Shadowrunning (Dropped)

Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - The Truth Revealed

Tree joined Bobby and Firefly outside the walls soon after they began setting up the traps. He added his expertise in grenades to drape strings of them on the walls where climbing creatures would detonate them. The entire time he grinned and whistled off-pitch tunes.

“It’s almost scary how much he likes his grenades,” Firefly muttered to Bobby.

He laughed. “That is just how he is. I’m glad I’m on his side and not his enemy though.”

“You have that right.”

They headed back to the farm and Firefly knew that all they could do now was wait. She hated sitting still and waiting. However she had a job to do and she wasn’t about to shirk it. When she returned to the compound she found she had a shadow. The little girl, Chaaga, followed her around the compound until Firefly turned around and asked, “What do you want?”

Chaaga didn’t respond but presented her with a tablet computer. She kept trying to hand it to Firefly who didn’t quite understand what the girl wanted. Chaaga switched her hold on the tablet and pointed to Firefly’s head and then to the computer.

With a slight chill, Firefly realized the girl was asking her to fix the computer. How on in all the worlds could she have figure out I’m a technomancer? No, don’t panic. Maybe it’s just a lucky guess of hers.

“Oh, you want the computer fixed?”

Chaaga nodded.

Firefly took the computer and made a show of examining the parts and adjusting the dials while she mentally flicked the offending software into line.

“There you go. It’s fixed.”

The girl stood on her tip toes and patted Firefly on the head before running off.

I hope she was fooled. Firefly rubbed the place on her head where the girl had patted her.  Sometimes I hate being short.

As the night watch schedule remained the same from the previous night, Firefly ate supper and went back to her room. After browsing the matrix in her usual pre-bedtime routine she went to sleep.

At first she thought her alarms had woken her and she groped for the button to turn them off. However, the next burst of sound brought her to full awareness. Gun fire and loud yelling along with a weird howling made her jump out of bed and pull on her shoes in a hurry. She hadn’t been asleep for long because the clock read 11 pm.

As she rushed out the door, Tree banged his open as well and they ran together to the loudest source of the noise. Up on the walls, the farmers were firing at a target she couldn’t see. Once they ran up the stairs, however, she saw five huge dogs bounding towards the wall. The howling didn’t seem to be coming from them though.

Sounds of fighting from the other side of the compound made her turn around. She could just barely see two even larger dogs, hell hounds by the look of them, coming from that direction.

Bobby ran up to them. “Tree and I will take care of the hell hounds,” he shouted.

Firefly nodded and took out her pistol. It wasn’t very powerful, but she loaded the magazines containing the flechette rounds. Those would do a good enough amount of damage.

I’m a technomancer, not a fighter, she grumbled. But these dogs weren’t a product of or controlled by something in the matrix so there was nothing she could do but shoot and hope she could kill or injure them.