Shadowrock, Chapter 10 (Patreon)

Chapter 10: Resolved?

Pussycat’s modified Intimidation roll: 17d6 = 5 Hits, 4 Miss

Mr. Johnson’s Opposed Roll: 7d6 = 5 Hits, 2 Miss (No Net Hits)

Our Mr. Johnson spat at me, but couldn’t really go the distance considering our positions. Still, it was the thought that counted. He had a bit more spine than I thought he would have, honestly. “Fuck you, bitch. I’m not telling you anything.”

I sighed, and said, with mock sadness, “Now, now. That’s not nice. But I am sure that you are thinking, ‘Oh, what can these shadowmen do that my boss can’t, or won’t, if they find out I snitched on them?’ Well, good news! The truth is, your boss is never going to get the chance to hurt you, because you’re going to die either way, so the only thing you need to think about is how you want to go out.”

The man’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re bluffing. You don’t have the rep for being that cold.”

I chuckled, and said, “That’s because the people who know better aren’t around to tell anyone. Here’s how this is going to go. My friend Cougar, here, has had work done to make her look normal, but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s a ghoul, and has certain dietary needs.”

The Johnson’s eyes flicked from me, to Cougar when I motioned her way. Cougar smiled, showing off her rows of sharpened teeth. While not enough to give her a ‘Bite’ attack, they were definitely predatory, more so than any human’s teeth should be.

I nudged the man’s balls with my foot to bring his attention back to me. “So, like I said, Cougar is getting her meals for the next little while covered. The only question is whether she gets her first meal while you’re still breathing, or if you get a peaceful end. I’ve heard that as bad as getting kicked in the balls can be, having a ghoul bite them off while you’re still breathing is worse. Would you like to find out for us?”

“I don’t know, Boss,” Cougar said, licking her lips as she crouched down next to him. “Maybe I should just start snacking while he decides. He doesn’t need his fingers to talk, after all. And there are fewer arteries there, so he’ll last longer.”

Cougar’s Intimidation assist (Default): 6d6 = 2 Hits, 1 Miss

Pussycat’s modified Intimidation roll: 17d6 = 6 Hits, 1 Miss

Mr. Johnson’s Opposed Roll: 7d6 = 0 Hits, 3 Miss (6 Net Hits)

“Y-you’re crazy! You can’t just feed people to ghouls!” It seemed that Mr. Johnson was finally getting it through his head that we were not, in fact, joking, or playing around. And, from the look on his face, it was clear that fear of us (well, mainly Cougar and her teeth) was overriding any loyalty or fear of his boss he might still have. He just needed a little push.

“No,” I said, perfectly sincerely, “you can’t just feed people to ghouls, because you’re currently tied up and about to become ghoul chow. I, on the other hand, have no problem feeding people who tried to backstab me to my ghoul friend. Honestly, you should be thanking us. You’re getting preferential treatment. The gangers who you got to try and kill us? They’re already being cut up and parted out for delivery to local ghouls, and we got paid bulk rate for it. You get to be specialty goods. Doesn’t that sound nice? So, are you going to tell us who was behind this? Or is Cougar going to start eating while you’re still breathing?”

“Fine! Fine! I’ll talk! Just kill me before she eats me!” Evidently, he decided that a quick death was better than being slowly eaten alive. Not that I could blame him, honestly. If I wasn’t the one doing the threatening, I might even have felt sorry for him. But he tried to double-cross us, so any charitable thoughts were out the window.

He took a breath, and said, “I’m just a cut-out. No links back to the main players. Blackmail like this doesn’t work as well if you can track things back to the source, after all. Especially when you’re dealing with someone like the Congressman, who has resources of their own to go after the source, if they know it.

“I didn’t check too far up the chain. Not my place. But I know the money came from an account under one of Cord Mutual’s shell companies. Congressman Anderson is on the subcommittee in charge of regulations on that industry. I didn’t ask more than that. Not my place to know. And asking too much gets you cut-out preemptively.”

Pussycat’s Judge Intentions roll: 11d6 = 5 Hits, 2 Miss

Mr. Johnson’s Composure roll (Threshold 3): 9d6 = 2 Hits, 5 Miss (Fail) (Glitch)

I locked his gaze with mine. “So, in other words, you know nothing, and don’t have anything to give us?” I shook my head slowly, with exaggerated disappointment in my voice. “That’s very unfortunate for you. I—”

I cut off my words as I quickly hopped back, away from the stream of fear-urine that the man unleashed. Luckily, my foot got back in time so that it didn’t get on my shoes. But it was a near thing. And it told me that he was telling the truth. The idea that, even after talking, I was going to feed him to Cougar alive overwhelmed whatever control he had left. Well, that answered the question about whether he was telling the truth. You couldn’t fake pissing yourself in fear.

I looked at Cougar, and said, “I think our friend has outlived his usefulness. Give him a quick death. You can part him out later.”

