Critias
Feb 14 2008, 09:24 AM
I've got...uhh...lots of these lying around. It's sort of what I do. That said, I always wanted to play Billy Shen a little more.
PROMISES
Bing Lei Shen strode, naked save an expensive pair of boxer shorts, through the lodge's eastern door with a steadiness and sense of purpose his meticulously-careless amble usually lacked. He didn't slouch his shoulders, didn't have his hands stuffed into his pockets, didn't curve his spine to hide his elf-height and blend into the crowd better. He walked with his head high, arms swinging at his side. He was proud to be here. His body language would show them that pride, he had determined when he stepped through the doorway. His hair was black, today, his natural black so dark it was nearly blue; raven's wing black, the color inherited from his Hong Kong-born father. Thanks to his stiff spine and natural height (usually so masked as to not be taken into account for today's ceremony), that slicked-back black hair was brushed against by hanging banners and small silk flags.
Shen faced two other men, both Chinese. Between them they held a lacquered wooden hoop, with jagged paper edges attached. Bing Lei lowered himself to his knees, then stooped at the shoulders to fit as he climbed through the Heaven and Earth Circle, left leg first.
Bing Lei Shen died, and was reborn.
Billy grinned, flashing elf-perfect teeth against his elf-perfect skin. His mirror shades hid his eyes, but the rest of his face was animated and obviously gleefull; he'd finally pulled ahead of her! Shen leaned forward, low and aerodynamic, center of balance as close to the growling bike's engine as he could get it. His bomber jacket flapped open in the Seattle wind. He'd meant to zip it before the race had started, but she'd revved her engine just as he'd reached to do so, and he'd had no choice but to grab the handles of his Suzuki and accelerate as madly as possible. Katherine Kidde was a cheater by nature, every bit as much as Billy Shen. It's why she was one of the best, and he was one of the best, and why, together, they were one of the best teams. Lone Star, CalFree highway patrol, Tir Border Guards, Knight Errant, and the dozen-or-hundred other security and military agencies the pair crossed handlebars with nightly sure as shit didn't give out sportsmanships awards. If you didn't win the race against them -- by cutting corners, taking shortcuts, and using a million and one other little tricks -- you didn't get a consolation prize. You got killed, often as not.
Just behind him and to his left (and closing), he heard her Yamaha revving, heard her own tires squeal just a bit on the Seattle pavement. No one was chasing them but them, for once. The two just had a job to do, but were too young and invincible to pay attention to speed limits on the way to that job. They raced almost everywhere they went, ever since Billy'd scraped up the noo for his own bike; they raced, and bet on those races, and maybe just maybe tonight Billy would start to dig his way out of the hole of debt he owed her for those competitions. He was lighter and his bike, supposedly, was faster. His elf-sleek body fit the top of his racing bike, visually, in ways her ork-broad shoulders just never meshed with her own low-slung speed machine. She was, though, a born cheater. The slender wire linking her datajack to her bike gave her all the edge she needed to keep up with him, aerodynamics be damned, and the hundred-and-one tweaks she'd done to her bike at least evened them out in terms of raw engine power. Billy was, at best, described as all thumbs when it came to modifying his own cycle. So far, he owed her -- should she care to ever collect -- several thousand nuyen from these impromptu street races.
Several thousand nuyen, Billy Shen told himself as he straightened his bike back out for the straightaway, Minus a hundred bucks. He'd win this time. He saw Lo's Massage just up ahead, slid his bike to the left to make Kidde either slow down, hit him, or hit curb, and he redlined his engine. He would win, this time. The high-electric whine of her engine faded a bit behind him. She was giving it to him.
Sweat stood out on Bing Lei's chest, his forehead, a droplet slid down and dangled from the tip of his nose. His nostrils flared, not from the perspiration but from the smell; Hell Bank Notes stank when they burned, and the bitter smell was, through some trick of the room's shape and air flow, wafting solely his way. He swallowed, paused ever so slightly at the edge of the once-neat pile of faux-money. He had paid good nuyen to the Octagon Triad as a show of loyalty and a symbol of his sincerity at seeking full membership. They were giving the money back to him, after a fashion. Bing Lei Shen was dead and reborn, his money returned to him in the afterlife in the form of paper bills, decorated with Marilyn Monroe and Dunkelzahn, the Eight Immortals, the Yama King, or Yanluo, King of Hell. The money burns, he heard in his head, the voice of his Roman Catholic mother, but is not consumed.
