"Well why the hell CAN'T we just call the slot?" Manny demanded. "If we're puttin nuyen in da fragger's pocket, if we're da fraggin Johnson fer dis job, why can't we just tell him what we want and........"
"Because it isn't a case of using a fixer ta hire some runners." Rook interrupted. The strain of his initial interviews with Albrecht's security deckers combined with the efforts of explaining his requirements to the abrupt fixer had begun to take it's toll. Normally he would not have dreamed of interrupting one of his teacher/teammates, but the ork's patience had been worn thin. "Because we want Albrecht ta use his contacts ta set up a meet fer us, even wit da guy who would get us on da Council's agenda, he's nervous. Its naturally going to involve more dan just payin a huge whack of nuyen for him ta execute long distance orders. I mean, what if we were assassins or something? He sets up da meet, one of da princes gets popped, all of a sudden he's got a lot of really rude questions and even if he survives da interrogation , his career in da shadows is done. I'd sure want some face to face before putting my hoop, into potentially, that kinda hot water, wouldn't you?"
When the dwarf reluctantly nodded Rook continued reasonably, "Now I gotta go cause we talked and I figure he may want ta check on dat. It'll look real bad if I make da contact and den pull a fade. Wolfman is goin ta give us magical cover, cause ya can bet dat Albrecht's goin ta bring some. Speed Racer is goin cause...well, cause Cloak is goin. Cloak's.....kinda da boss and he wants ta talk to Albrecht himself so that the fixer don't decide ta get cute all of a sudden. Edge is going so dat if Wolfman goes astral there's somebody to watch his meat, and since we don't want ta travel with ......." his eyes glanced over at the bag containing the artifact, "somebody's gotta watch it." After a second the ork offered, "Maybe I could ask Speed Racer ta stay and.....uh.....help ya. Dat thing makes me nervous too."
The unselfconsciousness of this final admission broke Manny out of his dark mood. "Naw kid. I can baby-sit by myself. Just hate ta miss out on da fun, is all. You guys can handle dis witout me bein dere."
Rook's respect for his teammate caused the question "Are you sure?" to go unvoiced. With a nod of respect the ork threw on his jacket and headed out. Manny looked warily at the bag.
After an inspection tour of the team's new doss, the dwarf thought *Sigh* Might as well take a nap.
The Monster Squad pulled their bikes up in front of Mr.P's. The bar itself was a notorious hangout for leather clad male bikers and for those of either sex who simply adored them, but Rook's research revealed it was probably the safest place to park a scooter in the area. Speed Racer, for one, was grateful that the youngest member of the team was cognizant enough of the difficulties with transportation to have considered parking when arranging to meet the fixer. Unfortunately, each of the team's members suffered some moment of doubt about the arrangements as they wandered deeper and deeper through the maze of back alleys that led to Albrecht's office.
The fixer himself was a barrel-chested, red-headed, black dwarf with a long scar splitting the entire left side of his face. Knowing that the relatively minor plastic surgery that would have corrected this deficiency was within the means of any fixer worthy of the name, the team correctly surmised that the scarred visage was a deliberate choice by the dwarf. Nobody, however, would guess that the scar was both deliberate and self-inflicted (in the interest of authenticity).
The guards, artfully arranged throughout the backroom/office, included a pair of Trolls of indeterminate sex, a sleeping elf woman, a heavily cybered mastiff and three norms (2 males and a female) carrying between 50 and 70 lbs of armament and armor each. Rook correctly surmised that the obvious show of force was Albrecht's way of demonstrating that he was a dangerous dwarf to play with.
Cloak demonstrated no reaction to the fixer's display as he calmly explained his situation.
"We've come across a valuable magic item. One that is quite dangerous. We're from out of town but we've been advised to seek the Council of Princes. We'd like to reach them because we've been informed that they will have the balance, power and knowledge to understand the item. We wish to do this as quickly as possible as there is a very good chance that....other interested parties may seek to acquire the item for their own purposes. As my associate has already informed you, the issue is time sensitive. Can you help us?"
"You spin a good tale, term, but ya ain't made a sale yet. How the frag do I know that the dangerous item ya wanna leave with the council ain't a bomb?" Albrecht asked.
