Sim Hell (Remastered)

I hate the foundation.

But we had to go there anyway in order to kill Pierce, so I really had no other option. And so, Me, Freddie, Neon and Captain Cancer (Best not to ask where he came from) plummeted into it, knowing full well that we'd end up having to navigate nonsense dream logic in order to find the nodes and their connections. In theory all we needed to do was indentify the control node and then interact with it to destroy the hose. Of course, since it could be anything and the interaction could be anything, that just meant we were casting a very wide net.

We got an eleventh hour call from Dayglo, which was her asking for help to go reclaim the spirit of the Brooklyn Bridge form Aztechnology for some random neo-anarchist reasons. We said 'yeah, that's nice, will totally get on it' in a way that was a massive brush-off and instead asked her to watch Nobosuke Yamura’s yacht. With that minor obstacle out of the way, we jacked in.

Open plan offices: the Runner's worst nightmare

So in order to stop this while Crazy Digital Murder God CFD conspiracy thing, we needed to steal a piece of prototype software from a NeoNET research facility. While that does seem to be a pretty routine run, there were some caveats (of course) that meant it would be a hell of a lot harder.

The biggest problem was that the research facility in question was within NeoNET's New York headquarters. That meant that security was going to be super-tight and the instant that the shooting started there would be HTR teams on their way. And I don’t mean 'coming straight from the district HQ' on the way, more of the 'they're within the building' on their way which meant that we'd have an escape window so slim as to be near impossible. And while I know I could take them, there were issues like the fact that we wouldn't have Drone support and that I'd have to drag Neon through the line of fire.

So that ruled out the go in shooting approach, as fun as it would have been, Instead, it was time for something a bit more subtle.

The curse of the flaming luchadore

So after being caught in the middle of the dick waving war between NeoNET and Renraku (And me maybe spending a couple of nights at cool New York clubs dancing with cute dumb Elf guys), we managed to get ourselves back on course for our main job that had bought us to New York in the first place. Our investigation of the missing people had turned up teo more "persons of interest" that were still uncounted for either way, which was quickly turning into our only real avenue of investigation. Of course, since both were Shadowrunners, it meant that being hard to find was key to the lifestyle, which was going to make things a little difficult.

Of the two names we had, one held a little more promise than the other, even if the pair were loosely affiliated. Crashdud was a decker who kept a low profile, even by Runner standards, so that wasn't much help. On the other hand, El Fiendo proved to be a lot easier to find Information on given that he was a rather... colourful individual, again, even by Runner standards.

Crimson Dawn (part 16)

Crimson had never made it clear why she only ever met her fixer after hours. Telling him that it was because she didn’t get long enough on her lunch break just simply sounded so earth-shatteringly lame that she could barely bring herself to admit it. So whenever she was at the bland downtown Soycaf shop buying bland Soycaf, it was always well after dark. Fortunately, the place was open twenty-four hours to accommodate customer needs to get something better then Stuffer Shack, which gave her some flexibility.

Even though this was the heart of safe, bland, sanitised corporate downtown, she couldn't help but glance around as she waited for him to arrive. Maybe it was Slicer's training getting to her, but it was something she was more and more feeling the need to do. Size up the place, look for threats and make sure there was nobody about to geek you. It sounded paranoid, bit that sort of thinking had kept him alive for decades in a business that tended towards a short life expectancy.

Sixth World theme parties

There is nothing more dangerous then a wounded Megacorp. If one is in trouble, then the others will step up their actions against it, eager to exploit the weaknesses. Aty the same time, that corp will also lash out on its own, trying to buy time and cover their own problems by making things worse for the others. This means a lot of work for people like me, mind you, though it tends to be in the 'high risk' category. That'll happen when you're dealing with people who have nothing to lose.

NeoNET is very much in a bad place right now. While they've done their best to keep their lid on what's happening in Boston, the loss of their headquarters and a huge chunk of their resources contained within is hurting them bad. Renraku has been getting particularly vicious, given that the two companies have a rivalry going back to the old days of Fuchi (Cue Lightspeed being old and Cranky). And we've been getting involved in it.

Protection detail is annoying

It's an old Runner cliché that Mister Johnson will always betray you. It actually happens a lot less then Runner folklore would have you believe, and when it does, it's often more by accident then any deliberate effort to screw you over; a hold in their intel, an unexpected turn of events or the like. I'm not saying that Johnsons are trustworthy, mind you. Anything but. They're still corp suits and they still need their companies to make money, and so if leaving your team dead in a ditch will help them, then they won't hesitate to do it.

