Shadowrun: Wolf & Buffalo: (A Shadowrun Anthology) by R. L. King

Author:R. L. King [King, R. L.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
Published: 2015-08-19T00:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

The Kafcade was a hole-in-the-wall, 24-hour coffee shop—ostensibly, anyway—in the No Boundaries area, sandwiched between an apartment building and a clothing store that catered to trolls who favored the classic Amerind look.

Spud was a rat-faced Amerind dwarf in a backward Lakota Arrows hat, a loud Hawai’ian shirt, and a backpack nearly as big as he was. He looked more than a little grumpy about being dragged out of his bed at close to dawn.

“This couldn’t’ve waited?” he growled after stumping in five minutes late and throwing his pack and his squat body into the rearmost booth where the others waited.

Tomás shrugged. “Just callin’ in a favor, omae,” he said. “Or do you want that poltergeist to find its way back to your doss?”

“Yeah, whatever. Whatcha got? And make it quick. I didn’t get to bed till an hour ago.”

They gave him the ’link and waited, sipping hot cups of soykaf, while he examined it. “Can you break the code?” Lena blurted after a couple of minutes passed.

He gave her a look. “Chica, they ain’t made the passcode I can’t break. But this here is kid stuff.” He switched it on and stared intently at it for several minutes. His eyes, which had been solid black, began scrolling lines of green-glowing text vertically, making for an odd but compelling effect.

After about five minutes, he blinked and switched the phone back off. “Done,” he announced, sliding it across the table. He looked at Tomás, “Really, Tommy, you shouldn’t call in favors for such bush-league jobs. I’d have done this one for fifty nuyen.”

“We’re not done yet,” Tomás said. “Sit tight a minute. Go ahead, Lena. See what you can find. We’ll keep a lookout while you check. Scuzz, can you block us so nobody can detect the ’link while she’s looking?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Lena switched it on and quickly found Cal’s recent-calls list. Scrolling through, she found several from an LTG number that was noted as being from MYE. “This is it,” she murmured. Accessing the voicemail, she saw that there were two messages left from the MYE LTG. Glancing around to make sure that the waitress wasn’t near, she put the ’link on the table and played the first message through the speaker. It was timestamped around half an hour after the explosion that had destroyed the Singing Rock.

“Cal, where the hell are you?” a growling voice erupted out of the small speaker. “We got the package and we weren’t followed, but you’re not answerin’. Call me and tell me where to meet up.”

“You were right,” Nahi murmured.

Lena switched to the second message, which was stamped another half-hour after the first one. “Cal, you fragger, answer your damn ’link! Where the hell are you, and what’s up with making us sit on this thing? Call me back now and tell us what the frag to do! We’re holed up until we hear from you.”

“That’s it,” Lena said. “No more voicemails.”

Tomás nodded, then looked back at Spud. “Can you track him? Tell us where he is now?”

“Sure,” the dwarf said, reaching for the commlink.

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