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.

The only thing that she could think of was the argument between him and Mitch at the store, and if that was a part of it. While she couldn't say for sure, the implication was that she was the source of their disagreement or, at the very least, a part of it. However, if she was hoping for some explanation when she got there, it quickly became clear that none would be offered.

"Good, you’re here," Slicer began as he opened the door. She could immediately tell that something was afoot, given that he was awake, sober and dressed all at once, and clearly itching to go. "I've sent you an app on your Commlink. Install it and we'll be on our way." Almost immediately he vanished back into his bedroom, leaving her to look over the information she'd received.

Training Laser. Supply your own Pew Pew noises

The app in question was listed as a weapon training simulator. A quick inspection told Crimson that it was designed to register 'hits' from simulated weaponry on the user, allowing them to engage in mock combat. "Okay, so we're going for more gun training, right?" She asked, turning to Slicer as he re-entered, carrying a pair of rifles. She could immediately tell that these weren't real weapons given that the barrels ended in some sort of emitter, which seemed to confirm her suspicions.

"That's right," he simply replied. "Now let's get going. We have a lot of work to do."

With little else offered in the way of instruction or explanation, the pair of them rode across the Barrens, heading through parts of Redmond that Crimson had never seen before.  This part was more industrial then residential, but the levels of decay and neglect remained the same. Long tows of burned out and abandoned buildings dominated the streets, although often she could see fleeting signs of life from within them.

The pair of them pulled up by one compound, a shell of a squat, ugly building that had clearly been partially burned. Long links of rusted and broken chain fence served as an ineffectual barricade, leaving just an expanse of cracked concrete between them and the building itself. "Let's get started," Slicer simply began as he handed her one of the training weapons.

"Wait a moment," She shot back. "What is this place, and what are we doing here?"

Slicer looked away am moment, his fist clenching and unclenching several times as he seemed to mutter something to himself. When he finally turned back, he seemed to be more than a little exasperated. "What it was doesn't matter anymore," he finally spoke up. "Right now this is your new training ground."

"Being honest, ki- Crimson, so far the jobs you've been doing have been all low-key and low-visibility," he continued, not really giving her a chance to ask questions. "Gangs, street thugs, small things like that. And that's nice and all, but you still have a lot more to learn. You told me yourself that you've never been in a real firefight, and the few times you've actually fired your gun was all about running away and taking defensive shots."

"So you're going to fix that," Crimson shot back.

"Right," Slicer continued. "So imagine this is some corp compound. You need to get at something inside. There's a central server room that has some junk in it; take something from there and get back out, and you';ve finished your 'Run'. I'm going to be playing the part of the security team that 's going to try and frag you to stop you from getting at the objective. Last to die wins, got that?"

In her mind, Crimson could already see a number of inequalities to the situation. Slicer was more experienced then her; after all, he'd been a runner longer then she had been alive. And even if he was just using simulated weaponry, his augmentations would give him so many advantages over her that it was almost comical. But despite all that, there was a part of her that relished the challenge to see just how good she was getting, and if there was some way that she could beat her sensei.

"Makes sense," she finished. "You better prepare yourself to get fragged."

Slicer muttered something, then turned away. "I'm heading inside. Give me five minutes, and then you're coming in."

"Understood," Crimson replied, letting him go. As soon as he was off, she began walking around the compound itself, looking over the area and taking in the details. Outside there wasn't much to see. The building itself had been ugly enough to begin with, but now that it was covered in graffiti and grime, it was even less appealing. The few windows she could find long smashed or bordered up, but more annoying was a lack of doors. The front had been well and truly sealed, while the rear loading bay was largely blocked by the rusting hulk of an industrial dumpster.

In the Barrens, this is an obstacle, handy cover, your team
getaway and somebody's home. Possibly all at once

The hulk of a delivery van lying in one corner of the compound only added to the ambiance. And while said van had several bullet holes in it, the truth was that around here, those could have come from anything

In the end, she found only one usable entrance, a small service door that she presumed that Slicer had gone in through. A check of the time told her that his five minutes were up. Okay, old man, let's see just how good you really are,  she told herself as she slipped through the door, hr training rifle at the ready.

The interior of the building was just as unappealing as the outside. Back in its heyday it had obviously been designed for function over looks, with stark, bare concrete floors and walls dominated by equipment panels. Many of those had since been knocked loose or pried away, leaving tangled messes of wiring to spill out, or simply gaping holes where whatever valuable contents inside had bene stripped out. And while there were no overt signs of the fire damage that she'd seen from outside, it was possible that had been contained to one part of the building.

