Machine and Man
Copyright 1998 by Kane

   I am sitting in an abandoned apartment overlooking the 42nd 
street subway station.  In my hands I hold a Ranger SM-3 sniper 
rifle.  The barrel of the rifle rests lightly on the window sill.  
I look through the sight and wait for my target, the new head 
manager of the electronics division of Fuchi cybersystems to 
emerge.  I look at my hand and see a mass of shiny metal and 
circuits.  I still remember the day I got that hand.  The 42nd 
street station brings back memories, and so does the hand.

    I was driving down 58th street in Tacoma, exceeding the speed 
limit by at least fifteen miles per hour.  In the passenger seat 
sat my sister, crying softly to herself, her hand going to the 
electrodes she had installed in her head just yesterday.  I had 
accompanied her to the clinic, and had emerged with a piece of 
cyberware of my own, a bright, shiny, new right hand.  Two days 
before we had listened to a tedious speech by our father 
forbidding us to ever get cyberware, about how it was the work of 
Satan, and the day we got any of it was the day he would kick us 
out of the house.  He had made good on his promise, using a loaded 
Remington 550 shotgun to make his point, and we were now fleeing 
from him.

   My sister stopped crying for a moment.  "What will we do now?" 
she asked.

   "I don't know," I replied.  We were homeless, parentless, and 
had almost no money between us.  The only possessions we had were 
the car, the clothes on our backs, and my Ares Predator heavy 
pistol, concealed underneath my jacket.  "We'll manage, somehow."

   I drove her to downtown Seattle, where she left me to be with 
her hacker friends.  The leader, a tall teenager who went by the 
street name of Jetboy assured me that she would be taken care of.

   "She had better be," I had told him. "Or you'll answer to me."

   Jetboy reassured me and promised she would come to no harm.  I 
left, feeling only slightly apprehensive of her safety.  As I got 
in my car, she came running towards me and tapped on the window.

   "Alan, I want you to make a promise.  I want you to promise 
that we'll never forget each other, no matter what we do or where 
we go."

   "Why?"

   "Just do it."

   "All right.  I promise."

   As I drove through Seattle I considered my options.  My 
newfound cybernetics make getting a normal blue-collar job out of 
the question.  Joining a gang was no good either; I had no desire 
to die before I turned twenty in some random gun fight or turf 
war.  I stopped at a bar called "The Short Circuit", a somewhat 
run-down dive whose clientele were mainly the cybernetically 
enhanced.  Inside, I was surrounded by tough looking men -- if 
they could be called men.  They had more cold metal in their 
bodies than warm flesh.  Each of them looked like they could break 
your spine with an almost negligent twitch of one of those massive 
cyberarms.  I felt out of place, but I stood my ground.

   "Hey kid, you a shadowrunner?"  a voice said from behind me.  I 
looked at the speaker.  He was a clean cut man wearing an 
immaculate three piece suit.  His attire clashed with the bar's 
atmosphere so much I could not respond.

   "Well, are you?  What's your name, kid?" he asked.

   "Al..." I stopped, and considered the prudence of giving out my 
real name to a total stranger who hung out in a place like this.  
"Lucifer.  Call me Lucifer."

   "Well, Lucifer, are you a shadowrunner?"

   I had heard about shadowrunners before.  They were soldiers of 
fortune, mercenaries who served whatever corporation paid their 
bill, committing heinous crimes for money.  A week ago I would 
have considered them to be the lowest form of city scum, but now 
it seemed like a pretty good idea.

   "Why yes, I am a shadowrunner," I replied.  "Who are you?"

   "My name is Johnson," said the man.  "I have a job for you, if 
you're interested."

   "I am," I said with enthusiasm in my voice.

   Andrew Long, head of the bio-engineering department for 
Mitsuhama Industries Incorporated,  emerged from the 42nd street 
subway station at about 11 PM.  He started walking down the 
sidewalk towards his apartment building.  I spotted him and 
returned to my place of concealment, an alley that he would pass 
in about twenty seconds.  I checked the ammo on my gun and the 
silencer that Mr. Johnson had given to for the last time.  I stood 
against the near wall and waited for him to pass by.

   He never even saw me.  As he walked past the alley I grabbed 
him from behind, covering his mouth with my left hand and shooting 
him in the back of the head with the gun in my right hand.  There 
was a bang as the gun fired, it seemed unnaturally loud, even 
through the silencer.  Blood flowed freely from the wound, 
painting my right arm bright red.  Mr. Long slumped to the 
sidewalk.  I stood there for a moment, stricken dumb.  I had just 
committed first-degree murder fro money.  The world spun around me 
for a moment.  I recovered from my momentary shock and hid the 
body in the alley, taking his wallet for good measure.  I found a 
small puddle of rainwater and washed off as muck of the blood as I 
could.  I looked and saw my reflection in the now red puddle.

   I hated what I saw.

   I ran from the alley and drove back to "The Short Circuit".  I 
showed the wallet to Mr. Johnson and he paid me, not much, but 
enough to keep me off the streets and in pizza for a few weeks.  
He even let me keep the contents of the wallet and the silencer as 
a bonus. 

   "If you ever need another job, stop by here," he said.

   I left without responding.

   That was four years ago.

   One job led to another.  And I became more experienced, my pay 
rose and I began to get more cybernetic upgrades, guns and other 
tools of the shadowrunner's trade.

   Now most of my body is cyber.  My limbs are entirely made of 
metal.  The circuitry in my head rivals that of some computers.  
My eyes are miniature cameras.  Even my heart and lungs are now 
synthetic replacements.

   My target comes into my sights on the street below.  I squeeze 
the trigger on the rifle, and a red hole appears in his chest as 
the 900-grain bullet tore through his heart.  I jumped back from 
the window and escaped unnoticed from the scene of the crime, 
while the crowd of people below buzzed around the dead body.

   Johnson had become my regular employer, and "The Short Circuit" 
became our regular meeting place.  I've killed dozens of people 
for him.  Last week I spotted my sister at the bar.  She had dyed 
her hair a lovely shade of neon orange and upgraded her electrode 
rig, but it was still her.  I didn't talk to her.  I didn't want 
her to see what I had become.

   Someone once told me that murder is addictive.  For me it is 
more than addictive, it is a way of life.  Do I gain pleasure by 
killing?  Of course not.  I do it to make ends meet.  It is my 
profession.  Do I enjoy my work?  No.  Not since I looked in that 
scarlet puddle and ran from my reflection.  I am a killer, a 
hunter, working for whomever will pay my price.  I cannot change 
the way I am, for I am now more machine than man.