File: IMG_3923.jpg (50 KB, 600x315)

50 KB JPG

The air is brisk outside, but your jacket keeps you relatively warm as you turn up it's high collar and put on your chrome-surfaced mirrorshades.
The AR overlay is already on and the light-enhancers keep the ugly alleyway lit enough to see, not that there's anything out here in The Verge between Pyallup and Downtown anyone wants to see at all.
You walk around to the back of the cheap renter GridGuide car and open the trunk, where the man with tape across his mouth and eyes is breathing heavily through the tiny breathing hole slit you opened for him. You grab him by the collar of his roughed-up clothes (cheap ballistic-resistant fabric, fairly common stuff) and yank him roughly onto the pavement with one hand.

You tear the duct tape off his eyes first, then his mouth, and none too gently with either.

"Mister DeMarco. Thanks for agreeing to go on this ride with me," you say cordially. No need to be any ruder then this conversation already started after all. "I'm sorry about the interruption in our chat before. I figured someplace a little more private would be easier to talk in."

He coughs.
"Goddamn....son of a...fucking SHOT me."

>[Threaten] "Only with gel rounds."
>[Polite] "And I'm very sorry for doing that that."
>[Let Him Talk]

>>1088430
>[Polite] "And I'm very sorry for doing that that."
Honestly, I don't think waterguns with DMSO-laced narcojet get enough usage.

>>1088430
>[Polite] "And I'm very sorry for doing that that."

I love polite runners

>>1088430
>[Polite] "And I'm very sorry for doing that that."
Start out nice

>>1088430
>[Polite] "And I'm very sorry for doing that that."

Never know when a target becomes a client.

>>1088430
>>[Threaten] "Only with gel rounds."

>>1088430
>>[Polite] "And I'm very sorry for doing that that."

Social skills focused runner, here we go!

>>1088437, >>1088439
"And I am very sorry for doing that," you lie, not missing a beat. "I wanted to have this conversation peacefully, but your friends were insistent upon interrupting."

"Fucking....shot THEM too you fragging knife-eared fuc-" he begins, but you kneel down to his tied-up form so fast he likely can barely see you do it and grab his jaw hard enough that he knows you can break it with just one hand if you tried.
You close his lips shut with your fingers and make him look directly at his reflection in your chromed shades. He can't see the expression your mouth is making with your collar turned up to just below your nose, and your shades cover your eyes entirely. All he sees is how badly messed up his face is in his reflection.

"I'm going to have to ask you to refrain from racial explatives Mister DeMarco," you say in the exact same tone of voice. "We're a long, LONG way from Snohomish. Some people in this neighborhood wouldn't take kindly to them."

You let go of his face with a not-so-gentle push and stand up again, straightening your jacket.

"So," you begin, calling up the AR displays you had queued up already. "James Francis DeMarco. Thirty-one years old, Caucasian human male. Gainfully employed at Kingsley Precision Metals as a mechanic. Married, one child. A daughter." The facts roll out automatically as you speak, arraying them in front of his eyes, which still have AR-capable contact lenses in them. "A fairly average lower-income household at first glance. This isn't the interesting stuff though."
As you speak the statistical information switches up with illegally obatained camera footage and pictures; a man and a woman arguing, a man in a back alley, and a man in a white hood.
"You and your wife are having problems. She isn't the beaten into submission housewife lots of your friends have; she's genuine middle-class born from Belleview. She has actual OPINIONS, especially about your lack of ambition and tendency to waste time with your 'crazy racist friends' as she calls them and your turning towards substance abuse to deal with your life problems. You only got once chance to beat her before she sued for divorce and custody of your daughter. She's having trouble managing it though, since your friends are providing you with very good lawyers. Very supportive these friends of yours."

"Is THAT what this is about!? My fucking wife hired you to screw me over?!" he says incredulously.

"Mister DeMarco, if that was the case I could have fixed all this without you ever even knowing I existed. No, this is not about your home life. This is about your hobbies when you're off-work," you explain, and the picture of the man in the white hood enlargens. "You're a lifelong member of the Humanis Policlub, correct?"

>>1088515
>"You're a lifelong member of the Humanis Policlub, correct?"
Why can't we ever get the nice runs, where we go in and butcher entire Humanis cells, roasting them alive, and doing to them what they want to do to other metahumans?

U sure this is work? might just be Fun for us.

He freezes, it seemingly only just now dawning on him how serious this situation is. It's amazing how anger can make some people that stupid, though with this guy he likely didn't have that far to go to get to "dumb as hell".
You shit better Matrix security then his personal life has; most of the information you have you got from a basic search program.

"While this is not in and of itself illegal, your association with the known terrorist group Alamos 20k IS illegal due to serious property damage and support of attempted coups against the government years ago. Had to join the ONE metahuman hate group on the UCAS permanent shit list didn't you? Still, you managed to squeak by unnoticed. Until Sunday last week, when you masterminded and kidnapped the child of a troll business owner in your own neighborhood. I saw the hospital report by the way; only thirteen and she manages to knock out one of your teeth AND break the arms of one of your compatriots? That's almost too funny."

He says nothing, finally realizing he should stop talking.

"You disliked Mister Togo because he was more much successful then you despite being, and I quote, 'a dirty trog'. Here's the thing James; more successful means more money. More money means he could hire me. Hiring me means your life just got considerably more unpleasant. Now; you're going to tell me where you took his daughter. I CAN find out without you, it'll just take more time, and I'd rather do this quickly."

"Fuck you, knife-ears! Think you can make me talk!?" he spits, anger still making him defiant. That and hope.
The trick of course is removing the hope except for the hope you allow him to have, THEN asking the questions.

You hit another AR button and a new window appears, one with numbers and graphs.
"This is your bank account," you say, then press again. "This is your bank account emptying itself."

He blinks.

>>1088572
Please, please let us sell this guy to Tamanous.

The ghoul chop shop that even hardened runners fear more than Aztechnology, please let us sell this guy to them, alive.
I'm sure that they'd appreciate some fresh human sashimi.

File: IMG_3925.jpg (140 KB, 500x500)

140 KB JPG

You ignore him and continue, showing him a new graph.
"This is your lawyer."
You flick your wrist again.
"This is the payment for your lawyer vanishing. Gonna be hard to keep custody of your kid without him I'm guessing."

"Wait...," he begins, but you ignore him

"This is your email box."
Flick.
"This is your email box filling with child pornography. Oh dear. It seems that the website that you're downloading it from is tagged already by Knight-Errant! They're going to want a word with you for that."

His eyes widen, but you continue.

"Oh no. It seems you left a considerable amount of proof in your email browser that you're an active member of a terrorist group! Probably should have cleared your email cache and browser history," you note to him dryly. The best part was you didn't even need to manufacture that bit of evidence.

"This is...," you begin, and you let him interrupt this time.

"Okay, stop! Stop! Ghost, what the hell do you want?!" he asks in alarm.
"Where is Mister Togo's daughter?" you ask simply, leaning back against the car and folding your arms.

"She's....fuck...she's in a storage rental on Berkely, okay? Just...undo all that shit you just did!!" he begs.

"Guards?" you ask, fiddling with the AR display to make it look like you're about to fix it, or do even worse.
"None! We just locked the door! We were going to ransom her!" he admits.
"Thank you," you say, flicking your wrist again, causing the AR display to vanish.

Then you whistle.
A quiet, nearly imperceptible series of shambling sounds come out of the alley behind DeMarco, and he rolls over to look at the figures emerging from the shadows.
Scaberous flesh, pale, nearly blind eyes, sharp canines, and vicious grins adorn the figures wearing the shoddy leathers and gang clothes, their lean, wiry limbs ending in blackened claws. Ghouls.

"Mister DeMarco, I have to make a confession. One of the stipulations of my contract was that nobody ever found you in once piece ever again. My acquaintances here are going to ensure that you aren't found in one piece, ever again. Quite literally I'm afraid."

The ghouls grin ferally, finding humor in the cruel joke.

"If it makes you feel better, you'll be doing going things with your rest of life. Your organs will go to people who will make better use of them then you, and since you're a universal donor I imagine they'll be made use of quite quickly. Oh and by the way; you WILL be the rest of your 'life'. They're likely going to need to keep you breathing for awhile while they remove them. Freshness counts."

He says nothing, simply beginning to weep in utter terror.

"I'd say that it was a pleasure dealing with you," you say as you turn around and get back into the car. "But it'd be a lie."

You drive off before the Dissassemblers go to work.

>>1088626
Good guess!

>>1088626
we are next to the Barrens, right?
If we write Humanis Policlub on him with magic marker and throw him out of the car there, it should have a simmilar effect.
Less chances of us getting eaten.^^

>>1088638
>Less chances of us getting eaten.^^
Yeah, but this way we get paid.
Though we shouldn't brag about it, anywhere.

Tamanous still is considered one of the most evil groups around because they have absolutely no scruples.

File: IMG_3924.gif (3.27 MB, 500x400)

3.27 MB GIF

You drive off between the alleyways, activating the GridGuide to take you away from The Verge and back to Downtown as you make an AR call to Togo, voice only.
"Your daughter is in a storage container on Berkeley. I know the lot he's talking about," you say as soon as he picks up. "There's no guards, but bring some of your friends anyway just in case. He says they locked it, but I'm forwarding you the address, lot number, and access code for the storage. I found it on his commlink early on but not the exact lot it belonged to. Now go be a hero and get your daughter. The lot's owner won't question you once you come with the proper access codes."

"Thank you Mister Mercury!" he says gratefully, his deep troll voice heavy with relief.
"It's Mercurio," you say with a mental sigh. "Not Mercury. No 'Mister', and no need for thanks either. You thanked me when you paid me. I'm just doing what I was hired to do."
"Still, if you ever need-" he begins, but you cut him off again.
"If you need me again, get in contact with my Fixer. I sure hope you never need my services again. Consider moving from Snohomish by the way. It's not a nice neighborhood if your ears are the wrong shape," you advise, then you hang up.

As you drive out of the barrens in the crappy rented GridGuid van, the neon lights of the city come into view. You lean back, take out a vaporizer, and turn on some music as you let the GridGuide's autopilot do all the driving.

Cheezy 80's music opening theme GOOOO!
https://youtu.be/he5IEXtdjpE

As you listen to the pleasant music stylings of Sweedish elf rock sensation Alec Grommel you consider what to do next as you inhale from the vaporizer, causing the tip to glow with a gentle white light.

>[Call Fixer. You could always use more work.]
>[Head home, jump into VR on the way and see what's happening on the Grid]
>[Just head straight home.]

>>1088695
>[Head home, jump into VR on the way and see what's happening on the Grid

>>1088695
>[Head home, jump into VR on the way and see what's happening on the Grid]
We earned the rest of the day off, after such an well executed job.

