The city was always pretty at night. The firefly glow stretched out as far I could see, thousands of tiny lights illuminating the clouds in a soft blaze. The biggest buildings almost touched them, huge sail forms cutting into the sky. The Suntree had no lighting of it’s own, but it’s branches were backlight by streetlights and storefronts, a black vine creeping through the city.
We were out on the edges near my Running grounds, on top of a squat old building. Vy was sitting on the roof, hood up, feet kicking the walls, as I crouched next to her, hoping my dark Running clothes would hide me from anyone looking up. The night was cold and it was threatening to rain, the clouds making it darker than normal. Between that and the streetlights, I was pretty sure I was safe, but I wasn’t used to this sort of thing and I was a bundle of nerves.
We’d decided that the best way to approach Torrent and Pitch was to call them out under the guise of a group meeting and confront them directly. We figured this way there’d be no way to avoid the questions and we could aim at being conspiratorial rather than threatening.
I was beginning to think that ambush wasn’t the best way to achieve that.
My musings were interrupted by a soft rumbling, small tires rolling over an uneven surface. We’d called Pitch in first and she arrived, late as usual. I pushed off the roof and rolled down the building, landing on the fire escape we’d lowered earlier. Vy pivoted on the spot and set out to follow, pulling a mask over her mouth and nose. Runners didn’t know each other’s Admins, as a rule, and Vy wasn’t super-keen on breaking her anonymity.
I grabbed a windowsill when I was near the ground, and pulled myself up short, still hopefully invisible and quiet. Pitch had pulled into the parking lot, looking around. She tapped her helmet, obviously checking the time, before pushing further into the area and settling near the wall.
I dropped to the ground and kicked off, accelerating as I neared her. She spun around, settling into a crouch and intercepted me as I went to stop, grabbing my arm and pulling with my momentum, hauling me into the wall. I lifted a leg and pushed against the wall, pistons hissing as they took the impact. My wheels were still going and I kept spinning, slamming my back into the wall but straightening Pitch’s arm. I wrapped my arm around it, locking at the shoulder. Against Runners and other cyborgs, relying on traditional locks was basically asking for a nasty surprise. We stood pressed against each other for a second and then I gave her a light headbutt.
“Goddamn it Queen, don’t do that to me.” Pitch growled. “I’m kinda on edge after all of this crap.”
She went to tug her arm free, but I kept hold of it.
“Seriously?” she asked. My customary silence clearly did not help the mood as after a second she said “Right, have it your way.”
She grabbed the wrist I was holding with her other arm and snapped it shut, sealing both my hands, before rolling me over her hip and into the ground. Her hold on my arms didn’t lesson and my upper torso was left hanging from them. She was going out of her way to avoid hurting me.
“This is about that Glass shit, isn’t it?”
When I nodded, she released the hold she had on my arm with a wet sound and I dropped to the ground.
“I figured someone’d pick it up eventually, but man, they could’ve tried harder to catch me. I mean, don’t get me wrong, my horned lady, you’re a great racer and all, but fighting is most definitely not your thing.”
Vy’s voice interrupted her. “That’s because we’re the only ones who know.” She stepped forward, closing the tablet she brought now Pitch had admitted to the contact.
“And who the hell is this?”
“I’m her Admin. Sorry about the attempt at cloak and dagger, we figured you’d be a tad more… difficult.”
When Pitch looked down at me, I nodded. She sighed in response.
“Right, right. For reference, this is most definitely not the way to get someone to talk to you. Ignoring the attempt the bloody capture me, it smacks of blackmail.”
“That wasn’t what we’d…” Vy responded as I clambered to my feet, pretty happy that no-one could see my face under this helmet.
“Yeah, I got that. Look, what happened to me is pretty much the same as what happened to you, alright? Assault, Dogs, bunch of cryptic warnings about other entrants maybe being owned by outsiders, the whole shebang.” Pitch relaxed against the closest wall, near the corner and I stood next to her. “I didn’t want to say anything after you came forward because, well… how would it look if I’d held that back until then? Pretty fucking awful, I’d imagine.”
“Still got a copy of the footage?” Vy asked her.
“Yeah. I already made the call, my Admin’s sending it over.”
A huge green arm clapped on my shoulder. I jumped about a foot in the air as a voice boomed out.
“Hey there. No Mr. Tock?”
Pitch snorted. “You too, huh Torrent?”
Torrent cocked his head to the side, light playing over the reflective lightning bolts on his helmet. “I’m sorry?”
“I’m here because Glass bundled me into an alley and ranted at me and these two,” She gestured to Vy and me, “found out about it.”
Torrent slumped a little. “Oh. Yeah, okay, me too.”
“Why didn’t you come forward?” Vy asked.
“What, and look like I’d delayed it until I was going to be busted anyway?”
“Hey, Torrent. Get this.” Pitch started. Vy groaned. “These two idiots tried to bloody ambush me.”
Torrent laughed. “Well, you might have run, Pitch. Can’t blame ’em if they wanted to ask questions. Speaking of…” He looked at Vy.
“I’m the Horned Queen’s Admin. You’re right, we do have a couple of questions.”
Torrent put a hand up to stop her and opened a compartment in his arm, before sliding a finger in and hooking out a small memory card.
“This is the only remaining copy of the video from that night.” he said, before flicking it at Vy. “Pass it on, watch it, whatever. I’m just glad Sickness isn’t the one asking.”
That was interesting. I hadn’t realised there was animosity there. Vy plugged the device into her tablet, flicked through the video. Not looking up, she continued with the questions.
“Why’re you giving us this?”
“Well, I figure that we’re all in the same boat. She’s somewhat put us in a bit of a bind and hey, you’re in here with me.”
“So what did she say?”
“Basically the same stuff. There’s people who’re backed by outsiders, weird cryptic attempts to say Raven was behind our Suntree run.”
Vy rolled her tablet up and put it away. The rain that had been threatening to show itself all night had started arriving, heralding itself with a few drops. The temperature had started to fall with the rain, and while I was comfortable in my leathers, but Vy was probably not so lucky.
“Any idea why she did this?”
Pitch weighed in here. “She probably just grabbed people she thought she could trust and tried to tell us what the hell was going on.”
“Why bother being cryptic, then?” asked Torrent.
“In case we showed the rest of the Runners?” Pitch said.
“Could’ve just told us to not tell them, then been more precise. Nah, I reckon it’s a corporate thing. She’s trying to get us to be careful about Raven, maybe push something in revenge?”
“That’s kinda dumb, Torrent.” Pitch replied. “We’re gonna be suspicious and looking for that, now we know she’s a Matsushima girl.”
The two continued arguing. Vy and I had had this conversation already, so I looked at her and shrugged, to which she responded in kind, before interrupting them.
“We’re not sure why, guys, and it’s pretty much all guesswork from here. The question is, how are we gonna put this forward to the other Runners? The Admins will put this together, you know.”
“Just give the bloody footage to them.” Pitch, of course. A small wheeled delivery drone had turned up at some point, and she reached down and turned it over as she talked, taking a card out of a hidden compartment. “If they figure it out, we’ll be worse off.”
Torrent nodded. “I agree. We’ll present our footage to the Admin group running the investigation. Shall we say we didn’t have this talk?”
“Probably best.” said Vy. “This has been a mildly suspicious meeting.”
Running Silver 