Cougar sighed, and said, “Fine, fine. No playing with my food. I get it, Mom.” We chuckled as she took out her monofilament sword, and sliced his head off. A quick cut, against a man who was tied and helpless, not wearing any armor. That was always going to end only one way.

While Cougar quickly went about cutting up the body into more manageable pieces, I looked at the others. “So, what are your thoughts?”

Lioness shook her head. “Well, the curtain and some bleach will be enough to clean up, here. While the locals are curious types, they aren’t the kind who call cops in, so we should be safe from the APD, at least.”

“Good to know,” I said, “but I was actually thinking more about who was above our cutout Mr. Johnson, here.”

The rigger shrugged. “Not much to say, honestly. I think we all agree he was telling the truth, as much as he knew it. However, that doesn’t mean we really know anything, and there’s even less that we can actually do about what we do know. This isn’t a single-player hero RPG, where you go around saving the world. Like real life, there’s things that we just aren’t built to handle. If they were already using cutouts, then there’s always a good chance that they had a cutout who at least looked like they were coming from the insurance company, while working for someone else. Best way to get away with something is to frame someone else for it, after all.”

I frowned at that. “So, we just let this slide?”

Lioness shook her head. “Not at all. We remember, we keep track, and if we ever get something we can actually nail someone with down the line, then we do it, no hesitation. But flailing around at whoever is closest, because that’s where an admitted cutout sent us? That’s a great way to get baited into biting off way more than we can chew.”

That idea brought us up short. TechKat nodded slowly. “The trail may be bait. Not necessarily for us, but for anyone who goes backtracking the source of the job. And if we take the bait, we either end up hitting the wrong people, or getting into even more trouble. Either way, it does nothing but hurt our rep.”

The hacker looked around the room, and said, “Taking down the Johnson that tried to hire a double-cross on us is fine. That adds to our rep, honestly. People expect shadowmen to shoot their way out of a double-cross, and not exactly treat whoever was doing the backstabbing with kid gloves. But if we go off on a rampaging story of revenge, that hurts our rep, because it makes us either unstable, or volatile. Neither of which makes for a long and prosperous career. I’d rather not get sent for another reroll this quickly.”

Tigress nodded slowly. “Yeah, that sounds like the right play. Don’t like it, but that’s the play. We take this one on the chin, but we gave back as good as we got. Better, honestly, since other than some bullets and a few hours of Pussycat’s memories, this run didn’t cost us anything, but we gained a good stack of nucred, and a sitting NCSA Congressman as a contact. You look at things that way, we came out well ahead on this gig. I think we can afford to let sleeping dragons lie.”

“Cougar, KittyKat? Your thoughts?”

Cougar looked up from cutting the corpse into manageable chunks. “I scored a couple weeks of free meals, at least. Tamanous will be happy with what we brought them. And I got a lead on an initiatory group for when I have the karma to start thinking along those lines. And we made nucred while doing it. Honestly, I’m good with letting things go. Not forgetting, but not pursuing, either.”

KittyKat leaned back against Lioness’s van, and said, “I think we’re best letting it go, Boss. No sense pursuing things too far. The shadows don’t like vendettas. They’re bad for business. So, if you’re going to pursue one, you need to be able to end it quickly, and conclusively. We don’t got that, with this. I agree with the others. We need to remember that maybe the evil insurance company in a dystopian world isn’t our friend, but can’t get lost from the fact that we started these characters to be rock stars in the shadows, literally.”

I sighed. “All right, I know when I’m outvoted, and when the popular play is the right one. Even if part of me hates it. So, we are going to move on from this, keep watch on our next few jobs, just to make sure everything goes smoothly. And be ready to troubleshoot the problems when they eventually come up. Whether that is fixing things or actually shooting them. So, we all got paid, and Cougar has her takeout. Anything else for this gig? Or do we call it, and head back to our various places?”

No one had anything else to say. Which was probably for the best, considering how everything had gone down. I checked the scheduling app on my commlink, and said, “All right, then. We have practice after lunch tomorrow, working on the routine for the upcoming tour, and then we start looking over the songs we’ve been sent for the new album, seeing which ones are good, and which ones don’t make the cut. We are a pop-rock band, after all, which means we need to perform, and put out music. But if any of you get the urge to write songs, let the rest of us know, and we’ll work with you to ensure it gets added to the album, even as a bonus track.”

“At least we don’t have to wake up in the morning,” TechKat grinned. “Already beats the hell out of when I worked in the stores, IRL, before I was able to hire managers and such for all of them. I do not miss retail work!”

Cougar chuckles. “The more I hear you all talk about retail hell, the happier I am that I never had to deal with that. Mom always made sure I never needed retail work to get by. Of course, being a ghoul has plenty of complications to make up for having it easy in the real world.”

TechKat fixed Cougar with a mock death glare. “Unless you’re able to eat the customers when they go full Karen on you, and not get fired, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Well, there was this one time, at band camp…”