Bing Lei Shen stepped forward, bare foot pressing firmly atop the blue-flickering and smiling face of John F. Kennedy. He did not flinch. He did not cry out. He did not gasp, or gag, or allow bile to rush up his throat at the new sickly-sweet smell of his own flesh cooking. He took another step. Another. Another. He did not look down. His brown eyes stared straight ahead, at the mass of killers standing in a half-circle around a jade altar. He kept walking, slowly but surely, and thought only of the altar and not -- not at all -- about what his toes must look like in that instant. He knew the pain was temporary, knew it was a test, and knew he must pass it
Katherine Kidde glowered. Not just because her nick-name was Kidde, or Kidde-Kat, or even a part of "Billy and the Kidde" team that was earning a name for itself. She didn't even glower because Billy'd beaten her to Lo's, since he still owed her plenty of nuyen she'd probably never collect. She glowered, quite simply, because it was her job to glower right then. In much the same vein, it was Billy's job to talk.
They weren't smuggling, tonight. Weren't running drugs or beetles across the border, weren't making ends meet like they had in the old days with the thug/pickpocket double team they'd perfected, they hadn't been speeding five minutes ago for any reason but that they wanted to speed. Tonight, they were fishing. Tonight, they were getting information.
The tridshows called it good cop, bad cop. She didn't know if Billy had gotten the idea from watching buddy movies or not, but the simple fact was it worked. While Shen smooth-talked this two-bit pimp here in the alley behind Lo's Massage, she made a big show of staring right at the target; she liked to stare at their throats, it really freaked people out. She looked big and scary, while Billy milked 'em. In her peripheral vision, though, she kept an eye on Quick Billy Shen's left hand. He talked with his hands, sometimes, and not just the way people say they 'talk with their hands' because they wave 'em around when they run their piehole. No, sometimes Billy actually talked with them. His big brother had taught him a few Triad hand signals, he claimed, but he and Kidde had worked up their own little code. A flick of a wrist, a twitch of a thumb, a certain bend to his little finger as he had these animated conversations, and Kidde knew just when to growl, or bare her tusks a bit more, or physically lean forward to loom over their hapless schmuck target. It had been Billy's idea, like most of their good ones. It had gotten to where -- they ran this schtick so smooth -- she didn't even listen to what he said, any more. She just waited for the signals, and moved when she was supposed to move.
"...ain't happy that you're working this block, and they sent Kidde to stop you. You're just lucky I overheard, and came along, huh? 'Cause like I said, brother, no one wants that kind of trouble, do they? Huh? No sane person does, at least, y'know? Orks, man, ain't human." She listened this time, though, mostly 'cause this guy'd pretty much already broken after two good punches and Billy started in with that silver tongue of his. She didn't have to pay attention to the mark any more, and she got bored just staring at nothing and waiting for the signals to come. So, to pass the time, she listened to Billy spin his web of bullshit. Shen had one of those silly fucking mint smokes in his mouth, but he didn't let that slow his jibber-jabber down any, he just punctuated a sentence every now and then with a puff of smoke, or paused dramatically to take a drag and make sure the mark was eagerly listening for the next word to come out. There was an exhalation of minty-white smoke, now, as he continued, "I mean, I wouldn't want that kind of trouble, Tommy. Christ, man, you know how they get. You're from around here, right? The trog-ghetto ain't, what, eight blocks from here? Ten? You've seen 'em, how they brawl, how they fuckin' breed? You ever seen what their kids do, when they catch a dog?"
Kidde caught the wrist-flick, and took in a breath to fill out her chest. One set of implants kept her curvy; the other was why she needed the silicone. It was hard to be even half-assed femenine with all the vat-grown muscles she had, but Kidde was determined not to lose her looks just to get a solid street rep. The deep breath, in addition to making those assets stand out a little, stretched her leather jacket tight across her broad shoulders, accentuated her height and brawn. Billy was playing the 'us-smoothies-gotta-stick-together' angle on this Jap-Anglo fuck, and it looked like it was working. She'd started the conversation with a kick to the guy's nuts and a few smacks to his face (with that silly shit little goatee just barely hanging onto his chin, what a prick); Billy'd stepped right in and ordered her off like a dog or something, introduced himself, and the prick target had broken down right there. That was the routine, in a nutshell. She came on hard, he came on nice, and the mark started yapping.
Billy didn't stop talking, though. Shit, Billy never stopped talking. "It ain't pretty, bro. Those tusks? They ain't just for show. You ever hear the sound a dog makes, when someone starts to...Shit, Tommy. Did'joo just piss yourself?"
"What the fuck, man?!" Billy took a half step back to avoid the puddle, Kidde caught his gesture and let herself flash some tusk in a toothy grin. She took a half-step forward and the breeder they were muscling actually mewed like a scared little kitty and scampered two steps after Billy. Billy had this jackoff, then, and everyone in that alley knew it. Shen still didn't stop talking.
