Part 28 (1/2)

He raised the rifle to his shoulder, tried the balance. It was a heavy, c.u.mbersome thing, with an integral bipod mounted under the barrel. It had to weigh at least thirteen kilos-a ma.s.sive weight to pack around, and useless for snap-shots. Thank the spirits. . . .

There was no digital display showing the number of rounds remaining, but a mechanical indicator on the side of the magazine told him the gun had four shots left. At first he thought the nightsight was dead, broken in the fall to the alley. But then he found the small toggle, easily within reach of his right thumb. He flicked it, and the scope lit up. Through it, the alley was bright as day, just a little grainy, like the view through a cheap portacam.

Falcon dropped the now-useless machine pistol. Hefted the Barret again.

He jogged to the end of the alley, stopped. Used the nightsight to scan the darkness. No figures lurking in the shadows, concealed by the darkness. He rounded the corner, headed down to the main street. Crouched low again and looked around the corner.

All the streetlights were dead-maybe shot out. The only light came from muzzle flares and the spray of tracers. A scene right out of some wartime nightmare. He used the nightsight again.

Even with electronically enhanced vision, Falcon couldn't make much sense of what was going down. It looked like a major pitched battle, with shooters hunkered down behind parked cars and firing from positions on rooftops or from windows. There were at least a halfdozen bodies sprawled in the street, dead or so badly chewed they weren't moving. Not shadowrunners, he didn't think. The bodies and the live combatants Falcon could see had a kind of regimented sameness to them, like they'd come out of an identical mold. Corporate street ops? Megacorp soldiers? It seemed likely. He guessed that at least three factions were involved, yet he couldn't be sure. Maybe somebody trained in small-unit tactics could understand what he was seeing, but Falcon was only a fragging gutterpunk ganger, for frag's sake.

The situation seemed static. Everybody had some kind of cover. n.o.body was advancing, n.o.body retreating. Probably those who were dead had been the brave or the foolhardy ones, trying for some kind of territorial advantage. Or maybe they'd just gotten caught out in the open when the drek hit the fan. He settled the Barret against his shoulder, steadied it against the corner of the building as best he could. Found a small thumbwheel, turned it. Saw the scene jump into close-up as the variable scope changed its magnification. Saw a glowing set of cross hairs superimpose themselves over the image. He settled the cross hairs onto the back of a street op hunkered down behind a car on the same side of the street as the tavern. Remembered how this gun had blown a flaming hole right through the armored torso of the street samurai Benbo. Started to tighten down on the trigger, antic.i.p.ating the sniper rifle's brutal recoil. . . .

Then loosened off on his finger. Who the h.e.l.l do I geek? Falcon asked himself. Four shots remaining. There were at least five times that number of prospective targets. So what good would it do if he dropped four of them? After the first shot, at least some of the shooters would turn their own gunsights on him. One shot, maybe two if I'm lucky. Then I go down. . . .

He backed off a little, maximizing the cover provided by the corner of the building. What should he do?

Falcon couldn't stop the fight, didn't know if he wanted to. And he probably couldn't even affect the outcome in any meaningful way. If I splatter four out of twenty gunners, so what?

What was his purpose here anyway? To protect Sly and Mary long enough for the decker to finish what she had to do.

So that was his answer. He decreased the scope's magnification a little, increasing its field of view. Then he changed his point of aim to the front door of The Buffalo Jump. Settled his finger on the trigger. At the moment, everyone was pinned down. But if anybody broke cover, made a dash for that door, then he'd fire. The first person to head for the tavern dies. Falcon told himself. And the second, and the third and fourth, if he could stay alive long enough. Again, it might not make any difference in the grand scheme of things, in the final accounting. But it was something.

He waited.

The firefight raged on. Bullets slammed into parked cars, smashed masonry from buildings. A grenade launcher coughed; a car blossomed into a fireball, pouring black smoke into the lightening sky. Three figures that Falcon could see were hit, collapsing into the road.

