Uziel

“So, where do we go from here?” Mal asks. The others ponder this for a second, then they decide to take a look at Uziel’s workplace and to inform judge Stoneleigh about their findings. Led by one of Leah’s bouncers, they find the garage of the Memphis Free Truckers fast enough. The streets are not as well lit as in the Union Quarter, and the air smells of oil, smoke and hot metal. Even though the day has long ended and the siren has announced the end of the shift more than an hour ago, the windows of the long building are still showing the glare of welding, and the sound of heavy machinery fills the place before the big roller shutters. The group takes a cautious look, but their quarry seems to have left with the siren. They move to the Lock and phone up Stoneleigh. The judge is a bit gruff – it is deep in the night – but when he is told of the latest developments, he tells the group to proceed, and to call for reinforcements if they find Uziel. The men drive back to the Gears and drive up to the Memphis Pyramid. In the Long Ago, this was a grand structure – a glass pyramid housing many big buildings. The top of the pyramid had fallen in long before LAW made Memphis their HQ, but the base of the building is still recognizable. LAW decided to leave the base intact and transformed the buildings within the pyramid into a formidable LAW bunker, housing five crews of hardened LAW troops to keep peace and order in the volatile Gears. Their commander is an imposing veteran called judge Bladelord. He meets the investigators in a sparse mess hall and, after making sure of Stoneleigh’s involvement, listens to their request without many questions. They get a bulky radio from the quartermaster of the Pyramid. Bladelord tells them to send a short message as soon as they have found their man, and he, as well as two squads of LAW soldiers will be there in five minutes. By now it is after midnight. Under the glare of the pyramid’s searchlights playing over the still surface of the Mississippi, the group decides to stake out the garage. They will be there before the break of day, and as soon as Uziel arrives, the signal will get out, and then, supported by some twenty of LAW’s finest, they will capture the false benefactor.
The next morning dawns. Mal has spent the night in the Conquistador, Zed went to the barracks in Uptown and Dan Hawking to the Terminus Diner. Only Rod has changed his sleeping arrangements. No force on earth will make him return to the place of his failure. He rather spends some merits on a single bed in one of the hotels in Union Quarter. The men have taken position about thirty meters from the big roller shutters, and they get a good view on the workers walking in, first the shift boss they met last evening in the Labor Bar, then some laborers in twos or threes, then, when the siren sounds the start of the day shift, a whole mob. Rod stares into every single face, and begins to despair. But there: a stocky bulldog figure, short black hair, and was that a flash of blue? He tells the others. They ask him if he is sure. He is not. He decides to go into the garage and have a second look. Gingerly evading the worker who might be Uziel, he walks up to the shift boss. The man is less than enthusiastic to meet the benefactor again. “So, what is it now. I’m busy.” “Excuse, I am sorry to be a bother. But maybe you could point out Loft to me. You know, the brawler. I have been waiting all morning for him to turn up, but I wasn’t able to spot him in the crowd. I would really like to meet him.” “Yeah, me too. He ain’t here yet. Two weeks, he turns up as regular as a clock, and now he’s an hour late. Maybe he is sick.” Rod’s heart sinks. The quarry seems to have gone to ground. The worker beside the shift boss, busily wiping down an engine block, chimes in. “But you could visit him in Rome’s Hotel. That’s where he stays. It’s in the Remnants, big place, everyone can show it to you.” Rod does not wait a second. He basically sprints to the others. “He has a room in Rome’s Hotel, that’s in the Remnants.” Zed spits. “That would have been my first guess. Lots of folks who don’t like LAW move in there. A shame we didn’t look there yesterday evening.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, fucking shame, let’s get to the car everyone, time’s a-wasting.” The Conquistador starts and rolls into the Remnants, that warren of buildings from the Long Ago, their frames sagging, the streets clogged with rubble. Mal parks the vehicle in a silent dead end, and the group assembles before the entrance of Rome’s Hotel, a five-storied building from the Long Ago. Mal thinks that it probably was used as an office building. Now it houses dozens of laborers and other people who don’t have the merits for Union Quarter. Zed moves into the twilight of the lobby and quickly spots Rome, a heavy-set, bald man in his fifties, sporting a walrus mustache. Two broad suspenders and a weapons pass are the only things that cover his breast. He is very unhappy when Zed shows the papers telling that he belongs to a Jhat: In this house, LAW always means trouble. He recognizes Loft from Rod’s description, and he tells the investigators that the young man does not seem to have left his room today. He also tells them where that room is: two stairs up and right across the hall. Rod swallows: Uziel is just two floors away. The group creeps up the stairs, Dan Hawking checking his old hunting rifle and fixing a bayonet, Mal pulling up his armored gasmask. Rod draws his Taser and whispers “I promise it’s the last time that I broach the subject: But I want to stress how dangerous this man is.” Zed answers “I kick down the door and try to take him alive. Mal and Rod to my left and right. Dan, with the rifle, on the stairs. Keep the doors in view. Time to take this sucker down.” Down the stairs, they hear Rome racking shotgun shells into his gun.
