~ Orson Welles
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| Cover for the first issue of "Tommy Gun Tales" the comic series Sheila X and young Tommy 'the Machine' Gun Art by: Lotus Blair |
My vision was coming back to my right eye as Lilly and Rose worked their spells. Rose rested on my left ring finger, just above my wedding ring while Lilly rested upon the middle finger next to her sister. Below me the air spirit pushed itself to its fullest, racing me across the night sky. I could see the dragon's aura pulling away from us in the distance. It out paced us and vanished into the plain grey edifice of one of the downtown skyscrapers. One I knew very well.
"Looks like we're going back to work girls." They heard my thoughts but were quiet in my mind. Their full attention focused on the spells that were knitting my battered body back together as best they could.
"Tommy," Angel's voice sounded fuzzy in my earpiece. "What are you doing?"
"I'm getting Aria."
"Tommy, we missed our chance. The damn wiz-worm survived the blast." Angel's sickened voice stroked the anger that was burning away in my brain. "Damnit Tommy! Come back and we'll plan this out properly!"
"No."
"Damnit! Tommy, you can't do this alone!" Angel's voice was full of anger and something I couldn't identify. She was right. But I wasn't alone.
"I'm almost there. I've got the girls with me. I'm getting her out Angel, one way of the other she is getting out of there." I was only a couple of blocks away from my old office tower. "Stay on the line if you don't mind."
There was a long moment where the only sounds I heard was the rushing wind.
"Drone will be overhead in two minutes. I can't see anything until then." She said.
"I can't wait that long, but thank you." I headed for the landing pad on the 95th floor and noticed, to late, a dozen rotor drones that descended from above.
Weapon arms trained trained light machine guns on me and my earpiece crackled with a sudden spike of static.
"Machine." Zero's voice sounded in my ear. "I'm under orders to bring you in or bring you down Omae."
"If you're planning on following those orders Zero, I'm afraid we don't have much to say to each other." I replied.
A display screen came alive on the rotor-drone I was facing. Simon and Zero were on screen, while Zero's voice sounded harshly in my ear. "Machine, land and surrender into custody. Officers are waiting to take in you on the ground floor." Zero pointed down while Simon held up a scribbled note that read 'Taz'.
Surrounded by little death machines and not yet even within the building I had the air spirit fly me down to the front entrance. People on the streets gawked at my descent, no doubt because I was singed and covered in blood. I ignored their questioning faces and walked through the main entrance doors and through a strangely unmanned security station. Behind me, security gates came down sealing me in.
*****
"I've got the interior sensors. All cameras and microphones." Zero whispered in my ear. "Taz is on approach."
"Father, we've done all we can." Rose's voice was gentle and welcome to my rage clouded mind.
"I will do violence." Lilly's thought voice mirrored my own anger, sounding sharp and harsh against my own thoughts.
"Steady girls, let's see how this is going to unfold. If any attack us, kill them." Somewhere in that building there was a dragon that had my wife. I wanted her back and the dragon dead and I didn't want some thoughtless mistake to trip me up.
"Hands where I can see them, Machine." Taz's voice rang out throughout the empty grand foyer.
"You should know by now, Taz, that doesn't matter with me." I called back, turning the palms of my hands to face the area in front of me. I picked out Taz and a dozen armored men moving toward me in the darkness.
"I've got orders." Taz's voice was harsh and firm. "Orders to bring you in and to kill you if you offer the least resistance."
"I understand, Taz." I replied. Two rings vanished from my left hand.
Taz held his left hand up, fist closed and his men stopped with their weapons trained on me. Taz holstered his sidearm, his new cybernetic hand gleaming with fresh chrome. "I've got orders." He repeated, taking slow steps toward me.
"You know, Machine, when I was still in the Marine Corps I swore an oath." Taz stopped two meters from me. "It's an old oath. Dates back to the old corps from back in the USA days."
"I never served, but I've heard something about that." I replied. Rose and Lilly waited, their full angelic forms ready to spring out of the astral plane and bring wrath and death.
"Funny thing about us Marines. UCAS, CAS, it doesn't really matter, we come from the same tradition." Taz gestured with his new arm. "All former Marines. All picked and approved by Jazz."
"Get to the point, Taz." I replied.
"Point is, Marines don't follow illegal orders." Taz turned back to face his men. "So I'm refusing this order. Anyone got a problem with that?"
Weapon barrels went down. "No, we're good Gunny." I heard one of the FNG's call back.
Taz turned back to face me. "When I took this job, Jazz told me I follow your orders. Well, the corp may write the checks but as far as I'm concerned that order still stands. Orders, Machine?"
I stood there, a fierce smile spreading across my face. Lilly and Rose appeared beside me. "Orders, Taz?" I looked at my daughters then back to Taz. "Rescue Op. Target is an elf female, responds to the name 'Aria'. Abductor is a paracritter, western dracoform, a great form example of the species. Creature is capable of shape shifting, is immune to small arms fire and is somewhere above us. Orders are to evacuate the captive from the building. One of the angels will take her to safety. After that we un-ass the building and G.T.F.O."