>>1088695
>[Head home, jump into VR on the way and see what's happening on the Grid]

>>1088695
>[Head home, jump into VR on the way and see what's happening on the Grid]

File: IMG_3926.jpg (400 KB, 460x560)

400 KB JPG

You lean back into your chair and close your eyes, accessing your deck wirelessly. You feel that familiar tingle, the liquid electric sensation surge across your nerves and you feel yourself leaving your body.
Below you is the icon of your rented GridGuide car under the spoofed identity you gave it ("Koji Yamamoto") and your Persona materializes into the Emerald City Grid.
Your appearance is of course heavily customized; any decker worth his salt wouldn't use a pre-programmed icon. The digital avatar is hyper-realistic, 3D model of yourself with a ridiculous amount of code going into making it as expressive as your actual meat body. The primary change is that you are basically naked (with the gender parts removed), and seemingly carved out of liquid chromed silver and reflective obsidian; with glowing blue pupilless eyes and similar light coming out of your mouth when it opens in one of over 620 programmed potential expressions.

The emerald genstone towers of code and light of the Seattle Grid light up the skyline and you "breathe" in the digital air in contentment; the Matrix is where you feel honestly at home compared to meatspace, even if you specialize in working both.

>[Vist your Fixer online]
>[Head to ShadowSea, the local Grid's datahaven]
>[Head to your home node]

>[Head to ShadowSea, the local Grid's datahaven]
What are the latest news?

>>1088861
>[Head to ShadowSea, the local Grid's datahaven]
Remember, don't brag about feeding a Humanis scumbag to Tamanous.
The ghouls are evil enough to freak out contract killers who kill kids for money, and turn off most runners.

Oh and check the fridge status in your home node.
See if we need to get groceries on the way.

>>1088877
>Remember, don't brag about feeding a Humanis scumbag to Tamanous.
Technically, you only sold him to a street gang composed of ghouls, but a lot of people won't see the practical difference.

>>1088861
>[Head to ShadowSea, the local Grid's datahaven]

Global Matrix Theme
https://youtu.be/6RpdfONfCDk

<ShadowSea> you think to your deck, and then you are on your way there. The shining green code towers of the Seattle Grid blur by so fast that they'd be impossible to see if you weren't processing information at light speed, but you are so you do.
The node doesn't show up until it scans your access code to the hidden node, then suddenly the node icon appears. You touch the simple icon and it warps space around you as you either shrink inside of it or it grows to incredible proportions depending on your perspective, and you are suddenly inside the black and green VR datahaven.
The "lobby" of ShadowSea is a simple black room with glowing green lines where angled and rounded edges would be, with three glowing black neon doorways each with a different location above it; ShadowSea's chat rooms, The Sound and the Fury virtual bar, and Olypmus meeting point.

You hear into the Fury and walk through the door, your perspective changing again to the inside of the digital club. It has far more color (and music, and noise, and people) then the outside, but that's sort of the point; people aren't always looking for the same things in ShadowSea.

"Sup Merc?" says a digital voice to your right as you walk up to the bar and the bartender visits you and five other customers simultaneously (benefits of being an expert program and not a person).
The persona is a huge muscular ork in clothing that resembles more a fantasy/medieval warrior then a modern soldier, lots of padding and cured leather and chain over muscular arms with a fairly large sword on his back. The persona is also very clearly an ork under all the pseudo-medieval gear.
You recognize the icon, though it's had some touch-ups recently; Caliban, a local Seattle runner. You've run with him in person a few times before. He's a bit crude in terms of skill set but otherwise is reliable, and best of all he's trustworthy.

>[Polite] "Evening."
>[Informal] "Sup, C?"
>[Businesslike] "Got work queued up?"

>>1089122

>[Polite] "Evening."
Long time no see, How are things?

>>1089122
>[Polite] "Evening."

Have you heard anything interesting lately?

>>1089122
>[Polite] "Evening."

I'm not entirely certain what we are. Given our victim's insult, are we an ork or a well-built elf?

knife-ear is primarily used for an elf afaik

>>1089122
>>[Polite] "Evening."

mama elf would be proud

>>1089325
Mercurio is an elf.

>>1089122
>[Polite] "Evening."

File: IMG_3927.jpg (69 KB, 500x704)

69 KB JPG

>>1089186, >>1089203, >>1089214
"Evening, Cal. Been awhile," you say cordially. "Business been good?"
"So-so," he says, wavering his palm back and forth. "Some lean days and some good ones. It's gotten to be a lot more of a pain in the ass being meta since Brackhaven got elected though."

You nod in agreement if that; Kenneth Brackhaven, the Seattle Metroplex's new mayor, got elected pretty much via being openly racist. Humanis Policlub was one of his biggest donors.

"I hear that," you agree. "He's on about orks and trolls first right now but my ears aren't any rounder then yours. Just one more reason to keep your head down and run faster I guess."
"Getting sick of running from that crap myself," he admits. "Be damn nice to go for a walk and not get searched just for being an ork. I'd have to bust a lot fewer heads then I do now, you know?"

You feel a twinge of guilt at his words, like unintentionally stepping on an old injury. You say nothing but nod and order a drink from the virtual bartender.

"Shadow Valley Vinery. Red," you say, and the digital simulation of the drink appears in from of you. You take it and savor the sweet and sour red wine, tasting the alcoholic simsense on your virtual tongue.

"Man, what is it with you and drinking crappy fruity wines? You got something against good old beer?" Caliban mocks gently.

"First of all, you prefer hurlg, which is not beer," you point out. "It is basically soup that happens to have hops and alchohol in it. Second of all, just recently a shot a guy in the torso in front of all of his friends and when his big burly backup walked up I punched him in the face so hard he'll be crapping his own teeth for a month. I am eighteen years and more dead bodies then most people see in their while lives past being young enough that I feel the need prove my manliness with my preference of drinks."

He laughs at that just as a visitor across the bar floats over to you.
The persona is of an astoundingly beautiful Asian woman with pale skin that appears to to me made out of a silvery pearl substance and hair like floating, glowing strands of light that seem to float around in their own gravity. Her clothing looks like some kind of traditional, but equally woven out of digital light rather then any real fabric to be found in life. You privately admire the crazy amount of coding work that must have gone into just her clothes; you admit that her codework is a lot more artistic then your own that she can pull that persona off.
You recognize her; Seonnyeo, a decker who's a pretty hot codeslinger that you've worked with before. Unlike Caliban you've never met her in person however, and in fact you're pretty sure her meat body is somewhere in Korea, probably the Seoul-Incheon Megaplex. In all honesty she might not even be a "she" at all, what with the realities of customizing a persona and the ease of synthesizing fake digital voices in this day and age.

"Cal. Mercurio. Something funny?"

>[Polite] "Not really. How's things?"
>[Humor] "We were discussing the manliness of various forms of drink."
>[Flirty] "We were taking bets on your gender again."

>>1089647
>[Humor] "We were discussing the manliness of various forms of drink."

>>1089647
>[Humor] "We were discussing the manliness of various forms of drink."

"Any opinions you want to throw out here?"

File: IMG_3929.jpg (47 KB, 320x240)

47 KB JPG

>>1089688, >>1089699
"We were discussing he manliness of various forms of drink, actually. I claimed that it doesn't actually matter because a proper runner doesn't need a drink to prove how manly he is. Got anything to add?" you ask politely.

"Well first I'm not sure how viable it is asking my opinion about maniless," she notes, gesturing down at her feminine icon. "But if you want a really traditionally manly drink I know of....," she says, gesturing to the bar and a new alcohol icon appears on the bar.
It looks like a huge jug of brownish liquid with an actual dead snake itself of it.

You blink at the grotesque thing, then look back at her.
"What the hell is this stuff?" you ask.
"Bem ju," she responds with a smirk. "Snake wine. It's traditional medicine for men. Good for their liver and verility and stuff supposedly. They kill an entire poisonous snake by drowning the thing in soju wine and aging it. More poisonous the snake the more it's medicinal value and it's price."
"You're kidding me," Caliban barks with a laugh. "That's the craziest thing I've ever herd!"
"Traditions Korean medicine is weird," she admits with a nod. "I once had to yank a bottle of it filled with some kind of rare African snake because some aged client wanted it so bad. One of the weirdest jobs in my life. So, anyone want to try it out?"

>[Yes] "...sure, I'll bite."
>[No] "Pass."

>>1089922
>[Yes] "...sure, I'll bite."
No one ever called an elf a punk bitch.

>>1089922
>[Yes] "... sure, I'll bite."

Entirely voting this for the pun.

>>1089922
>[Yes] "...sure, I'll bite."

File: IMG_3928.jpg (23 KB, 269x188)

23 KB JPG

>>1089944, >>1089966, >>1090006
You pause as you stare at the ugly bottle of wine and the snake inside of it's almost mockingly encoded grin.

"Okay, I'll bite," you say with a shrug. "I'll try anything once."
"Hah!" Caliban says, making a literally completely artificial show of leaning back and getting comfortable. "This I gotta see."

You reach over and begin to down the grotesque beverage and your icon begins to process the simstim.
It takes a little like vodka with a sweeter aftertaste, only left in a barrel for fifty years and then filled with a dead thing.
I've had this stuff before in real life. It's nasty as hell.
You gag at the taste, but then see the virtual bottle isn't just gone with the one sip; it has a simulation of chugging the ENTIRE thing at once you can do, with realistic drainage of the bottle.
You look at the mocking look in Seonnyeo's eyes and realize she deliberately programmed the whole bottle into the stimsense just to see if you'd drink the whole goddamn thing.

So you don't disappoint her and chug it ALL, ignoring the dizziness and aching feeling in your throat. It's not like you can get a hangover from it or anything, so why not?
The bottle eventually vanishes, but as you drink the last bit a completely different stimsense hits you; one embedded in the back of the icon that only triggered when you drank the whole thing.

>A beautiful woman leans over your body and left shoulder, hands on your sides and whispers into it in a quiet and intimate tone.<
>"Congratulations....."<

The stimsense happens so fast that it's almost immediately over; you no longer have the taste of alcohol in your mouth, or the dizziness or numbness of your tongue, or any other...more surprising sensations.

"Well?" Caliban asks, sounding amused.
Seonnyeo sits across from you with a wry smile, saying nothing.

>[Honest] "That tasted like ass."
>[Deflecting] "That was....interesting."
>[Casual] "Not bad. Got any more?"

>>1090169
>[Casual] "Not bad. Got any more?"
Simulate fire out of our eyes for sheer determination purposes.

>>1090169
>[Casual] "Not bad. Got any more?"

>>1090204
I think our elf is a little cold-blooded for a show like that. Play it cool.

>>1090169
>[Casual] "Not bad. Got any more?"

"Why I already feel more virile."

>>1090169
>[Deflecting] "That was....interesting."

>>1090204, >>1090224, >>1090225
"Not bad I guess. Got any more?" you say casually, ignoring the inserted simsense she embedded in the drink.
It's not a complicated coding job (the icon is really just a graphical representation and not the actual simsense code after all), but it was a pretty slick one with how abrupt and fast the change between the two was without any gaps between then.

