Der Jo
Normalo antitribu
- Registriert
- 2. Juli 2004
- Beiträge
- 1.451
So, das ist jetzt also meine zweite Kurzgeschichte ueberhaupt.
Ist leider in Englisch, ich hoffe aber dass keine allzugrossen Schwierigkeiten hervorruft.
Das ganze spielt im grossen und ganzen vor einem Shadowrunhintergrund.
Two shots remaining
They called me “Whistler”, because that was what I usually did.
This time it isn’t me who whistles but the bullets that whizz past my head, only inches away.
I don’t really know what went wrong – nor how or why. The plan was fool-proof and the team members professionals who knew how to handle those jobs. And this job was easy: Get in, grab the stuff and get out again.
Nevertheless I find myself in this bloody subway tunnel, chased by two even bloodier corporation-mercenaries - it’s my chummer’s blood. They bathed their hands in it the moment we entered the station, before the very eyes of a twenty witnesses. They did not only want us dead, they wanted the world to know we were turned into a heap of bowels.
But they didn’t get all of us. I hope the matrix hacker is still alive. A competent data juggler will be of need when I want to find out who these guys hard on my heels are – or better said: were.
They got my four fellows. And they will pay – double! The blokes were more than mere a couple of creeps stuck in the filth of the streets together with me – they were the only friends I ever had since I was pulled out of a goddamn dustbin where my mother had left me to rot. Tough times, and friends are as scarce as they are precious in the shadows, where the only one you can really trust is your silenced automatic and your body armour.
Now all what’s left of them are four body bags and a few pieces on platform two. These guys will pay.
The tunnel is pitch-black, but I know my pursuer’s eye-light systems pierce the dark like their bullets could pierce my flesh. Highly polarized light, invisible unless they look straight at your face – a small flash in the blackness, that’s all I have to locate them. Apart from the gun shots.
Bullets race trough the stifling air and hit the tunnel wall above and next to me, causing splinters to rain down on my head and into my eyes. I cover them with one hand while the other one is fumbling my belt for the ultrasound-goggles. With them I might at least see where I’m running. And where I might find cover. I keep running, hearing two pairs of steps following mine – running through a blackness my eyes can’t penetrate,
I need more time. Time to calm down, time to think. My left hand touches something at my belt. Something that will give me time – a grenade. I pull it off - the peg remaining at my belt - and sling it behind me.
Time.
Two, one – jump!
Falling I revolve, landing on my back, my head hitting the rail. I don’t have time to think about pain. Teeth clenching I pull my Guardian from the holster. Time. My senses sharpen, my hand ready to aim at anything that may come into sight when my little toy blows up in the split of a second. Reaction is the key. Acting in the time between the explosion and the shock wave reaching me. I blink.
A deafening noise fills the tunnel and my eyes are blinded by the flash that accompanies the destruction. Dirt, steel, stone. Everything seems to burst under the sheer force of the explosive. And I was right: against the light that deals destruction stand out the silhuettes of two falling bodies, unable to react. Vulnerable.
I pull the trigger. Twice. God, I thank the Doc that boosted my reflexes.
I blink again, before the power of the shock wave whirls around my arm and knocks my head against the rail again.
I black out – and two bloodhounds bite the dust.
I’m not sure if my eyes are open or still shut. I can’t make out any difference. My face burns and my eyes hurt as if somebody tried to push them too deep into their sockets. My head aches and I don’t dare to touch it, afraid what I might discover. Blood runs down my neck, but I don’t care. Several yards away there is a gasp in the darkness. Cautious I crouch forward trough the debris of the black tunnel. Clearly I can hear the gasping through the abating dust – a man gargling his own blood. Blindly I move onwards.
My hand touches something warm, something metal. It’s a torch. Somehow it seems to have survived the rather savage moments a few seconds ago. It is still working and a beam of weak light penetrates the dusty air. I get up.