"You don't," Cloak replied, "but you will have to forgive me, I didn't know that in addition to being a fixer you also acted as a security guard."
"You got a real smart mouth, ain't ya chummer?"
"Look. My nuyen spends just fine, friend." Cloak said with exagerated patience. "If your fear won't let you touch it, I'll find somebody else....."
"....To put you in contact with the Council?" Albrecht interrupted. "You can try, buddy boy. You can try. I may even wish you luck, but I don't think it's gonna happen."
"So that's it? We're done?" Cloak asked. "Thanks for your time......"
"Hold on, hold on." The dwarf said as he held up his hands. "I didn't say I wouldn't do it, I just want ya ta be aware of the risk I'm taking. I don't know you, you're not from around here and ya want me ta arrange for ya to bring something you admit is a dangerous magic item to the Council. Now those are some powerful fraggers. Anything bad happens and they're askin me why the frag I sent you along to them. Not a good position for me. What are you offering to make this risk worth my while?"
"Please. Can we cut to the chase?" The phys ad asked. "You give me your bottom line figure to set the meet up. If it's good we'll pay. If it ain't we'll walk. I don't care about your risk, worries or concerns in arriving at the price anymore than you care about what I do to get the nuyen to pay you."
"Not big on negotiating, huh?" Albrecht asked with the first hint of a grin.
"Even if I was, it wouldn't be my choice to play ducks and drakes with somebody who does it all day every day for a living. How much?"
After several minutes of consideration the dwarf looked over at the sleeping elf woman. She immediately sat up and said "Not lying. Max chill. No reaction to your talk about the council except the younger ork was satisfied that he predicted what you'd say." Turning back to the runners she asked "What is the item?"
"Excuse me, dear lady," Wolfman answered, "but without the smallest whisp of mendacity, I can assure you, you don't want to know."
The elf woman raised an eyebrow, but then turned back to her boss and gave a slight shrug.
Albrecht wrote a figure on a piece of paper, folded it over and slid it across the desk.
Cloak opened the sheet and maintained an absolute poker face as he read the number the fixer required. After a moment's consideration he said "Done."
The dwarf nodded and said "This will take a while. You should wait."
The sound of the flesh of his face sizzling under the insectman's acid, a sound which the pain of the event originally deafened him to, came through clearly. He knew the agony well enough, had re-lived it through enough nightmares that it held no surprises. The sound though, the knowledge that the acid was crippling him, changing him forever, made him physically sick. Perhaps it was being blinded that contributed to the terror since the loss of his hand had seconds earlier not sickened him. He screamed, as he had so often in this dream, but this time the scream was a rejection of the events and not simply of the agony.
*What if it had been different? The thought suddenly popped into his mind. Grasping at a way out of the nightmare, he held the thought and focused on it with all his might.
"I couldn't leave Lynn to the queen" he thought, "I just should've had more ammo…"
Suddenly he found the scene unfolding again- his entrance into the hive… the sam from the other team turning the SMG on him only to gun down the flyman about to attack from behind… His nod of thanks never being returned as another bugman ripped off the samurai's head…Running towards Lynn's screams only to hear the roomsweeper's click after it's last round…and now the dream changed…he found himself jamming shells from his pocket into the weapon's receiver…where in real life he had been reduced to using the shotgun as a club, he now had a functioning weapon.... He almost smiled until he saw that now the bugmen who had, in reality, focused on Hamon were swarming him…he was blasting everything in range, but it wasn't enough, there were so many bugs! … now he saw Hamon go down to the queen's magic just as he felt the pincers close around his own neck…pressure…Lynn's screams for mercy echoing through the tunnel…blackness.
The dream began again. He ran through the hole in the basement wall to rescue his teammates and heard Lynn's distant wail. Looking down at the roomsweeper in his hands he noted, without ever thinking it odd, that he was carrying the scourge. It seemed perfectly natural that he was armed with the artifact and as he pointed it at the first bugman in his path the warm glow he felt also seemed right. No bolt of lightning, no beam of light, just a simple point and *pop*, down they fell like marionettes with cut strings. That the bugmen were dropping as fast as he could point the artifact was not only natural but quite gratifying. He was clearing out the nest single-handed and without breaking a sweat…in fact, he felt stronger as each insectman fell. He noted the other shadowteam, the one that had been sent in to hunt his friends and instead of joining them to oppose the hive, he wiped them out in seconds with the scourge's power. He was untouched as he made his way into the queen's chamber. He killed the mob of elite guards with ease and then eliminated the terrifying central figure of his nightmares with a simple gesture. Elation mixed with satisfaction and relief as he broke through the cycle of his dreams, finally rescuing Lynn before she could be absorbed by the hive. He gloried in the look of adoration in her eyes without wondering why she was wearing the face and form of Christie the bartender. He hardly spared a second to glance at the dead samurai with the paired katanas lying at his feet.