She smiles at the implication behind your statement, but shakes her head.
"No, that was a one-off sim. I.....kinda didn't think you'd even try it...," she says, brushing her hair back behind her ear and looking down a bit.
You strongly suspect she put that last bit of sim in on a whim; she's never really shown anything resembling interest in you. It's not that surprising; your persona is not particularly sexualized.

Your alert system tells you you're nearing home. Time flies when you're thinking and talking at the speed of light, you suppose.

"I gotta go," you say, getting off your seat and nodding at both. "If you hear of any work you need done, you know who to call."
Caliban snorts. "You ever think of much besides work?" he wonders.
"Always looking for more of it, Cal," you say with a friendly pat on his back, and step out of the Sound and Fury, and then ShadowSea, about to jack out.

>WARNING<
>HOSTILE CODE DETECTED<
You barely have time to react when you feel a splitting headache hit you as SOMETHING smashes into your persona as soon as you exit the host!

>[Fight Back! Hit it with a Data Spike!]
>[Smokescreen! Try to loose it!]
>[Reconfigure for Combat Mode]

>>1090476
>[Smokescreen! Try to loose it!]

>>1090476
>[Smokescreen! Try to loose it!]
Yo, FUCK off.

>>1090490, >>1090530
You're caught completely off-guard; your setup isn't even for Matrix combat right now, you're prioritized for data searching and subversion!
You pick yourself up (so to speak) and scan your attacker; it's not a persona, it's some kind of Hunter-Killer Agent program.
It looks like a humanoid in a hood carrying a fancy bow and arrow, with only a pair of glowing eyes inside the shadowed hood.

"Somebody was playing WAY too much Dawn of Atlantis when they designed you," you say as you call up a info cloud to scramble it's sense and set your running mode to Silent, covering your own digital tracks with a virtual "smoke bomb"!
Your attacker immediately looses sight of you in the spam wall you call up and signal scrambler!

It begins to scan around for you, searchlight-like beams coming from it's eyes as it scans the area for you and finds....nothing. Thankfully when you're not expecting to thrown down you focus most of your deck (a rather heavily customized Renraku Tsurugi) on Sleaze and Data Processing power, so right now you're definitely configured to hide better then he can find you.

The Agent program keeps scanning, but finds nothing and then seems to swoop it's cloak over itself, causing it to vanish.
A fast scan reveals it's presence to you easily enough; once you know it's there it's relatively easy for you spot in this config, you just weren't looking.

<"The hell are you even doing here?"> you query at the Agent program.

>[Leave, as your meat-body is almost home.]
>[Stay and observe the Agent.]
>[Take a moment to reconfigure for combat and then hit it back!]

>>1090790
>[Stay and observe the Agent.]
Is it automated? Is it looking for us in particular or attacking others?

>>1090790
>[Take a moment to reconfigure for combat and then hit it back!]

can we contact people inside the node?
Maybe Seonnyeo can track its origin, while we keep it busy.

>>1090790
>>[Stay and observe the Agent.]

can we look at it's code to get any clues from where it came or only after we disable it?

>>1090790
>[Stay and observe the Agent.]

The Agent stays put, invisible and unmoving and still in it's search mode.
Another persona (a demonic-looking female one) leaves the ShadowSea node and flies off at high speeds, and the Agent program just sits there, unmoving.

<"Son of a bitch. Were you looking for me?> you say aloud in surprise. It's not like you haven't made enemies or pisses people off or anything of that sort. You just are very good at misdirection and covering your tracks. Your potential enemies don't really know what to look for and have to rely on word of mouth since you've made damn sure your information online is basically nonexistent.

So who the hell sent this after you?

>[Switch config to Combat and Attack]
>[Head home and alert ShadowSea's SysOp that they have a stalker]
>[Try and run a Trace in the Icon]

>>1091656
>[Try and run a Trace in the Icon]

>>1091656
>[Head home and alert ShadowSea's SysOp that they have a stalker]
Mostly because if there's an Agent here, who knows what's waiting for us at home and I want to concentrate on the meatspace dangers possibly waiting for us.

>>1091656
>[Head home and alert ShadowSea's SysOp that they have a stalker]
Let the "authorities" deal with it.

File: IMG_3930.jpg (650 KB, 1600x2000)

650 KB JPG

>>1091672, >>1091700
You momentarily wrestle with the decision before you decide to let someone else handle it and begin PMing Facet, the SysOp of ShadowSea.
>Mercurio: There's some kinda Agent program specces for combat and hunting parked outside of the host icon. It's not doing anything right now but I figured I should let you know.<
>->Receiving PM from Facet:
>Facet: Thanks Merc. Will handle.<

You shrug it off and jack out, ending up back inside your meat body just as the GridGuide car pulls up outside the complex where you call home.

The Elven District is a lot nicer then the rest of the 'Plex. A lot more aesthetically pleasing (at least to your eyes), and far more greenery (especially in the rooftop garden sense), and generally trying to look less like an over-urbanized hellhole.
You live in a loft condo near a refurbished old office building that is now a seven-story housing complex for the professional middle class; it's pricey to keep paying for but that keeps you working and motivated and it has a good neighborhood and good security who thankfully haven't the foggiest idea what you really do for a living.
Officially you're listed as a "Matrix Security Contracting Specialist", and the super got a lot less choosy about asking questions about what that job title meant when you offered to update, improve, and maintain the entire Matrix security infrastructure of the building for free when any security contracting company would charge a fortune for the same.

You got a sweet deal in a calm neighborhood for a little extra work and importantly no questions asked and nobody wondering if you're a shadowrunner or not.

You do not like taking your work home with you.

>>1091656
>[Head home and alert ShadowSea's SysOp that they have a stalker]

You pause before getting out of the rented car, concentrating on your less-then-mundane senses; among your Adept powers are the ability to detect any movement in roughly a 6-meter radius around you, which is handy as hell for detecting any nearby ambushers.
You feel nothing in particular moving around the lobby except the security guards and what is probably a cat nearby.
You open your other sense, which allows you to detect magic of any kind for a much father distance (about sixty meters) and get nothing except the shaman on the fourth floor doing some kind of work.
Your shades aren't spotting anything either, through regular low-light or thermographics, and an AR search finds no nearby icons or nodes that you didn't already know about.

>[Wait outside for a few more minutes]
>[Get back into your home]

>>1092009
>[Wait outside for a few more minutes]

If it's truly nothing there's no harm to this, if it is something it might save our life

>>1092009
>>[Wait outside for a few more minutes]

>>1092009
>[Wait outside for a few more minutes]
Can't be too careful.

So we're an elf Adept/Decker? I'm just waiting for us to cast spells and go whole hog as a Mystic Adept/Decker.

>>1092009
>[Wait outside for a few more minutes]

>>1092035
>So we're an elf Adept/Decker? I'm just waiting for us to cast spells and go whole hog as a Mystic Adept/Decker.

Mercurio is an Adept Decker, correct.
He actually has two low-impact implants (a Betaware datajack and simrig) that mildly reduce his Essence rating, but he's Initiated twice and broke even with his Magic score after raising it back.
He's not a very spiritual or mystical person in outlook, focused on technical skills, down to earth thinking, and hands-on problem solving.
He sees his Adept powers like a street Samurai might see his augmentations; it's just another edge that he uses to supplant his natural skills rather then any spiritual or mystical thing at all.

You wait outside and mentally switch the color of your fiberoptic-woven hair from shiny reflective silver to it's natural dark brown and take off your shades and remove the chromed-iris contact lenses, and you even remove your armor jacket and reverse it (hard to do with all the aramid fibers on it) so that the chrome parts contrasting with the black synthleather parts can no longer be seen.
All the silver and chrome is part of your street persona as Mercurio; from a psychological standpoint it's a visual draw away from your actual features, and they just remember the elf with all the silver and chrome on him.
It's a way of making your visual mark (which you think is important for a runner that also completely distracts anyone from what you actually look like.

You wait outside for anyone who might be watching, and after an hour see nothing except an autocab dropping off one of the tenants. The lady who gets out is one of the most recognizable; she's a Changeling who goes by "Kat", which by virtue of your complete access to building records and security you actually know is called "Kaitlyn Smalls".
She's extremely good-looking; she was probably an elf prior to her SURGE expression, but afterwords her long ears got longer and vaguely furrier and her blonde hair got thicker and fuller until it was like a lion mane almost.
She has another mutation too; she's astoundingly attractive in a way that doesn't rely on physical appearances, and carries a nearly physical glow around her.

You don't envy her change though; she doesn't get the usual shit for being a Changeling thanks to her weird glamour effect, but she definitely doesn't have it easy, and her taste in clothes and irregular hours and long "client list" lead you strongly to believe she's a working girl. A high-priced one, but still a hooker.

"Fuck," you hear her swear a bit too loudly as her access card doesn't let her in and she keeps swiping it.

>[Head up and fix the problem for her]
>[Wait outside until she gets in; nobody needs to know you were waiting out here]

File: 1446574886031.jpg (37 KB, 422x700)

37 KB JPG

>>1092114
Isn't Initiation a relatively involved process, though? I'd imagine after Initiating twice, he'd have some modicum of respect for the magic that subsumes and augments his body.

Meanwhile, I'll throw out a couple sample pictures of what our fair Mercurio might look like.

>>1092289
>[Head up and fix the problem for her]
"Evening, Kat. Long day?"

>>1092289
[x] Fix the problem remotely using our admin access to the building.
This way she gets in and no one realizes we're out here.

>>1092321
And not ingratiate ourselves with a potential contact?

>>1092289
>[Head up and fix the problem for her]

>>1092312
>Isn't Initiation a relatively involved process, though?
This is true, but it doesn't stop Hermetics from Initiating repeatedly.
He has respect for it the way you respect a gun; it's dangerous in untrained hands and when used irresponsibly and more useful with training but to him it's a quantifiable and rational thing and carries none of the mysticism it has for some Awakened.

>>1092321
This too is an option, if others want to take it.

>>1092331
Not when someone can simply be waiting for us to show ourselves since they had an Agent ready to kill us.

>>1092369
That was the Matrix node of a known hacker den, not Mercurio's high-rise condo.

>>1092312, >>1092350
You sigh to yourself and get out, letting her know you're behind her when you shut the door and command the GridGuide rental to head off as you walk up the stairs and put your shades back on, flicking a switch to change their color to reflective black instead of chrome.

"Oh!" Kat says as she turns around, startled. "Alan. I didn't see you there."

You walk up to the front with a curt nod to her.
"I was working from my car. Was still finishing up work in VR and couldn't jack out until I was finished with my job," you lie smoothly. "Something wrong with the door?"

She gives an exhasperated sigh.
"Yes! Stupid thing locked me out!"

"Let me," you say with nod and call up an AR diagnostic. The door opens as you approach with no problem, but it doesn't recognize her building keycode.
You check the entry logs and see that admin access used by a member of building committee board member to lock her out. You recognize the name; Michael Roswell, an elf who is definitely a bit snobby. He agreed to admit you as a tenant only when the rest of the committee liked the idea of free network security upgrades and maintence and voted you in.
Looks like your initial suspicions were correct; he is in fact a racist. You'll have to do something about that at some point.

