Out of the Shadows

I think it was sometime in midwinter when this all started. I hadn’t been thinking much about the weather back then. Argent, Dodger, Fastjack, Kham, Riser; it was those names that were on my mind. Living legends, each one. I figured it was about time for me to step into the limelight as well. I just wasn’t ready for the price I’d have to pay.

The Raging Pitt. In the sprawl, a name can sometimes be as good as a reputation. This one kept the posers away. The Pitt was a pretty nice place for what it was. About as nice as you can get in a slum like Renton. It was also the closest thing I had to a work address. The owner and I went back quite a few years. She was half Japanese, half Amerind, just like me. Tori was pretty tall for a girl. Five-ten, five-eleven maybe. She had dark black hair, down past her shoulders, and the most enticing hazel eyes. Tori always looked like she had the perfect tan, kind of a soft golden brown. One thing that caught your attention about Tori was that she wasn’t chromed. Not a piece of cyberware on her. That was rare these days. I’d always chalked it up to her being a shaman, but I have never seen her work any magic. She always denied that she could.

That night was just like any other night, except I was looking for a big score. Last time I’d run had been about four months ago, with a chummer named Riser. We’d gotten to calling ourselves the Smokers Club. Riser had hit it big about a year or so ago in a job he and some friend pulled against Mitsuhama, a mega-large Megacorp that threw their weight around as if they had more power than God. It wasn’t untrue in this day and age.

Anyway, Riser stung ‘em pretty good. He and his friend made off with a nice little bit of technology and earned themselves one pretty serious enemy. Mitsuhama’s high security teams are the best in the biz. Mages, Samurai, cybered critters, just real freaky drek that you don’t want to mess with. When they came down on Riser it was like nothing I’ve ever seen. His buddy died instantly, ripped apart by heavy machine gun fire. The tech that they stole was destroyed as well. Mitsuhama thought they’d geeked Riser for good. No dice though, that fraggers got more lives than a cat.

I stopped reminiscing when my wrist phone started to buzz. I had my buddy Fastdos rig it for silent ringing after the damn thing went off during a run. Fragged up everything real bad. It’s a shame you have to carry them wherever you go. You never know when your employer may contact you with a change of plans, or a job.

Tonight it was the latter. My fixer began to fill me in on a group of runners led by a headcase named Jazz. Spiral was quite a gal. She could read me like a book. She knew exactly what type of shadowruns I’d be willing to take, and always came up with enough of them for me to take my pick. Tonight’s lucky “Mr. Johnson” was offering 10,000 nuyen up front and another 15,000 upon completion for me and up to three of my closest chums if we took Jazz and his boys down. If we did the deed tonight, there was a bonus in it for each of us.

Jazz was a name I knew. He’d made his yen working against small time corporations, and even took one to the cleaners. Taking him out would net me the kind of recognition I was looking for. It would get me out of Riser’s shadow and build me a rep of my own. Besides, after being off the streets for the last four months, I was hungry for some action. Spiral said that there would be a limo waiting outside. With a wave to Tori, I grabbed my drink and my pack of cyberettes and headed for the door.

The limo driver took me down towards Bellevue with the understanding that I was to be let out somewhere along the highway, a decent jog from where I live. Couldn’t have just anyone knowing exactly where to find me. It’s one of the problems with being a heavy sleeper. Should someone sneak up on me and my girlfriend in the middle of the night, I’d never know what hit me. So, on the way I placed some calls to the Smokers. On the most part, they were surprised to see me back and working so soon. The ones I could get a hold of seemed pretty eager to take this run. 30,000 a man to pop off three people was good money. Maybe too good.

The driver let me out along a narrow stretch of highway near a throng of leather clad biker boys. “Go’ers” I call them. As the bikers noticed me, the limo driver handed me three credsticks and told me how to contact him when I was ready for the rest. Tonight it would be Strafe, Seta and I. Three on three, a fair fight.

After he’d sped off, I tried to remain as inconspicuous as possible. I bundled myself up under my duster and pulled my baseball cap down as far as it would go. The bikers of course took this as an invitation to harass me. A couple of them mounted their bikes and rode over. As they drew near, I called up my best “make my day” look and walked forward.

“Johnny Raver?” the first one questioned. The look of shock on his face was genuine. I smiled. This bunch was part of a Go-Gang that called themselves the Ghost Riders. They used (can you guess??) a flaming skull for their symbol. It was 2060 and old memories still die hard. I hung with the Ghost Riders from time to time; racing, jousting, whatever caught my fancy. I hadn’t been with them in a while though. I suppose they thought I was dead. Most everybody else did.

“Where’s FD?” I called out while shaking hands with the go’ers.

“Right here Rave,” came the reply from behind me. I spun around to see the closest thing I’ve had to a brother for the last ten years. He was a smooth looking Aussie with blue eyes and black hair; the sides shaved and bangs hanging over his eyes.

“Long time no see.” I shook his hand and looked him over. “Nice Bike.” He was riding my Blitzen 2054. Jet black and soundless, it could break 150 without missing a step.

Fastdos grinned, “I’ve been keeping it warm for ya.” I slapped him hard on the shoulder, laughing as I climbed on behind him.

“Love to stay and chat guys but Fastdos here has to drop me at home and then go find a way to make up for all the damage he’s probably done to my bike.”

The Ghost Riders gave us a race all the way to the turnpike. With that kind of incentive we reached Medina in no time. Even so, Strafe and Seta still managed to be waiting for me when I got there. Medina’s one of the richer places in Seattle. That made it easy to notice Strafe’s van parked outside of my apartment building. As soon as Fastdos screeched to a stop, the side door slid open. I reminded myself to talk to Fastdos about buying me new tires as I got in.

