Shadowrun, p.35
Shadowrun, page 35
“That it is. That it is,” the ’caster jumped in. “Reporting live from—”
“I still like Taco Temple, if you can believe it. And, you know, for as annoying as his habits were, I miss Dad, so I kept up the tradition. Tomorrow’s June first, and I’m gonna rock that opening line, woo!”
“Back to you, Tom.”
The puff piece winked out, and an ad for the Seattle Screamers took its place.
“Nice job, kiddo!” Lightstep shouted across the store aisles as another howl pierced the air. He twisted the arm attached to the howling elf under his booted foot. “Stay quiet till I’m finished with you,” he told the guy.
“Oh, yeah!” Lotus rocked her shoulders back and forth in a seated victory dance. “Oh... yeah.” She stopped, scowled, and gestured with her pistol. “Before I forget: I need to be outta here by three. There’s no way I’ll get a good spot in line after four, and I need time to get there.”
“You heard the lady.” Lightstep peered down at the elf. “What’s that code, chummer?”
Every other track playing tonight covered the typical money, sex, partying, and mayhem integral to popular summer music. Taco Temple themes comprised the rest; the Lotto was a big deal in Mid-Town, and the Lotto season’s Grand Opening attracted huge crowds. The line stretched from Taco Temple Mid-Town, past the music shop, the bank, the ’ware repair shop, to the cleaners, and down the other street.
The latest song by Three Fleas Please, “Take My Taquitos,” ended, and Lotus leaned against the plascrete foundation of the bank, the same spot on the sidewalk she’d rested after the six previous songs.
A smallish man in a green hooded sweatshirt shook his head. “How in the world are we so far back in line?”
“This isn’t that bad. At least this year they wove VR visitors in among the meat space visitors. I can’t believe they let it go on that long, letting people cut ahead from the comfort of their own fragging house? I’d just rather be here, you know? Makes me feel like a kid again. But I don’t think it’s fair we don’t get first dibs on the line since we committed so much earlier. I mean, how hard is it to visit in VR? We actually traveled here, you know?” Lotus snorted. “I guess I’m old fashioned.”
The man stared at her. She wasn’t sure when he had started staring at her, but she found herself staring back. There were flecks of gold in his irises—though if someone forced her to categorize them, they weren’t so much flecks as flakes. It looked like he had real fragging gold flakes in his eyeballs. She leaned closer to verify that, yes, they even resembled snowflakes.
The pupil of his eye closed in from both sides and rounded out again just as quickly, causing the gold flakes to catch the light in a flash. It was a fluid movement, like a single heartbeat.
Lotus started, recoiling from the man, who simply smiled. Sudden self-awareness (How much was she talking? Should she stay quiet? Where should she put her hands? Should she look at him or away? Turn toward him, at an angle, away?) flooded Lotus’s other thoughts utterly out of her head.
“There’s no cause for a tone of resignation when talking about how old fashioned one is, my dear.” The man continued the conversation as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “It is a badge of honor, if you ask me.” He examined his fingernails. “Which you should.”
“Should...what?” Lotus blinked rapidly and peered at the man, placing her hand to her forehead. “I didn’t catch—”
The man clapped his hands together. “I’m so glad you asked!”
He closed his eyes, tipped his head back, and inhaled. He inhaled for what Lotus would conclude later was about fifteen seconds. He exhaled a small sigh and locked eyes with her. His mouth cracked into a radiant, rapturous smile.
“I just adore this place, and would never miss the celebration of Lottery season.” He gazed at Taco Temple. “The libations, the flesh, the colors, the olfactory orgasm I suffer simply walking through those shining glass doors!” His thin shoulders rose and fell. “What can I say? I’m obsessed.”
Lotus scowled in surprise. “So am I! I’ve never met anyone who liked Taco Temple so much...” She trailed off, distracted.
“But I think I’m a bit more obsessed than you.” The man prodded her temple with his finger.
She glanced up at him and smiled. “I doubt it,” she said and told the man her story. “I’m sorry,” she said afterward. She patted at her eyes and nose with a wadded-up tissue. “I’ve just never felt a connection like this.”
“Don’t be sorry, sweetheart.” The man patted her wrist. “We have each simply found in one another a kinship few are lucky enough to enjoy in one lifetime. It is a significant enough episode that I should expect you would experience some—” He waved his hand around. “—leakage. I understand it is your feminine nature. But at least you’ll remember the connection.”
Lotus bowed her head and nodded, dabbing at her nostrils. After a moment to compose herself, she blinked once, twice. She pulled her hand away from her eyes and peered at the tears on her fingertips, brow furrowed. Sparing a glance over each shoulder, she wiped her hands off on her jeans and hoped no one had seen that.
No one was looking at her.
Summer heat radiated off the pavement, and Lotus wiped a forearm across her brow. Sunlight flashed into her eyes as the doors to the restaurant opened. Two girls walked out, each carrying two four-packs of tall drinks. Lotus crossed the parking lot to meet them, and took two carriers from the shorter girl, who took one of the taller girl’s carriers. Together, they walked a block and turned into an alleyway.