As much as he loathed the lunatic's endless whining, Nestor preferred it to Madcap's brooding silence. The insane illusionist had taken it ill that he had been rendered unconscious through a doped drink at the terminal bar before boarding the plane. Though now safely in Seattle with a minimum of unwanted attention, the dwarf was muttering under his breath and shooting venomous glances at his companion whenever he thought he was unobserved. Thus far he had not planted any unwanted visions in the elf's mind, but Nestor realized that it was only the fear of their master's reaction to failure that kept the dwarf from seeking revenge for the perceived indignity.
I'll have to watch the little slot more carefully from now on. Nestor thought. His lunacy might prompt him to do ......anything. I hope he doesn't try until this job is done…at least then I could demonstrate my own abilities. A final glance at the muttering dwarf did little to inspire confidence that the blow-off was that distant.
With his mind half focused on his psychotic partner, Nestor contacted headquarters to see if they had developed any leads on where his quarry might currently be hiding.
Quillum liked Seattle. Something about the rain and slate gray skies whispered to his soul. His assignments in Seattle had always gone well and there was a certain edgy danger to a town where everyone wore trenchcoats in which arsenals could be concealed. My kinda town, the expediter thought.
Using a logic which was unique (i.e. only made sense to one creature on the planet), Quillum had begun his search in a middle class neighborhood. Not surprisingly, neither the white hared elven shadowrunning mage nor any of his associates were discovered in the piece of suburbia Quillum had chosen. After terrorizing a sufficiently large number of restaurant/bar chains (Bodacious, Juan J. F. Schmit's, Klondike Herman's, Crackle's, Many Fiscus, etc.), even Quillum began to suspect he'd overestimated the elusiveness of his prey.
Unfortunately, in addition to his own frustration at his lack of results, when he attempted to explain his thinking to his impatient and none too understanding superior, he found himself forced to acknowledge that he had taken his freelancing too far afield. He stopped short of agreeing to report every move in the future, but understanding that what the powerful give they can also take away, Quillum resolved to be more sure of his results before indulging himself.
Manny woke, feeling like he'd been worked over with a bag of bricks. He was more tired then when he laid down, he ached in strange areas and his head was pounding. Drek he thought, that had to be the weirdest fraggin dream.... Wheither it was the motion, instinct or coincidence, the dwarf samurai at that instant glanced at the back of his metal hand and was disgusted to see a large cockroach perched there.
Ugh. I hate bugs. He thought as he casually flicked his unwanted hitchhiker into a wall. His eyes were drawn to the bag containing the artifact and before he really consciously thought about it, he was unwrapping the scourge to make sure it was all right. As soon as he actually saw the dangerous piece of magical antiquity the alarm in his head went off and he pulled his hands away as if afraid of scorching them.
What the frag am I doing? He thought with consternation. Fraggin dingus is pure bad news and I'm handling it?! With a look of growing apprehension on his face, the dwarf warrior checked his cron to see how soon the rest of the monster squad might be expected back. The disgust he felt on finding a pair of roaches on his wrist watch was only exceeded by his amazement when a cigar sized cockroach ran across his combat boot.
He shook the two off his wrist, and stomped on both, as well as their larger brother who had journeyed over dwarfboot mountain. Brushing vigorously to remove any other insect squatters, the dwarf again thought,FRAG! I FRAGGING HATE FRAGGING BUGS!! He then thought And what the hell is all that clicking?
The Shadorat and shapcano. Together again for the first time! This serial continues at Winterhawk's Virtual Magespace. To read Chapter 22 click here.
