Again.
I can hear the lunch time ebb and flow of the city around me, but I’m alone.
People are all around me. Lonely people wandering back to work, some run, some amble.
But none like me.
Companionship is a false desire- nothing ever stays.
A rumble arouses me briefly, a storm is rolling in. I can feel its energies. I remain here. Rain stopped bothering me weeks back. Often I wander in the rain.
I’m glad I stayed- over there to the left, a mugging. The suits carefully go round, keeping their eyes down, ignoring the screams- he’s packing heat, waving a big Pred II around. I move in once he’s gone, and do the healing thing. No point being a Hero when you can simply undo the damage with no risk to yourself. She smiles at me briefly, gathers what she can, and leaves without a word. Brief contact. I shrug., such things have been happening regularly since I started wandering alone. Besides none wants to owe anything to an Ork.
Someone passes I know. We nod and grunt acknowledgement. No words. I heard people have started to call me ‘Silent Bear’ these days.
The wanderings are circular. They always seem to end up here, no matter what route I take. It's old, grimy. The windows are boarded up and covered in mesh. The bar. I enter. I don't say a word. A beer appears without asking. It tastes odd, gritty and unflavoured- as it something was missing. I retreat to the table.
45 days ago I sat here with a killer. A short, mean Dwarf. Loneliness was just an idea then, for He was still with me. A job was offered, we took it, then history and fate intervened to rob me of companionship again. Amongst cold snow and colder hearts I was to lose out, to become alone again.
A Troll enters- drunk. I know him- he’s an old friend, a warrior and recently started on the path of the Bear as a Shaman. He laughs and waves his huge fists around. I simply stared him expressionless, which makes him laugh harder, ‘silent with shades' he calls me. I think the name might stick, I hate nicknames. I mentally shrug, such things don't matter much anymore.
The world is such a mighty place. mankind can do almost anything it's childish mind wants to, yet when you get right down to it, what most of us want, truly want is the companionship of others- that's what keeps us together, piled high in our megaplexs, our steel and glass mess. The irony is though most of us are alone.
I'm bitter, yes I'm bitter. To know, companionship and love on that level only to lose it to a simple action is ridiculous. Jacoq was more than a familiar to me, more than another spirit I an conjured. He was a friend as well a as a physical manifestation of Bear. We communicated on so many, many levels.....Toxic forces scare all of us. I brought him down from Astral to comfort and shield him from the Astral pollution. Yet when the danger presented itself he was gone before I could shield him properly. It was my fault.....I can still hear his scream and the sound of tearing.....
Home.
That sounds so false. I got this place in Redmond so I could share it, now it's empty useless. Leave and go to my true home in Fort Lewis. My Shaman’s lodge. I live here now, physically. Mentally I roam the planes at night as I roam the city during the day. I should rest I suppose, but then I should do a lot of things: return the calls from my brother, pay the bills and bartab, have brain surgery to work out why I'm still doing this to myself. Even when I pass out every now and then I merely carry on. The ones running hopeless causes are always the last ones to quit.
I don't know what I'm looking for either in the city or on the other planes. A sign? Him? Bear? Death?
“I Don't know” I scream at the ceiling None will hear me for I lodge far from others.
Sometimes I, I wish we could live in a simpler world at the dawn of time. It must of been so simple. I'd like to think Bear and I skills would be appreciated more there.
Envy. It's a rare feeling in me, but sometimes I want the life of my brother- locked away in the Castle libraries, hunting for this, rooting around for that; he seems to of avoided the chaos of the streets. His magic seems far from the emotional, turbulent world of mine. An very old debate between us.
I go down to the lake, in one of the few parks. I can almost forget my melancholy when I'm here, if I can stare out at the island's trees for long enough I can block the pain. There’s a spot I like, quiet and hopefully no bloodstains left from that mugging.
Surprise; the suit is there. She's sitting, staring out across the water, a perfect copy of my usual pose. She stirs and looks up. An image of that made up face cut up badly, as it was yesterday, hits me. She'll never know how close to dead she was. She smiles in a nice enough way. Her movements are smooth and controlled, as she stands she smoothes out conservatively cut blue dress with her red painted nails. out comes the hand.
“Hi”. I ignore the hand and continue to just stand there. She lets it drop. The smile never moves. She gestures to the bench, she sits. A moment later so do I. It creaks under my weight.
“I wanted to say thank you for your actions yesterday. I was groping for an appropriate award, but the best I could come up with this". She produces a credstick from her compulsory handbag. I catch a glimpse of a deadly looking pistol. The stick has at least three zeros on it.
"Give it to the Crusher 495 projects” I say detached. I sound I like something dead. Her smile slips a bit as she try’s to analyse that.
"Redmond" I follow up. Some good thing have been happening in Redmond but it still remains a ghetto for metahumans and the scum of the norms. She nods, then looks quite alert; "Say you OK? You look like death warmed up”. I stare out at that view. Somehow it seems less stimulating today. She follows my gaze. We sit in silence for a while, drinking it in. “Beautiful” she says “I come here some lunch times when I can". I grunt in a hopefully stereotypically Ork fashion, maybe she'll take a hint...