I looked around at familiar faces, people I had fought beside in that hell beneath Lac Assal. "Taz, one more thing. You don't die on me. I don't care if they shoot you so full of lead you sink."
Taz stared at me. "Copy that. Okay folks, rescue op. Wiz-worm in the building is hostile, we get the lady and get out. Nobody dies without permission."
A chorus of "Copy that Gunny!" rang out around me.
Simon sounded off in my earpiece. "Groovy."
"Let's go." I said as I headed for the service stairs.
******
One hundred floors is too many stairs to climb, particularly when you want to rescue someone. Taz, the FNG's and I flew up the stairwell at a terrifying pace, held aloft by air spirits and sped on by some colorful curses.
"Bio-signs of the elf woman were last picked up in the private elevator that stops at the 104th floor. No security cams up there, no sensors of any kind. You're in the dark up there." Simon whispered.
"Got it. Zero, get the Osprey to the pad on the 95th if you can." I turned to Taz. "That's your exit, we get the girl and she's gone. Take the men and scoot out from the 95th."
"Understood."
We took the stairs to the 103rd floor, where they ended in a heavy security door. The door buzzed, unlocking at our approach. A thin mist wafted throughout the vast emptiness before us. The floor was devoid of interior walls, supporting columns stood with arcane scrollwork etched into the surface of the steel. A fine mist drifted along the ceiling.
"Clouds?" Taz muttered.
"No, that's ectoplasm." I replied.
"Is it toxic?" Taz asked.
"Not really, though too much of it could drown you, I suppose." The air was ripe with raw magical energy. There was something familiar about the feel of it that I couldn't place. "Don't touch the columns."
We ghosted around the vast emptiness, spreading out look for any way up to the floor above us.
"Machine. I found something." A familiar voice whispered over my earpiece. I looked and saw one of the FNG's wave to me.
I floated over and saw a line of thick, dark fluid oozing down the support column she was looking at.
"Blood." she said.
I looked up and saw it oozing down the column from the floor above.
"Taz, plant charges on that duct work above us." There wasn't another way off the floor. "Task four to pull that window in. We're going outside."
"Blowing holes or blowing up?" he asked.
"Up." I replied. "Set the charges. I'll send the air spirits to bring you guys up after me. We grab Aria and ghost out if possible, fight our way out if we have to, then we blow the charges to cover the escape."
Taz had the FNG's moving before I was reached the window.
"Machine." Simon's voice crackled in my ear. "I've got an intrusion on the line. Whoever is it I can't keep him out!"
"You mean her, asshole!" Angel swore. "Damnit, Tommy! Tell me you aren't inside!"
"Angel, keep them on the coms, and YES I'm in the building." I replied. "Any chance you can patch in feed from your drone yet? I need to see the 104th floor from the east side."
Angel fumed. {You were pissing me off, Tommy.~ Angel}... "Yeah, I'll splice in through that second rate firewall your people set up."
"Hey!" Simon protested.
"Stow it, you two!" The window was coming down and a blast of cold wind hit me. "Angel, I'm going up and I need to see what's there."
A minute went buy before my AR goggles buzzed at me. I pulled them on and opened the feed Angel was beaming in. There was nothing extraordinary about the floor above. I could see the vacant window before me and nothing but plain windows along that level. There was no landing pad or anything that would permit access.
"Angel, give me a look all the way around. Something's there, I know it." I reached out to the astral plane and the trio of bound air spirits appeared. I watched as the drone did a complete circuit of the building, revealing nothing that would permit access.
"Girls, you'll bring the team up after me. I'm going to get a better look." I pulled down the goggles and was swept out of the building by one of the spirits, the other two in tow. One hundred and three stories below me, the city street was a thin dark strip outlined in soft neon colors. I opened myself to the astral and cast my sight up at the floor above.
Power buzzed against my senses, the 104th and the three floors above it were alight with magic. The walls were sweating ectoplasm just as the ceiling of the 103rd floor had been. Wisps energy broke up in the swirling winds and I was once again strangely certain that I knew the feel and taste of that magic.
At my command the spirit brought closer to the glowing walls and I examined them, looking for a weakness in the warding that I could exploit. Instead, I found a carefully crafted latticework of spell energies comprising the largest illusion I had ever seen. I drifted along to the southeast corner of the edifice and passed through the wall, my senses screaming at me as the spells tried to convince my body that I was being pushed through plascrete and steel.
The wind continued to beat at me as I broke through into an open air gallery of 11 pillars. A great circle was etched in the marble floor, with four smaller circles worked into the design. Within three of those lesser circles stood one of the strange totems such as was found in the Place of Gates, and in the ruins I had helped plunder. Ectoplasm flowed along the circles and into the great circle, tufts of the wispy ether flowed away over the rest of the space, escaping over the exposed sides of the building.
The dragon lay within the circle. Her scales were marked with char and some patches of scales had been torn away. Blood flowed from her wounded wing and from a number of deep cuts along her neck and tail.