This story is copyright of the author. Shadowrun is a Registered Trademark of FASA Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Used without permission. Any use of FASA Corporation's copyrighted material or trademarks in this file should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks.
"Because it isn't a case of using a fixer ta hire some runners." Rook interrupted. The strain of his initial interviews with Albrecht's security deckers combined with the efforts of explaining his requirements to the abrupt fixer had begun to take it's toll. Normally he would not have dreamed of interrupting one of his teacher/teammates, but the ork's patience had been worn thin. "Because we want Albrecht ta use his contacts ta set up a meet fer us, even wit da guy who would get us on da Council's agenda, he's nervous. Its naturally going to involve more dan just payin a huge whack of nuyen for him ta execute long distance orders. I mean, what if we were assassins or something? He sets up da meet, one of da princes gets popped, all of a sudden he's got a lot of really rude questions and even if he survives da interrogation , his career in da shadows is done. I'd sure want some face to face before putting my hoop, into potentially, that kinda hot water, wouldn't you?"
When the dwarf reluctantly nodded Rook continued reasonably, "Now I gotta go cause we talked and I figure he may want ta check on dat. It'll look real bad if I make da contact and den pull a fade. Wolfman is goin ta give us magical cover, cause ya can bet dat Albrecht's goin ta bring some. Speed Racer is goin cause...well, cause Cloak is goin. Cloak's.....kinda da boss and he wants ta talk to Albrecht himself so that the fixer don't decide ta get cute all of a sudden. Edge is going so dat if Wolfman goes astral there's somebody to watch his meat, and since we don't want ta travel with ......." his eyes glanced over at the bag containing the artifact, "somebody's gotta watch it." After a second the ork offered, "Maybe I could ask Speed Racer ta stay and.....uh.....help ya. Dat thing makes me nervous too."
The unselfconsciousness of this final admission broke Manny out of his dark mood. "Naw kid. I can baby-sit by myself. Just hate ta miss out on da fun, is all. You guys can handle dis witout me bein dere."
Rook's respect for his teammate caused the question "Are you sure?" to go unvoiced. With a nod of respect the ork threw on his jacket and headed out. Manny looked warily at the bag.
After an inspection tour of the team's new doss, the dwarf thought *Sigh* Might as well take a nap.
The Monster Squad pulled their bikes up in front of Mr.P's. The bar itself was a notorious hangout for leather clad male bikers and for those of either sex who simply adored them, but Rook's research revealed it was probably the safest place to park a scooter in the area. Speed Racer, for one, was grateful that the youngest member of the team was cognizant enough of the difficulties with transportation to have considered parking when arranging to meet the fixer. Unfortunately, each of the team's members suffered some moment of doubt about the arrangements as they wandered deeper and deeper through the maze of back alleys that led to Albrecht's office.
The fixer himself was a barrel-chested, red-headed, black dwarf with a long scar splitting the entire left side of his face. Knowing that the relatively minor plastic surgery that would have corrected this deficiency was within the means of any fixer worthy of the name, the team correctly surmised that the scarred visage was a deliberate choice by the dwarf. Nobody, however, would guess that the scar was both deliberate and self-inflicted (in the interest of authenticity).
The guards, artfully arranged throughout the backroom/office, included a pair of Trolls of indeterminate sex, a sleeping elf woman, a heavily cybered mastiff and three norms (2 males and a female) carrying between 50 and 70 lbs of armament and armor each. Rook correctly surmised that the obvious show of force was Albrecht's way of demonstrating that he was a dangerous dwarf to play with.
Cloak demonstrated no reaction to the fixer's display as he calmly explained his situation.
"We've come across a valuable magic item. One that is quite dangerous. We're from out of town but we've been advised to seek the Council of Princes. We'd like to reach them because we've been informed that they will have the balance, power and knowledge to understand the item. We wish to do this as quickly as possible as there is a very good chance that....other interested parties may seek to acquire the item for their own purposes. As my associate has already informed you, the issue is time sensitive. Can you help us?"
"You spin a good tale, term, but ya ain't made a sale yet. How the frag do I know that the dangerous item ya wanna leave with the council ain't a bomb?" Albrecht asked.
"You don't," Cloak replied, "but you will have to forgive me, I didn't know that in addition to being a fixer you also acted as a security guard."