And then you have those times when the Johnson is actually on the level, but it's the actual run that is all over the place. This last one I was on was a perfect example thereof.

Minster had been contacted by Willard Johnson, the NeoNET suit that he had worked for before (and apparently had a good relationship with). W. Johnson had a protection job for him that was a bit bigger than his usual one-man deal, so he had in turn come to us for some support. This lead to me, Minster and Neon meeting W. Johnson and getting the details of the job.

Crimson Dawn (part 15)

It was drizzling when Crimson reached the arranged meet, the thick clouds and rain making the blinking neon signs and bright lights of the Tourist district seem even brighter. As he'd suggested she was travelling light, carrying only her concealed pistol for the moment. She parked her bike and headed towards their meeting spot, a grimy storefront several doors down from a club,

Even as she approached, Crimson could tell that there was something wrong with Slicer. The older Elf was glancing around, as if he was waiting for something and not in a good way. His mood, his stance, his entire look said that he was nervous and anticipatory, like he was expecting disaster at any moment. When she approached, he turned to face her, but not without sparing a backwards glance across the street.

"So what's up?" She asked, her tone almost impatient.

Crimson Dawn (Part 14)

The sounds of gunfire and the sprays of chipped cement from stray shots might have only been ARO objects, but they definitely were adding to the urgency of the situation. "Got two behind that wall ahead," she sent to Slicer, indicating towards a row of broken cement halfway across the vacant lot. "Possibly a third."

"Understood," Slicer nodded. "They're between us and the exit too."

"Where's my damned drone support?" Crimson replied as she glanced over at both her partner and Outrun who was squatting behind the same wall as the pair of them.

"I guess the company sees me as too valuable to lose," Outrun commented. "Despite the magnificent work you've done so far in extracting me. Clearly you have a talent for this, my lady."

"Slicer, hit him if he talks again," she muttered. "I got to get us out of this mess"

Rock Lords, interior decoration and Tea Houses. Find the connection

Freddie and Wraith were off doing stuff (Freddie was looking into Street Races or something and Wraith? Well Lofwyr alone knows) when we got two job offers drop in our lap at once. I figured that Yens are good, so I looked into them a bit further. The first one was coming from a Renraku Johnson so I was immediately 'Nope nope nope nope no way in hell." Seriously. I never want to work for themn again ever.

The second one was odd that it came to Captain Cancer of all people, and was passed to him through a strange source. The request for a meeting had been delivered via a local weirdo called - and no, I am not making this up - the Ballard of Pudding Quest. The guy had apparently heard of Captain Cancer, even if the good Captain had never heard of him. Added to that, the meeting was going to be in, of all places, a tea house in Chinatown. Yeah, getting stranger by the minute.

Phones, Drones and Automobiles

Okay, still fuming over the whole "Pierce" thing, but at least I'm a bit more settled. This summary will be somewhat more coherent, at least.

Our investigations into the matter were somewhat sidetracked when Dayglo pointed out the fact that we hadn't gotten paid in some time and that giant elaborate penthouse apartments don't pay for themselves. This much was true; we'd been doing waaaaaay too many unpaid jobs of late looking into this, so some money would be good. Plus I was personally itching for something to do that wasn't related to this whole trainwreck. So when Dayglo said that she had a potential job lines up, I was all over it.

That moment when you wish you'd geeked somebody when you had the chance

Word of warning. After the events of the last couple of days I am so angry that it is going to be very hard for me to give an even remotely coherent summary. So yeah. If there’s huge gaps in this summary I don't frakking care.

This whole terrible downhill slide began in the aftermath of our execution of Teh Dave and the mess with Doctor Hughes. The SK Johnson had asked Us to follow through with racking down everyone he had infected, which then meant finding the people that Teh Dave's underpaid bar staff had sold the CFD bombs to. All of which was resulting in a massive headache-inducing mess of people to track down and find out just how badly they had been infected and how heavily subverted they were.

The good news is that Teh Dave had a list of all the people he had infected. With Minster's aid, we were able to compare that to Runners he knew in New York and find out who were on the known to be missing list. From what we had found, some were more vulnerable to the infection then others, most notably those with more augmentations. Of those he’d infected, we found only two that were still missing and unaccounted for, which is good after a fashion.