"Here's the problem," you say as you re-admit her to the building. "There was some kind of glitch in the reader code. It only let in my because of my admin status. It'll work now."

"Thanks Alan! Sorry, I've just had a long day and-" she says, but you hold up your hand and shake your head.
"No thanks needed. I should have caught the problem early on today when I was checking the system. I'll stay up and try to make sure it doesn't happen again," you reassure.
"Thanks anyway," she says and kisses you on the cheek. You roll your eyes behind your shades as you take the elevator up.

You walk over to your apartment door and let it open automatically and give the simple voice command; "I'm home."
The pleasant female voice you use as your home node interface greets you.

>"Welcome home, Alan."<
>"You have two new messages."<

You go and sit down on the cheap synthleather couch and sigh as you bring up an AR feed.

>[Check your "work" messages]
>[Check the messages left at your home node]
>[Get something to eat and sleep]

>>1092493
>[Check the messages left at your home node]

>>1092493
>[Check the messages left at your home node]
then
>[Check your "work" messages]

>>1092498, >>1092499
Mercurio's home theme
https://youtu.be/VKl1kHncTPc
"Play," you say aloud.

>"First Message."<
>"Mister Airgrid, this is Roswell calling to remind you to attend the committee meeting this mon-"
"Delete," you say aloud, shaking your head. Calling your condo and locking out Kaitlyn, who is still a paying tenant? You'll have to find a way to stop him from getting even more irritating.

>"Second Message"<
>https://youtu.be/AqGx4bEP34k<
The static is gentle and not grating, but neither is it filled with anything useful. You're about to delete the message and check if there's something wrong with your home node when something that sounds like breathing and a voice comes through the white noise.

>"......Aeodhann?"<
You sit up and for a second freeze at the usage of your actual first name, which nobody had called you in almost ten straight years.
The voice is female, you think.

"Stop playback!" you say in alarm as you pull up your AR overlay in full and use your wireless datajack to access your deck.
You don't jack in but your reflexes kick in and time seems to slow as you mentally blur through your AR keyboard overlay at extremely high reaction time, just around that of someone in Cold-SIM VR.

You immediately access your home node's message machine and and sever all the individual connections it has to other devices with a mental command as a precaution, making a quit configuration shift to high Firewall for defense and high Data Processing for analysis.
You immediately try to isolate the message only to discover that there isn't even one on the node; there's just a rapidly-decaying bit of code, like the remains of a Data Bomb without the any of the damage to your system.

>[Try to recover as much of the code as you can before it decays!]
>[Jack into full VR and scan the complex for any irregularities and watchers!]

>>1092632
>[Try to recover as much of the code as you can before it decays!]

>>1092632
>[Try to recover as much of the code as you can before it decays!]

>>1092632
Try to recover

>>1092636, >>1092639, >>1092661
You isolate the code and put it in an encrypted access-only file that you can lock down and open at will but nobody else without the code or your cyberdeck can even read even if they do crack the lock on it.
The code is really fragmented and broken, missing huge sections of it. Only the part that was the sound containing the name (YOUR name, your REAL name) is intact enough to tell what it does. The rest is just bits and pieces of code for programs and stuff that you can't read and make no sense, like someone took apart random pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and mailed them to you.
This message was damaged ever since it got here, and probably was like this on arrival or had been decaying since it was sent.

"But how the hell did they know to FIND me here?" you wonder aloud to the empty room.
Nobody can find Aeodhann Conroy anywhere on the Matrix, you've made absolutely sure of that. There are no records of his birth, his parents, his occupation, or his appearance. Anytime anyone anywhere wanted to access your SIN automatically not only would the results come up negative, but the query would cause any digital references to be eaten up by the same worm that deletes your name.
Only hardwired instances of your name that in no way connect to the SIN registry still exist, and without any corraberating Matrix information they have to rely on sketchy eyewitness reports that aren't looking for Mercurio.

The only people who know you're still alive and where you are, are Halfjack and Spike.

>[Time to go digging for info; do a Matrix search on.....well, you.]
>[Call Halfjack. Friends first.]
>[Call Spike. She won't be happy but she's at least reliable.]

>>1092824
Halfjack

>>1092824
>[Call Halfjack. Friends first.]

>>1092824
>[Call Halfjack. Friends first.]

>>1092824
>Halfjack

>>1092824
>[Call Halfjack. Friends first.]

>[Call Fastjacks younger brother. Friends first.]

Also, we need to do an in depth Matrix check of our home node!

>>1093008
Bruv, we're a top-flight decker. I'm sure that would've been the first thing he did after disconnecting the answering machine.

>>1092824
>>[Call Halfjack. Friends first.]

>>1093022
Dunno, we were kinda in a hurry.

File: IMG_3933.png (79 KB, 212x278)

79 KB PNG

You decide to ring up your old friend.
You've never had a stable runner crew ever since you came to Seattle; your skills are diverse enough that you often just work by yourself, or with short-lived assembled crews for one-off jobs.
You never treat anyone with anything other then professionalism, but in over a decade of running you don't have a close-knit replacement family of friends like some teams eventually become.

You have at least one real friend, one you've known since you were maybe twenty-two, all the way back in your Portland days.
The vidphone rings after you select his number from your contacts list, and the shaven-headed and scarred dwarf shows up on your phone with a somewhat expected annoyed cry of "What?!" from his end as he looks disheveled and tired.

Jackson "Halfjack" Dane used to be one of the most ridiculously stereotypical dwarves ever; he dressed like something out of Dawn of Atlantis, all beard with a boomingly low Scots accent and chain mail on his armor jacket and carrying a huge combat axe around. In his defense, nearly the entirety of the Sons of Gimli dress like that and he was a member of the gang for years.
Shaving his head and beard probably did a lot to change his outward appearance and dropping the accent entirely made him even less recognizable.

He's still irascible and pissed off as ever whenever you run with him these days though.

>[Casual] "What's up Short-Stuff?"
>[Polite] "Sorry to wake you."
>[Businesslike] "Wake up Jack."

>>1093534
>[Polite] "Sorry to wake you."

"I've run into a bit of an issue on my end, was looking for another opinion on it. Have you got the time?"

>>1093534
>[Polite] "Sorry to wake you."

>>1093534
>[Polite] "Sorry to wake you."

"Jack, it's me. Sorry to wake you, but something's come up," you say apologetically.
"Merc?" he says sleepily. "Ghost, what the hell time is it?"
"I got pinged by someone who knew my real name about a minute ago."

THAT wakes him up real fast.
He arights himself (you think he was sleeping in his bed) and wipes the sleep out of his eyes.

"What? Who? You told me that was impossible," he says, clearly concerned. That's not that surprising; he got out of Tir for the same reasons you did and the run that burnt any remaining traces of your identity allowed him to get away same as you did.
Anyone who could find you might be able to find him too.

"I have no idea. The coding on the message has been fragmented so bad that I can't even tell what the whole thing was supposed to be. But they used my real name. Nobody in 'Plex even knows my real name except you," you explain.

"Well it wasn't me, dammit!" he says, angry at the insinuation. "If I give up you then I give up ME, and I got all the same shit hanging over me that you did! Hell, I was THERE during most of the shut yiu did!"

"I know, I know," you reassure. "It didn't make any sense at all being you. I'm calling you because like you said, if they know me they might know you. I also got attacked by an Agent that looks suspiciously like something NetWatch would code together, come to think of it."
"How's that?"
"Looked like a fantasy ranger. All was missing was pointed ears."
He winces. "Do you actually think they'd be that obvious? That's kind of on the nose, isn't it?"
"You used to unironically dress up like you were about to start an dead ork-counting contest with me whenever a fight started," you respond dryly.
"I would never do that, that would be horribly racist and against the principles for which we fought," he says, clearly offended.
"I know, I know. Just saying there's kind of a lack of irony in Cara'Sir most days."

>[Investigate] "Look, I've got some free time. Want to look into this with me?"
>[Warn] "I don't have any leads, so I was just giving you a heads up to keep your eyes open."
>[Meet]: "We should meet up. Compere notes."

>>1093855
>[Warn] "I don't have any leads, so I was just giving you a heads up to keep your eyes open."
You ping me the moment you find anything.

>>1093855
>[Investigate] "Look, I've got some free time. Want to look into this with me?"

>>1093900, >>1093920
Ties are always a bitch, aren't they?

>>1093855
>[Investigate] "Look, I've got some free time. Want to look into this with me?"

I'll break that tie

>[Investigate] "Look, I've got some free time. Want to look into this with me?"

>>1093855
>[Investigate] "Look, I've got some free time. Want to look into this with me?"

add this: "but before we do that, there's someone else I need to call."

>>1093920, >>1094703, >>1094708, >>1094710
"I've got some time in between jobs now, was thinking of doing some legwork. Want to look into this with me?" you ask the dwarf, who scratches the nearly shaven-clean brown pate crowning his scarred head.
"I dunno. I mean, if you get something that looks like a solid lead, I'm there. But right now you don't have much to go on. I mean, who's left on the call list? Sting? She's the only other one who knows who you really are in the entire Metroplex. And can you really trust her at all?" Halfjack asks.

You pause before answering , thinking on it.

Sting is an old Seattle street legend among the Ancients go-gang, having been around near as long as most of it's upper echeolon. She was an adult when you were just a teenager and so always had experience on you, but you're no spring chicken yourself anymore and you've long since closed that gap the long and hard way.
Your relationship with Sting and her old boss Green Lucifer might best be catagorized as "cordial"; you were friendly but not actual friends. You owed them for getting you out of Tir and across the Salish-Sidhe Nation and into Seattle, but you also paid that debt off just under a decade ago too.
Now the favors you ask them for are few and far between; they're useful and influential contacts, but both are a direct link to Aeodhann Conroy that you'd rather just leave alone. That part of your life is finally over and you've done your best to make some kind of peace with it. You think it was easier for Jack to cut those personal ties to his old life, but it was always hard to read your friend when he wanted to hide something from you.

>[Determined] "It's worth looking into even if it gets me nothing."
>[Reason] "I suppose I could wait until I have something more substantial."

>>1095286
>>[Determined] "It's worth looking into even if it gets me nothing."

>>1095286
>[Reason] "I suppose I could wait until I have something more substantial."
No reason to open an old wound like dealing with Sting unless we have very good reason to do so.

>>1095286
Determined

>>1095286
>[Reason] "I suppose I could wait until I have something more substantial."

>>1095286
>[Determined] "It's worth looking into even if it gets me nothing."

We have so little to go on right now, we sould follow all leads, i guess.
But maybe we shouldn't just ask her "Hey, you ratted me out?"
Are you aware, if someone is asking around for me?
something like that. My best idea but still not exactly elegant.

