Mid-afternoon we pulled into a truckstop for some gas and grub. If you’ve ever traveled the interstate you’ve stopped at a carbon copy of this place. A combination filling station/bodega/diner populated by the bored and the restless.
The bored: catatonic waitress/cashier (“whadda ya want……hon?”); inevitable dodering old timer hiding behind a news fax (“mumble…mutter…mumble”); pair of brain dead truckers (vacantly unfocused on the wall to the kitchen as they spooned down their chili); behind that wall a listless yet unseen cook (“order”) and, of course, the opportunity for chaos- a vacuous, green-eyed, reheaded, curvaceous teenaged bubble-gum popper in a sun dress that begged to be puddled at her feet (“Goin far, mistah?”).
The restless: sweating salaryman with shifty eyes and shaking hands (apparently speeding down an amphetamine highway to get to his next job soonest); and the other half of the chaos couple, a hormonal, tat and piercing covered muscular teenaged male desperately looking to establish alpha dominance, particularly in the mind of the doe-eyed gum popper.
Some people say that language is the thing that distinguishes us from more primitive life forms. I might agree with that if by language you mean communication. You can communicate a lot without saying a word. For example, there’s a way of ignoring someone that says “I’ll leave you alone, you leave me alone.” There’s another that says “I won’t provoke you, do whatever you want, just please leave me alone” There’s another way that says “I dare you to provoke me”. The way Owen chose clearly said “I am somebody’s death. Disturb me and I will be yours.”
Now, you may doubt that he got that message across without words, but I’m telling you, we walked into that place and everybody shifted. I don’t just mean they fidgeted in their seats, I mean they all took that “I won’t provoke you, do whatever you want, just please leave me alone” attitude. Including even Miss I’m-so-desperate-for-thrills-I’ll-flirt-with-strangers and her Macho Romeo.
I began to think that everything was going to be cool until midway through our “meal”. Salaryman was nervously scribbling on the back of his bill as he prepared to leave, Waitress had just silently deposited our meals in front of us and truckers had just gone back to their rigs when a pair of camoed humvees pulled in up front. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to recognize the braves who unassed the wags were border patrol. My sphincter clenched as I imagined what might happen next.
Before I go any further with this, I gotta explain something. I spent a lotta time on the streets. Runnin with a go-gang. Eventually learning to be more than a street person. This means I know a lot about tribal behaviors, non-verbal threat displays and a host of things with high sounding names that boil down to instinct. That’s what I meant when I said communicating without language.
Now, the Boss is the single deadliest individual I’ve ever encountered. I’d match him pound for pound against a dragon. Unfortuantely, he usually tries so hard to avoid violence that half the time he invites it.
What do I mean? Simple. Think of the animal world. There’s a constant struggle for dominance. The strongest gets the first choice of food, mates, etc. The young aspire to be the strongest and contend with the pack’s alpha for the dominant role.
Because the Boss is so deadly, he should be treated as the alpha of any pack he stumbles into. The thing is, because he doesn’t want to use his abilities he sends the wrong non-verbal message. Acting like “No need to fight, I’m not a killer, I don’t want to be the leader” reads as “I’m not aggressive enough to be the leader,” which unfortunately invites the other animals to attempt to establish dominance over him.
Now, Owen is a nice guy and all, but he isn’t particularly interested in submitting to some case of excessive testosterone/limited intelligence. This means that he spends a lot of time mopping the floor with some clown’s face and even more time beating himself up over his constant use of violence.
Maybe it was the sweat lodge or the stories or his not having the “poison” in his system, but this time the boss had done enough of a threat display that everyone recognized that he was a danger. This prevented the gum popper from provoking machoboy by flirting with Owen. It also kept machoboy from initiating trouble in order to impress little red riding hood. This was good.
Until the peace officers showed up. The folks charged with protecting the community look for stuff to protect the community from. The reactions of everybody in the place told the border patrol that we were their potential targets. We, or more particularly, the boss, was the danger to the community. This was not good.
The border patrol squads each consisted of three braves. Each team had a rigger/driver, and a sammie and then one squad had a spellslinger and the other had a decker. All were norms, all were Sioux, the decker and the sammie in command were females.
Without being too obvious I watched as Machoboy pointed us out to one of the riggers. I also watched as miss gum popper sidled up to the shaman. From the reaction of his teammates this was not the first time it had happened and my respect for the commander increased when she signaled the shaman away with a look. Unfortunately for all concerned, she immediately became more concerned with the whispered report her rigger was relaying to her. After listening she nodded at us and the decker immediately began openly staring at our faces. I could almost hear her optics capturing digital images of us for wireless relay to some database. To get the bosses face for her decker the commander announced “May I have everyone’s attention please.”
