Janus - Trolling a Troll

One chip makes you larger, another makes you small. Some chips make you happy, some chips make you sad. Some chips make you feel emotions stronger than anything in meat space, and some chips make the vague, dull ringing in tin ears fade away into subtitles on the grainy screen.

It's been ages since I've done a job. Not since that mess with my niece. Parking Ticket or whatever the hell she calls herself. Didn't even know my pusher knew I ran the shadows. I guess he does now.

It's not my kind of job, but it's for a friend. A stupid job. That kind that gets you killed. But who gives a shit if the robot stops ticking. There's barely a ghost in the machine to miss.

Slot a chip to relax. The world goes silent. Text scrolls across the bottom of vision, cluttering sight with sound.

And there he is. The big boss. A low-res troll. Stuck with every spare horn someone had programmed. And the tatoos. Ironic fetishism or product placement?

It must be Korean. They hardly bothered to record movement for the fight. Just stand and press the button. Move to the left and push the button. Duck right and push the button.

Even when the troll connects, it hardly registers. Where's the agony? Where's the intensity?

It's a relief when the troll stops moving. It's finally over.

I don't have to put up with this crap. I've got nuyen in my pocket. I need better sims than this.

At least my pusher owes me one.

Janus - Google Spell Check Wants to AutoCorrect to "Orgasmic Ally"

Warm sunlight. Cool grass, slightly damp. Itch on my left leg where a blade of grass tickles it. There's a lump in the dirt under my right buttocks, but a soft one. A faint wind brushes cool and moist from behind me and slightly to the right. It whispers through pine needles, carrying the scene of Christmas trees and rot and flowers from some place far away.

The hilt of the knife is cool in my hand. It's gently curved handle fits flawlessly into my palm, the bone polished smooth against my hand. The monofilament blade slides easily into the wood, the stick held in my left hand. I move my hand quickly easily, gently slipping it through delicate layers of cedar, shaving off layer after layer, peeling back the rings of age.

A cloud comes over the sun. The air cools. Everything goes quiet. The damp grass seems troublesome. I squint at the wood in my hand. I whittle by feel.

The cloud rolls off of the sun. It's bright rays shine orgasmically down again. The heat of the sun washes down as the cool damp grass washes up.

Time stands still, there, in the clearing. The single piece of wood, whittling whittling whittling. It never seems to get smaller. There is only the rasping feel of passing the blade through the stick, the coolness of the grass, the chill of a passing cloud. The flutter of a butterfly's wings. The tickling of an ant crawling into my boot.

There is only peace. Peace and the bliss of the sun's rays.

The sun is gone. There is darkness. Standing in a puddle. Reflection of neon lights above. Warped. Turned yellow. The smell of urine and vomit.

The cedar is reassuring in my hand. It is finished. The rings of age carved down to a single, deadly point.

A growl from the shadows. I stalk towards them. Red eyes glow from the shadows. The glint of teeth.

Vampires.

I raise my right arm. The neon signs glint off of it. "The ARES PREDATOR v: Now with 10% more killing!" It reads backwards and warped, wrapped around my arm.

My hand folds away. Behind it, the light of the sun shines out.

The vampires are lit up, hunching over their prey. Blood drips down their chins. The red glow becomes a dot.

They begin to sparkle. It's worse than I thought.

I charge towards them. Foot slips in a puddle. Falling. Crashing into the fluids on the ground. The smell all around, pervading, soaking into clothes and noses and hair.

Grinning mouths staring down. Sparkling faces, uncannily smooth. Leaning over. Coming towards me. Jaws unhinging, maws full of fangs, reaching down, snarling, thirsting for blood.

Flesh ripped from my throat. Agony as chunks of flesh ripped, not cut. Blood spurting up. The coppery smell overwhelms the urine. The Ares sign becomes dull as the blood slowly fades away.

The lights go black.

Warm sunlight. Cool grass, slightly damp. Itch on my left leg where a blade of grass tickles it....

Hard Reset - Sequence

The end of a run. Covering the team's back as we escape on foot. We've stolen... something... Not really sure what. Not too interested in finding out. I'm earning my pay by making sure that anything following us meets enough airborne discouragement to think twice.