Crimson Dawn (part 13)

Every time Ashely clocked off at Vendor Mammoth, it was with no small sense of relief. It meant that once again she had escaped the purgatory of idiot customers, idiot workmates, piped muzak and constant looped safety announcements of the latest alleged bargains for the day, and that she would be free to live her life a little for the next few hours. Or, at least, until she next stepped back through the gates of hell itself to live out her endless torment of greeting customers with a false smile.

What made today's release feel even more like a blessing was a message from Slicer on her comm, arranging a meet for tomorrow night. What was unusual was that he was asking her to come to the same detract facility that she'd been training at before. Maybe he's just skipping a step, she considered as she sent back a reply, indicating that she'd be there.

And so, one very boring day later, Crimson arrived at the site in question, her mind racing with the possibilities of what could be there. Even then, what she found was quite unexpected. Slicer was there, but his Rapier was now parked next to a row of other racing bikes. With him were a half dozen humans, male and female, and what a rather awkward-looking Elven man. Each of them were dressed in biker leathers, adorned with red and white stripes and each carrying one of the training rifles.

Demon Rats are the worst thing ever

This is a great place for a covert meeting, and is very relaxing
to boot

The meeting Me, Freddie and Neon set up with the SK security boss went well. She chose a nice cafe with real coffee that was by Central park, which added a charming old-world atmosphere to our discussions of espionage, intrigue and attempts to deliberately induce a large-scale pandemic. We explained what we had found and then arranged to safely hand over the CFD tablets that Teh Dave had been using. She said she'd have them analyzed to find out more about them and, hopefully, where they came from. We also explained his supply chain and how it went back to a man we thought was with Renraku. She offered to investigate further.

As we were wrapping up there, Dayglo told us that she had a job and arranged a meeting. Her contact was from Renraku (Funny that) and wanted to meet us in the middle of Central Park. (How very Cold War!) She was rather open with us about what she was after, given that this was a job of opportunity and was definitely on a limited timetable. What had happened was that Doctor Abigail Hughes, a researcher at Mindstorm Neurotechnologies had vanished, and she wanted to find out where they were and, if possible extract them.

In other words, somebody at the same company that we had just foiled an attack on. Funny that.

A pain in the (robo) pants

So after the arse-up at the end of the last run, Minster was left babysitting Slayer for a few days until Walter Johnson got back. Given the spare time now on our hands, we took it upon ourselves to get back to the investigation that we'd come to New York for in the first place. Fortunately, we'd found ourselves something that resembled a lead, courtesy of the rather distinctive missing runner Robopants. She'd worked with two others in past, Mudbug and Ripstar, and we knew where to find the latter.

Ripstar hung out at the Link Club. She was an Ork street racer who ran with a tricked-out Americar and liked to use it to swindle Corp kids out of their expensive rides. Based on this, we told Freddie to take the lead, given that the pair of them had a lot in common, like a love of driving fast in unlikely vehicles. At first he hit it off, with the pair of them talking about (what do you know) street racing, and her recognizing him from several vids that got out of Seattle. They even went out for a practice race which Freddie won, clearly impressing her.

Sadly, he tried turning the conversation to Shadowrunning, only to fumble it badly. She told him to push off.

Babysitting with Battleaxes

Despite the temptation to lounge around in the pool in our penthouse apartment (You would too, admit it), we had actually made some progress on the investigation that had bought us to New York in the first place. For starters, we had a name for the creepy ripper doc we'd spied on. What we found interesting is that yes, Doctor Sleep was indeed a ghoul, but people seemed to be okay with going to him no less. I know I sure as hell wouldn’t, and that was before we did some more digging to give us good evidence that he was still using dangerous (ie, CFD vector) techniques in his surgery.

We knew that Full Otto had been to see him for gene therapy treatments (in his case, to deal with Cybernetic Rejection. The irony, it burns), but Fast Pig hadn’t. On the other hand, it's also possible that Fast Pig could have been infected vua Full Otto, so yeah. Neon managed to pull his records, which while they were full of dates, visits, procedures, augmentations and the like, were also full of very obvious aliases. However, she was able to rig up a facial recognition program that would match footage of his visitors. Of course, that still meant tracking them down.

