Street Legends and other lies

One of the reasons for our break was due to the death of our regular Johnson. I liked Ares Johnson, but I really didn't know what was going to come next, especially given the mess that lead to his demise. So when a new Areas Johnson just walked into the firehouse (I just realised that I haven't written anything here about the firehouse. I should, because it's pretty amazing) we were rather surprised for a number of reasons. Not the least of which is we have no idea how Ares knew were we lived, so holy crap what the hell security.

New Ares Johnson. He's... enthusiastic

Anyway, the new Johnson was... Enthusiastic to restart our working relationship, to say the least. Actually, he was pretty damned excitable about just about everything full stop, which is one of those traits that can be good or bad in a Johnson. To get the ball rolling, he offered us a simple job; tunes out that our old friends the Rusted Stilettos have been getting their hands on shipments of factory fresh Krime weapons as well as a fresh supply of drugs, and he wanted to find out how and why. It seemed a little odd - we couldn't immediately see his angle in this or what he was getting out of it - but we took the job regardless because hey, money is good.

Filler post is Filler

It's been a while, I know. I would say that I’ve been busy with Runs and stuff, but the truth is we've been on a bit of a break after the whole Pierce fiasco and the fallout from it. More than a little of that has been focused on what to do about that Reraku Johnson who was behind it all. We've come up with several plans, but most of them amount to 'snipe him while he's on the deck of his boat', 'blow his boat up with him on it' and 'snipe him while he's on the deck of his boat and then blow it up to be sure', but they all have common issues of getting the chance to kill him and also making sure that Renraku don’t come after us too. The good news is that they haven't taken a shot at us so far either, but while this guy is out there, it's hard to feel completely safe.

I also remain broken up with Alphonso. He's taken to asking his mechanic (Dave) to ask Freddie to ask me to call him. Not gonna work. You had your chance, chummer, and you blew it big time.

Digital Apotheosis

Nothing to do with anything, but I broke up with Alphonso. Turns out I wanted a stable mature long-term relationship and he wanted a trophy Shadowrunner girlfriend he could show off to all his racer buddies. His loss.

So that aside, let's talk Pierce. Thanks to Neon's efforts, we know how to kill him. Disrupt him in the Matrix, then take out the device that he uses as his refuge when he flees there to recompile. Of course, that means fighting a Crazy Digital Murder God in their native environment as well as then walking into what was doubtless going to be a well-prepared, well-defended secured facility that would be on alert and ready for us. Easy, huh?

This outcome is probably inevitable

So we have a plan to kill Pierce, and I mean kill-kill him. Disrupt him in a way that means he can’t recompile or bring himself back or the other things that Crazy Digital Murder Gods do in order to keep themselves from dying. And it needs to be done, While we’ve disrupted his operations, cost him his allies, killed his crazy bug cultists and ruined their ritual and all that, he’s still active and functional and out there, and he’s still a threat. Killing him is the only way to stop him from coming back and trying some other insane stunt in the name of Dr Okabe’s mutli-stage beyond the grave revenge plan.

The theory is simple. We know where his ‘safe haven’ is, where the device is that he’s designated as a place to fall back to if he’s ever disrupted and needs to recompile. The idea is that we disrupt him on the Matrix and damage him enough that he has to fall back to it, and then once he has we bust in there and destroy everything so he can’t come back at all. That’s it, end of story, no more Crazy Digital Murder God out to get us all or blow up the city or whatever else.

Crimson Dawn (part 4)

Deep breath

Clam

Relax

Remember where you are and who you’re pretending to be

This is easy. You can do this

“Welcome to Vendor Mammoth, my name is Ashley. How can I help you?” The stock greeting had all its usual false cheer and enthusiasm, but a perceptive customer, one who’s assessment of her didn't just begin and end at ‘cute Elf girl’ would have noticed an edge to it, one that was at odds with the attempt to greet the customer, create a friendly atmosphere and encourage them to spend their hard earned money on cheaply made, low-quality products.

Those perceptive individuals might have observed just a hint of resentment, a touch that suggested that the cheer was just as superficial as everything else in the store. They would have been able to tell that her feelings towards the customer wasn’t just the usual bland indifference born of a greeting that was spoken not out of any desire to show them kindness but a requirement of her continued employment.

So stupid he's dangerous

He is the Anti-Sexy

There’s a saying that a man is measured by the quality of his enemies. I’ve never got that myself; in the Shadows, it’s best if you don’t have any personal enemies at all, so how’s someone supposed to measure you by that standard? But there’s one other reason as to why I don’t like that turn of phrase, and that’s because one of our own enemies is a pretty low standard to measure anyone by

Buzz-Bomb was ugly, greedy, cowardly, petty, vengeful beyond all reason, incompetent and, above all else, pretty damned stupid. He also became our enemy largely because of his ability to not leave well enough alone and instead make a bad situation even worse by whatever means possible. If there was a way to dig himself into a deeper hole, then he would find it.

He was an Elf Rigger, but I must admit that I have my doubts on the first pat. I mean, he was ugly, with a nasally voice and weird teeth and the like. That’s not very Elf-y to me, and I should know, right? Personally I’ve always thought that he was a poser, which meant that he paid good money to end up looking like this. It would fit if only because it would make him that extra bit lamer.