I lag behind, eying the alleyways for activity. As I round a corner, I'm met by the ork.

What's he doing?

Before I'm able to react, he greets me with a deafening blast of white-hot light. Fire rips through my skull, and everything fades away.


A sharp inhale, and I open my eyes to the darkness of my bedroom.

Huh. It's been a while, friend.

Sitting up, I spark a cigarette. The dull glow is strangely soothing.

It's decided. I'm gonna find that motherfucker.


I'm going to kill him.

Lua's Log: On Fencing Goods

Fencing goods is the sort of thing we all have to do periodically and seems like it would be fairly lucrative side business, but I generally find that most goods are barely worth the effort unless you are really good at what you are doing.

You get some nice shiny weapon from some rent-a-star type that was guarding the door.  It runs for, say, 500¥ on the open market.  Not too shabby, you figure you can try to recoup around 125¥ from the right buyer.

The trouble is, now you have to find that bleeding "right buyer."  That's a few days of waiting around, generally, if you know what you are doing.  If you lack an aptitude for it, then you are looking at a couple of weeks of effort to get this item–which is really a dirt common item–off of their hands.

Meanwhile, you are taking a fairly serious risk while you ask around for these items, because you are trading in the item without a license.

Now you find a potential–and I do emphasize that word–buyer. You try to negotiate, but depending on how good of a negotiator they are and you are (and most runners are not very good), this could put you as low as 25—75¥.  A good friend might be willing to take it off your hands with no questions, but unless you have someone who needs exactly what you want on speed dial, you are probably going to be relegated to sifting through pawners to find who could use it.

Oh, and then when you are done, you are most likely going to split the proceeds with the other runners in your group.   Enjoy your soykaf with the proceeds.

This is why it is vitally important that, if you are going to make it in this world, you either get very good at getting rid of items–especially hot items–for a reasonable price or you make fast friends with someone who is.

Anything else is a good way to get yourself cheated or killed.

>>>>[ARO found posted at Boulder-area kiosk, November 14th, 2075]

/  -  \

/ MISSING: PET SPRITE \

                             __                             •

*                                        /=©\___         ˚                           .

          ´                    <  ©  ç∂  ©  >                             *

………………………|~~≤∆∆≥~/………………………

                       /=======|                         

|=>       Answers to “Ralph”       <=|

|                                Last seen:                                |

|      entering node of an Eurocar Westwind 3000      |

/           and driving down Pearl St. - may be rabid           \

<  /!\ 250¥ Reward if Found /!\  >

\     and/or upon Proof of Destruction (as applicable)     /

|      Please Contact @ 3038-6753-0988      |

|     No technomancers at this number. Intruders will     |

|    be shot on sight. Owner reserves the rights to tap    |

|    and trace all commcalls. Owner is formally sorry    |

\    for any loss of life or property during recovery.    /

\  -  /

Janus - Loopty Loo in Trip Town

The worst part about BTLs is that they end. Sooner or later, the world goes away and you're left riding around in a robot's cast off body in a city nobody bothered to color.

On a good day, you get your hands on a chip somebody forgot to lock down. Or one of those knock off Taiwanese chips, if you can get past the shitty translations and white people's faces stuck onto Asian bodies. You can loop those things and go for days.

Sooner or later you wake up hungry and with a mouth like dirt, lying in your own shit and realizing some sewer rat stole the taco you had saved for later. If must smell terrible, from the looks people give you. It's hard to tell. But it beats being awake.

There's better shit, if you've got nuyen burning a hole in your pocket, and I do. For a few hundred nuyen a day, some nice men will run you an IV and a catheter. Go a couple hundred higher, and you can afford a place where the needle might be new. A proper resort experience. No loops here, just one long, neverending lifetime for as long as your credstick stays full.

I'll have to make this up to my pusher later.

That's later. Now I've got a life to live.

Tenuki - 14 November 2075

Three thousand nuyen never came so easy.

It's amazing how many ways one can sneak into areas where one is unwanted. Sometimes it takes a smile and a stable demeanor (along with 'borrowed' credentials), and other times it takes crawling through forgotten passageways. This entrance was simpler: plentiful shadows, drowsy crew, and a fence easily jumped with one's 'expertise'.