Where even the architecture tries to kill you

Our trip to New York has managed to be full of surprises, both good and bad. This last run was no exception, although I'm going to say the good won out this time for a number of reasons.

We'd gotten nicely settled in to our new hideout, with any lingering concerns over Full Otto's rather unexpected demise somewhat offset by the fact that we live in an awesome penthouse abetment with swimming pool, gym, massive lounges, massive bedrooms and whatever else. You know, the little things. However, we did need work to help support our luxurious lifestyle, as well as the job that had bought us to New York in the first place. Dayglo had found us something that looked to be fast and financially very lucrative.

Crimson Dawn (part 12)

Slicer had called Ashely while she was at work (Staff weren't allowed to use Commlinks while on the floor except for work purposes), leaving behind a rather short and almost erse message for her to meet him at his place that evening. While that wasn't unusual in and of itself, what had struck her was the way he was handling it. Usually he gave her more notice, and usually his approach was more suggesting or asking then the almost demanding tone she was getting here.

None the less she was still eager to go. It wasn't just that every little bit helped bring her further and further into the world of the Shadows and the life she so craved that id it. It was the fact that, at the same time, every little step made Ashley's life seem just that extra bit more unbearably bland and dull. With nights filled with action, violence, excitement and danger, a day of telling customers where to find toilet paper and about this week's sale on Soy Chips seemed even more banal then ever.

Welcome to New York

New York is the city that never sleeps and where everything happens at once. That certainly seemed to be the case when our flight touched down at Empress Hitomi airport (Stupid Shiawase ruins everything. Megacorp history proves this point). As soon as me, Freddie, Neon and Captain Cancer were off the plane, we were approached by s guy offering us a job. See, New York.

Teh Dave, as he introduced himself, had apparently heard about is from my fixer. He immediately assumed that Freddie was in charge because of his "thick and authoritative moustache" (In all fairness, I will give him that; Freddie does have a pretty awesome 'stache) and opened negotiations. He did seem to be a bit surprised when I took over, even when both Freddie and I pointed out that I was the team leader. You can tell this relationship is already off to a great start.

Community Warfare

Recoil. Likes: Shotguns and Chilli sauce.
Dislikes: Talking about her old team

We're now on our way to New York. Of course, before we got there a lot of things decided that they were going to resolve themselves at once on us in the most messy way they could, because you can't just walk away and hope that things will just go away on their own. Nope, it's never that simple. Instead it has to be one massive clusterfrag of everything going wrong at once.

Stepping back a bit, we were getting ready for the trip to New York. Packing was proceeding well, and Recoil the house-sitter was settling in nicely. And by that I mean she was sitting on the couch playing video games with Benny. Turns out that she's really good at tactical shooters, which meant the pair of them were really enjoying co-op mode. And she'd already does a guest appearance on one of Benny's "Unboxing the Video Game and the pizza" vids, so clearly all was going well.

Crimson Dawn (Part 11)

The address that Crimson's fixer had given her was, at first glance, entirely unremarkable. The Belleview neighborhood was a nice, anonymous, middle-class one, filled largely with corp wageslaves living their boring corp wageslave lives; certainly it was a far cry from the Barrens neighborhoods where she’d so far spent the majority of her Shadowrunner career. Save for a discrete codelock on the door, the storefront looked like any other in the suburban strip mall she was currently strolling through.

The whole thing was rather missable, but if a person knew what to look for, they’d also see that there was something inside that somebody wanted people to keep away from. Not that it bothered Crimson at all as she pressed the button on the intercom. "Name and business?" The curt, clearly artificial voice on the other end began.

"Kaitlyn Vermelho. I have an appointment." A flick of her commlink sent the code her Fixer had provided to the system.

Never deal with a company run by a dragon either

Gah. Not sure how the hell I'm going to write up the last few days. I am so angry on so many levels and feel a need to punch people around me a lot so maybe, just maybe, this will help.

Okay, stepping back. We'd gotten back from Atzlan and operation screw people over to double dip on the pay. Things had been pretty quiet since then. I'd been getting more and more quietly frustrated because, while I’m flush with cash, I’m also very much nearing the end of my upgrade cycle on my Augmentations. Most of them are at the a stage where improving them will eat more essence then I have (my Cyberdoc pointed me to an essence calculator app) to the point where whenever I add an item to the list and the result is 'you're dead'. My best bet is to go backwards and then start replacing what I have with the same thing only in an higher grade. Either that or somehow manage to gain access to Deltaware. Not likely.