Strafe was standing at the door, Browning Ultra-power in one hand, cigar in the other. He was a tall German with blonde hair worked into an over-moussed fade. Seta was waiting inside the van. He was an average sized man with a stern face. If I had been any punk off the streets I would have figured Seta for an easy target. Reality lived far from that. This runner was a mage.

Strafe closed the door behind himself and I handed out the credsticks. Looking around the van’s interior told me that he’d already been up to my place and had Stacy give him my “Bare necessities bag.” Extended clip for the Ares Predator nestled beneath my jacket, an Uzi III and my Katana. I was ready for anything.

I reloaded my predator and stuffed it back into the concealed holster in my duster. Both the gun and the coat had been with me for longer than I can remember. Each had saved my life more times than I cared to count. Glancing around Strafe’s four wheeled tank again, I found that he was more than prepared. There was enough firepower in here to supply a platoon of us. We knifed through the small talk and set to planning our attack. Within minutes we were on our way.

It was a cold, fog-stained Seattle night. Squatters huddled together near garbage can fires as we raced past. The high-rises of New Seattle died away to nothingness as we approached the Redmond Barrens. There are some places that even the best of the best don’t go at night. The barrens are foremost among them. Like the name implies, this slum was a collection of run down two and three story buildings marred by volcanic ash and graffiti. Each hovel had eyes of its own, be they gangers, squatters or worse. Wasn’t it just our luck that Jazz and company had chosen to live here?

We pulled up near the address that the limo driver had given me. I watched Strafe disconnect a wire that ran from a jack between his fingers straight into the dashboard. No matter how many times I saw that, it still made me look twice. I’d been brought up in a secluded tribe. We weren’t used to seeing people jack into vehicles and controlling them with their minds. He was what you call a rigger. Vehicles are their specialty.

Strafe cased the place quickly while Seta seemed to phase out on us for a moment. He was assensing. It was something I’d seen him do before. He would project his ‘Astral Spirit’ into the house to see who was home, or some magical drek like that. The neat thing was, he could see people but unless they were a mage they couldn’t see him.

“Jazz and the Troll are in there,” Seta said, after a moment. “Their Mage isn’t.”

So the mage wasn’t there. I didn’t sweat it. It wasn’t the first time I’d received faulty information from a Johnson. I filed that away as a ‘cost overrun’ for the meet we’d have with him later on.

“No mage,” I muttered as Strafe crept back into the van. He’d been looking around behind the clump of brownstones. He watched me silently for a moment before he spoke.

“The security set up here is pretty nice, but the buildings are the normal type for this area. I can circumvent. There’s a boiler in the basement. I say we set a remote charge, wait till the mage shows up and boom.”

I wasn’t one to argue, wetwork was his field. We decided to sneak in through the front door. Seta told us that Jazz and his troll friend were relaxing upstairs. If my Maglock passkey could scramble the front door code then he could suppress the other security measures long enough for us to slip in unnoticed. It worked like a charm, or so we thought. We crept into the basement totally unnoticed. Strafe had just set the charge when the drek hit the fan.

A hail of bullets lit up the room like the Seattle skyline. A giant misshapen troll was hunched over in the doorway. In his hands he cradled the biggest piece of hardware I’ve ever seen! A short dark haired girl peeked around his side, her face red with anger. For an instant I could see the hatred that burned in her eyes. I’ll be damned if it wasn’t that missing mage.

I dove behind a pile of empty crates, face to the floor. The way this guy was spraying bullets around, he was almost sure to hit the detonator and blow us all to hell.

“She must have astrally cloaked herself. It’s as if she was expecting us!” Seta screamed over the thunderous gunfire. He and Strafe joined me in my hiding spot. I wasn’t sure what he meant but I got the feeling that we were in deep drek. By now, blood was streaming down my forehead from where I’d fallen on some broken glass. My left shoulder was sore from where the bullets had bounced off my plated duster. That was one more time it had saved my life. Strafe was worse off. He’d taken a round in his right arm. The bullet had punched a hole through his collarbone. Yep, things weren’t going well.

Seta mumbled something I couldn’t make out as he peeked over the crates. Suddenly, the troll staggered backwards, gun falling to his side. He struggled to regain his footing but his time was up. It was our turn now. My boosted reflexes kicked in and my Uzi III spat fire. Bullets slammed into the troll’s chest as I hopped over the crates still firing. My clip hit empty before the troll finally fell backwards. I released the gun, letting it dangle from its strap on my shoulder. I whipped out my predator and stepped towards the doorway. The mage was already gone.

“Let’s get the hell outta here, this thing’s gonna blow any minute!” Strafe barked, gritting his teeth in pain. He pointed at the detonator. The timer had been shot twice.

I took the point, pistol ready. The moment I stepped into the hallway, I regretted the decision. A hot slug bored its way into my left calf, the force of it lifting me to the ground. Strafe shot out above me, AK-98 blazing in his left hand. As I climbed to my feet I saw the short muscular form of Jazz darting up the stairs.

“Frag ‘em,” I muttered, rising to my feet. I was more bothered by the stench of troll blood smeared across my duster than the fact that I’d probably be limping for days. Seta helped me move towards the door and the three of us ran.

We’d barely shut the van door when flame engulfed the house in a tremendous boom! Chunks of plaster stone and glass flew everywhere. Strafe jacked into his van and we sped off into the night.

That was easy, I wanted to say. But all that came out was nervous laughter. We’d made it. By the skin of our teeth, sure. But we made it. Wiping the mix of sweat and blood from my brow, I put the call in to our drop off man.

That was right about the time that things started to get interesting…