himself some time.
Cassowary's breathing was labored. The arm was quite heavy – and, in its current state, almost useless as a weapon. Two minutes ago, this arm had made Burt the Toad the most feared Yakuza enforcer in town. Now, it was little more than an awkward club – but a club worth 50,000 Nuyen.
Cassowary ran through alleys as long as he could, only coming out to cross streets. He saw a few cars and street people, but no one gave him a second look.
After four blocks, he hit Novelty Hill Road, not far from Touristville. The farther west he went, the more foot traffic there'd be, the easier it would be for him to blend and disappear. He started to relax, but still ran. A few people looked at him, but then quickly looked away.
A screech of tires from behind him got his attention. He looked over his shoulder, trying to see what kind of car it was, but he couldn't see anything past the wide, glaring headlights.
He didn't want to leave Novelty Hill Road, but the car bearing down on him left him little choice. He veered right as soon as he could.
The car reached the intersection and kept going straight. It was a different car. It wasn't after him.
Cassowary was so relieved he almost slowed to a jog. He could take a left at the next street and get back on track.
Just as the last moment of a sigh of relief floated off his lips, a car ahead of him flashed its lights on, gunned its engine, and surged toward him. It was a taxi.
He didn't hesitate. He held the arm in front of him and ran forward at full speed. He knew his pursuers wanted the arm intact. He knew what they'd do.
At the last minute, the taxi wheeled sharply and hit the brakes, screeching its tires. Cassowary leapt, slid across the hood, then fell onto the street. He was on his feet again almost instantly. He'd feel the bruises tomorrow, but he'd have plenty of cash for painkillers.
He was into an alley again, hoping the taxi didn't see him. This time, though, he wasn't so lucky. The screech of tires followed him immediately.
Cassowary cursed his legs as he pumped them. The car drew closer, Cassowary could hear it, but he didn't look back. Two hundred more feet, then 150, then 100, he'd make it to the other end of the alley and have space to maneuver.
The blow to his back made him think he'd been hit by a cannonball. It caught him squarely between the shoulder blades and he tumbled. He clutched the Toad's arm tightly, protecting it with his body. The pavement tore several holes in his skin as he rolled across it.
When he finally stopped, he tried to get his legs moving, but it felt like he had a two hundred pound weight sitting on top of him. He was stuck, his left shoulder in a shallow puddle, in an alley with 50 years of grime smeared on the pavement. He twisted his neck and saw that the weight was a man with close cropped silver hair, a square jaw, and deep scars beneath grey eyes. His face looked quite angry – until he grinned.
"Got a next move?" he asked.
Cassowary couldn't have struggled if he tried without losing his grip on the arm, which would have made any struggle pointless. He lay silently. He could feel each individual bruise on his body pop up, one by one, as the adrenaline slowly faded. It hurt.
Behind the silver-haired man, X-Prime, the guy from the bar last night, appeared. He didn't look happy.
"Stay back, Alex," the silver-haired man said without turning around. "I'm taking care of this."
"I just wanted…"
"I know what you wanted. But you're not fixing anything right now. Stay back."
X-Prime frowned. But he stayed back.
Cassowary wasn't sure if he should to close his eyes to brace himself for the end or leave them open so he could see it coming. He decided to leave them open.
"First things first," the silver-haired man said. Moving quickly for a man of his build, the silver-haired man jerked the arm away from Cassowary and handed it to a slender, serene-looking woman behind him. "Get that secured, Spindle," he said. The woman took it back to the taxi. The silver-haired man still hadn't moved his eyes off Cassowary.
"Now," he said. "Here's what we'll do with you."
Cassowary grimaced. Why'd they always have to talk about what they were going to do? Why not just do it? Shoot him, hit him, run over him, whatever, just do it. He hated the talking.
"I'll give you 500 Nuyen," the silver-haired man said.
Cassowary blinked. He thought about what the silver-haired man said. Then he blinked again.
"Is that fair?"
Cassowary's tongue, one of the few muscles he had that wasn't bruised, found a way to work. "What… what for?"
"For your trouble. For giving the arm up without further difficulty. I don't blame you for what you did – I would've done the same, if someone was stupid enough to leak the information to me." X-Prime opened his mouth, but a quick hand gesture from the silver-haired man shut it again. "It's my way of saying 'no hard feelings.' Okay?"
Cassowary couldn't resist. "I was going to get 50,000 for it.'
The silver-haired man pressed the nozzle of his gun deep into Cassowary's temple, right on a bruise. Cassowary winced.
"You were also going to be shot in the head, if Leadhead or Spindle got to you first."
"500 is fine," Cassowary gasped. "Great."
Thursday, 3:35 am
Cayman had told Alex there was one more stop before he'd call the job done. Alex half-expected – more than half, really – that the last stop involved him, the Snoqualmie River, and a significant quantity of concrete. He didn't ask where they were going, or any other question, since Cayman hadn't responded well to any remarks from him except to say that the 500 Nuyen for Cassowary was coming from Alex's portion of the money for the job.
They walked through a weathered wooden doorway beneath a burnt-out neon sign. A few patrons sat around a bar that was a piece of plywood lying across stacked plastic buckets. Most of the customers were asleep. A bartender watched trideo in the back, waiting for someone to wake up and place an order.
Suddenly, Cayman started talking. "You should've known this already. Duster should've told you. I don't like having to play teacher, but here it is. You take in as much information as you can get. You give out as little as possible. You make sure what you're getting is good and complete. You understand?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah, yeah, until you get drunk again. Let me show you something." He pulled out a knife, not quite as honed as the Cougar fineblades on Alex's cutters, but still plenty sharp. Alex reflexively tightened his abdominal muscles, as if that could hinder the blade.
Cayman raised the blade, whirled it a half turn in his hand, and spiked it down into the hand of a man slumped at a nearby table. The man screamed, raising his head. It was Doc Holiday.
No one else in the bar moved.
Cayman turned to Holiday and waited patiently for the screams to subside into whimpers. Then he spoke.
"You were supposed to give me complete specs on the arm," he said evenly. "It would have been nice to know about the retractable knife." He glanced down at the knife sticking straight up, embedded in the table beneath the man's hand. "Knives you don't know about can be a problem." He turned and walked out. Alex tried to make a gesture that said "I'm sorry, I had no idea we were coming to stab you, perhaps I could have done something about it had I known," then followed Cayman out.