So to blow off steam I’d been spending a lot of time clubbing and making sure I avoided anywhere that Blindsite might be because that would be so many levels of awkward. It also meant that I was spending very little time at home.

Crimson Dawn (part 10)

Jimmy the Knife knew that he was destined for the big time. He was a made man, a big player in the GIanelli family, one who commanded respect already, even at such a tender and young age. And while he was still on the up and up, everybody knew that he was going places. It was just a matter of time, they said; one day soon he was going to get charge of one of their big operations in Pullyup, and then he'd be set for life.

Right now, however, his glorious future wasn't what was occupying his mind in the middle of the packed Redmond club. What had occupied his attention was a gorgeous, red-haired Elf girl whose dress clung to her in all the right places. He'd spied her on the dance floor and hadn’t been able to take her eyes off her since, instead watching her every move and the way that the shapes under that dress moved with her.

Luchadores make everything better

Well, I'm now officially broken up with Blindsite too. We both came to the conclusion that we couldn't trust the other, and we couldn't say things that would make us trust the other without compromising the jobs we'd done and, in my case, the rest of the team. So next thing I know we're both walking away and I did tear up more than a little in front of him.

Okay, and I might have ended up locking myself in my room and burying myself under my pillows for a bit as well.

While that little dramafest was unfolding, we got offers for two jobs more or less at the same time. Captain Cancer got a call from Ion about a job that was related to the whole Aztechnology Unusual Acquisitions thing he'd been looking in to. The Johnson in question turned out to be the head of Unusual Acquisitions (so the same guy that Abbey and I robbed, for those of you keeping track) who was looking to us to acquire something unusual (as one can imagine).

More dangerous acquaintances

It’s been a while since I did a round-up of people we know (for better or for worse) and a lot has happened since then. Alphonso being no longer my boyfriend is about the least important, actually (Unless you’re his nuts or his car), which means that there's actually a lot of ground to cover.

Not pictured: BBQ sauce

I'll start with the one who is, at least to my mind, the most important at the moment. Mark Hawkins is an Ares Johnson who's very... Enthusiastic. That's probably the best way to put it, He's loud, he's bombastic, he's outgoing and he claims to be on our side. He also says he’s trying to work for the good of the people and make life better for those in the Barrens, which is all well and good in theory. In practice it feels less like he’s making their lives better as it does like a blatant Ares land-grab in territory that nobody else has a claim on.

Never let Captain Cancer talk to anyone

I am so angry about the last few days that I'm not sure I even want to write them up here. Seriously, by the time we were done I was ready to murder everybody around me.

Okay, deep breath. Relax. Let's take this one bit at at time.

To start with, everyone on Lightspeed's data server now hats me for saving De La Mar's life. Even the few who have pointed out that, if anything, her death would cause GOD to crack down even harder really aren't helping. I'm the queen of unpopular right now.

Crimson Dawn (part 9)

By the time she got home, Crimson had been glad that she didn't need to work in the morning. She should have been filled with an air of elation and triumph over her first successful Shadowrun, making that key step to the lifestyle that she had dreamed of for so long.

Instead she was cold, sore, tired, filthy, drenched with sweat and had the stench of the decrepit apartment complex sticking to her and her clothes. She wanted to simply crawl into bed and die, but also needed to find the energy to shower first, lest the stink manage to permeate even further into everything she owned. And even as warm and inviting as the shower was, blasting the grime away from her, she still felt more dead than alive by the time she emerged.

Even then there was one last duty to perform, one that she reluctantly went through as she placed a call on her Commlink. "Hey Slicer, it's Crimson," she began, her voice leaden with exhaustion. "I don; know if you're awake or sober or what, but I'm back, I accomplished the objective and I'm alive." The yawn at the end of the sentence did seem to undercut that last one a little. "Arrange a meet with the Johnson so we can wrap this whole mess up, okay?"

Ending the call she simply crawled into her bed, curling up into a tight ball as she almost immediately fell asleep.