Where were the fragging cops? he wondered angrily. Don't they give a frag that there are armies blowing up the city?

But these are megacorp armies, he reminded himself. Couldn't some megacorp just as easily have bought itself the police department? Frag, it happened in Seattle often enough-a large donation to the Lone Star Retired Officers Fund, or whatever fragging cover story suited the moment. The Barret was getting really heavy, the muscles in his forearms starting to quiver with the strain of holding it steady. He considered flipping down the bipod, then discarded the idea as cutting down his mobility too much. The gunfire rose to a crescendo.

And stopped.

Just like that.

One moment the air was filled with high-velocity ordnance, the paling of dawn lit, strobe-like, by muzzle flashes and the occasional explosion. The next moment, utter silence.

What the frag was going down?

Falcon could still see heavily armed and armored figures crouching down under cover, weapons at the ready. But n.o.body was firing, n.o.body was advancing or retreating. They just seemed to be waiting. Waiting for what?

For more than a minute, the street looked like a freeze-frame from some trideo. The only movement he could see was one mauled corp soldier, dragging herself agonizingly toward cover, leaving behind a smeared trail of blood. Another minute.

Then the movement began. Retreat, not advance. Through the nightsight he could see figures melting away into the darkness, leaving their sniper nests, leaving their over-watch positions. Slinking away into alleys, disappearing into buildings. A couple of figures-holding their empty hands away from their bodies-darted into the street to drag their dead and wounded out of the killing zone. n.o.body cut them down.

What the flying frag was happening?

Within five minutes, the street was empty, the silence complete.

”It's over.”

Falcon spun at the voice from behind him. Tried to swing the c.u.mbersome Barret around.

A large hand grabbed the barrel, immobilizing the gun as totally as if it had been locked into a vice. Falcon looked up into the face of a heavily armored street op. Looked into the muzzle of an SMG pointing directly between his eyes. Every muscle in his body spasmed, as if muscular tension could stop the bullets from smas.h.i.+ng his skull to fragments.

But the corp soldier didn't fire. He just looked calmly down at Falcon. ”It's over,” the man said again. Then he released the rifle barrel, turned and tore away in an inhumanly fast sprint.

Falcon watched him, letting the Barret's barrel sagging down to the ground. Realizing he'd been holding his breath, he let the air out of his lungs in a long hiss.

”It's over,” he repeated. But what, exactly? And why?

Well, it was d.a.m.n sure he wasn't going to figure that out squatting here.

He slung the Barret's strap over his shoulder and jogged back to the alley, to the rear door of the tavern. Went into the storeroom, rapped on the wall where he thought the concealed door was.

After a few moments he heard a click, and the door swung back. He stepped into the back room.

Mary was there. And so was Sly, who was longer jacked into her cyberdeck. She was sitting on the couch now, exhaustion written in every line of her body, a tired smile on her face.

He unslung the rifle, tossed it onto a chair. ”What the frag is going on?” he asked of anybody who'd care to give him an answer.

33.

0700 hours, November 16, 2053 Sly smiled at the young ganger-or should I think of him as a shaman now? she wondered. He looked almost as drained as she felt.

”It's over,” she told him.

”What's over, for frag's sake?” he demanded.”What just happened? It's like . . .”

He hesitated, searching for the right words. ”It's like the fragging director yelled 'Cut!' and all the fragging actors went home.”

She nodded. ”I did it.”

”Did what?”

”I uploaded the fiber-optic data to the Corporate Court bulletin board system,” she explained. ”It's on the system now, where every corp in the world can read it.” She let herself relish the relief. ”We're out from under.”

”So why'd they stop shooting?” Falcon wanted to know.

”Don't you see?” she asked him. ”Every corp's got the information. There's no percentage in coming after us, and there's no percentage in”-she chuckled- ”wasting each other's a.s.sets. And you know that corps don't do anything if there isn't a percentage in it for them.”

”So they stopped fighting. ...”