>>1095304, >>1095337, >>1095406
You think for a good hard minute.
"No. I need to make sure this stays buried," you decide. "When we left Tir we made sure to burn any bridge between there and here that wasn't useful as a street contact. Anyone willing to spend time and effort rebuilding those bridges is going to be a problem in the long run, so I'm going to try and nip it in the bud."
Halfjack seems to think on your words and then nods. "I gotcha, omae. Look, ring me up if you ever need an extra gun on a run. I know you work mostly solo these days, but help is help, right?"
"Right," you agree with nod. "Keep in touch, Jack."

He hangs up before you do.

>[Contact Sting]
>[Contact Reno, your Fixer]
>[Contact Seonnyeo]

>>1095549
>[Contact Sting]

>>1095549
>[Contact Seonnyeo]
It'll be good to have an outside third party to provide some perspective on this little conundrum. And who else can look into this but probably the best decker in Seoul?

>>1095549
>[Contact Reno, your Fixer]

>>1095549
>>[Contact Sting]

>>1095596

yeah man, but it would be impossible to involve her without her knowing our real name, and I think we don't want that

>>1095658
Mercurio clearly doesn't want to get Sting involved if he can help it, since knowing his identity could come back to bite him.

>>1095686
But she already does, if anything involving her would be a cortesy knowing that whoever knows our name probably knows hers too

>>1095561, >>1095656
You access Sting's number on your AR and she picks up after only a few rings.
Her face shows up on the vidcall but it's an AR simulation of her, not the real thing.

"Well here's a number I haven't heard from in awhile. How's my favorite decker? Need some new firepower Mr Silver?" Sting says in her black velvety voice.
You aren't fooled, and weren't even back in the day; she got to be second in command of the Ancients by being as mean as hell and smarter then everyone else, a real street operator.
"Hi Sting. And no thanks, you guys only sell in bulk and I don't buy so much," you respond politely.
"Your loss. What do you need then?"

[Direct] "Has anyone been asking around about me?"
[Meet Up] "Can we meet in person?"
[Small Talk] "Depends on what you have on offer today, Sting. Heard you got promoted?"

>>1096202
>[Small Talk] "Depends on what you have on offer today, Sting. Heard you got promoted?"
Gotta butter her up a little.

>>1096202
>[Direct] "Has anyone been asking around about me?"

>>1096202
>[Direct] "Has anyone been asking around about me?"

>>1096255, >>1096317
"Information, mostly. Anyone been asking around about me lately? Been hearing some stuff on the grid," you inquire.
"Yeah actually, there's a Johnson here who wants to hire you," she says. "You pick up on things fast, don't you? Guy's only been here for three days."

Warning bells go off in your head.

"If he wants to hire me for a job hook him up with my Fixer, it's what he's there for," you respond dryly, not letting your suspicion show.
"Hey, that's what I told him. Between you and me I think he doesn't want to talk business to anyone who's not an elf, li-ha?" she says, ending the rhetoric query in Sperethiel.
"So what?" you say dismissively. "Clearly he can't be that interested in hiring me if dealing with a human bothers him enough to scare him off. I've got better things to do then kowtow to an elf who can't get over his own bullshit long enough to do business."

[Details] "What kind of job is he asking about?"
[Interrogative] "This potential Johnson have a name you know of?"
[Dismissive] "Tell him if he wants to hire me to go through my Fixer, period."

>>1096432
>[Interrogative] "This potential Johnson have a name you know of?"
[Details] "What kind of job is he asking about?"

>>1096432
>Interrogative] "This potential Johnson have a name you know of?"

>>1096432
>[Interrogative] "This potential Johnson have a name you know of?"

>>1096432
>[Details] "What kind of job is he asking about?"

>>1096432
>[Dismissive] "Tell him if he wants to hire me to go through my Fixer, period."

>>1096441, >>1096450, >>1096460
"This Johnson have a name?" you inquire.
"Sure," Spike says, and from the sound of her voice she's smoking a cigarette or something. "He's staying here with us. Don't worry, he's been vetted and everything. Wouldn't be playing Fixer otherwise."

"Staying with them", she says.
That means he's an elf. Ancients wouldn't be letting anyone hang around over a few days otherwise.

"He's actually a runner like you. Goes by Rook. Heard of him?" she asks.

You haven't.

>[Accept] "I'll hear him out."
>[Decline] "No thanks. I've got other work to do."

Hear him out in a place of our chosing. We will contact. Edited the meet with the location.

If Jack is in the area get him to come as backup from a distance. If he's too far out to be convenient, hire a runner we know well enough for overwatch.

>>1096765
>[Accept] "I'll hear him out."
Why the fuck would this Johnson hang out with Spike, waiting for us to contact him? It sounds like he's expecting us.

>>1096806
That's an accept then?

>>1096845
More like a conditional acceptance, from the sound of it.

>>1096806, >>1096813
"I'll meet him then," you decide.
"Alright. We'll be at the Daisy Chain tomorrow night-" she begins, but you cut her off.
"I'm not going to be meeting on the weekend in your Pyallup elven goth rock club," you say immediately. "You and every other Ancient and Ancient wannabe in the city will be there on a weekend day."
"So what?" she says, sounding offended. "Worry we'll cut your ears to make 'em pointier or something? Last I checked you were an elf and you used to run with us."
"I don't like it when Tir elves come asking for me specifically want to meet at all-elven clubs surrounded by a bunch of elven go-gangers," you point out.

"Oh come on!" she says, sounding genuinely insulted. "You're now claiming that I'm somehow plotting to kill you with my OWN gangers? Please, the Tir don't love me anymore then they like you, Aeodhann. It's insulting to my reputation that you'd think I'd rat you out after letting you run with us years ago. Nobody in my posse would trust me again after that kind of shit."

Of course, nobody in her posse has a bounty on their head in Tir for over ¥30k that reads "Wanted for acts of Terrorism" either.

[Agree: she's right about that hit her reputation would take] "Alright. Fine. Elven goth rock club it is."
[Decline; let her be mad and have your Rep take a hit with her] "Yeah, I don't care. Have him meet me Ling Ho on Cherry and 8th."

>>1096964
>[Agree: she's right about that hit her reputation would take] "Alright. Fine. Elven goth rock club it is."

>>1096964
Dammit, I seem to keep forgetting to greentext the choices.

>Decline
"It's not your gangers I'm worried about Sting, someone else may have already ratted me out."

Not technically correct but let her think.

>>1096964
>[Agree: she's right about that hit her reputation would take] "Alright. Fine. Elven goth rock club it is."
I'm thinking that when the trap is inevitably sprung, we can hang this betrayal over her head.
And we can still set up preparations in the club before the meet so that we're prepared better than the Johnson.

>>1096976
"Alright, alright, fine," you agree reluctantly, rubbing the bridge of your nose. "Daisy Chain it is. I'm guessing you'll have all your posse there and they'll be drinking and such?"

"Relax, they'll know not to mess with you. Unless you start something and want to show a few of the kids how to properly fight of course," she says, and you hear a hint of laughter in her voice.
She's about a decade older then you you guess, but you understand the feeling; sometimes it's annoying seeing how stupid some younger street toughs and younger runners you work with are, but you definitely recall being just as stupid back when you were a teenager in the 50's.
Mercurio is fairly old for a shadowrunner; he's 38 years of age, and has been running for nearly twenty years, though for the first five he wasn't a truly "independent" runner.
"Only if they start something themselves," you say, not disagreeing with her.

You say nothing about bringing friends, and neither does she, so you assume there will be no problems if you do so and you see only potential benefits.

"I'll be there tomorrow night," you say, hanging up the call.

>[Call Reno. You'll need as much runner backup as you can get.]
>[Call Halfjack and let him know what's up.]

>>1097486
>[Call Halfjack and let him know what's up.]

>>1097523
+1

>>1097486
>>1097535
Forgot to link to post

>>1097523, >>1097535
You immediately dial your dwarf friend as soon as you hang up.

"Good Ghost, WHAT!?" he says sleepily.
"I arranged a meet with the guy I think was asking around for me. I'm going to see him at the Daisy Chain tomorrow evening," you say all at once.
"Ugh, you couldn't wait until morning? It's three 'o-clock at night and I've been working the last three days!" he complains.
"You said you wanted to know, I'm letting you know," you respond with a fair bit of dry mirth in your voice.
"Great. Daisy Chain's that elf club in Pyallup, right? Kinda the den of the enemy, isn't it?"
"Yup, which is why you're my backup."
"Wait, why am I the backup? I don't need to go into some Ancients ganger-club, YOU'RE the guy that made that choice!"
"Because you offered twenty minutes ago."
".....aaah horseshit. I did didn't I?"
"Yup."
"Dammit. Fine. Is it just us heading in?"

[Yes] "Yeah. Not sure who else I want to drag into this."
[No] "No, I'm going to see if I can get any more muscle to back us up."

>>1097605
>[Yes] "Yeah. Not sure who else I want to drag into this."
The less people we get dredged into this mess, the better.

>>1097605
>[No] "No, I'm going to see if I can get any more muscle to back us up."

>>1097605
>[Yes]

Bringing too many would draw too much attention, a dwarf in an elf club is weird enough.

>>1097605

>[Yes] "Yeah. Not sure who else I want to drag into this."

>>1097605
>[Yes] "Yeah. Not sure who else I want to drag into this."
Really, really laying the meta-racial tensions thick with this quest QM.

>>1097605
>[Yes]

>>1097672, >>1097769, >>1097842, >>1097967, >>1098095
"I don't have a solid team of runners so anyone I hire on is just being pulled into my personal bullshit with no foreknowledge. I'm a professional; I wouldn't just drag some rando into this when they have no stake in it," you say firmly.
"I guess I neither count as a rando nor get a similar degree of professional courtesy then," Halfjack responds dryly. "So just to reiterate; if this shit goes south, it'll be you and me against Ghost knows how many elven go-gangers and whoever might be screwing is over?"
"Pretty much.But how would that be any different then anything we did when we were kids?"
"When we were kids I was young enough to think working for free and dying for a cause was brave and noble. Now I'm old and cranky and cynical and want to at least get PAID for the privilege of getting shot at!"
"Cheer up, if it goes bad I'm sure someone somewhere's paying for shot-up old Ancients ganger jackets," you say just before you hang up the phone.

You sigh and rub your hands across your face, tired.
This is the kind of stuff you wanted put behind you when you left Portland. Being Mercurio is easy; money is a rational and stable reason to betray someone, and you're always expecting a Johnson to screw you over for the bottom line. Killing corporate goons is binary; you either do or you do not. Hacking security systems isn't complex; you either succeed or fail.
The cloak and dagger crap of your old life, fighting against and with idealists, all that ended up being too costly and too unsatisfying; even when you won you lost something for it, and for every victory you gained you had to trade something for it until it felt like there was nothing left of yourself TO trade.

Halfjack is right.
Ideals and terrorism are the games of younger, stupider men who believe you can somehow "win" eventually, rather then complete your objectives only to realize that you still have to get up and keep walking after your supposed victory and even then you'll discover winning doesn't mean getting what you actually wanted.