Deck-Con report, days three and four

Strictly speaking this report ends at the end of day two with the visit from the Jonson who had hired us asking for our status check. She also bought in a small surprise in the form of Abbey who had been added to the roster with her own brand spanking new fake SIN complete with VIP access and paycheck. So that was good, as we now had an extra set of eyes that had the advantage of being absurdly sneaky which would doubtless come in handy for dealing with what was ever increasingly looking like a pre-staged assassination.

Day three rolled around and we were now in action, as this was the day that De La Mar was supposed to arrive, give her keynote address and hopefully not be assassinated. (Well, hopefully for us. Not so good news for the Shadow community, but a job's a job, right?). Today we were in full swing with our plans, keeping a close eye on her schedule and movements throughout the con, as just about anything could be a clue as to what was about to unfold. Protect the VIP apparently means being pants on head retarded paranoid after all.

Crimson Dawn (part 8)

The fourth floor looked every bit as run down and awful as the third, just with the mounds of waste and debris in a different arrangement. There also seemed to be less people active in the hallway, although Crimson had put her hood up just to be sure. It was only minimal protection against someone discovering that she didn't fit in here, but it was better than nothing.

Apartment 417 stood out for several reasons. The first was that the door had numbers on its font still, allowing her to actually identify it. The second was that even in the gloom of the poorly-lit hallway, she could see that it was appreciably cleaner than the others around it; the trash moved back from the entrance, the walls less grimy and so on. Mister Healy, whoever he was, Seemed to be doing pretty well fort himself compared to everyone else, which she suspected was key as to why she'd been directed to him specifically.

She apprehensively knocked on the door, listening carefully for whatever reaction came from within. Several tense seconds later, it opened to revel a battered, worn, middle-aged human on the other side, bleary eyes peering out from behind cracked glasses. "Mister Healy?"she asked

Deck-Con report, days one and two

Just when I thought that our jobs couldn't get any stranger, they go ahead and manage to become stranger still.

The Job started off on an odd note. The Johnson arranged to met us at the nightingale Clinic, a high-end body shop in the heart of Downtown Seattle. Intrigued, me, Freddie, Captain Cancer and Neon headed there to see what was going on and what this job was all about. On arrival, we were greeted by the receptionist who was expecting us, but addressed us by aliases and then showed us through to a consultation room. Things didn't get any better after that.

Inside we met with our Johnson, a woman who was taking the oddly anachronistic step of wearing glasses (Rather then just getting new eyes, because with the expensive suit she was wearing she certainly could afford it). She explained that she was hiring us for a very specific reason. We were going to be attending Deck-Con, the biggest Matrix and Tech expo in the world, because Danielle De La Mar, architect of the new "safe" Matrix would be there as one of the guest speakers. More to the point, there was going to be an attempt on her life as she made a keynote address on Saturday, the third day of the convention, Our job was to prevent that from happening.

Runception

Most days when you're on a Run, you don't ask questions, Even if you don't know who your Johnson works for, you can pretty easily guess their motivation from what you're doing. Other days the Johnson is good ad hiding their true motivations and goals, to the point where what you're doing seems nonsensical. And then there are the times when not only are you at cross-purposes with another run, but the two are so mutually contradictory as to make you wonder what the hell is going on. The last Run we were on was that three times over.

Things started out pretty straightforward. I was at the skeleton and flirting with Blindsite (apparently, he thinks I am awesome, which means he's got good taste) when I was contacted by the EVO Lizardman Johnson that Offroad had worked for before. He arranged to meet us at a warehouse near the Tacoma docks (no. Not the same one as last run) to sort out the details. When we arrived there was when things began to get a little odd, as not only was the Johnson in attendance, but there was another figure who arrived in a Bentley Concordat, the sort of car you only associate with Johnsons or big-name celebrities.

Crimson Dawn (part 7)

Crimson had followed Slicer's advice. She’d returned home early, gotten a good night's sleep and been fully refreshed and awake when she got to work the next morning (even being a little early as a way to apologize for her tardiness the previous day). The day had actually seemed to fly past, as she spent her time running over everything she'd seen and done one more time, while trying to figure her own plans. Even the inevitable awkward lunch break conversation with Dennis had been a lot more bearable than usual.

Because when you're about to go off and do something questionably illegal to horrible people for money, the last thing you're worried about is the dropkick in the lunch room, she figured as she fired off her usual 'having a thing' excuse.