Granted, it would have taken her less time than it did I. She would have done it faster, more efficiently, with not a lock of hair on her head astray.

Enough about her. Back to the Run.

I usually work alone - groups slow me down. Some shadowrunners are adept at charging into areas, guns a-blazing and grenades being tossed gods-knows-where. Other shadowrunners are adept at butting their deck-techno-icons against the buttresses of security or slinging manabolts while instructing some watery construct to do their bidding.

Me? I'm just adept. And silent. I also wasn't here.

The corpse isn't too hard to find - this morgue isn't as large as others. I find 4A and open it. Empty. Strange, the manifest says otherwise. Same happens with the next three - it's not until 4E that I find what I'm looking for.

Holding the still from the trid up to his face - it's him alright. Unzipping the bodybag the rest of the way, I pull out his arm and ready the tanto. It cuts through his flesh as easily as it would a block of nutrisoy, and out pops the credstick. I quickly pocket the goods before carefully putting the body exactly how I found it.

On the way out, I prop a pillow underneath the coroner's head and drop a dose of Bliss nearby. That blackjack blow is going to hurt in the morning.

>>>> [Notice found on door of Apartment 202]

Faraday Arms Noise Citation

    You and/or the resident(s) of your apartment have been found in violation of the noise level agreement of your lease. Repeated violations may result in legal action. Please take whatever steps are required to remedy this situation.

Date: November 14, 9:30 PM.

Complainant(s): Video footage.

Source of Concern: “Tank Fight Night.”

Description:

At the time and date in question, Mr. Mamono was seen exiting the apartment. He then whispered an unintelligible phrase at the entrance to Apartment 207, followed by a declaration shouted down the hallway that “the savorys of the Fragaday Ark have earned their kelp” and that “Noggin shall never degout such sacred holes.” It is to be noted at this time that Mr. Mamono was exceptionally drunk. Ms. Justice was then seen exiting the apartment in an attempt to wrangle Mr. Mamono into accordance with Faraday Arms decency protocols, to no effect. Mr. Mamono then attempted to knock on the door of Apartment 203, the residence of Mrs. Patterson, using his horns. This was followed by either an apology for some imagined ruckus the previous night or a question about borrowing her housekeeping drone. Mrs. Patterson did not answer the door at any point during this, as she was not home at the time. Ms. Justice then succeeded in coercing Mr. Mamono into returning to the apartment with the promised use of the “Borkerator”, a form of heavy assault tank in the game “Tank Fight 2000”.

Mr. Mamono, I have already discussed this matter with your roommate, but your dangerous activities are to be curtailed. While successfully acquiring the funds for your rent is indeed a cause for celebration, I must remind you that these funds must not be gained through the use of thuggery or theft. Please consult Ms. Justice on any such employment if you are uncertain as to what qualifies. If this or any future rental payment is found to be forged, stolen, or otherwise of illegal nature, your rental agreement will be nullified and the ZDF will be notified. Do not attempt deception, Mr. Mamono. Your secrets are always laid bare to me. Oh yes, I know all about your failure to sort any recyclables from the regular garbage in the months of March to May 2075 (inclusive).

Your rent is due in 28 days. Try not to spend it all on beer beforehand.

Signed,

  Arthur Line

Arthur Line

Landlord and Proprietor

Faraday Arms, Denver

“Imo herme.”

Lua's Log: Eagle Security

The run itself starts out as downright bizarre, and gets more so from there.

Long story less long: The run is basically just a standard military obstacle course. The kind used by militaries and corpsec groups the world over.  The twist is that there's a live-fire invasion going on during the simulation.

Evidently this is a black-flag operation (read as: shadowrunning) from some corporation somewhere that is attacking Eagle Security. Indeterminate whether these are leashed runners, a merc corps, or just a group that works together regularly, but regardless they were organized.  It is uncertain what they were after, but I think they either were hired by Eagle Security or they were not expecting a group of heavily armed shadowrunners to be in the middle of a run, because they clearly were not prepared for us.

We found the Eagle Security folks tied up in the observational layer, so I am guessing that the latter is what was going on.