"Easy, Kidde. Easy. Now, Tommy, c'mon. That's just nasty, man. Pissing yourself. Shit. You're a grown man. What's your boss gonna say, bro, if word of that gets out? Shit, which one of those fucks you working for now, anyways? Huh? Which one told you to muscle in on this block, man? Who told you to bring your bitches here, right outside'a Lo's?"
Billy leaned forward, lowering his voice. He was Tommy Ito's best friend, his saint, his confidant, his lifeline, all in that instant. He half-whispered, eyes behind mirrors in the blue-white light of the neon sign overhead. "C'mon, Tommy. Which asshole sent you down here to steal business from Lo, huh? I don't see him gettin' kicked in the balls by a trog, do you? Just tell me who it was. I'll call her off. You can wash up, go home, get a drink and a blowjob."
"Just tell me, Tommy. Who told you to set up shop over here?" Billy Shen's new best friend started crying, and talking. It was the talking that Kidde, and Billy, gave a shit about.
"I will never squander the resources of the Octagon Triad, or my fluids will escape from all of my body's five holes." Bing Lei Shen spoke after the sandpaper-raspy old man's voice did, repeating whatever that man said. The incense had him half-dizzy, the pain in his feet had vanished in a heartbeat nine vows ago, the candles and lanterns didn't give even his elf-keen eyes enough light to focus right -- or was it the incense that did it? -- but Bing Lei Shen knew that the old man speaking was a man of power, both literally and metaphorically. A leader and holy man of the Octagon Triad, a mage of repute and experience. Bing Lei Shen spoke after the man, reciting oath after oath, promise after promise. He felt each one bind him, just a little more. He breathed in incense, breathed it out with each promise. He and the incense mixed. He and the incense were one. "I will not betray my brothers to any man, or a hundred swords will find my empty heart."
"I will never reveal the secrets of my initiation to anyone, not even for money" he said, throat smokey and rough, doing his best not to think of the one person he might have told these details to, if he could, "Or my skin will open with a thousand and one cuts, and my eyes cry crimson tears."
Billy Shen's blue jeans, t-shirt, and bomber jacket were gone. He wore a new suit, as armored as it was stylish, instead of the street-runner clothes that had once been his trademark. The old Billy was dead; the reborn Billy was a better dresser. He wore red and gold, mirror shades and a grey trenchcoat. He sat in the back of a van. In his hands was a pistol gripped shotgun, held belly up as he loaded it with alternating buckshot and EX-slugs. The twin holsters we wore bore his flashy Kimber-Morissey 1911's, each magazine (and the spares he carried) full, similarly, with manstopping EX rounds.
"Be carefull, Billy Shen. That stuff, it'll go bang-bang if it gets lit up." The toothless old Chinese man that served as a quartermaster to this group of the Octagon Triad warned him, gravely, as he'd handed over the boxes of volatile ammo. Billy had just grinned, tossed his head to flick his hair out of his eyes, "I'll be extra carefull not to get lit on fire, then, okay?"
The Yaks had Kidde four blocks away, in a bunraku parlor. Tommy Ito'd run his mouth about who'd roughed him up to get the info on Yak whoring in the old neighborhood, and even while Billy and The Kidde were getting their pay, he'd been signing their death warrants. The Yaks could be trusted to go after the woman first; the ork, the mundane, the razorgirl. There'd been signs of a struggle at her doss, naturally, and while the Japs hadn't left any bodies behind, Billy was pretty sure she'd done for two of 'em at least, maybe three. The ozone smell in the apartment told a story about tazers, stick-and-shocks, or zap-gloves, or stun batons. Maybe all four. She'd put up a fight, but they'd gotten her.
That had been four days ago. Three days ago, he'd spoken with a member of the Octagons, really spoken with them, for the first time about signing up. He'd worked with them on and off for two years. His big brother was in. His father'd been in. He was an adept; those were points towards him. There weren't enough points against him. He'd spent the last three days high on incense and bliss, dizzy from magic and dehydration, throat going raw with smoke inhalation and the exhalation of oath after oath. He'd spoken 36 of them. He'd felt each one as it left his mouth, binding him. He was in, now. That made him theirs, forever. But it made them his, too. Part of his talking with them -- they'd never called it a negotiation, but he'd turned it into one, him and his silver tongue -- was that the first job he'd take with them would be hitting the Yaks. Hitting them to try and get Kidde back.
The eighth round was loaded into his Remington, and he worked the slide. His earbud spoke to him about a half-dozen other shooters being ready, and he nodded for the benefit of anyone watching. The van moved, tires squealed, and just-like-that their little drive was over. Their van, and a second just like it, screeched to a halt. Killers piled out of them, some taking cover behind their nondescript grey transports, some behind parked cars in the street in front of the bunraku parlor, some already firing at the bouncer out front or the barred windows. The chatter of autofire filled the night air.