"Look. I know you won’t take my money, but can I at least buy you a coffee. I know I need one, and frankly so do you. She stands up, brushes the skirt and waits. I look up at her I from under my shades. Tall, with some weight, but nicely balanced. Quite toned body, black skin. Black eyes, brown hair. She's quite striking in this setting. I rise and lead away.
We say nothing as we walk. Halfway I realise I’m leading her towards the stop for Redmond and Crusher 495. I pause momentarily and she points towards a mall.
I read the bulletin boards of the cafes occasionally the odd one or two are connected to the Denver shadowrunners network, I think it was one of them that said malls were the ‘Hades for the soul'. I agree, I hate these glass and chrome places. As we approach the guards on the doors shift as if to open them, then they see me and talk into their radios. If she noticed she says nothing. :It certainly looks like ‘Mrs Charity buying the tramp a, drink'. Certainly felt like that inside. Smiles as they see her, grimaces when they see me. I’m used to it. Some have called security before now.
She heads for the ‘cafe’, place they all have in these places, and buys two coffees, after gathering all the usual junk on a tray she steers us towards a table in a quiet alcove at the back. The suits throw very accusing looks towards her, even a Troll gives me a ‘disgusting’ nose wrinkle.
I drink my coffee black, its bad enough having to drink the stuff let alone add more rubbish to it. She had whitener, and sweetener both in copious amounts. It was awful.
We sit in silence for a while.
Finally she signs,
“Will you at least tell me your handle" she says expressively..
"Armdour” I am saying as little as possible.
“Sarah Greenton,' I cover my surprise at the name. Old family history.
She sticks out the hand again, this time I shake and nod, she smiles warmly.
“So what’s your story?” I gaze up at the ceiling. I could tell her, explain- but why? A complete stranger would have no comprehension.
“Nothing spectacular,' She leans forward conspiratorially. "Are you a runner?" she whispers, eye locked on my nose.
" No. I’m an Ork” She sits back confused then laughs.
"Sorry, I've never met a shadowrunner. All the strange people I work with, but I've never met one. I'm told runners are either all hard chrome and metal, or are very powerful mages. Both carry big guns, and blow people away without thinking twice about it, and......sorry" She smiles widely I’m babbling".
Strange people?
"What do you do?" She glances round.
"I'm hire and fire for a corp., don't ask, which- knowledge is power and all that” I nod.
Strange, here I am talking to a complete stranger yet it feels right. Maybe it was her, maybe I just needed to talk to a complete stranger to satisfy some need ? Silence descends again as we study our coffee cups. Painful a reminder as it is I close my eyes and shift my sight to Astral. This always feels odd. I blink and look at her. She's looking back.
A Mage.
A Hermetic mage. Now her interest makes sense. She gets two more coffee's in. It tastes no better. We sit in silence for a little longer.
"Yes, all right" she says "I'm hire and fire, I check people out, see people about hiring on, etc."
"Am I being ‘checked out?’" She tilts her head to one side, her voice sounds amused,
"No. I really was grateful for your help yesterday, I was jumped, and today I saw your pain."
Slippy, I rub the scars around the pit that was my eye, careful not to move my shades to much.
"Your a runner aren't you?” It was not a question.
"Possibly". For all her niceties, she’s still a corp. mage. She reaches out and touch’s my scars below the shades, I nearly recoil but don't, why?
“I bet that was some fight" I recall the moment. It had been a very stupid mistake. I seem to do that. Maybe I think slower than everyone else, maybe I simply react slower.
"It was". I answer and tell her. Change a few names, embellish details, beef up the Yaks, cut out the boring bit with the 'cops' and the mall. She enjoys it. Tale telling is at least one thing I can get right when I try.
"Yes. You are like a bear; moody, tight-lipped when your hurting, hard to read, slow to react to things, don't react that way, I don't mean it to hurt."
"Lets leave".
It’s raining outside again. Then again in Seattle it’s nearly always raining.
We go back to the same bench and view.
“What is that over there?” She nods at the island.
“I’ll never know. I doubt any bears are there though"
“What makes you so sure?"
"Trust me” laugh” I’d know" She nods, perhaps she could understand. A friend is always a break from the loneliness if only partly. She looks at me, then removes my shades. I freeze. she examines the wound like a surgeon about to perform an operation.
“You know you could get a..."
"No. No replacements. It's gone. Simple."
"How can you operate?"
"You learnt to live with it,' I say coldly.
“Maybe a patch?” She replaces my shades, my hideout from the world.
“I considered it; then decided against it. She looks back out at the island, hidden now behind the sheets of grey rain that are soaking us.
"I should return" smile, checks her watch.
"I would, get out of the rain".
"Come with me. Talk a bit more?" I smile, she gets up and walks off.
"No. I think not". She turns, “but I’ll probably be back this way. Save another soul, etc". We’re both grinning. She reaches up and pecks my cheek- she feels oddly slick in the rain.
"Bye Armdour. See you around Astral." A wink and she’s gone in the rain.
I watch her turn for the subway. Loneliness is incurable in some ways. Without Jacq I have a chasm within me that nothing can fill. But friendship builds a bridge over this. A few good friends never surpass but almost equal a Companion. She seems like a friend.
Bridges are not built in a day.
Things will be what they will be.
The End.
Back to Stories Page
Back to Home Page.