Now at least you risk your life for something sane; nuyen, survival and your professional pride.
It only took you nineteen years, the loss of your family, friends, fiancée, and more dead bodies then you'll ever be able to count for you to realize it.

You fall asleep on the couch, troubled.

File: IMG_3947.png (49 KB, 900x785)

49 KB PNG

When you wake up the next morning you are still resolved to deal with this solution, one way or another, though still no less unhappy then when you went to sleep.
That's alright; you've worked unhappy before. You have the kind of profession where finding ways (and people) to vent your anger isn't really particularly difficult.

Onto more practical matters going to need to decide what you carry to the meeting; your deck comes without question, the customized Renraku Tsurugi in it's ballistic-resistant and shock-proof case strapped across your back with a Kevlar shoulder-rig.
You also grab your trusty sidearm; a Telestrian Falcon-2. It chambers the same 10mm Ares round that the Predator series has used for years, so ammunition and stopping power isn't a problem. The smartlink and improved rangefinder also turn it into a highly accurate weapon at range comparatively speaking.

The question is; what ELSE to take?

>Check all that apply with x between the brackets
>[ ] Your carbine, a compact rapid-fire weapon with solid stopping power and decent ammo. Lacks subtlety, even in a compact form.
>[ ] Your sword, an Ares Monosword that has been turned into a Weapon Focus. It's one-handed, maneuverable, can cut through most armor as well as a rifle round, and can hurt spirits if you run into them. Cops and other authorities tend to not take it too seriously as a "weapon". Downside is that you're not going to be hiding it.
>[ ] Your knife. Constructed of a single piece of industrial black sapphire, it's as hard as a diamond and as sharp as a razor. Completely undetectable by MAD scanners, very easy to conceal.
>[ ] A flash-pack. A micro "grenade" the size of a pack of cigarettes that releases blinding strobe lights. EXTREMELY distracting and easy to conceal.
>[ ] A high-explosive hand-grenade. Completely subtle, everyone knows what they look like. You hate using them, but when you absolutely, positively need to kill every motherfucker in the room, accept no substitutes.

>[X] Your sword, an Ares Monosword that has been turned into a Weapon Focus. It's one-handed, maneuverable, can cut through most armor as well as a rifle round, and can hurt spirits if you run into them. Cops and other authorities tend to not take it too seriously as a "weapon". Downside is that you're not going to be hiding it.
>[X] Your knife. Constructed of a single piece of industrial black sapphire, it's as hard as a diamond and as sharp as a razor. Completely undetectable by MAD scanners, very easy to conceal.
>[X] A flash-pack. A micro "grenade" the size of a pack of cigarettes that releases blinding strobe lights. EXTREMELY distracting and easy to conceal.

Sword because we want the focus, and its probably not obviously screaming warfare.

Knife because why not.
Flashpack also why not.
They are easy to hide.

Leave the Grenade and the carabine, because even in Ganger club they might be Seen as pretty offensive.

Only thing we need an excuse for then, is the Sword really. Dont know how bad the Gangers think this is.

>>1098229
>[X ] Your sword, an Ares Monosword that has been turned into a Weapon Focus. It's one-handed, maneuverable, can cut through most armor as well as a rifle round, and can hurt spirits if you run into them. Cops and other authorities tend to not take it too seriously as a "weapon". Downside is that you're not going to be hiding it.
>[X ] Your knife. Constructed of a single piece of industrial black sapphire, it's as hard as a diamond and as sharp as a razor. Completely undetectable by MAD scanners, very easy to conceal.
>[X ] A flash-pack. A micro "grenade" the size of a pack of cigarettes that releases blinding strobe lights. EXTREMELY distracting and easy to conceal.

>>1098242
this

>>1098229
[x] Your sword, an Ares Monosword that has been turned into a Weapon Focus. It's one-handed, maneuverable, can cut through most armor as well as a rifle round, and can hurt spirits if you run into them. Cops and other authorities tend to not take it too seriously as a "weapon". Downside is that you're not going to be hiding it.
[x] Your knife. Constructed of a single piece of industrial black sapphire, it's as hard as a diamond and as sharp as a razor. Completely undetectable by MAD scanners, very easy to conceal.
[x] A flash-pack. A micro "grenade" the size of a pack of cigarettes that releases blinding strobe lights. EXTREMELY distracting and easy to conceal.

>>1098229

[ ] Your knife. Constructed of a single piece of industrial black sapphire, it's as hard as a diamond and as sharp as a razor. Completely undetectable by MAD scanners, very easy to conceal.

>[ ] A flash-pack. A micro "grenade" the size of a pack of cigarettes that releases blinding strobe lights. EXTREMELY distracting and easy to conceal

>>1098229
>[ ] Your knife. Constructed of a single piece of industrial black sapphire, it's as hard as a diamond and as sharp as a razor. Completely undetectable by MAD scanners, very easy to conceal.
>>[ ] A flash-pack. A micro "grenade" the size of a pack of cigarettes that releases blinding strobe lights. EXTREMELY distracting and easy to conceal

>>1098242
+1

>>1098242, >>1098266, >>1098270, >>1098314, >>1099078
Pocket the flash-pack first, literally.
You don't know why more runners don't use these things; they're cheaper then beer and so tiny they're easy to hide.
They won't work on an HRT most days (flare compensators are just too common on combat cybereyes and those full-face helmets), but on gangers and syndicate guys not prepared for it it's brilliant.

Next you pick up the knife. It's a recent addition, ever since you got to Seattle. You used to carry a different combat knife, but later traded up for the sapphire one after you got here. It's brittler then the steel knife you had, but it's much harder and ridiculously sharp; it pretty much tears right through any fiber-based body armor better then your assault rifle will in addition to being undetectable by MAD scanners, which is the real reason you traded up to it. You want to turn it into a Weapon Focus, but you haven't found the funds for it yet and don't know anyone who can do enchanting.

The sword is your favorite. It's definitely fairly modern-looking; a thin, double-edged blade that is covered in a black covering all along it's length except for the silvery steel edges, where a microfilament wire is run so finely you can't actually see it resting along the blade's edge. Normally monoswords are too processed to turn into actual Foci (the processes of forging the edge needs to be done by machines), but you've had work done on this one. The grip is replaced with one more comfortable to your hand, and the steel which they forged it with was a limited edition model mixed with orichalcom back when there was that Orichalcom Boom during the early 60's when Haley's Comet showed up again. You've killed soldiers, cops, terrorists, criminals, and spirits with the old thing. Even killed a few bug spirits in a run gone wrong and the next best thing to a dragon in two run experienced you absolutely NEVER want to repeat.

Heroes facing down huge creatures with magic swords is bullshit. That crap is TERRIFYING and you want no part of it.

You send a simply text massage to Halfjack alerting him you are going to the meeting at the Daisy Chain as you sheathe the monosword in it's black aramid/kydex sheathe.

>[Call a Cab and head there now]
>[Wait for Halfjack and head there together]

>>1099237
>[Wait for Halfjack and head there together]

>>1099237
>[Call a Cab and head there now]

Showing up separately might be better, make it look more like we came alone. Halfjack can drift around ready to help if things go south.

>>1099237
>[Call a Cab and head there now]

>>1099216
Call cab

>>1099216
>>[Wait for Halfjack and head there together]

>>1099273, >>1099390, >>1099400
You hail a GridCab and take the auto-piloted taxi thru Downtown past the neon and steel towers, arcologies, businesses and high-rises, past the towering shadow of the old Renraku Arcology looming over the city like the aging corpse of some ancient monster long slain, down the I-5 past and through parts of Tacoma, where the aging and decaying "City of Destiny" where syndicates like the Mafia and Yakuza battle for control of the streets and smaller groups like the Seoupla Rings swim around the fringes like sharks waiting for blood to fall in the water.
Finally you get to the farthest southern point of the 'Plex, the nearly empty expense of the Pyallup Barrens.
Everything seems covered in a thin layer of black snow, ash from the erupted Mount Rainier, and almost all of the area is empty space despite being as large as any two parts of Seattle put together.
You finally arrive in the only populated part of the entire region. Syndicates fight for dominance here as well, in addition to gangs, refugees, ghouls, the desperate, the needy, the armed, anyone and everyone else.

"Funny thing," you say to no one at all. "Before the mountain erupted this place used to have trees and stuff. Orchards. I saw pictures of it as a kid."

If there's some kind of metaphor in that, it escapes you. You've never been accused of being much of a poet.

You are dropped off by the cab just outside of the Daisy Chain in the elven ghetto of Tarislar, where many Tir refugees end up. You specifically avoided going here; too much like your old home and too much chance of running into someone who might recognize you you suppose.

>[Head Inside]
>[Scout the Outside]

>>1099585
>[Head Inside]
We'll draw attention if we're seen lingering.

>>1099585
>>[Head Inside]

>>1099585
>[Head Inside]

File: IMG_3941.jpg (92 KB, 1400x1400)

92 KB JPG

>>1099635, >>1099726, >>1099770
You decide to just walk in rather then scout the exterior; your motion sense powers are nearly useless here anyway with all the bodies moving around.
Nobody bothers frisking you for weapons; there's enough armed gangers in here to clearly make THAT a lost cause, though the sword on your back definitely gets a weird look from some folks.

The music inside the club is noisy, thrumming techno-goth-stuff (favored by disaffected youth, drug addicts, and young disaffected drug addicts) though music is so wildly and liberally blended now that assigning "genres" to music is kind of a lost cause.
https://youtu.be/_TK5slJCtvY

You look through and see that most of the patrons tonight are elves and that around a quarter are wearing biker leathers with the stylized neon green anarchy symbol the Ancients use.
Even the interior lighting tonight is mostly green or green-tinted.

You head towards the largest gathering of them near one corner of the room, moving through the whooping and hollaring crowd and towards what you hope is Sting and this "Rook" guy.

>>1099585
Scout outside

File: IMG_3942.png (111 KB, 250x343)

111 KB PNG

You reach the synthleather-clad gathering of gangers partying and make your way between them to see Sting out-drinking one of her fellows.
Sting is attractive (of course) and looks to be in her mid-twenties (like everyone else here, you included), but by your estimation she must be in her late forties or fifties at the very least.
Her cyber eyes are good quality but old, and you know she has a lot of other discreet and low-impact cyberware, including those hand razors that were her namesake back in the day.
She's in many ways the classic razorgirl.

"Shit! Look who's here boys!" she says with a toothy grin when she sees you. "Old Mister Silver himself! Finally decided you wanted to come down here and slum it with us Pyallup elves?"

The Ancients crowd whoops and jostles you, though you're guessing most are so young they don't even remember when you ran with the gang to pay off your debt to them.

>[Cordial] "Been awhile since I've been in here."
>[Businesslike] "So where's the Johnson?"
>[Friendly] "Quite a party. Special occasion?"

>>1100125
>[Friendly] "Quite a party. Special occasion?"

>>1100125
>>[Friendly] "Quite a party. Special occasion?"