The girls kept watch as Lotus picked the lock on the fence. She ushered them through and locked the gate behind them. They crouched down and through the half-ruined foundation of an old parking garage, emerging into a tiny, forgotten space between buildings at the center of the city block. The three entered a small shack constructed at the end of the space. The concrete foundation of the parking ramp provided three of the shack’s walls, the fourth wall and door were cobbled together from scrap, and the roof was thick cardboard. Lotus sniffed the air before she sat, checking to see if the stench of mildew merited changing the roof. It was tolerable for now.
They sat on the floor of flattened cardboard boxes and set the carriers on the grate the kids would later use to leave the shack for their hideout. Lotus smeared away thick condensation from the side of the cup, then flicked at the tab of the token with her nail and pulled it away. She removed every token from every cup in careful sequence. Once she had gone through all the cups, she picked each one up from her right-hand side, verified that the token was gone, and handed it to one of the girls to her left. Tokens in hand, she pulled up the Taco Temple Matrix site on her commlink. Glowing orange and red lines reflected like firelight off the girls’ eyes as they watched Lotus’s AR feeds. One by one, she entered a token code into a small personal file, labeled with the day’s date, and entered the code onto the Taco Temple site. Then she rifled through the tokens again, compared them to her entries on the site and to her file.
Satisfied, she tapped
The Lotto had a complicated series of combinations of symbols that won you certain things. So far this summer, Lotus had won seven containers of fries, four Really Big Drinks, and twelve Frooties: awful, pasty, jelly-filled things, and the only thing on the menu she truly disliked.
“What kind of house you gonna buy, Lotus?” the shorter of the two whispered, red glinting off the lenses of the goggles she wore on top of her head.
“Shut it!” the older girl hissed.
“She said she’s gonna put us up in a house if she wins.”
“I said shut it!” The older girl’s Mohawk of pigtails jostled with the force of her reprimand.
The wheel spun and symbols flew from the circle to a grid, resembling playing cards set facedown. After sixteen spaces of the grid filled, the circle stopped spinning and the cards flipped to reveal themselves. No four cards matched a winning combination. This venture was a dud.
“Damn. Better luck next time.” Lotus slapped her thighs and stood up by unfolding her legs. She gave a handful of tokens to the girls. “Here’s the stuff I’ve got so far.”
“Frooties!” the smaller girl shouted gleefully.
“I got a job this weekend, so you bring more of your crew Sunday. We’ll get extra Drinks and increase our chances to win, neh?” She exchanged a businesslike nod with the older girl and used the end of her sleeve to wipe dust from the goggles the younger girl wore on her head.
She left the shack just as they started arguing about which of them deserved to carry one carrier instead of two in exchange for a larger share of Frooties.
“I’m showing movement along the north side, ground floor. Watch yourself, out.”
“Thanks, Ed. Will do.” Lotus padded up the east side of the building. Stepped up with her left foot, followed by her right; reached with the left arm, then the right. She made no sound and if anyone would have been able to spot her, she would have made an impressive figure: she seemed to levitate up the wall, her fluid and regular movement just for show.
“East center window clear?” she sub-vocalized, watching the sidewalk on the northern corner.
“Affirmative.” Ed’s reply came a half-minute later.
Another half-minute later, Lotus stood on the other side of the window.
A shifting mass of vines and branches appeared to grow out of the floor, assuming a vaguely meta-humanoid shape. Lotus jumped and drew on the thing, biting back a curse. She stared as the vines coiled around themselves; at a spot near the top of the mass, a maw opened and the thing spoke.
“If you are hearing this, then you are my dearest. I do apologize for any shock my messenger’s arrival may have caused. I did not hear from you this evening, and so, brought my tools, servants, and shenanigans to bear in order to deliver you my thoughts. I will accept your thanks when next we meet—”
The mass spoke quietly. Lotus’s arm lowered until it hung at her side, pistol held loosely in her hand. There was something she was supposed to remember. Something important. What was it? She winced and paged Ed. “Can you verify...” She trailed off, distracted. What am I supposed to remember?
“Say again?” Ed asked, quiet and concerned.
She pressed a hand to her head. Focus. No, there was something she needed to do... Attention. A plant thing stood before her, delivering a message from her new boyfriend.
Why can’t I remember what I’m supposed to remember?
Situatio— No one can hear it or the job’s over! “Ed, verify the surrounding area is clear!” Tempo. She took a steadying breath, let it out. “Quickly, please.” She stepped to the door.
“A-Affirmative. What’s going on?”
She pressed her ear to the door. The mass of plants continued the message.
“—and you, my dearest, are the luckiest. For I have chosen to bring you home with me. What a sight we will be! Draped in whatever color best suits my tastes for the evening, we shall ride the red carpets like boars! You, with your shining morals and your bright perspective, you will be as a rare jewel upon my arm. When they hear of you, my fellows will beg me on hands and knees to bring you home. Dukes will scoop out their own eyeballs for a mere chance to taste your idealism.”
“Lotus! What the frag’s going on?” Ed’s voice burst in her ear bud, causing her to straighten up with a jerk.