When everyone’s head was turned towards her, she asked “Who belongs to the Renraku SUV?”
I’ve admitted that I ain’t the sharpest pencil in the box, but the two teenagers, the waitress and the cook obviously being known quantities, that left Salaryman and us, so hiding in the crowd didn’t strike me as a workable strategy. I signaled that the Bear was mine.
“Nice ride” she said as she meandered over to the table. “Been looking at that one myself. Good wheels?”
“Decent power, responsive, yeah, I’d say its pretty good.” I said. Inside I was thanking all the powers that the Boss was not wearing his cloak. I know its stylish, or at least he carries it off with style, but in a non urban setting I figure it would work like a matador's red cape to the local "bulls".
Swinging a chair from a nearby table around so that she faced us over its back she hesitated before sitting and asked “Oh, you mind if I sit down?”
Knowing the question was entirely rhetorical, I smiled and said “Not at all, not at all. Please join us.”
Her smile back never came near her eyes. “Thanks. So, where you fellas from?”
“Just traveling down I-90” was my singularly uninformative answer.
“Sightseeing, eh?”
“Well, as beautiful as this land is, you can’t help but do some sightseeing, but mainly we’re heading east.”
“Oh. I see. That’s probably why you’re on I-90.”
My nod wasn’t the thing that caught her eye. She obviously got some signal from her team because she got up and said “I’ll be right back and we can talk some more."
While she was having a whispered conference with her teammates, Owen signaled me to pull out my medallion as he displayed his. We continued eating while we waited for the border patrol commander’s return. She sat back down while looking at us very intently.
“Care to explain the magic marking on your SUV?" After a brief silence she added "Or how you got those?” pointing at our medallions.
I was about to answer her when she held up a hand and pointing at the boss asked "Does he talk?"
I waited a few seconds in case Owen wanted to reply. He just kept on finishing the last of his cheeseless, egg-white/mushroom omlette. (He really has some strange eating habits) I finally shrugged and said "Not much".
"So, strong silent type," she said while staring at the boss, "you gonna answer my questions or do we run you back to headquarters and let them sort it out.."
The boss put down his fork, wiped his mouth and pointed to the beadwork medalions. "Thomas Small Buck" he said. Then he pointed at SUV and said "Red Sky" then he looked at the commander and added "when we were at Lodge Grass"
Once again, I gotta say there was non-verbal communication going on with that look. It said "don't fuck with me" but it said it without any emotion. Does that make sense? It wasn't a threat-you never threaten cops unless you're trying to start something. Cops aren't built to take threats, no matter what you see on trid. At the same time it wasn't a request or an order. Cops don't deal well with those either.
It was kind of "I haven't been out of line here. You know it and I know it. You've been ruder than I have, I've no reason to fear you and I've taken as much testing as I'm going to take. You're not doing your job if you provoke exactly the type of trouble you're supposed to prevent". At the same time because there wasn't any emotional subtext, the commander couldn't summon up the righteous indignation of being confronted by a civilian assuming equality with the voice of authority (her's).
Ok, so maybe also the fact that Owen had droped the names of a Crow chief and powerful Sioux shaman, casually added that we had been on sacred land and knew its tribal name also had something to do with her change of attitude. I think it was mostly the non-verbal stuff, but, hell, I could be wrong. I continued to pay a lot of attention to the huevos rancheros on my plate.
I don't know for sure, of course, but I imagine the "lets-see-who's-the-biggest-dog-in-this-fight" part of the commander's brain lost to the "my-job-is-to-keep-the-peace" and "these-guys-might-be-important" portions. She got back up and signalled her squad to get back in their vehicles. It was obvious that some of her teammates were impiricists on the biggest dog question. Whether it was as a sop to them or her own ego, her parting shot was "We'll be keeping an eye on you."
I guess a part of my imagination ran away with scenarios of what could have happened if the commander had been a little less mature or her crew were a little less disciplined. Maybe part of my brain pictured how disasterous for travel a confrontation with a Sioux border patrol would be, even if we survived without major injury.
Whatever it was, when I paid for the meal I found my hand was shaking.
This story is copyright of the author. Shadowrun was a Registered Trademark of FASA Corporation until they went busto foldo. Now Wizkids LLC owns it. Or possibly FanPro. Or some other dragon owned subsidiary. Whoever holds the trademark, they didn't call and tell me it was ok to write this, and anybody who says I said that is full of it. I'm not challenging any of the rights or trademarks of anybody who own's them, whoever they are. I'm just writing stories. Honest. Thank you for not litigating.