Under different circumstances I might have felt compassion with the men lying on the track, his body bent unnaturally far back. Blood is running from his nose, mouth and ears. But I feel nothing. Not even disgust. His eyes are staring at me, full of fear and yet begging. Begging me to release him from his pain. A favour I won’t grant him. Kneeling beside him I search his fellow’s dead body, searching for anything that might turn out to be usefull: ID, employer, money, something.
Nothing. I turn back to the other man who is coughing up his life. Standing above him I consider a bullet. I check the clip in my gun. Two shots remaining. I look down on him, the message clear: sorry dude, I can’t spare one for you. The man points at his own weapon lying a few yards away. A last effort. I step over to the gun and pick it up. It’s an old model, seldomly used on the streets these days. And nevertheless at least one bullet from this gun has found its way to one of my chummer’s heads. I point it at the man in the dark, hesistating. Moving the cone of light at him I watch his reaction. In a last effort to keep at least a splinter of his dignity in death he set up, his eyes closed in expectation, his face showing relief.
The gun shot tears apart the silence of the subway. The man slowly falls back again, his eyes filling with despair, staring at the bullet that dug into the rubble beside his legs. I drop the gun. No mercy for bastards today.
I step over to him; maybe he has something of interest with him.
After a few seconds of searching the still couching and gasping man I have found what I need.
Five minutes later I stand under the lights of the streets again, sucking in the cool air of the night, staring at the photograph in my hand. I know the picture, have seen it thousands of times before. It shows me and four other persons that are dead by now. Their deaths caused by the only remaining man who had access to the place where we usually met – and where this picture used to to hang on the wall. The man that joined our team half a year ago. The man whose head is connected to the net when he’s working: manipulating and stealing wanted data – and sometimes send it. He is competent indeed, knows much about his subject. But one lesson he still has to learn: the streets are ruthless and in the shadows betrayal always means death. If not for the betrayed one, then for the traitor.
I look down on the Guardian in my hands. Time to go. Stepping from the light of the street lamps into the darkness of the road I check the clip again.
Time to settle an account.
And two shots remaining.
Ist leider in Englisch, ich hoffe aber dass keine allzugrossen Schwierigkeiten hervorruft.
Das ganze spielt im grossen und ganzen vor einem Shadowrunhintergrund.
Two shots remaining
They called me “Whistler”, because that was what I usually did.
This time it isn’t me who whistles but the bullets that whizz past my head, only inches away.
I don’t really know what went wrong – nor how or why. The plan was fool-proof and the team members professionals who knew how to handle those jobs. And this job was easy: Get in, grab the stuff and get out again.
Nevertheless I find myself in this bloody subway tunnel, chased by two even bloodier corporation-mercenaries - it’s my chummer’s blood. They bathed their hands in it the moment we entered the station, before the very eyes of a twenty witnesses. They did not only want us dead, they wanted the world to know we were turned into a heap of bowels.
But they didn’t get all of us. I hope the matrix hacker is still alive. A competent data juggler will be of need when I want to find out who these guys hard on my heels are – or better said: were.
They got my four fellows. And they will pay – double! The blokes were more than mere a couple of creeps stuck in the filth of the streets together with me – they were the only friends I ever had since I was pulled out of a goddamn dustbin where my mother had left me to rot. Tough times, and friends are as scarce as they are precious in the shadows, where the only one you can really trust is your silenced automatic and your body armour.
Now all what’s left of them are four body bags and a few pieces on platform two. These guys will pay.
The tunnel is pitch-black, but I know my pursuer’s eye-light systems pierce the dark like their bullets could pierce my flesh. Highly polarized light, invisible unless they look straight at your face – a small flash in the blackness, that’s all I have to locate them. Apart from the gun shots.