"You got a real smart mouth, ain't ya chummer?"
"Look. My nuyen spends just fine, friend." Cloak said with exagerated patience. "If your fear won't let you touch it, I'll find somebody else....."
"....To put you in contact with the Council?" Albrecht interrupted. "You can try, buddy boy. You can try. I may even wish you luck, but I don't think it's gonna happen."
"So that's it? We're done?" Cloak asked. "Thanks for your time......"
"Hold on, hold on." The dwarf said as he held up his hands. "I didn't say I wouldn't do it, I just want ya ta be aware of the risk I'm taking. I don't know you, you're not from around here and ya want me ta arrange for ya to bring something you admit is a dangerous magic item to the Council. Now those are some powerful fraggers. Anything bad happens and they're askin me why the frag I sent you along to them. Not a good position for me. What are you offering to make this risk worth my while?"
"Please. Can we cut to the chase?" The phys ad asked. "You give me your bottom line figure to set the meet up. If it's good we'll pay. If it ain't we'll walk. I don't care about your risk, worries or concerns in arriving at the price anymore than you care about what I do to get the nuyen to pay you."
"Not big on negotiating, huh?" Albrecht asked with the first hint of a grin.
"Even if I was, it wouldn't be my choice to play ducks and drakes with somebody who does it all day every day for a living. How much?"
After several minutes of consideration the dwarf looked over at the sleeping elf woman. She immediately sat up and said "Not lying. Max chill. No reaction to your talk about the council except the younger ork was satisfied that he predicted what you'd say." Turning back to the runners she asked "What is the item?"
"Excuse me, dear lady," Wolfman answered, "but without the smallest whisp of mendacity, I can assure you, you don't want to know."
The elf woman raised an eyebrow, but then turned back to her boss and gave a slight shrug.
Albrecht wrote a figure on a piece of paper, folded it over and slid it across the desk.
Cloak opened the sheet and maintained an absolute poker face as he read the number the fixer required. After a moment's consideration he said "Done."
The dwarf nodded and said "This will take a while. You should wait."
The sound of the flesh of his face sizzling under the insectman's acid, a sound which the pain of the event originally deafened him to, came through clearly. He knew the agony well enough, had re-lived it through enough nightmares that it held no surprises. The sound though, the knowledge that the acid was crippling him, changing him forever, made him physically sick. Perhaps it was being blinded that contributed to the terror since the loss of his hand had seconds earlier not sickened him. He screamed, as he had so often in this dream, but this time the scream was a rejection of the events and not simply of the agony.
*What if it had been different? The thought suddenly popped into his mind. Grasping at a way out of the nightmare, he held the thought and focused on it with all his might.
"I couldn't leave Lynn to the queen" he thought, "I just should've had more ammo…"
Suddenly he found the scene unfolding again- his entrance into the hive… the sam from the other team turning the SMG on him only to gun down the flyman about to attack from behind… His nod of thanks never being returned as another bugman ripped off the samurai's head…Running towards Lynn's screams only to hear the roomsweeper's click after it's last round…and now the dream changed…he found himself jamming shells from his pocket into the weapon's receiver…where in real life he had been reduced to using the shotgun as a club, he now had a functioning weapon.... He almost smiled until he saw that now the bugmen who had, in reality, focused on Hamon were swarming him…he was blasting everything in range, but it wasn't enough, there were so many bugs! … now he saw Hamon go down to the queen's magic just as he felt the pincers close around his own neck…pressure…Lynn's screams for mercy echoing through the tunnel…blackness.
The dream began again. He ran through the hole in the basement wall to rescue his teammates and heard Lynn's distant wail. Looking down at the roomsweeper in his hands he noted, without ever thinking it odd, that he was carrying the scourge. It seemed perfectly natural that he was armed with the artifact and as he pointed it at the first bugman in his path the warm glow he felt also seemed right. No bolt of lightning, no beam of light, just a simple point and *pop*, down they fell like marionettes with cut strings. That the bugmen were dropping as fast as he could point the artifact was not only natural but quite gratifying. He was clearing out the nest single-handed and without breaking a sweat…in fact, he felt stronger as each insectman fell. He noted the other shadowteam, the one that had been sent in to hunt his friends and instead of joining them to oppose the hive, he wiped them out in seconds with the scourge's power. He was untouched as he made his way into the queen's chamber. He killed the mob of elite guards with ease and then eliminated the terrifying central figure of his nightmares with a simple gesture. Elation mixed with satisfaction and relief as he broke through the cycle of his dreams, finally rescuing Lynn before she could be absorbed by the hive. He gloried in the look of adoration in her eyes without wondering why she was wearing the face and form of Christie the bartender. He hardly spared a second to glance at the dead samurai with the paired katanas lying at his feet.