>>1100125
>[Friendly] "Quite a party. Special occasion?"

>>1100125
Friendly too

>>1100125
>[Friendly]

>>1100149, >>1100198, >>1100397, >>1100440, >>1100670
"A little bit more crowded then I thought," you admit. Public places are the norm for Johnson meets, but not THIS public. "Is it a special occasion or something?"

One of the gangers, a young elf with very dark hair slicked-back and black mirror shades laughs at that.
"Look at this raén!" he says in a fairly amused-sounding, using the Sperethiel word for an elf. "It's the 10th anniversary of the freeing of Tir Tairngire! Free elections and the Rites restored!"

Huh.
You mentally do the math in your head, and realize he's right. You guess you never really marked the day because it never felt like an actual victory to you. And admittedly you had other worries at the time. You note that the day has no Sperethiel name, likely because the fighting technically STILL hasn't stopped and a lot of the key problems never changed.
But you're guessing Sting is just celebrating this stuff because it makes the newer Tir expats in her gang happy, not because she gives a shit. You have it on good authority she's a native Seattlite.

"Everyone's having a good time, Airgetlám," Sting says, half-mockingly, using your old handle from when you ran the streets of Cara'Sir, taken in mockery of your erstwhile High Prince. "You should find a nice elf girl to keep you warm and night, maybe learn to enjoy life a little. Plenty of them here. A lot know you as a rebel hero, you know. Some would be pretty happy to get to know you more...heh...'personally'."

>[Business] "I'm working right now."
>[Dismissive] "That was years ago. I'm nobody's hero."
>[Flippant] "Why, you offering?"

>>1101218
>[Flippant] "Why, you offering?"

>>1101218
>[Business] "I'm working right now."

>>1101218
>[Business]

Oh, and by the way; thanks for tolerating my irregular posting schedule and first attempts at writing a serious quest in awhile.

>>1101218
>[Dismissive]

I'm liking the characterization so far QM keep it up

>>1101218
>>[Dismissive] "That was years ago. I'm nobody's hero."

>>1101218

[Flippant] "Why, you offering? Kiss her hand
Just have to

>>1101612
>I'm liking the characterization so far QM keep it up
Thank you.
Shadowrun belongs to one of my favorite styles of genre to write for, and lends itself very well to fairly interesting characters due to the diversity of it's setting.

Oh, and while I'm waiting to find a second to post (and for the tie to break) I'd like to get an opinion; while the main plot I have doesn't require a lot of characters, would my players like me to add more runner character's who can be added to the team and/or join Mercurio's stuff to form a roster of allies, rather akin to those Shadowrun Return games?

>>1101938
Depends on how "trustworthy" they are. I imagine if we're going on separate runs that don't involve our character's identity, we wouldn't be averse to new characters. Most likely, our Fixer will say he's got a job for us and a team waiting for us to fill a slot in their group.

>>1101938
>>1101972
Or we get a job and have to find some extra firepower to assist with the run.

In short, as long they aren't involved on core story-related runs or otherwise can be trusted, more characters are welcome.

>>1101938
As long as they are introduced slowly, a swarm of characters would detract from the atmosphere, it would also seem out of character to jump on board with a bunch of new faces (even more so with old faces from what it looks like.)

>>1101972
>I imagine if we're going on separate runs that don't involve our character's identity, we wouldn't be averse to new characters.

The initial run is basically a semi-expository run to explain Merc's backstory and personality and why he does what he does, as well as to show the kind of connections to the world he has.
The "core" story is really just a run that matters a bit more to Merc on a personal level, though if this thing goes on long enough I'll likely start drawing subtle connections between runs; one of my favorite cyberpunk franchises is the Deus Ex series, which is all about conspiracies and how things are often much more connected then you suspect.
>>1102012
>As long as they are introduced slowly, a swarm of characters would detract from the atmosphere, it would also seem out of character to jump on board with a bunch of new faces (even more so with old faces from what it looks like.)

This I would definitely make sure not to do and it's always something I look forward to.

I also feel slightly obligated to ask about waifus; I know /qst/ and Shadowrun fans are into that sort of thing in general. I can actually write halfway decent romance stuff, but Mercurio's personality is not inherently geared towards needing a love interest.

>>1102083
If waifus happen, they happen. Even shadowrunners can be lovey-dovey once in a blue moon.

>>1102111
Merc is obviously older, less passionate (or at least more in control of his passions), kinda obviously has reduced much of his life to the necessities only to some degree since his exodus from Tir Tairngire.
He's older and experienced and has a past and personality, but the state of his personal life is deliberately blank so that the players can decide.

>>1102188
I'd say leave the option open with a few characters and see if the players go for it.
Personally, I'm not against it per se, but it would depend heavily on the character in question.

>>1102207
Good to know.
Also, we're kinda vote deadlocked here.
Should I just do EVERYTHING and try to make it work?

>>1102244
Kinda cycle through the answers via the natural flow of the conversation, yeah. It's not like it's a critical choice.

>>1102244
What about a roll?

It seems weird to have the dismissive and flippant answer at the same time.

"I might," you say, looking around before looking back at her without your fairly flat tone changing. "Why, you offering?"

The crowd of Ancient's gangers let out a collective "OOOOOOOOHH", slightly backing away clearly impressed or amazing at our outright balls.
Sting smiles, but her cybereyes gling dangerously and she flexes her fingers, as if thinking about taking out her hand razors but saying nothing.
Laughing next to her the black-haired elf in the black shades and jacket chuckles slaps his knee.
"Man, the balls on this guy! You weren't kidding about him not being afraid of shit," he says, clearly impressed.

"I'm not Airgetlám anyway," you say with a shake of your head, swiftly changing the subjects to not make her any more annoyed then you absolutely have to. "That guy died. Sometime around the first Crash I think."

"That's what you wanted everyone to think, right? You know the Rinelle ke'Tesrae still stories about you? You turned yourself into an icon of the rebellion. Some think you're still alive and waiting to come out of hiding."

You frown and raise and eyebrow reachin out with your Adept senses towards the kid. He's magical, that's for sure, but you don't know more then that.
Gently exhaling, you blink once and activate your Astral Sight.
Assensing is your newest skill, and you are honestly crap at it. You only developed the skill of Astral vision in the last year or so after a run got particularly nasty due to a dematerialized spirit that was posted as a hidden bit of extra security. One of the guys you were working with lost an arm before you knew what happened and you decided to not be caught so off-guard again.

You don't recognize his rolling, tempestuous aura, but you see a faint Astral shadow hanging above him; a beautiful elven woman with raven-black hair that has lots of corvid feathers within it, her look equally sensual and predatory. A totem or mentor spirit you think? You're not really very knowledgable on this magical stuff.

You make a measured guess.
This must be Rook.

>[Address Him] "Rook, I'm guessing?"
>[Play Dumb and hack his comlink] "So where the hell is the Johnson who's hiring me?"

>>1102608
>[Address Him] "Rook, I'm guessing?"

Query to anyone more familiar with this board; is there a REASON the board seems to keep this thread on page 4?

>>1102820
Yes, after 72 hours the thread ceases to get bumped from further replies.

Also
>[Address Him]

>>1102608
>[Address Him] "Rook, I'm guessing?"

>>1102837
Ah, thank you.

>>1102608
>[Address Him] "Rook, I'm guessing?"

>>1102820
Gnomish conspiracy.
>>1099216
Also, it's Orichalcum

>>1104464
Isn't is also Puyallup instead of Pyallup?

>>1102608
Adress

>>1104470
I didn't notice that one if it is true.

>>1102608
>[Play Dumb and hack his comlink] "So where the hell is the Johnson who's hiring me?"
We should play to our strengths, I think.

>[Address Him] "Rook, I'm guessing?"

File: IMG_3952.jpg (21 KB, 200x226)

21 KB JPG

>>1102837, >>1103004, >>1103720, >>1104471, >>1104734
You blink again, and the Astral vision fades and reality re-asserts itself.

"Let me guess; Rook?" you say without much expectation of otherwise.
"The very same. Pleased to meet you Airgetlám," he says with a friendly nod.
Sting waves off her cronies (it's uncharitable but it's the only way you can think of them, really) and leaves herself to give you both some professional privacy.
"We ran in the same circles for awhile, though I got in later gen you," he says, sounding impressed. "Heard a lot about you from my friends."
"Which friends?" you ask suspiciously.
"The Rinelle ke'Tesrae," he says, clearly trying to reassure you. He obviously doesn't know how totally unhelpful that is; the assholes from the Brat'mael were ALSO part of the Rinelle and they were no friends of yours.
Who the hell would join a splinter group called "the Black Sun" anyway? It even SOUNDS evil.

"You were a legend. Nobody knew who you were back then, but you were one of the most famous members of the Rebels. There was all this chrome graffiti with your name all over it, and you repeatedly did some high-profile Matrix terrorism and on-foot work too. Only reason all of Tir doesn't know you is because of the High Prince censoring everything to do with the Rebels, but the right people heard of you," he notes.

"I wasn't the most talented member of the Rinelles," you say almost defensively. "I wasn't even the most talented member of the cell I was physically IN. Lots of people contributed more to the cause then I did."

"True that," he admits, pulling off his black mirror shades. Something about his appearance sets a switch off in your brain. "But you WERE one of the most famous. Chrome graffiti left behind on your Matrix and physical attacks, which were always spectacular without being messy and imprecise, and always signing it 'Airgetlám'. The Silver Hand! That's one hell of a sense of style if you ask most people."

You say nothing, but inwardly curse at your youthful arrogance back then.
Airgetlám was chosen deliberately by you, a mockery of the High Prince, the so-called "Lugh Surehand". If the ruler of your nation could make up an identity to cover his crimes then so could you. And you admit that you did it partially because it sounded badass.
You were actually enlisted in the Tir Peace Force at the time as a NetWatch operative, giving you nearly unlimited internal access to their systems and security procedures. That was how you could plan your attacks so well.
Soon, other cells started copying you and "Airgetlám" was everywhere. You started running physically at greatly increased risk just to try and stop copiers, tagging all of your runs with the Silver Hand just to prove it was you.
It didn't help much of course.

You SWEAR you recognize this guy.

>[Dismissive] "Are we here to talk about what I did ten years ago?"
>[Accusatory] "You seem to know a bit about it yourself."

>>1105112
>[Accusatory] "You seem to know a bit about it yourself."

>>1105112

>[Dismissive] "Are we here to talk about what I did ten years ago?"

>>1105112
>[Accusatory] "You seem to know a bit about it yourself."

>>1105112
>[Accusatory] "You seem to know a bit about it yourself."

>>1105112
Accusatory

>>1105112
>[Dismissive]

>>1105132, >>1105472, >>1105621, >>1105703
"You see to know a lot about it," you say suspiciously.
"Yeah, you could say I have some friends in the Rinelles. Keep up on their current activities, that sort of thing," he says vaguely, polishing off his shades.

