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.