The bored: catatonic waitress/cashier (“whadda ya want……hon?”); inevitable dodering old timer hiding behind a news fax (“mumble…mutter…mumble”); pair of brain dead truckers (vacantly unfocused on the wall to the kitchen as they spooned down their chili); behind that wall a listless yet unseen cook (“order”) and, of course, the opportunity for chaos- a vacuous, green-eyed, reheaded, curvaceous teenaged bubble-gum popper in a sun dress that begged to be puddled at her feet (“Goin far, mistah?”).
The restless: sweating salaryman with shifty eyes and shaking hands (apparently speeding down an amphetamine highway to get to his next job soonest); and the other half of the chaos couple, a hormonal, tat and piercing covered muscular teenaged male desperately looking to establish alpha dominance, particularly in the mind of the doe-eyed gum popper.
Some people say that language is the thing that distinguishes us from more primitive life forms. I might agree with that if by language you mean communication. You can communicate a lot without saying a word. For example, there’s a way of ignoring someone that says “I’ll leave you alone, you leave me alone.” There’s another that says “I won’t provoke you, do whatever you want, just please leave me alone” There’s another way that says “I dare you to provoke me”. The way Owen chose clearly said “I am somebody’s death. Disturb me and I will be yours.”
Now, you may doubt that he got that message across without words, but I’m telling you, we walked into that place and everybody shifted. I don’t just mean they fidgeted in their seats, I mean they all took that “I won’t provoke you, do whatever you want, just please leave me alone” attitude. Including even Miss I’m-so-desperate-for-thrills-I’ll-flirt-with-strangers and her Macho Romeo.
I began to think that everything was going to be cool until midway through our “meal”. Salaryman was nervously scribbling on the back of his bill as he prepared to leave, Waitress had just silently deposited our meals in front of us and truckers had just gone back to their rigs when a pair of camoed humvees pulled in up front. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to recognize the braves who unassed the wags were border patrol. My sphincter clenched as I imagined what might happen next.
Before I go any further with this, I gotta explain something. I spent a lotta time on the streets. Runnin with a go-gang. Eventually learning to be more than a street person. This means I know a lot about tribal behaviors, non-verbal threat displays and a host of things with high sounding names that boil down to instinct. That’s what I meant when I said communicating without language.
Now, the Boss is the single deadliest individual I’ve ever encountered. I’d match him pound for pound against a dragon. Unfortuantely, he usually tries so hard to avoid violence that half the time he invites it.
What do I mean? Simple. Think of the animal world. There’s a constant struggle for dominance. The strongest gets the first choice of food, mates, etc. The young aspire to be the strongest and contend with the pack’s alpha for the dominant role.
Because the Boss is so deadly, he should be treated as the alpha of any pack he stumbles into. The thing is, because he doesn’t want to use his abilities he sends the wrong non-verbal message. Acting like “No need to fight, I’m not a killer, I don’t want to be the leader” reads as “I’m not aggressive enough to be the leader,” which unfortunately invites the other animals to attempt to establish dominance over him.
Now, Owen is a nice guy and all, but he isn’t particularly interested in submitting to some case of excessive testosterone/limited intelligence. This means that he spends a lot of time mopping the floor with some clown’s face and even more time beating himself up over his constant use of violence.
Maybe it was the sweat lodge or the stories or his not having the “poison” in his system, but this time the boss had done enough of a threat display that everyone recognized that he was a danger. This prevented the gum popper from provoking machoboy by flirting with Owen. It also kept machoboy from initiating trouble in order to impress little red riding hood. This was good.
Until the peace officers showed up. The folks charged with protecting the community look for stuff to protect the community from. The reactions of everybody in the place told the border patrol that we were their potential targets. We, or more particularly, the boss, was the danger to the community. This was not good.
The border patrol squads each consisted of three braves. Each team had a rigger/driver, and a sammie and then one squad had a spellslinger and the other had a decker. All were norms, all were Sioux, the decker and the sammie in command were females.
Without being too obvious I watched as Machoboy pointed us out to one of the riggers. I also watched as miss gum popper sidled up to the shaman. From the reaction of his teammates this was not the first time it had happened and my respect for the commander increased when she signaled the shaman away with a look. Unfortunately for all concerned, she immediately became more concerned with the whispered report her rigger was relaying to her. After listening she nodded at us and the decker immediately began openly staring at our faces. I could almost hear her optics capturing digital images of us for wireless relay to some database. To get the bosses face for her decker the commander announced “May I have everyone’s attention please.”