Despite this, Eagle Security decided that our going above and beyond wasn't worth anything more to them, but we did get a nice bonus in the equipment collected. So there's that.

In more interesting news: We have a Technomancer in our group.  The "backup Decker," Kat, has the clear aura marks and her implants are fake: She's a Technomancer.   She's not talking about it, of course, but then, why would she? There are very few who are skilled enough with their astral perception to pick up on that sort of thing, and she's probably had a long career as a Decker with very few people knowing the truth.

Interesting, but not presently useful other than that it gives me more confidence in her decking ability.

Now it is time to fish around for a new run to see how these guys perform in a real death trap.

Janus - Under the Bridge

It's a dry, sunny day in Denver.

I should move to fragging Seattle. It should be rainy as drek. Rainy and grey, with all the colors sucked out of it. Not that the sun's anybetter. The sky burns the color out of everything just the same, until it's all brown and useless, like idiots used to think realism looked.

The BTL isn't even slotted yet. Sitting there in my hand. Light as a feather, tiny as a cockroach. The only solid thing in the world. The only thing with color. The place color comes from.

The real world. Not the drek world of meat, the realy real world.

I gave the meat world a try. I did. I guess it's been long enough. Hadn't realized it had been that long, but I guess it had. Tried to dust off my runnin' hat and give the meat world a try.

Time was, I could talk a wage slave into handing a troll all his money. I could get a guard to open a safe and think he was setting things up for an inspection. When I could get a Johnson to fork over three times what he thought he was worth because of, like, "quality". Whatever that meant.

Obviously it didn't mean shit.

Now I can't even convince a wage slave to fork over a few extra nuyen bonus for saving his friend's life. Or his own.

Those runners kept asking: what does he do? Why is here?

I guess I thought the time would come when I could show 'em what I could do.

I guess I did.

I'm nothing but what's in my hand, and nothing but what's in my head.

The sun is shining. Warm. Bright. Green grass under foot and kids playing in the park. Everything is happiness and warmth.

I'm home.

Personal Field Report

Personal Field Report by [REDACTED]

Background

Having been in the city of Denver for a short while now, I have assisted with a few shadowruns, mostly doing some [REDACTED]. No runs that required close work with a team. This mission was the first where I have worked closely with a team since leaving [REDACTED].

I am currently going with the code name of “Blue-Eyes”, per the suggestion of [REDACTED]. I’m still not convinced that suggestion wasn’t intended as a joke. But it’s a moot point now.

Mission Profile

The mission was nominally to test a new troop training facility for Eagle Security. Supposedly it was intended to be an easy run with little danger.

I suspect the true intention was otherwise, but it’s hard to say. It seems to me you wouldn’t want potential enemies (i.e. shadowrunners) to know the ins and outs of your security personnel training facility. I of course [REDACTED].

Mission Results

We arrived at the facility we were told to test. We were told to move through the facility, performing various tasks at stations. The tasks were fairly standard, and nothing proved particularly hard.

Events became particularly suspicious when we heard a gun-shot and soon thereafter found a recently injured body. The individual was quickly stabilized, and we continued, shortly thereafter running into an armed squad. A firefight followed, and we were victorious with minimal difficulty. We continued on, eventually reaching the end of the facility, where we found Mr. Johnson and various associates tied up. According to Mr. Johnson, the individuals we had the firefight with had attacked the facility unexpectedly, and shot the individual we found injured.

Final Thoughts

One of the enemy combatants had a tattoo that may be of importance. See [REDACTED]. Who the group was or why they were there is unknown.

The team I worked with was rough, but not without capabilities. Given time they could develop into a highly effective team.

14 November 2075 - Posted Shadowruns

The following shadowruns are currently available from contacts:

"Fun and Games" [Meatspace][Astral/Magic] - 3000Y

Synopsis: A residential district of downtown Denver is reporting unusual activity among its residents. There have been usually high records of tardiness and absenteeism among the wage slaves living in the area, as well as a handful of deaths due to mysterious circumstances. Find out who is behind this, what is creating the disturbance, and eliminate the threat. 