Then it hits you.
He looks EXACTLY like Prince Evan Parris, an infamous member of the Tir Ghosts who rose to power recently in Tir Tairngire during the last election cycle.
You know from rumors and info from other Rinelle cells that Parris operated as a wetworks man for the High Prince and Council, one of the exclusive Black Daggers of the Tir Special Forces.
He posed as a runner but was pretty doing black bag jobs for the Princes back when Lugh Surehand was in power. He had lots of connections with the Black Sun and other elven supremacist Rinelle groups both in Seattle and the Tirs. He ran under the codename "Blackwing".
Guys like him were one of the reasons you faked your death and left after the Crash; you joined the Rinelle ke'Tesrae because you wanted an equal system of fair elections in Tir Tairngire, not a damn monarchy, and you wanted equality for ALL metahumans and not just elves.
You always knew some of the Rinelle ke'Tesrae were more extreme (you were no angel yourself when you were younger), but when you found out that Parris (who was a Count himself at the time) was supporting the Black Sun splinter groups seemingly under orders of one of the Princes on the Council something in you rebelled at the notion.

Rook can't be Parris though; Blackwing was heavily cybernetically augmented, with a pair of distinctive black chrome cyberarms he now covers in long sleeves and gloves for his public appearances. Rook here is all-natural.

"So...," you say out loud after a second. "You're his son, right?"
Rook pauses and for the first time since you met him seems genuinely flabbergasted mouth hanging open slightly, but to his credit he says nothing.

>[Questioning] "What the hell does the son of one of the Tir Princes want with me?"
>[Threatening] "Your dad sure has a shitload of balls sending you here."
>[Interrogative] "Was that your Hunter-Killer Agent I ran into last night?"

>>1106551
>>[Threatening] "Your dad sure has a shitload of balls sending you here."

>>1106551
>[Threatening]

>>1106551
>[Threatening] "Your dad sure has a shitload of balls sending you here."

>>1106551
>[Interrogative] "Was that your Hunter-Killer Agent I ran into last night?"

>>1106551
>[Interrogative] "Was that your Hunter-Killer Agent I ran into last night?"

Man, elf politics are hard.

Honestly I would back off of threatening because I am not 100% sure that his dad did send him to us, maybe he has his own goals with finding us

>>1106551
>[Interrogative] "Was that your Hunter-Killer Agent I ran into last night?"

>>1106739
Shadowrun has delightfully intricate politics for many of it's fictional nations.

>[Interrogative] "Was that your Hunter-Killer Agent I ran into last night?"

Outright threatening a possible johnson after 5 sentences is just bad style.

>>1106551
>>[Questioning] "What the hell does the son of one of the Tir Princes want with me?"

>>1106620
>>1106832
Fair, change my vote to
>[Questioning]

File: IMG_3953.jpg (35 KB, 459x801)

35 KB JPG

>>1106634,>>1106689, >>1106914
>>1106950
"Was that your H-K Agent I ran into the on the Grid last night?" you ask aloud.

He raises an eyebrow and looks genuinely confused.
"My what now? I only got into Puyallup three days ago and was working since I got here. Sting only brought your name up last night."

You examine him closely and decide you believe him. That doesn't mean he isn't lying, you just aren't picking up on it if he is. You never believe it when idiots say they can "always" know when someone is lying without the aid of magic, so even when you find yourself convinced that someone is telling the truth you mentally prepare for the alternative.

"So you have a job for me?" you ask, shrugging it off. You can do your homework after you find out what kinda run he has in mind.
"Yeah. How would you like to kill Lugh Surehand?" he says bluntly, obviously trying to get a reaction out of you.

He succeeds.
Lugh Surehand was the former Se'har Maera, the High Prince of Tir Tairngire (a position he invented for himself) and effective dictator for life, at least until 2064 when he was finally ousted from power after seven years of low-key civil war and terrorist actions from the Rinelle ke'Tesrae, you included. He helped himself to ghost only knows how much of the national treasury before vanishing into thin air; he was never arrested and has never answered for his crimes. He took a significant number of the Tir Ghosts with him; many were Paladins sworn directly to his service and took the oath VERY seriously, but he couldn't gather enough political clout to stop the revolution or prevent the rest of the Princes from rebelling against his increasingly ironclad rule. Evan Parris, Rook's father, was definitely one of the people who benefitted from his falling out of power and vanishing, hence his covert support of the Rinelle ke'Tesrae networks.
Even the former High Prince's name is an obvious alias, and much of his past history is basically a complete unknown before the 2030's, and your own alias of Silverhand is similarly taken from Irish myth in deliberate mockery of him.

>[Doubtful] "Bullshit."
>[Serious] "I don't do wetwork."
>[Businesslike] "I assume there's a price tag attached to this?"

>>1107362
>[Businesslike]

>>1107362
>[Doubtful] "Bullshit."

>>1107418
Sorry, don't mean to keep using a name, just coming from a different thread and forgot.

>>1107362
>[Businesslike] "I assume there's a price tag attached to this?"

>>1107362
>>[Businesslike] "I assume there's a price tag attached to this?"

>>1107362
>[Businesslike] "I assume there's a price tag attached to this?"

>>1107362
Serious

>>1107418, >>1107494, >>1107507, >>1107534
"I gotta admit, I wasn't expecting that," you say. "Is there a price tag attached to his head? Because if he was easy to find and kill you would have already done it."
"He's hard to kill because we don't know where he IS usually," Rook points out. "We do now. More details of you get in on this."
"Weather I get in on this or not depends on how much you're paying," you say coldly.
"Didn't I heard you were a Paladin? Don't you have Oaths and shit to fulfill?" he noted wryly.
"I AM a Paladin, and yes I do," you say, sounding surprisingly defensive. That's a touchy subject for you. "But these oaths do not preclude me getting paid. And I AM going to get paid if you want me to hunt down one of the most wanted men ever."

"I was thinking ¥10,000 nuyen," he offered.

This choice matters, as he will respond to certain methods of negotiation better then others.
>[Dismissive] "You pay ¥10k for a REGULAR hit. This is not regular."
>[Rational] "I don't do wetwork, so if you want me to break that rule then you had better be paying a LOT more then that."
>[Brash] "Try five times that."

>>1107670
>[Brash] "Try five times that."

>>1107670
>>[Brash] "Try five times that."

>>1107670
>[Dismissive] "You pay ¥10k for a REGULAR hit. This is not regular."

>>1107670
>[Rational] "I don't do wetwork, so if you want me to break that rule then you had better be paying a LOT more then that."

>>1107722
This is true. Mercurio doesn't do wetwork (unless there's very special circumstances).

>>1107670
>[Rational] "I don't do wetwork, so if you want me to break that rule then you had better be paying a LOT more then that."

>>1107670
>[Rational]

>>1107670
>>[Rational] "I don't do wetwork, so if you want me to break that rule then you had better be paying a LOT more then that."

>>1107670
>Rational
Keep cool, hit fast

>>1107722, >>1107742, >>1107747, >>1107802, >>1107840, >>1108102
"I have principles you know," you say coolly, sitting down and removing your shades, ignoring the music.
"Of course. Paladin, right? 'Harm no beauty, do not harm the innocent, keep your given word'. No worries. I think we BOTH know Surehand isn't innocent," he says with a reassuring nod.
"PROFESSIONAL principles, wise guy," you shoot back. "I've got a reputation to uphold here. I'm a decker and a physical adept. I can run scams, I can crack IC like a hot summer day. I can con people. I can find lost people or lost things. I can extract people, or objects. I can run protection work on the physical AND Matrix level. I can do stakeouts. I once got paid five hundred nuyen to walk a guy's pet hellhounds because everyone else was too afraid. They liked me, and I have no idea what everyone's problem was by the way."
Rook seems to have no idea where you were going with this, looking vaguely perplexed.
"Point is, I can do a lot of things. I don't do wetwork. You want somebody dead, hire an assassin. Try Chimera, they aren't picky about who they kill."
He looks disbelieving at first.
"Are you serious? Tell me if this rings a bell; 'directly involved in twelve operatics for thirty-seven deaths, eighty-four injuries, handled illegal data and coordinated five others'. That's on Airgetlám's bounty profile. That's on YOUR bounty profile, Conroy," he says, pointedly using your real name.
"I know. I wrote the profile that NetWatch had on me before they knew it WAS me," you say dryly. Once again he seems a bit taken aback at your response. "Tell me, when was that profile written?"
He shrugs.
"I'll tell YOU then. That was written in 2063. Aeodhann Conroy, NetWatch officer and Peace Force soldier and secretly deep-cover Rinelle ke'Tsrae agent? You'll notice he doesn't exist in digital form anymore. Anywhere in fact. So that guy? Tha guy doesn't exist. It's been eleven years since that profile was written. By a guy who ended up BEING the guy who wrote the report, so that makes it inherently untrustworthy information. You literally don't know the first thing about me, Rook. You OR your black ops daddy who sent you here because he's stuck in Portland."

Mention of his dad sees to annoy him.
Aha. Daddy issues then. Good. That's exploitable.

"Mercurio had professional principles. So if you want ME to whack a guy who the ENTIRE Tir Peace Force AND the Information Secretariat can't find? You're going to have to pay a lot more then the flat rate the world's most basic street hit might ask for."

He pauses before answering

"¥25,000."

>Put Check in Bracket of choice
>[ ] "¥50,000."
>[ ] "¥40,000"
>[ ] "¥35,000"

>>1109048
>[X] "¥50,000."
They're loaded, if they came this far to find us specifically they'll pay.

>>1109048
25? 25 is for protected targets, not ones who can avoid an entire nations security AND have top tier special forces bodyguards
[X] 40,000

>>1109115
This. I don't think he realizes just how big the "H" in "HVT" is for this guy.

Random question:
How would one rank the various special forces in order of difficulty to take out?

>>1109180
In-universe you mean?
Goes like this
>Top-Tier: UCAS SEAL Team 6, Sioux Wildcats, Old Tir Ghosts
These guys are the scariest guys in the Sixth World as a generalized unit. The Tir Ghosts suffered a SERIOUS talent drain when Lugh Surehand left though; previously literally every member was Awakened and had Initiated at least ONCE. All those conflicting oaths kinda fucked them in the end. Their numbers are dwindling as Tir picks Lughs allies off bit by bit.
>High-Tier: Ares Firewatch, Red Samurai, Modern Tir Ghosts, The Seraphim, UCAS/CAS Special Forces, Aztlan Gurellios Orders, MCT Research Unit 13
These guys are way more numerous and still pretty badass. They also tend to be REALLY well-equipped. Problem is some have glaring weaknesses to so there's some variability; Red Samurai are ONLY found in detachments of 6 and NEVER have metahumans and have something of a glass ceiling when it comes to Awakened. MCT 13 has only 13 people in it at any time.

Generally in the Sixth World problems of a military nature seem to vastly be solved with quantity, not quality.
Partially because quantity has shown to overcome the very slim gap there.

>>1109387
All right, high price justified then

Do we know how many of the Old Ghosts are left with Surehand?