Then, Zed is before door, and his boot crashes into the wood. The door flies into the room, and Zed gets a glance. No window. A disheveled bed on the wall across from the door. Some kind of makeshift laboratory contraption on the table to the right. A man, coiled like spring, black hedgehog hair, eyes like blue splinters, pulling up a panel from the floor. Zed shouts “Stop! LAW!” but the man lets go of the panel and smashes through the left wall into the adjoining room to the left. Of course, Zed thinks, as his ears register a soft ping from the panel, the crafty bugger weakened the wall. Like in his old place. Can’t have enough emergency exits. He screams “Grenade!” At least the other are up to spec and shift their attention to the door to the left. As Zed jumps back, Mal puts his boot against it, grimacing, as he feels his poor back shift. The door springs open, and Mal retreats. Rod steps into the doorframe - this room has a window - and fires his Taser at Uziel. The darts hiss into the floor, a finger from Uziel’s feet. The man is as quick as a snake. Then, the trap in Uziel’s room blows up. A powerful thermite charge detonates and turns everything in it into ash and slag. There is no real explosion, rather a rushing sound, and intense yellowish light flashes into the hallway and through the hole in the wall. Hot smoke pours from the room. The false benefactor twist around to run for the window of this chamber, but already Zed swings in, trying to get his hands on him. Uziel lets him get close, grabs Zed’s belt and shoves a small, metal tube at him. A weapon, Zed thinks, and deflects the jab. Uziel drops the object, and Zed swings his hooked leg at the false benefactor's knees: a swift move to kick Uziel’s legs out under him and take him into a scissor. The false benefactor ducks away, leaving Zed floundering on the floor, jumps towards the window and a shot rings out. Dan, having maneuvered to get Uziel in his sights, decides that enough is enough, and drills the man through the middle from the hallway. More falling than jumping, the false benefactor drops into the street below and rolls off in the sand, a small hole in his left shoulder. He plucks another small object from his belt. While Dan starts to sprint down the stairs, Mal runs to the window, both MAC11s drawn. He sees Uziel jumping to his feet under the window and empties his two sub machineguns into the street below. Dozens of dust plumes kick up, spent shells fly through the room while Mal tries to twist the stream of bullets on the dodging form of Uziel. He is lucky: A red spurt erupts from Uziel’s left leg, and he falls. He rolls on his back, as if to take a sunbath, the small metal gadget in his right hand quite visible. The thumb comes down, and the metal tube in the room above blows up.
It is not a powerful bomb, as explosives go, but most people in the room are very close to it. Zed and Rod are caught by the blast and smashed against the walls like rag puppets. Mal is a few feet away from the device, and well protected by his envi-armor. But the blast lifts him up and out of the window. He drops two stories and does not quite roll like the false benefactor. But his spine holds, barely. He lies there, just for a second. The false benefactor tries to get up on his good leg, when something big and smoking falls on him: Zed is not quite ready to give up yet. Dizzy and deaf from the blast, his body riven with pain, he shoved himself to the window, over the edge and onto his prey. With a last push of his legs, he jumps and his aim his true. He lands on Uziel, both men taking further damage from the impact. But Zed pins Uziel. Then, blessed unconsciousness. Mal grits his teeth and drags himself towards Zed, while Uziel is struggling to get out. Mal pulls a syringe of doc miracle from a small leather tube on his chest and stabs it into Zed’s leg. Uziel, still hanging on, uses this opportunity to pull a slender, long dagger from his boot and drag it across Mal’s gas mask, shattering glass but not wounding the scavvy. While they fight, Dan Hawking arrives from the second floor. He raises the rifle, tries to put another round into the struggling Uziel, and hits Zed instead. The Kevlar vest takes the brunt of the damage, but Mal fears that Zed is bleeding out. Cursing, he draws his second – and last – shot of doc miracle and gives it to the man, while Uziel still tries to move Zed’s bulk. Dan, not the man to dwell long on mistakes long past, quickly steps up to the chaotic melee and takes his rifle’s butt to Uziel, punching him out, finally.
Two stories up, Rod feels life slipping away. He sees blood everywhere on the walls, and with trembling fingers, he pulls his Aesculapin injector (doc miracle to these savages). As the world turns grey and the curtain falls, he jabs the needle into his neck. With a feeling of a million pinpricks, life returns into his smashed body, as the Aesculapin works its miracle, knitting flesh and bone together. Shakily, he stands up. As soon as he is halfway sure that his burning legs will carry him, he stumbles down the stairs. He faintly realizes that there are suddenly other people in the hotel, heavily armed men in black and bulky Kevlar, displaying the letters LAW in white, their faces hidden by balaclavas, black ice hockey masks and ski goggles.  They move around him in well-trained formation, assault rifles at the ready. Car tires screech, and the street around the prone bodies of Zed and Uziel fills with LAW soldiers. Above them, Rome’s Hotel seems to be on fire. Mal, feeling every bone in his wracked body, has a sit down. Dan holsters the rifle and raises his hands. Rod, still giddy from the Aesculapin, just stares. Whether it was the explosions or something else, someone has decided to come and intervene, and has sent about two dozen soldiers. In their midst, a tall, white blonde woman in a black coachman’s coat, the feared three letters tattooed on her forehead, steps towards the wounded men. She gives them a look without sympathy and pity, sizing them up. When she finally speaks, her voice is harsh, loud and clear: “My name is judge Korvanova, member of the tribunal and in charge of security in Memphis.” She looks at Rod “You will tell me what happened here at once, and then you will be taken to Uptown for an extensive debriefing and, if necessary, judgment.”