Aria lay within the circle, her eyes closed and her body limp. My rage was quenched by a sudden fear that she had been killed. I felt my heart sink and stood transfixed, staring at her until a slight rise in her chest told me that she was still breathing.
"WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG, APE?" The dragon's voice rang inside my skull. The air elemental holding me aloft unraveled in the wind as the dragon's power slammed against it, banishing it from our world with a howl of pain and surprise.
I heard Angel screaming in my ear but I couldn't make out what she was saying. The dragon's voice in my head was beating at the inside of my skull. I lay there, watching as the dragon gained her feet, a pool of blood laying on ruined marble where her tail had scored the surface. Her head loomed over Aria's limp form and the monster bared its meter long fangs in a fiendish, gloating smile.
"FIRST, I'LL TAKE SOMETHING FROM YOU AS YOU HAVE TAKEN FROM ME. THEN I'LL KILL YOU AND ANY YOU EVER CARED FOR." She lowered her head toward Aria, her orange reptilian eyes locked with my own.
I couldn't move from the pain of that voice. I was screaming in agony and the fear that the monster was about to eat Aria as punishment for my own impudence.
So I screamed.
"TAZ! BLOW IT!" The dragon may have paused for a fraction of a second as the words registered in its incredible mind.
Taz didn't. The charge went off, sending a plume of shattered marble and slivers of steel slicing through the dragon's wounded tail. Her bulk shielded Aria from the storm of death that assaulted the dragon's scaly hide.
The assault on my mind ended as the last half of the beast's tail was blown off. Assault rifle fire, strangely comforting to hear at that moment, rang out in the night as Lilly and Rose brought up the first six FNG's before diving back down to get Taz and the rest.
The circle collapsed. The totems flared in their power and the barrier between the astral plane and the world of men was torn asunder. I saw gateways, portals to thousands of metaplanes scattered, far flung and yet within reach. The Dweller on the Threshold, guardian of the metaplanes stood watch at each, and in every instance it was a different form yet somehow the same. The world beneath me shook, or maybe it was just the building having an aftershock from the bomb going off.
The dragon roared in rage and pain, fire erupted from its mouth and engulfed three of the FNGs, reducing them to ash.
Lily flashed through my field of vision, scooping up Aria and streaking into the night sky. The dragon roared a word I had never heard and I felt a piece of my soul vanish as Lily disappeared. Aria plunged toward the street as the dragon turned back to breath fire at the remaining three FNG's.
"ROSE! CATCH ARIA! TAKE HER TO YOUR SISTERS!" I screamed, my mind reaching out to touch Rose's awareness. I ducked behind a column, flames gushing past me on either side. The rock of the column gave off a booming thunderclap as it cracked under the fierce heat. Burns appeared on my face and hands as the dragon's fire gushed by me on both sides, less than a meter away.
"TAZ! HAUL ASS! GET THEM OUT OF HERE!" I yelled into my comm.
"ALL FOR NOTHING APE! I'LL KILL YOU FIRST THEN YOUR MATE!" Flames gushed by as the dragon resumed its attack, the rock behind me was blazing hot and dragon's fire shot out for thirty meters out into the night. I couldn't feel the presence of the air spirits anymore, they were gone.
The dragon raged, spewing death at me and cutting off any escape.
"Zero, this is Machine. Ragnarok. I say again, Ragnarok. Expend all available ordinance on my location." I closed my eyes and listened as Angel screamed for me to get out of there.
Zero cut into the feed. "Understood, Machine. Ragnarok incoming, ten seconds. It's been a pleasure."
The dragon drew in a breath and roared, "NOW! DIE APE!"
I dashed for the building's edge, running on a line of blistering marble. I passed countless doorways the Dweller guarded, and leaped off the edge falling past thousands more as I streaked past the 100th floor. I saw the Dweller watch me with placid indifference, and saw the dragon as her head loomed through the illusory walls, her eyes gleaming. I turned and fell, narrowly missing portals that seemed to suddenly not be in the way at the last moment.
I saw a lone, unguarded portal in the distance below. For a wild, frantic moment I wished I would fall through it. I passed through into raging seas as the missiles blew the top five floors off the building I used to work in. I cut through the water at terrible speed, breaking the surface and soaring ten meters into a familiar sky adorned with six brilliant moons and one lone dark orb I didn't dare to glance at.
*********
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Thank you all for reading my fan fiction. I do apologize for the delay in completing this final entry for Aftermath. I've been quite busy writing RPG material, comic books and material for my Patreon subscribers. If you have enjoyed this blog and its stories, I think you will enjoy the adaptation of them I'm creating. You see, I'm making a dystopian fantasy comic series based on these tales, though they won't be set in Shadowrun as I haven't been able to acquire a license to do so.
As with all of the stories on this blog, this is basically the first, unedited draft. I've cut out parts as I've written this piece to try to make the story as enjoyable as possible. I do hope you like it.
I will continue to write Shadowrun fan fiction for as long as I'm able and people are willing to read it. I hope you'll enjoy what comes next.
Please do comment below. I always enjoy hearing from you.
~ W.S. "Sam" Quinton
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