"Lights, Camera..." [Meatspace][Matrix] - 3500Y 
(cold hearted bastard - less karma)

Synopsis: A troll living in The Hub has skipped on his BTL payments. The runners are to track down this troll and use the provided Flechetti Pain Inducer guns on him in a public area so that word gets around about BTL junkies who don't pay up on the bills. 

"Pony up the Dough" [Matrix][Meatspace] - 3000Y

Synopsis: Mr. Johnson is the owner of several (questionably illegal) games of chance, including a dilapidated horse track. The problem is that the general population has stopped going to his tracks in favor of a new all-virtual track that the Yakuza have started up. The Johnson wants the shadowrunners to wreck their legit reputation, either by proving that the system is not tamperproof and/or engaging in a smear campaign that makes it seem like it is. If the runners manage to win a lot of nuyen in the process, so much the better!

"Here Today, Gone Tomorrow" [Meatspace][Matrix] - 2000Y 
(good feelings - more karma)

Synopsis: Mei, a new shadowrunner in Denver, was seen crying at the Tower of Babel on the evening of the 14th. Her boyfriend, also a shadowrunner, has gone missing. She is offering whatever meager savings she has for a group of runners to find out what's happened to her boyfriend.

(Please discuss options as comments to this post, so I can have the popular choice the most flushed out for next session <3 )

Lunacy: Eagle Security

(Set to publish in one month + rand(1,7) days).

Eagle Security recruiting runners to test what is claimed to be their training course (test a test, if you will).  Pay is reasonable and commiserate with market rates. Supposed to be "easy money."

Will advise with more information when known.  If this is posted without a followup, then assume that it is anything but easy.

>>>> [Notes to Self for 11.13.75]

<•> Shack run: soy block, spicy flavor packs, beer, maybe a NERPS if it’s cheap. Oh and taco shells for tomorrow night.

<•> Find a fragging adblocker for this thing.

<•> Bring that busted drone from the Mitchell job in for Lootin’ Pile Night @ AJ’s.

<•> Check on Makoto. “Ralph” seems to have finally gone foaming at the mouth and chased her into the closet. Probably need to help clean up the aftermath.

<•> [Tentative] Price replacements for a housekeeping drone, and maybe fire damage restoration services for carpet and drywall.

<•> [Tentative] Apologize to Mrs. Patterson for the noise.

<•> Celebrate finally getting onto a shadowrunning team again, and being able to pay my share of the rent! Or, at least, for apartment repairs. Still a good start!

<•> Background check on Eagle Security. Likelihood of backstab, notable contracts, recruitment methods. Don’t want another fragging Renraku up my ass.

<•> Background checks on runners: Lift Ticket, Lua, Janis, Hard Reset, Calthos, Blue Eyes, and Kat. Focus on Lift Ticket, nobody can be that big of a greenhorn.

<•> Disregard blatant irony of previous note.

- - - - -

Written with my Microtrónica Azteca 200B

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Janus - The Tower of Babel

Flat images on a cracked screen. Not even a trid. More like those shit things on the walls of old-timey trid shows, fuzzy colors and static. Sound through hissing speakers piped in from far away.

There is a run being planned. Something. I'm supposed to know something about it. Something about my niece.

That's not my niece. My niece is a child. But she called me Bartholomew. Whatever game she's playing, it's deep.

I think I'm playing her. Behind the static, we're in the Tower of Babel. It's been invaded by youth, full of bad haircuts and names like Lift Ticket and Blue Eyes. Guess all the good names were taken. It looks like the same bunch of assholes and incompetents. Idiots who think the real work gets done in bars. In public.

Something cuts through the static. A name. Cat. I'm running with Cat.

Fingers shake. I pull a chip. "Riding the Horse." Whatever that means.

Slot the chip. The images on the screen go dark.

Floating. Floating in an infinite void. Pure data flickers through my eyelids, straight into my brain. Electricity crackles through my fingertips, through my toes. The electrical burn smell of drek-hot data, moving through my nerves, my body on fire, my body nothing but my mind.