As much as he loathed the lunatic's endless whining, Nestor preferred it to Madcap's brooding silence. The insane illusionist had taken it ill that he had been rendered unconscious through a doped drink at the terminal bar before boarding the plane. Though now safely in Seattle with a minimum of unwanted attention, the dwarf was muttering under his breath and shooting venomous glances at his companion whenever he thought he was unobserved. Thus far he had not planted any unwanted visions in the elf's mind, but Nestor realized that it was only the fear of their master's reaction to failure that kept the dwarf from seeking revenge for the perceived indignity.
I'll have to watch the little slot more carefully from now on. Nestor thought. His lunacy might prompt him to do ......anything. I hope he doesn't try until this job is done…at least then I could demonstrate my own abilities. A final glance at the muttering dwarf did little to inspire confidence that the blow-off was that distant.
With his mind half focused on his psychotic partner, Nestor contacted headquarters to see if they had developed any leads on where his quarry might currently be hiding.
Quillum liked Seattle. Something about the rain and slate gray skies whispered to his soul. His assignments in Seattle had always gone well and there was a certain edgy danger to a town where everyone wore trenchcoats in which arsenals could be concealed. My kinda town, the expediter thought.
Using a logic which was unique (i.e. only made sense to one creature on the planet), Quillum had begun his search in a middle class neighborhood. Not surprisingly, neither the white hared elven shadowrunning mage nor any of his associates were discovered in the piece of suburbia Quillum had chosen. After terrorizing a sufficiently large number of restaurant/bar chains (Bodacious, Juan J. F. Schmit's, Klondike Herman's, Crackle's, Many Fiscus, etc.), even Quillum began to suspect he'd overestimated the elusiveness of his prey.
Unfortunately, in addition to his own frustration at his lack of results, when he attempted to explain his thinking to his impatient and none too understanding superior, he found himself forced to acknowledge that he had taken his freelancing too far afield. He stopped short of agreeing to report every move in the future, but understanding that what the powerful give they can also take away, Quillum resolved to be more sure of his results before indulging himself.
Manny woke, feeling like he'd been worked over with a bag of bricks. He was more tired then when he laid down, he ached in strange areas and his head was pounding. Drek he thought, that had to be the weirdest fraggin dream.... Wheither it was the motion, instinct or coincidence, the dwarf samurai at that instant glanced at the back of his metal hand and was disgusted to see a large cockroach perched there.
Ugh. I hate bugs. He thought as he casually flicked his unwanted hitchhiker into a wall. His eyes were drawn to the bag containing the artifact and before he really consciously thought about it, he was unwrapping the scourge to make sure it was all right. As soon as he actually saw the dangerous piece of magical antiquity the alarm in his head went off and he pulled his hands away as if afraid of scorching them.
What the frag am I doing? He thought with consternation. Fraggin dingus is pure bad news and I'm handling it?! With a look of growing apprehension on his face, the dwarf warrior checked his cron to see how soon the rest of the monster squad might be expected back. The disgust he felt on finding a pair of roaches on his wrist watch was only exceeded by his amazement when a cigar sized cockroach ran across his combat boot.
He shook the two off his wrist, and stomped on both, as well as their larger brother who had journeyed over dwarfboot mountain. Brushing vigorously to remove any other insect squatters, the dwarf again thought,FRAG! I FRAGGING HATE FRAGGING BUGS!! He then thought And what the hell is all that clicking?
The Shadorat and shapcano. Together again for the first time! This serial continues at Winterhawk's Virtual Magespace. To read Chapter 22 click here.
This story is copyright of the author. Shadowrun is a Registered Trademark of FASA Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Used without permission. Any use of FASA Corporation's copyrighted material or trademarks in this file should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks.
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