As soon as her shift was over, she was out the door and on the move. Within an hour she was at Slicer's apartment, moderately surprised to find her mentor awake, sober and ready two days in a row. "Great to see you, Crimson," he practically beamed as he let her in, offering her a bottle of water. "Shall we get down to business?"

Never work with Children, Animals or Metasapients

Captain Cancer's new toy

Having not been paid for some time now, we were anxious to get back to proper actual work. So when I got a call from the (new) Ares Johnson, we were more than happy to meet him, even if it was, as per normal for him, under rather odd circumstances. For starters, he’d contacted me directly rather than going through a fixer. And then we were Meeting him face to face at a waterfront warehouse, rather than the usual sort of Johnson hangout. Sadly, this meant no steak, but there was more to it than just that.

But we needed money, especially Captain Cancer who had just blown a small fortune on buying himself an Ares Duelist drone and an assault rifle for it. Oh, and he also bought himself a reloading drone, obstinately so he could reload the dualist but actually so it could give him fresh cigs while in the field. His logic was that it meant he would have something else to protect him in a firefight, which seemed semi-reasonable. (Anyway, his drones are now called Thinman and Runt.) Thus we agreed to the meet, and headed towards the docks.

Crimson Dawn (part 6)

There were any number of things that Crimson had expected her first run to be like. Dull was not one of them, and yet, that was exactly how it felt right now. Every part of her wanted something to happen to take everything off script and liven things up a lot (or even just a bit) but so far, instead, things were pretty much going to plan to an annoying degree.

Slicer had told her once that a Run never went as expected and that there always was some twist, some unknown that would throw a spanner in the works and send things spiraling out of control. The secret, he'd explained was not trying to stop it from happening. That was impossible. Rather, it was to try and control the outcome and use it as best you could to turn things back to your advantage. It had made a strange amount of sense to her at the time and, as a bonus, he merely hungover when he said it, so there had to be some truth to his words.

But that didn't make this job any more exciting. Going off the information she'd been given by Mister Johnson, she'd been able to find some of the Devil Dogs. They were a pretty ugly bunch, all human males who decided that tan coloured fatigues and red bandannas were their 'thing' and had chosen to confine their activities to a chunk of Redmond that nobody else was actively fighting over at the moment. Doubtless that was a low profile thing, as an up and coming gang that stepped on the wrong toes could easily find themselves crushed by those that didn't like the competition.

Street racing, killer attack drones and other relationship killers

So while Freddie's been doing even more work on the Van I've been having some work of my own done. I'm now sporting a new set of Betaware-grade Muscle Toners, which are making me even faster and more agile then before. Turns out that you can improve on perfection after all.

In other news, we've heard nothing more form the Ares Johnson, but I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing. He's up to something, but there's still no clue as to what or why. I don't like it at all.

In the meantime, my personal life has taken an entirely predictable turn, albeit not through a way that I fully expected. Me and Freddie were invited to another race, admittedly through Alfonso talking to David the Mechanic talking to Freddie talking to me. He was all for the idea because racing’s his thing and personally I suspect he wanted to show off just what he could do in a Bulldog anyway. (Seriously, that Van's two tons of turbo-charged, armour-plated, candy-coated, corp crushing killing machine). Me I entered for the thrill of it and, of course, to watch Freddie's back. Although if I did beat Alfonso it would be awesome.

A rare day when nothing explodes

As you’ve probably noticed by now, our team tends to be rather casual on attendance. A lot of it depends on who’s available at any one time, what they’ve got on, urgency of the job and about a zillion or so other things. That’s one of the reasons why I so rarely work with Abbey; she seems to be doing her stuff all the time, and as such I rarely even see her. So when I recently did a job with her, it was a novelty to say the least.

I had been following up on our Ares Johnson issue, especially given how crawlingly involved he seemed to be getting and the worrying idea that he knew where we lived. It seems that he’s been going around the Barrens, even the really drekky parts (by Barrens standards, I mean. That bad) with an armed guard, apparently like he’s looking for something or the like, but we got no idea what or why. But it’s not like he’s doing anything immediately malicious, though at the same time, I don’t like it one bit.

Biker Gangs, seedy motels and other reasons why I hate road trips

A Rotordrone. Freddie's are now less prone to exploding

Despite the Ares Johnson's ominous sendoff, things have been pretty quirt around here. About the biggest activity for a while was Freddie, Benny and Dave (a mechanic they know) doing some modifications to add more armor to his Rotordrones so they wouldn't explode as soon as somebody looked at them funny. Along the way we gained a Garage Couch (you know the type; covered in a drop sheet and then cluttered up with parts) which I am earnestly shocked we didn't have before.