Warily, she stepped through into the next room, one whose function had long since been obliterated by the ravages of time, damage and predation. All that was left now were a few scraps of furniture and more gaping holes in the wall where equipment had been. Scanning around the room while cycling through her still-new range of visual options didn't immediately alert Crimson to any signs of her mentor-turned opponent, rather suggesting that the room was clear save for her.

As she approached the next door, something did catch her eye. Even with her enhanced vision it was difficult to see in the darkness of the unlit room, but it was still enough to catch her eye, making her want to investigate closer. There was something on the wall by the door, something other then just grime or wrecked equipment. As she got closer, running her gloved hand over it, Crimson could tell what it was.

Bullet holes. A nice, neat row of them, probably all coming from the same burst of the same automatic weapon. I wonder how long these have been here, she considered, which made her wonder even more about this place. What was it? Some sort of corp research facility? That in turn was making her wonder about how Slicer knew it, and why he'd chosen it for this exercise. Had he been here before? I mean, he could have been on a run that was targeting this place and-

A loud beep from her Commlink interrupted her train of thought. And then a huge red 'DEAD' flashed up on her augmented vision. "What the-" Crimson spun around to see Slicer behind her, the blond Elf raising his training rifle as he entered through the same door she came in through.

"You got distracted," he simply replied, his tone stern no less. "It was too easy a shot to pass up. Do that in a real fight and you'll be dead."

"Right," Crimson nodded with a small sigh, angry at herself for such an obvious mistake. Her commlink chirping to tell her that it had reset and she was now 'alive' again did little to alleviate her mood.

"Okay, let's get back up and try it again," Slicer finished as the pair of them headed back outside.

-----

On her second attempt, Crimson had 'died' in the same room. She'd been smart enough not to get overly fixated on the bullet holes, and had instead headed to the same door she'd been intending to use before she had allowed herself to become distracted. This had worked right up until she'd opened the door, only to have Slicer snipe her from behind cover on the other side.

The third try had seen her go the other way in the initial hallway, looping around instead through a much more cluttered and heavily trashed lab. For a moment she thought that she was onto something, before Slicer had popped up from behind some debris and 'nailed' her with a burst of fire.

For her fourth attempt, Crimson had tried something different. This time she'd taken her time to clamber over the dumpster and into the wreckage of the loading dock rather than using the same, sadly familiar service entrance. She'd been slowly and carefully picking her way through the debris, keeping low and moving as quietly as she could, cybereyes peeled for any signs of her 'opponent'. When she made it through the room unharmed, she was convinced that she'd gotten past Slicer, and had already turned the situation around.

He'd 'shot' her the instant she stepped out into the next room.

And so it had gone for several more tries, each and every one of them ending with Crimson 'dead' after an embarrassingly short run. Only once had she managed to actually get a shot off, and that had been a clean miss. Slicer's reply had been a lot more accurate.

"Oh for frag's sake!" She shouted as her Commlink registered another 'death', adding to the already crushingly one-sided score.

Slicer stepped out from behind the gutted server he'd been using as cover. "You’re getting there," he offered. "This was your best time yet"

"This scenario sucks, you know that? Wouldn't I normally have a partner with me?" She shot back. "Or at the very least have the floor plans thanks to my team's Decker doing the legwork."

"Your Decker could frag up and get the wrong plans, or get booted out of their system," Slicer explained. "You got to learn to cope with these sorts of things."

"And my team? I'd be fragging stupid to go into a corp facility on your own."

"Some times you gotta run with it," Slicer continued. "Like your partner bought it on the way in, or got hopped up on Madballs and fell off his bike on the way there. Take your lumps and work with it"

"You know, that's not really fair of you," Crimson protested, the beep of the Commlink resetting not really helping her mood.

"Life's not fair," Slicer spat. "Corpsec goons won't play fair when it’s their lives on the line. MCT Zero Zones won't play fair when they use lethal force their first option. The Lone Star sniper won't play fair when he pops the head off the guy next to you."

It was a bare-faced acknowledgement of reality, but that didn't mean that it didn't sting. "So how am I meant to get up to dealing with that sort of crap when you won't even give me a chance to get the easy stuff?" Crimson snapped. "Yeah, I gotta work my way up to that, I get it. But it can't happen if you’re still keeping me on the damned ground floor."

For am moment, it seemed like Slicer was ready to explode, a tense ball of fury about to be unleashed. Instead, he seemed to stop himself, taking a deep breath. "Fine. You don’t want to put in the hard work, I get it. You're free to go any time, and I won't stop you. Maybe you'll find somebody else who's willing to put up with you and teach you the way you want."

"But I am teaching you lessons that I never learned myself," Slicer continued. "You're learning things here that I had to find out the hard way, things that I would have loved to know before I got my hoop handed to me. Things aren't always going to go your way, and all sorts of drek will happen, and your run will get clusterfragged so many ways that you can't believe it even before the first shot is fired. Sou need to be able to deal with that, do you understand?"