When everyone’s head was turned towards her, she asked “Who belongs to the Renraku SUV?”
I’ve admitted that I ain’t the sharpest pencil in the box, but the two teenagers, the waitress and the cook obviously being known quantities, that left Salaryman and us, so hiding in the crowd didn’t strike me as a workable strategy. I signaled that the Bear was mine.
“Nice ride” she said as she meandered over to the table. “Been looking at that one myself. Good wheels?”
“Decent power, responsive, yeah, I’d say its pretty good.” I said. Inside I was thanking all the powers that the Boss was not wearing his cloak. I know its stylish, or at least he carries it off with style, but in a non urban setting I figure it would work like a matador's red cape to the local "bulls".
Swinging a chair from a nearby table around so that she faced us over its back she hesitated before sitting and asked “Oh, you mind if I sit down?”
Knowing the question was entirely rhetorical, I smiled and said “Not at all, not at all. Please join us.”
Her smile back never came near her eyes. “Thanks. So, where you fellas from?”
“Just traveling down I-90” was my singularly uninformative answer.
“Sightseeing, eh?”
“Well, as beautiful as this land is, you can’t help but do some sightseeing, but mainly we’re heading east.”
“Oh. I see. That’s probably why you’re on I-90.”
My nod wasn’t the thing that caught her eye. She obviously got some signal from her team because she got up and said “I’ll be right back and we can talk some more."
While she was having a whispered conference with her teammates, Owen signaled me to pull out my medallion as he displayed his. We continued eating while we waited for the border patrol commander’s return. She sat back down while looking at us very intently.
“Care to explain the magic marking on your SUV?" After a brief silence she added "Or how you got those?” pointing at our medallions.
I was about to answer her when she held up a hand and pointing at the boss asked "Does he talk?"
I waited a few seconds in case Owen wanted to reply. He just kept on finishing the last of his cheeseless, egg-white/mushroom omlette. (He really has some strange eating habits) I finally shrugged and said "Not much".
"So, strong silent type," she said while staring at the boss, "you gonna answer my questions or do we run you back to headquarters and let them sort it out.."
The boss put down his fork, wiped his mouth and pointed to the beadwork medalions. "Thomas Small Buck" he said. Then he pointed at SUV and said "Red Sky" then he looked at the commander and added "when we were at Lodge Grass"
Once again, I gotta say there was non-verbal communication going on with that look. It said "don't fuck with me" but it said it without any emotion. Does that make sense? It wasn't a threat-you never threaten cops unless you're trying to start something. Cops aren't built to take threats, no matter what you see on trid. At the same time it wasn't a request or an order. Cops don't deal well with those either.
It was kind of "I haven't been out of line here. You know it and I know it. You've been ruder than I have, I've no reason to fear you and I've taken as much testing as I'm going to take. You're not doing your job if you provoke exactly the type of trouble you're supposed to prevent". At the same time because there wasn't any emotional subtext, the commander couldn't summon up the righteous indignation of being confronted by a civilian assuming equality with the voice of authority (her's).
Ok, so maybe also the fact that Owen had droped the names of a Crow chief and powerful Sioux shaman, casually added that we had been on sacred land and knew its tribal name also had something to do with her change of attitude. I think it was mostly the non-verbal stuff, but, hell, I could be wrong. I continued to pay a lot of attention to the huevos rancheros on my plate.
I don't know for sure, of course, but I imagine the "lets-see-who's-the-biggest-dog-in-this-fight" part of the commander's brain lost to the "my-job-is-to-keep-the-peace" and "these-guys-might-be-important" portions. She got back up and signalled her squad to get back in their vehicles. It was obvious that some of her teammates were impiricists on the biggest dog question. Whether it was as a sop to them or her own ego, her parting shot was "We'll be keeping an eye on you."
I guess a part of my imagination ran away with scenarios of what could have happened if the commander had been a little less mature or her crew were a little less disciplined. Maybe part of my brain pictured how disasterous for travel a confrontation with a Sioux border patrol would be, even if we survived without major injury.
Whatever it was, when I paid for the meal I found my hand was shaking.
This story is copyright of the author. Shadowrun was a Registered Trademark of FASA Corporation until they went busto foldo. Now Wizkids LLC owns it. Or possibly FanPro. Or some other dragon owned subsidiary. Whoever holds the trademark, they didn't call and tell me it was ok to write this, and anybody who says I said that is full of it. I'm not challenging any of the rights or trademarks of anybody who own's them, whoever they are. I'm just writing stories. Honest. Thank you for not litigating.
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