And then things got awkward when Aphonso called David to ask Freddie for a favour. A friend of his, a Dwarf Rigger called Offroad, had apparently gotten into some trouble during a smuggling run and desperately needed to be bailed out. After a lot of me not talking to Alphonso stuff (including when I was finally actually speaking to him my deliberately not speaking to him; can't he just get the picture already?) we agreed to go help him out as a favour to Dave and, of course, the possible benefits down the road.

We know what you want. We know what you need. We know where you live.

With Wraith gone, something strange has happened. I seem to have become leader of the team somehow. It's odd, and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it. On the upside, it does appear that everyone recognizes how just plain awesome I am and is willing to listen to me and let me call the shots. On the downside, there's a lot of responsibility and crap that comes with it, which is not helpful when really all I want to do is just run off to do my own thing.

The last little job we had pretty much covered the pros and cons of it, while also leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth, a sort of 'I don't like the way this is going' thing.

It started off with me out at the Skeleton having a good time and, amazingly enough, being recognized for who I am and what I do. An Elf Runner called Blidside approached me in the club, saying he remembered me from Penubra when everything went bad with the Azzie Johnson. I played innocent, saying that I was just there for a good time and had nothing to do with what went on and Jaguar Guards storming the place and all that crap in the spirit of covering my ass, and he seemed to buy that.

Crimson Dawn (part 5)

The boardroom window exploded into a million shards, sending those inside ducking for cover. A moment later, a hail of gunfire poured in from a series of drones, shredding any unfortunate enough to be in their way. Cries of alarm went out form those inside, but were not matched by alerts from the building’s own systems; instead, the ARO displays remained focused on yearly profit graphs as if nothing was happening, while the soothing lighting was entirely at odds with the violence unfolding.

A single figure leaped in through the shattered window, moving with a blinding speed faster than any human being could even hope to follow, No sooner were they down then they were in motion, a black and red blur that darted across the room, weapons at the ready and primed to unleash hell upon anyone foolish enough to get in their way.

And somebody did; a single man, his eyes crackling with unearthly power as he stood, sun-like disks of energy building around his hands as he prepared to unleash the arcane mysteries he commanded upon the target. But already, the intruder was wise to him, spinning around and sending a single blade flying towards him. It hit the mage in the throat, the man issuing a single, sudden gurgle before reeling back, the lights in his eyes and hands flickering and burning out like a dying sun.

Home is where the weapons locker is

I've mentioned the Firehouse enough times; I think it's time I actually wrote a bit about it.

Before I met the team, I lived in my own little apartment in Seattle. It wasn't the best place, yeah, but it was good enough and had reliable services and was comfortable, and that was enough to work. My main concern was slipping in and out while carrying my weapons and other runner gear, something that residents of nice, middle-class neighborhoods aren't supposed to do. After all, you can only do so much to conceal an Ares Alpha or a Katana.

Wraith had floated the idea of getting together and setting up a team base. It had a few immediately obvious advantages; we would all know where we were and be able to grab each other for a run or in emergencies; we would have a central storage of weapons and gear that we could all access; we could equip it with whatever amenities and facilities we needed and, if the worst came to the worst, if somebody was after one of us, then they’d need to take on the rest of us as well.

How to make things worse for yourself

One thing about Captain Cancer is that he has an amazing inability to quit while he's ahead. He can get into a good place with his manipulation and disguise spells, but then he’ll manage to screw it up and get in way over his head. It eventually reaches a point where he's actively making it worse for himself and then he'll just keep digging himself in deeper while trying to fix it.

(and remember, this is the guy who screwed up his own magic because his nicotine addiction required him to get new lungs)

When this is your wake-up call, things have gone very wrong

The last run we were on is a good example of that, especially given that half of it wasn't even a run. Seem Captain Cancer had taken in Twitch, who had in turn taken to barricading himself inside CC's apartment and waving his shotgun at anyone who tried to enter the place, its owner included. The good (?) Captain had decided to get to the bottom of what had happened, if only to try to get him out of his house and not having to wake up every morning to a shotgun being waved in his face.