"This-" she angrily began, only to stop herself dead. This is about what happened with him and Mitch, she acknowledged. But that's something I wasn't meant to know. It's his business, not mine. Instead, she simply nodded. "Yes, sensei." She bowed to him again, biting back her own anger and frustration under a simple acknowledgement of his experience and seniority. On the surface, she seemed accepting, even though she was ready for the worst.

Slicer gave her a simple nod back. "Oaky, one last try and then I think we're done for the night. I want you to think about all we've covered so far, and what you can take away from that."

"Sure," Crimson nodded. "I... Yeah."

The pair of them headed back outside, walking in a tense silence as they did. Even with what she had guessed, Crimson could still see that there was something eating at Slicer, but she was so very reluctant to probe at it. In many ways, this felt like the single most trying moment yet in their working relationship. Every other time so far, it had come down to one of two things.

The first and in many ways, the easiest to deal with was the prior times she'd gotten frustrated or angry during her training, which was in turn usually because he was consistently beating her. In those cases, she had needed to step back, take a breath and clam down while Slicer repeated that this was all a part of the process and also mentioned the times his own Sensei had beaten him senseless or the like (Form what she had gathered, Sensei Kabuto had done nothing but beat Slicer like an unruly stepchild). Those were in many ways easier for her to deal with.

And then there were those times when she'd arrived for a training session only to find him drunk, hung-over, clearly in no condition to start or, on a couple of occasions, naked. In those cases she'd often lashed out at him, while Slicer had cringingly admitted his own mistake and done his best to make up for it. And even when he had a raging headache or had needed to throw up a couple of times first, he'd still been willing to keep going and teach her whatever lesson he'd planned for her.

This time was different, and she still couldn't quite figure why. She had never seen him get that angry at her, even though, by her own admission, she'd been whiney and petulant with him before in past about other matters. And that was something that bothered her, but she knew that she couldn't really ask without risk of making the situation even worse.

Instead she tried to distract herself by thinking about what he'd said and how to apply it. Slicer was more experienced, knew the layout better, had a head start and could take his time to find the perfect spot to 'kill' her from. He was holding all the advantages, and there was little she could do to overcome those.

"You ready?" he asked her.

Crimson glanced over the derelict building one more time. "I guess so."

"Last round for the night," Slicer reminded her. "Give it your best shot."

"Same deal as always?"

"Yep. Give me five and then you come in after me and we'll see what happens." He nodded before turning back to the building. "See you inside."

Slicer began to walk away from her, headed for the same service entrance. Crimson waited until he was halfway there before raising her rifle and drawing a bead on him, her Smartlink lining up a clean shot on his back. "Bang" she whispered as she squeezed the trigger, with a hit registering on her HUD a moment later.

Slicer stopped in his tracks, and then turned around. For a moment, his face was unreadable, his expression neutral. And then, all he could so was shake his head and smirk. "So, Crimson, what was the lesson you learned there?" He asked as he walked back to her.

"You said that the enemy wouldn't play fair," She replied. "So I thought, why should I have to as well? Rather than playing by your rules, I took control of the fight."

"Well done," Slicer finished. "You saw an opening and you exploited it for all it was worth. We'll make a great runner out of you yet."

-----

For all that Slicer had said, there were a few things sticking in Crimson's mind that were only slightly related but none the less seemed to be screaming for attention, It wasn't until she'd been packing away her gear once she got back home that it finally clicked when she saw the Katana he'd lent her months ago. At the time he'd mentioned that it was a gift from somebody he used to know, and she had no idea who that was.

The thought was bothering her all through the morning at Vendor Mammoth, lending an even more insubstantial then normal quality to her greetings. It wasn't until she got to her lunch break that she remembered the name and instantly started fossicking through the Matrix for more. Even then, she was somewhat surprised by what she turned up.

Billy Blaster (Born Billy Krabowski) had been a rocker in the early 2050s, and a quite literal one-hit wonder. Neon Dreams of Shadowed Streets had very briefly gotten to the number one spot on several charts, earning him a small about of fame. That had then evaporated when his second single had been savaged by the critics, and everything after that barely rated a mention. In fact, the only other two things he found on him after that had nothing at all to do with his music career.

The first was an arrest over an incident in a high-class hotel involving Billy, a Joyboy, a goat and a suitcase full of Novacocke. The second came several years later, and regarded the discovery of Billy's dead body in his apartment. He’d apparently died a week previously of a (probably inevitable) overdose, and more to the point, nobody had noticed until somebody complained about the smell.

So Slicer knew some druggie rocker, Crimson considered. I wonder what was the connection?