The Case

The gun was warm in his hand. Trigger cold, first time his finger touched it, a reflexive tightening. The pistols body - blood-warm, jerked against his hand. It popped and joined the din of gunfire that had erupted around him moments before.

He licked his lips, and tasted blood.

The plan had been simple. Hit the couriers on their way across town, early. The motel lobby stank of blood and shit now. Jacob and his contractors had been waiting when the courier and his team had walked out of the elevator. No negotiating. No threats. His boys had opened up with snub-nosed Chinese knockoff MP9-alikes.

Jacob didn't move until the courier and his bodyguards - roided out showpieces - were bloody wrecks on the linoleum. He stood, his gun carried loosely in his right hand. The courier was still alive, squalling feebly as he crawled back toward the still-open elevator door. The briefcase chained to his wrist scraped along the bloody floor. The man looked back, bewildered.

Until Jacob took the expression away with a bullet to the mans forehead.

His hearing returned slowly. It wasn't until he was down on one knee next to the corpse that he could differentiate between the high pitched buzz of his hearing returning and the screaming of the motel clerk - a desperate stream of Spanish invective.

"Shut him the fuck up," Jacob drawled. A gunshot followed, and the shouting cut off abruptly. Jacob dropped the pistol next to the couriers body. He grabbed the dead mans wrist, scowling as his fingers slipped in the blood. He drew a pair of monofillament cutters from his pocket and sliced through the cheap handcuffs links, letting the dead mans arm fall back to the floor with a dull thump.

His contractors, both out-of-towners, had already moved on to the next step. One, the Euro, was busy hacking the lobbies network - the sandy haired mans eyes were distant, blank, as his fingers moved over his AR interface. The South African was outside, crouched behind the hood of a car near the lobby entrance, cold eyes surveying the night-dark streets, the submachine gun held low, out of sight and ready.

"Clean?" Jacob asked. The briefcase hung loosely in his hand, held like he had the pistol. The blond man nodded, "Ja." His voice was soft. He and his partner were new to the game down here on the border - expat black ops types looking to make a few yen playing cowboy. Professional killers.

Jacob bent, picking up his handgun and returning it to its holster. He still wasn't used to having the cheap little gun pressed against his ribs.

Warm air beaded sweat across his forehead as he and the hacker stepped out into the night. The street was quiet, and he could smell the sea.

"No contacts." The crouching man said, softly.

---

The 1D was nearly empty. Too early for the gangers to be up, too late for the office drones to be making their commute. The blond man drove, cool eyes focused on the highway. The South African rode shotgun. He popped the magazine of his submachinegun, pausing to light a cigarette with a worn old zippo with a faded Mexican flag embossed on its side before slotting a new set of rounds into the plastic gun. 

Jacob, in the back seat. "Eeh Tee Ay on the border?" He held the bridge of his nose, watching the man in the front seat, eyes following his hands.

"Five." The drivers cold eyes slid to the rear view mirror. Outside, the ruins of Ensenada rolled by. The man in the passenger seat spit out the window, then turned, looking back at Jacob, hand resting casually on his gun. His thumb rode, idly, over the primitive manual safety.

"Payday, right?" He was older. Fifties, maybe. Crows feet surrounding sad brown eyes. Old for a merc. "Going our separate ways once we cross, like we said. Time for the split." His accent was thicker now, mangling split into spleet.

Jacob shifted, idly, his hand shifting to the pistol riding at his hip. "It'll come out of escrow once we hit the border." His eyes were flat, hard, "like we agreed on."

"Handshake contract" the driver muttered. "Agreement is... fluid." The Germans eyes flashed to the rear view once again.

"Whats in the case?" The driver asked, shifting, slowly. Jacob could feel the car slowing. "I think you're ripping us off, Yankee." The passenger glanced at his cohort, taking his eyes off Jacob - it was the last mistake the old merc would make.

"Who give's a fuck what's in the case? Another twenty-" Jacobs gun roared, fired point blank and from the hip. It caught the Boer through the neck, jerking him back against the passenger side window as blood, thick and black, gushed down his shirt. His mouth worked, his eyes wide with shock.

The car swerved as the drivers hand came up, instinctively. The dying merc kicked and arched - a terrible sound escaped him, a wet gurgling scream. There was a faint click as the dying man pulled the trigger on his submachine gun. His thumb, slick with blood, stuttered over the safety. Jacob shot him again, in the chest. The gun fell. The driver was screaming.

"Keep driving, asshole." Jacob said, softly. "And shut the fuck up."

The 1D curved as it reached the border. The states lay through a junk lot and a few dozen yards of scrub. The fence was long gone, collapsed and abandoned after the last gasps of southern California had finally petered out. "Just a little further." Jacob said, quietly, as if he were speaking to a child. "Little further, and you'll have your cash." The Euro looked back at him in the rear view. Beside him, the brown eyed man rasped and died.

The car crunched across the border in silence. The other side looked much like the first. The road returned, dirt and well-used. 

"Stop the car." Jacob said, softly. It ground to a halt. "Get out." The Euro did. Jacob came after him.

"Just business, Yankee." He said, sounding younger than he looked. He held his hands out in front of him. "Just trying to get by, like they say, right?" Tears streaked his cheeks. 

Jacob kept the pistol on him, pointed at the hackers belly. "How much you think a bullet runs, asshole?" Jacob held the case under his arm. He squeezed it, as if to reassure himself it was still there. The Euro winced.

"The shit you gave us? Ten yen a clip, maybe." 

"And how much am I paying you?"

The hackers hands came up. "Hey now. It was just talk. It was that fucking Afrikaan that was gonna shoot." His hands were splayed out, his eyes wide. Jacobs commlink burbled. Something moved in his peripheral vision. 

The gun snapped in his hand, a hollow boom echoing over the desert. He could smell the ocean, even hear it. The hacker dropped, heavily, to the ground. His face wore a look of shock mixed with terror. Jacob hadn't noticed how young the he was - kid couldn't have been over twenty.

He was dead when he hit the ground.

Jacob walked back to the car and leaned in, fishing the cigarettes and zippo from the dead South Africans pocket. He lit one and leaned back against the car, exhaling a long, thin plume of smoke. His eyes flashed to thermal, watching the smoke coil upwards. He keyed a contact mentally, nudging his comlink with a practiced mental motion.

"It's done." He said, quietly, just loud enough for his throat mic to pick up. "You know the spot."

---

I'm kinda smeh on this. I just felt like writing something involving shooting and cyberpunkness. I'm not that hot on the end product, and it doesn't really exude that much Shadowrunny flavor.

Edit: Alright. Rearranged a few things, and I'm a bit more comfortable with this now. I'm a fan of violence being short and to the point and fairly horrific, which I think I got down pretty decently here.