She turned wide eyes on the door as though it had grown arms. “Verify the surrounding area is clear!” she said into the sub-vocal microphone.
“I already did—it’s all clear. I don’t know what’s going on up there, but I’m sending—”
“No! It’s fine.” She turned in a slow circle, examining the empty room.
“I’m just resting my eyes at the door, nothing to see here,” she muttered to herself. Into the sub-vocal mic she said, “Everything’s fine. I’m headed out now. Expect me back in two. Out.”
Two days later, as promised, she left the shack poorer by the price of twenty Really Big Drinks, with the kids hollering and arguing over the free food tokens in her wake. She relocked the gate behind her and walked into the alley.
An AR display popped up in front of her eyes. Her hands flew to her chest as her jaw dropped. “Oh...my...ghost...”
Lotus shook her head, mouth still agape. “I’ve never even heard of a Silver Second Drawing,” she muttered. The symbols, none of which she recognized, spun around the stone circle. There flew wings above a goblet, there a tree with...were those dragons underneath it? As far as she knew, wings and dragons had little to do with Taco Temple food, so the prizes for this drawing must be especially good. The spinning slowed with the barest wobble just before stopping.
She licked her lips and looked over the selection. Trees, wings, a hand with a star in it, a skull... What the frag is all this? But there was something she recognized: the nuyen symbol hung over a cup near the bottom. And that’s what this all came down to, wasn’t it? A triumphant smile rose upon her face as she batted at the symbol.
The symbol shifted to the center of the circle and grew. When it reached the edge of the circle, it exploded into smaller nuyen symbols, which scattered all over her AR. In their place, a number appeared: <¥33,550>.
Lotus brought her hand to her mouth and shook her head. Her eyebrows knitted together and she clenched her hand into a fist. She mouthed a silent scream, jumped in place a few times, and then tapped the button flashing
She could barely think, she was so overcome with excitement, and despite the strange questions (“How often do you visit your family?” “How many close friends would you say you have?”) and a reminder to ensure that her living will is up-to-date, she finished the forms and deposited the funds into the several accounts she had set up long ago for just this eventuality.
“What are you looking at so intently?” His hand brushed her hair from her face.
“They’re definitely snowflakes,” she said, peering into his eyes from above him.
He barked a single laugh and slid out from under her. Rising from the bed, he strode to the kitchenette. “Speaking of snowflakes, remind me to order more ice today.”
“For what?” She sat up and rested on her elbow.
“For the icebox.” His tone suggested she had the intelligence of a donkey. Lucky for him he was as pretty as a dirty picture, or she would have sent him on his way by now, she told herself.
She pressed her lips together and nodded. “Icebox. Right. Tell me again why you hate refrigerators?”
“I have no personal vendetta or, in fact, any qualms regarding refrigerators or even miscellaneous refrigeration devices. It’s the,” he scowled and waved his hand around in the air. “It’s the ambiance.” He cast a glance at her and smacked the counter with his palm. “Things like that destroy it.”
“‘The ambiance.’“ Lotus stood, wrapping his green silken robe around her and following him to the kitchen. “Is that what you get when you have money? Because I’ve got money now, and I think you should show me the ropes.”
He turned then, smirking. His eyes flashed. “‘The ropes’? Do they still call it that? I would have thought it bastardized into some modern technological equivalent. Surely no one works with rope anymore. Electronic fastenings or none at all, I say!”
“So, you should show me the—myomeric ropes?”
He spat. “I mock. Technology is a crutch utilized by the weak. No one here realizes this because none among your kind rises above the rest.”
Lotus closed her eyes, frowning. “Wh—what did you just say?”
“I said that you alone rise above the rest, darling,” he said, and pulled her close, eyes flashing. “Come away with me. You said you needed money to come away, and now you have it. You have no more excuses.” He tipped his head and locked eyes with her.
Lotus snapped her mouth shut with a click of her teeth. “I—” She grimaced, struggling to get the words out. “I can’t. I have friends here.”
“Ah.” He straightened to his full height. Was he really that tall? “I trust you have places to be today, so I will not keep you. You may see yourself out.” The bathroom door closed with a thud after he disappeared behind it.
“It’s too perfect.”
“Can you just quit with all the perfect drek?”
“No, scan this: it covers my debt to KJ, the rest of the lease on my apartment, and the ten percent I promised the kids, leaving me with ten K. Which is exactly the same amount I figured out I wanted before I would consider leaving. It’s fragging creepy.”
Ed turned to face her, his expression a blend of annoyance and something she couldn’t place. “Look, I get it: the money is causing you problems. You’re a big girl, and I’m sure you can work it out on your own.”
“What’s your problem?” Lotus scowled.
“I don’t want to hear about it anymore!” He rose from the table, palms up. “You go on and on about it all during the forum yesterday, and expect that I want to hear about it again today?”
“On and on about what?”
“About that damn prize! You made it pretty clear you’re done with us once this run is over. And it’s oh-so-gracious of you to see it through to the end, though from what you said yesterday, you don’t need me to tell you that—”