Billy blasted an explosive slug at the ballistic-plas window as he ran across the street. He worked the slide, peppered the spiderwebbing glass/plastic with buckshot as he kept running. Another slide pump, another trigger pull, and the explosive slug finally sent pieces of impact-resistant window flying. Billy tucked and rolled, planted his back against the wall below the window with a thud. One hand strayed into a coat pocket, came out with a milsurp grenade, swung backwards over his head and launched the drab green ball through the shattered window. He heard shouts in Japanese right before hunkering down and pressing his free hand over his non earbud-protected ear. Sound dampening software worked overtime to keep the noise down in one ear, his palm squeezed tight against the other, and he still felt like the whole world exploded just behind him. He racked the slide, raised the shotgun over his head, nearly broke his wrist blasting backwards into the window just to keep imaginary heads down. He worked the slide again as he scrambled to his feet and reared back to kick a damaged door off it's hinges; he wanted to be the first inside.
"I will give my life and death to the Octagon Triad, or my life and death will have no meaning." Bing Lei's voice was hoarse with smoke, eyes red-rimmed from drug inhalations and lack of sleep. Bing Lei Shen couldn't tell how long they waited between vows, had lost track of how much time he's spent kneeling and swearing. The old man was speaking again, and Bing Lei Shen parroted him without giving it a second thought. His throat was raw, but his voice was deep with purpose despite the scratchiness. "I will kill for the Octagons, whenever they wish me to. I will spread their name and their shadow, obey without question, act without hesitation, or my enemies will find me and I will die a thousand deaths."
The shotgun blast caught one of the leather-and-denim wrapped Yakuza thugs just below the throat, and turned his upper chest into a mess of hamburger and splintered bone. Billy worked the slide again, raised the shotgun, and tore out a fist-sized chunk of wall as the barrel was knocked aside before he could pull the trigger. Sparks flew as the Yak-kid swung the katana around again, long blade barely intercepted by the gunblued barrel of Shen's Remington at the last instant. Billy let the shotgun fly out of his hands that time, balled his fists, rushed in. Left-right-left, left, snap-kick, elbow-to-backfist. He hit the Yak like a waterfall. Magic backed up each strike, bone splintered beneath half his hits. The man's katana fell from a broken arm, he stumbled back two steps, and Billy had the distance he needed to get in a stutter-step of momentum in before the shout and the side-kick. Ribs crumpled, drove inward, and when the Yakuza soldier fell to the floor he didn't make any move to get back up.
By then, Billy had a pistol in each hand and was halfway up the stairs. An astral scouting job had told them roughly where to find Tommy Ito and Katherine Kidde; Shen wasn't wasting any time getting there. Billy's 1911's barked and spat death at the man that faced him from the top of the staircase. His fire was sloppy and rushed, none was by itself a kill-shot but he sent enough lead downrange that his opponent slumped and fell before he did. Billy felt a trickle of hot blood rolling down his left arm, heard rather than felt that pistol slip from his grip and clatter to the floor. The upstairs shooter was, limp, rolling down the stairscase at the same time, though. Billy called it a win, tightened his grip on his right-hand gun, hopped the body and made it the rest of the way up the staircase. High on adrenaline, he forgot which room they'd said Kidde would be in. He kicked in the first door he saw, let the hand-cannon and it's laser sight lead the way. Then the next door. Then the next.
His gun barked twice, a pair of holes opened in Tommy Ito's face. The first shot was a little low, just above the lip and just below the tip of his nose. The second was off to one side a bit, right through his left eye instead of cleanly between them. Either one would've been a kill shot, though, and Billy was too busy moving to Kidde's side to worry about the tiny imperfections in his shot placement. Tommy Ito's slackening left hand held an Ares Predator, but his right gripped a bloody straight razor. Kidde-Kat lay strapped to a bed, broad leather belts holding her in place, a black BTL-chip snugged obscenely into one of her dataports, her throat wide open. Billy stared, swallowed. Ito's body tumbled to the floor like a puppet with cut strings.
He turned a bit to one side, blinking, and fired his pistol into Tommy Ito's corpse again and again. Eventually, the slide locked back. Billy thumbed the magazine release, slapped home a fresh mag of explosive rounds, worked the slide release mechanically and kept firing. By the time the other Triad hitters finished sweeping the first floor, basement, and made it upstairs, there wasn't much left of Tommy Ito's torso. They found Billy sitting with his back to his best friend's bed, a crumpled cigarette in his mouth and a second one nestled between Katherine Kidde's cold lips. When he saw them, he just sighed, stood up, and brushed his knees.
"We're done here," he'd told the pair of experienced killers, and neither one could think of a reason to disagree with him despite the age difference. When, a few minutes later, the Triad soldiers drove away in their nondescript vans, the building blazed behind them.