Bullets race trough the stifling air and hit the tunnel wall above and next to me, causing splinters to rain down on my head and into my eyes. I cover them with one hand while the other one is fumbling my belt for the ultrasound-goggles. With them I might at least see where I’m running. And where I might find cover. I keep running, hearing two pairs of steps following mine – running through a blackness my eyes can’t penetrate,
I need more time. Time to calm down, time to think. My left hand touches something at my belt. Something that will give me time – a grenade. I pull it off - the peg remaining at my belt - and sling it behind me.
Time.
Two, one – jump!
Falling I revolve, landing on my back, my head hitting the rail. I don’t have time to think about pain. Teeth clenching I pull my Guardian from the holster. Time. My senses sharpen, my hand ready to aim at anything that may come into sight when my little toy blows up in the split of a second. Reaction is the key. Acting in the time between the explosion and the shock wave reaching me. I blink.
A deafening noise fills the tunnel and my eyes are blinded by the flash that accompanies the destruction. Dirt, steel, stone. Everything seems to burst under the sheer force of the explosive. And I was right: against the light that deals destruction stand out the silhuettes of two falling bodies, unable to react. Vulnerable.
I pull the trigger. Twice. God, I thank the Doc that boosted my reflexes.
I blink again, before the power of the shock wave whirls around my arm and knocks my head against the rail again.
I black out – and two bloodhounds bite the dust.
I’m not sure if my eyes are open or still shut. I can’t make out any difference. My face burns and my eyes hurt as if somebody tried to push them too deep into their sockets. My head aches and I don’t dare to touch it, afraid what I might discover. Blood runs down my neck, but I don’t care. Several yards away there is a gasp in the darkness. Cautious I crouch forward trough the debris of the black tunnel. Clearly I can hear the gasping through the abating dust – a man gargling his own blood. Blindly I move onwards.
My hand touches something warm, something metal. It’s a torch. Somehow it seems to have survived the rather savage moments a few seconds ago. It is still working and a beam of weak light penetrates the dusty air. I get up.
Under different circumstances I might have felt compassion with the men lying on the track, his body bent unnaturally far back. Blood is running from his nose, mouth and ears. But I feel nothing. Not even disgust. His eyes are staring at me, full of fear and yet begging. Begging me to release him from his pain. A favour I won’t grant him. Kneeling beside him I search his fellow’s dead body, searching for anything that might turn out to be usefull: ID, employer, money, something.
Nothing. I turn back to the other man who is coughing up his life. Standing above him I consider a bullet. I check the clip in my gun. Two shots remaining. I look down on him, the message clear: sorry dude, I can’t spare one for you. The man points at his own weapon lying a few yards away. A last effort. I step over to the gun and pick it up. It’s an old model, seldomly used on the streets these days. And nevertheless at least one bullet from this gun has found its way to one of my chummer’s heads. I point it at the man in the dark, hesistating. Moving the cone of light at him I watch his reaction. In a last effort to keep at least a splinter of his dignity in death he set up, his eyes closed in expectation, his face showing relief.
The gun shot tears apart the silence of the subway. The man slowly falls back again, his eyes filling with despair, staring at the bullet that dug into the rubble beside his legs. I drop the gun. No mercy for bastards today.
I step over to him; maybe he has something of interest with him.
After a few seconds of searching the still couching and gasping man I have found what I need.
Five minutes later I stand under the lights of the streets again, sucking in the cool air of the night, staring at the photograph in my hand. I know the picture, have seen it thousands of times before. It shows me and four other persons that are dead by now. Their deaths caused by the only remaining man who had access to the place where we usually met – and where this picture used to to hang on the wall. The man that joined our team half a year ago. The man whose head is connected to the net when he’s working: manipulating and stealing wanted data – and sometimes send it. He is competent indeed, knows much about his subject. But one lesson he still has to learn: the streets are ruthless and in the shadows betrayal always means death. If not for the betrayed one, then for the traitor.
I look down on the Guardian in my hands. Time to go. Stepping from the light of the street lamps into the darkness of the road I check the clip again.
Time to settle an account.
And two shots remaining.
