Shadowrun: Blood and Honor

Late January 2056

I was seventeen years old


Sapphire had died suddenly. 

She had been at a rave in Renton with some folks she knew.  Seems she drank too much, took something she shouldn't have, then tried to drive home. 

The Lone Star accident report stated she was doing 200kph on her Yamaha Rapier when she rear ended a garbage truck.  Alcohol and "illicit substances" were suspected as contributing to her crash and subsequent demise.

Grack started working at a strip club four nights a week.  A real flesh and blood place, with pretty people dancing for paying customers.  Grack seemed happy enough, but he was still nursing that left shoulder from the bullet wounds the KE guards had given him a few weeks earlier.  He was going to be out of action for while with those holes healing up.

"Angel" was busy.  REALLY busy.  Not sure what she was doing exactly, but we couldn't get her to meet in the meat around that time.  She told me she was too busy for "the next couple of days" every time I asked her to work with me on a job.  A few days after the last "next couple of days", the word got out and went public about the Chicago Containment Zone, Bug Spirits, and all that mess.  (I do not claim the two are related, merely using this for a reference on the timeline).  I wasn't able to reach "Angel" until the April after that news went public.

Pepper was always willing to work.

We did several small jobs over the two weeks after that last frag up with Zip.

He carried the sword I had given him and treated me differently.  I first picked up on this when we did little job on a fertility clinic.

A certain Mr. Johnson had a need to make a "withdrawal" from this place that kept fertilized embryos for rich clientele.  Seems you can get your future kid frozen and make sure there are none of those pesky genetic disorders in the genome, before you decide to stick them back in to gestate the little squealers.

Mr. Johnson wanted some embryos that had been on ice for about five years.  Really just a simple heist, with the twist being the targets. 

So five little frozen embryos, all of which were very suspiciously the progeny of a certain politician and his soon to be ex-wife. 

I was learning a bit about doing leg work on a job before taking it, and this just seemed weird.  So another decker I knew did some digging for me and came up with an interesting email between the attorneys on their divorce arguing over "child support" for their future kids. 

Mr. Johnson it seems, likely worked for the Mrs. Future Ex-Wife's attorney, and it seemed it was pretty important that she be knocked up really soon.  And with soon to be ex-hubby's children (of course).

Armed with the peace of mind that we weren't going to cause any harm to the little ones (beyond getting them brought into this mess of a planet), Pepper and I took the job.

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2105:   Pepper and I had been hiding, invisibly, in the little kitchen that served as a break room, for the last several hours.  I had used a spell lock to keep the invisibility running so I wouldn't wear my mental muscles out.  After the janitor left, we took the pass key we had swiped and simply walked into cold storage. 

We had been walking around all day since we snuck in.  We had been quiet and invisible, but it was still really hard to keep from being detected.  When people can't see you they will walk right into you if you aren't careful!

So there we were, in the cryo-storage area, looking for the little embryos that are soon to become Mr. Politico's dependents, when the lights go out.

Never a good sign when you didn't arrange it.

We stepped out just in time to see these four guys come walking down the hall.

They didn't look like doctors or staff at all.  All four were sporting Heckler-Koch sub-machineguns, ballistic vests, and faux-hawks.  They looked like basic, garden variety street muscle, and they were coming toward us.

"Dee," one whispered, "where 'da hell is tis ting we lookin' fo?"

The fourth guy, with a neon pink faux-hawk no less, spoke up (no whisper from this 'burglar'), "Damnit Gee!  Shut up!  You 'gun get us catched.  Shut yer hole or I'll gun-bugger ya!"

Charming.

They actually walked right by the cryo-storage room at first. Less than a foot from the tip of my nose in fact (which was not pleasant for me for several reasons).   I was just starting to whisper to Pepper when the four of them realized they had missed the room and started coming back. 

"I'll speak with them." Pepper said.

I dropped the invisibility, and the four of them froze in their tracks.

To be fair, it had to be unnerving to have a two meter tall street samurai and a young skinny me appear out of nowhere right in front of them. 

I was sporting my brand new form-fitting body armor with a nice insulation mod to help suppress my heat signature as well as keep me warm in the wet and cold of a Seattle January. 

Pepper was wearing armored fatigues, and heavy ballistic vest, and a ballistic mask styled in likeness of an ancient samurai armor Menpo mask.  He kept his hand on his katana.

Pink faux-hawk guy spoke up, "OI! Whatsu' doin' corpsey?  You is in 'da way. Move its or I gonna gun-bugger ya!"

Pepper took a step.  The katana sliding out in a swift arc and catching faux-hawk's neck about five centimeters below his jaw.  The blade cut through in a blink, and a thin line of red appeared on the wall to the right.

Pink faux-hawk guy's head fell on his feet and arterial blood shot straight to the ceiling tile.

The other three dropped their guns and I was pretty sure one drekked himself.

"Let this be a lesson.  You are unworthy to speak such aloud in his presence. Such disrespect will not be permitted." Pepper said it solemnly, like the chastising of a child caught swearing by a priest.  

We zip-tied those three to their dead companion and left them in the lobby. 

I was right by the way, one had shit himself.

We grabbed the future squealers, packed up the guns the street muscle brought for us (Couldn't leave dangerous weapons with them, they might have hurt themselves) and badged out the back of the clinic.

Two hours later the two of us were in the Brick House. 

Sheila had arranged the job and the meet was going down there.  Mr. Johnson showed up nice and timely, with a fist full of certified credsticks for a job well done.

Pepper didn't say a word through the whole exchange so I accepted the pay with no fuss and watched Mr. Johnson quietly leave with the cooler full of future little dependents.

Sheila X didn't ask any questions about the run, and we certainly didn't volunteer any. 

The next morning there was a brief news blurb about a break in at the fertility clinic, but nothing about us.

I had paid Pepper his half of the money and left the guns with him (I didn't know enough about guns back then to use them without endangering myself).
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I was low profile for a few days.

"You are unworthy to speak such aloud in his presence", Pepper had said. 

I knew it meant something but I wasn't sure what.

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The shadows in Seattle were really busy that year.


I think it's time to get some actual work done.

I'm going to summon up a fire elemental for a little project I need to get started on.  That ten meter summoning circle isn't going to draw itself.