Chapter 3

Right on time Mr. Johnson showed up. He was a short, overweight man who made Cain look thin. His suit looked like he had slept in it for the past week but he was clean and his hair, what there was of it, was combed. He just looked at Blake and handed him a credstick. "You get the rest at the end of the job. Let's go."

Outside the bar he climbed into a Mitsubishi Runabout and took off or lurched off I should say. He hadn't maintained the vehicle properly. From the high pitched whine I would say that the fly wheel was out of balance and the batteries were in need of replacement or else the electric motor had a short that was robbing it of the little power it had.

Due to his great weight and the electrical problem with the motor it was no problem to keep him in sight as we crawled into or mounted our vehicles and took off after him. We hit 405 south and followed it around to 169 still south and then west at the 162 interchange. We came off there and slowly worked our way into Puyallup on the surface streets. It was here that we got hit by a Go-gang. I don't think they were Hackers even though they were human and this was Hacker territory, these drekkers had no class at all. They just swarmed over us. There were seven or eight of them with all but one on trashed Hogs. That one was on a finely tuned Rapier. He came zipping passed us and headed straight for Mr. Johnson. One of the others tried to follow him but Blake forced him off the road and into the back of a parked car. Two others came up along side Blake, one on each side of his rear bumper and a couple came for us with one staying behind to close the gate on us. They picked a good spot as the road was not in the best shape here and all we could do right then was to hang on and hope they didn't take us out before we could get into action. It was easy to see sparks flying off Blake's car as they opened up on him. So far they had missed when firing at us. I had grabbed the Browning but had not been able to bring it up. When I did, with two shots I took out the flanker on our left while Dane, using a Uzi took out the flanker on our right. We speeded up to assist Blake but a red light exploded on one bike while a machine gun burst from the window took out the second bike. The one behind us turned tail and got out of there. I didn't see where the one ahead went but he went somewhere without bothering Mr. Johnson. I don't think we took a single hit other than to Blake's car and Mr. Johnson didn't even slow down or seem to pay any attention to what was going on. The only problem that I saw with his continuing on was that we were not able to strip the Go-gangers of anything of value that they had. We are all avaricious by nature. Even beat up as they would now be those Hogs would have brought in a few thousand nuyen and the weapons and armor they were wearing would have helped us also. Now they would belong to the first scavengers who came along. With the extra money I could have picked up more electronic equipment for my shop. Oh well!

Our final destination turned out to the rear of a beat up warehouse in the backside of nowhere. Mr. Johnson showed us a way into the fenced in yard that didn't use the gate. We went inside and followed him to his meet. There we stopped while he went forward to do what ever it was that he was going to do. Three people appeared, they all appeared to be Elven. One was a Mage or Shaman sitting on top of several old packing crates that were stacked up in a pile by the loading dock. One was standing in the shadows by one of the roll up doors, looked to be straight muscle and the third stepped out to meet with our Mr. Johnson. They were too far away for us to hear what was being said when suddenly there was a grinding noise and a pile of crates and junk piled against the back fence toppled over and a CityMaster pulled forward. As Lone Star Patrolmen piled out the loudspeaker on top blared out, "Stay where you are and put up your hands!" Of course we didn't. I didn't want to be arrested any more than the rest of them did. Mr. Johnson seemed to pale at the sight. It was noticeable even in the low light of the closed warehouse. He started back towards us still carrying the briefcase when the Mage sent a bolt of some kind at him. It hit him and exploded, knocking him even closer to us. Like a good leader Blake dragged him to cover and checked to see if he was still alive. Finding him dead he checked to get the rest of our fee for the escort and for a bonus took the briefcase also. Dane and I had fired at the Mage who had killed Mr. Johnson. We hit him but didn't stay around to see if we had done much damage to him as the Lone Star Patrolmen were now into the skirmish and were shooting at anything that moved. Cain shot some kind of magic bolt at the muscle as the talker had just plain disappeared. Lucky for us the Star was more concerned with the Elves than with us so we left. I tried to assist their decision by popping a smoke grenade to cover our retreat. We were nearly to the hidden passage when a Patrolman stepped out into our path, blocking my way, I was in the lead with Dane and Blake covering our retreat. He had a stun baton in his hands and seemed ready for us. I stepped forward and feinted a kick towards his knee and when he moved for the block, kicked him in the head. That shook him for a second and so I grabbed a two hand grip on the stun baton myself and pulled down and into a reverse. We were now standing back to back with the baton in the air over our heads. I knew it was happening but he was still a bit stunned. I dropped and pulled sharply forward, flipping him over my head. He let go of the baton and I stunned him with it and we continued on our way. I had always wanted to check over a stun baton so I kept it!