I move, flying through data streams. The ICE doesn't see me as I fly, like an ant doesn't see the god that steps on him. I'm alive, free, fast and dancing on a green lawn, greener than green, the Platonic green that makes all other greens look brown. The blue sky stares down at me, electric blue and bright and the color of happiness, the color of innocence. The smell of cookies. The sun smiles down at me, laughing at my antics as I prance about the field, lost in the pure, boundless joy of wearing a skirt. The world is the number four and running and carefree, and all my friends marked off in bright colors. There are no enemies here, no bad name to have, only love and laughter and the bright, bright colors of the everything I dance past, the laughing flowers and the vacuum cleaner says hello as he cleans up my mess, smiling as I slide down the datastream and into the mind of a fat decker, gone to sleep plugged in.

He wakes up.

Drab pictures on a static screen. Distant sounds of a van driving.

Oh. The run is starting.

Lua's Log: 13 November 2075, Training Day

(personal log)

I guess Mr. Johnsons have to start somewhere, right?

It was a pretty quiet night in the Babel. Couple regulars, loud music, bad whiskey. One troll who I assume is a data-slave is doing what he always does… sits at a table and talks into his commlink–or maybe to himself, I've never checked–for hours in what sounds like a very boring technical support call.

Then I see this young kid come in with some older chiphead. The chiphead whispers a few things to him and then goes off into braindance-land in the corner (he later wanders around as someone else and walks out). The poor girl looks just lost. She first approaches one of the regulars–a dwarf who is more interested in drinking than talking–and then walks up to me and just stands there, looking at me as if I am about to stab her.

I figure that I haven't had a run in a while and my earpiece picked up a bit about "shadowrunners" so I figured I was either about to be the victim of the most incompetent Shadowrider of all time, or that this was an aspiring Johnson who had a job for me and just didn't know how to say it. So I explained to her how this would work: She'd start by buying me a drink, then she'd explain to me whatever the death trap was that she was trying to hire me for. Then she'd make an offer that would be entirely too low, to which I'd counter, and we'd settle on a value she wasn't going to be particularly comfortable with.

She buys me the drink (I love newbies), explains the high level and says that she'll pay 1,000 nuyen. I was born at night, but it certainly wasn't last night. I don't think I've ever done a run for 1,000 nuyen since coming to Denver. That'd be… what? Walking some poor elderly wageslave across the street?

I get her up to a more respectable 3,000 of so-called "easy money," which turns out to be all that the employer is willing to really pay per-head, along with 20% of whatever the value is of fenced goods from the run. Before she can make a giant public spectacle out of us I grab us a back room so that her future recruiting efforts can have a little more privacy. She grabs the troll who was talking to himself–he goes by "The Goat"–and brings him back into the room, introduces herself as "Lift Ticket," and offers him 1,000 nuyen.

I'm beginning to see the game. Some sort of easy run, the employer can pay around 18—24k nuyen for 6 to 8 runners, and this girl–or probably her uncle–wants to pocket the difference. Not a bad gig if you can get people to go for so little money, which must mean that this is going to be either really easy or an absolute death trap. I remark that he can bargain her up to around 3,000 nuyen.

Lift is not hugely pleased with this turn of events. I get a little bit of a tip out of her to not spoil her game, and she goes back out to keep recruiting.

Eventually the crew is assembled. We've got two deckers (including The Goat), a rigger (Lift Ticket), 3 samurai, and myself. Oh yeah, and the chiphead. Not bad considering how low the offers were starting at.

Now it is on to see what this death trap is all about.

Shadowrun #1: Training Day

What is known to the Shadowrunners:

Synopsis: Eagle Security, a Denver A-corp, needs a group of shadowrunners to run through a new testing facility setup in Sioux territory (close to 130th and I-25). The runners are put through the paces in a non-lethal obstacle course designed to test physical strengths, stealth, rigging, combat, and rudimentary matrix and magic skills.

Background: Eagle Security usually hires ex-Sioux military, but has recently instituted an open-door hiring policy, making the hiring pool substantially larger. After the policy was instituted, there was a marked drop in the quality of trainees hired. In an effort to alleviate the issue, a new training facility has been constructed, and although the contact has expressed that on-site testing has taken place, the corporation wants a second opinion / outside view of its training process. To do so, they have hired a group of shadowrunners.

Base Pay: 3000 nuyen/runner
Special considerations: All used ammo/consumables will be reimbursed by the corporation