In deepest shadow

September 7th, 2058

I was having lunch in a cafe in Bellevue. My brown shopping bag had two books I had picked up at a lore shop around the corner. I was enjoying my over priced coffee and sandwich when a woman sat down at my table, uninvited.

I looked up to see her unfolding a synth-leather bifold.  A badge identified her as corporate police for my least favorite corp.

"Enjoy your last meal as a free man you piece of drek." she snarled.  "I'm taking you in."

I was caught off guard.  She was tall, brunette, and very pretty but the corp badge and her attitude turned my mood to barely constrained fury.  "I don't know what you're talking about lady. I'm not a corporate citizen, I'm not on your corporate territory, and I don't know who you think I am but you've got the wrong guy."

I heard the hammer of a pistol cock under the table.  "Don't drek with me.  You're Tommy Gun, AKA Thomas Gunderson, AKA Tim Guthry, AKA Tony Cannonari, AKA I don't give a drek how many other aliases.  I've got you dead bang, fragger.  You move and I'll blow your guts across the floor."  She snarled at me in an ugly way as she spoke.  Whatever she had against me it seemed personal.

"I'm not the man you're looking for" I said sagely.  The spell snaked out and wrapped around her mind.  I felt her resistance snap and her facial expression changed suddenly to confused embarrassment.  "It may be a good time for a bathroom break." I added.

"Excuse me, I think I need to use the ladies' room." She said as she rose from her seat, holstering her pistol as she did, and started walking toward the restrooms.  I rose with her, keeping my eyes on her as she walked away.  I followed for a bit, turning to keep her in sight as I made it to the door.  I pushed my way through and outside, losing line of sight on her. I ducked into the crowd and started pacing away.  I thought a tick, and wove an illusion around myself, taking on the appearance of a grey-haired ork.

I sat down at the transit stop and watched the corp cop come running out of the cafe. She cast her gaze around, desperately looking around the crowd, then turned and ran down to the corner away from me, looking both ways trying to find where I had gone.  I got onto the bus, fed a $10 UCAS bill into the script slot, and sat down.  I rode the bus for almost two hours, getting off at a random stop.

I didn't want to use the credstick tied to my fake ID in case it was being tracked, so I started walking.  When I crossed back into Bellevue I got stopped by Lone Star for the crime of being ork.  I thought I was going to get a Lone Star beat down, but they just ran my face through facial recognition, didn't find anything, and told me to be on my way.  I walked into a restaurant, had to wait twenty minutes to get a table, then sat down and waited for someone to take my order.  After ten minutes, I got up and made my way to the men's room.  Being an old ork was running me headlong into some old style racism and I really didn't want to burn up all my time dealing with other people's prejudices.  I ducked into a stall, let my spell dissolve, then focused on an image I constructed in my imagination.  Once I had it firmly fixed in my head, I wove my illusion into the image of a a golden-haired elf.  When I stepped from the stall, I caught my reflection in the mirror, focused to make a few minor cosmetic changes, then walked back out into the restaurant.

It turns out that when you are a good looking elf you don't usually have much trouble getting waited on.  I spent a few minutes eating and drinking at a sedate pace, and periodically checking the astral for signs of arcane pursuit.  There were two other magicians in the restaurant, they were sitting together and were seemingly on a date.  Their auras were excited in a romantic and sensual way.  I looked away, suddenly feeling like I was intruding. I sent a text out to Angel, asking for a meeting at the restaurant.  It took her only twenty minutes to get there and I was ordering desert when she sat down.  "Desert dear?" I asked.

"None yet, you ate dinner without me?  Asshole." Angel sounded like an annoyed girlfriend.  "Can I get a menu please?"  The waitress blushed and trotted off to fetch a menu.

"I had an unpleasant encounter today.  I would like to talk about it and get your opinion." I said.

The waitress strode up and handed Angel her menu, "Sweet tea, real lemon please. Can I get some organic boneless chicken wings with the honey bar-b-que on it, and I'll order something else when I find what I'm hungry for." Angel was playing up the pissy girlfriend angle pretty well.  When the waitress was a few tables away, Angel only said "Not here, elsewhere when we leave.".

We ate and acted the part of a couple with some issues going on.  I paid the tab and Angel stomped out of the restaurant ahead of me.  We waited in uncomfortable silence until the car pulled up.   Angel's car service was pricier than the one I used.  The sedan that pulled in was well appointed and comfortable.  There weren't any weird stains or smells in the interior, and it pulled away smoothly as she finished inputting our destination through her pocket secretary.  We arrived at the Salish Orroro Hotel ten minutes later.  We strode through the lobby and into the elevator banks beyond, hand in hand.  In the elevator, Angel pushed me against the wall and kissed me on the mouth. It was an act, but it was a good one.  I found it hard to concentrate, but we made it to the twentieth floor with a convincing act of two people off to use each other for their mutual satisfaction.

We made it to the room in a show of passionate kisses and some heavy petting.  That all stopped once the door to the room closed behind us.  I opened my astral sight and promptly shooed a pair of watcher spirits out of the room.  Angel, held up a single finger, unfolded a small computer from her purse and spent about a minute clicking keys before she plugged a data cord into the jack at her temple.  Five minutes later she spooled the data cable back into the unit, turned to face me and said, "We're clear".

I let the illusion slip away and stood facing Angel. "Thanks Chummer." It took all of about five minutes to tell the tale of my misadventure that afternoon.  Angel took it all in and said "She made you by facial recognition?"

"That's what I'm thinking" I said. "She seemed pissed at me, or about me, like it was personal.  I don't remember seeing her before, but I think she may have just recognized me herself."

Angel nodded, "Bad luck then Tommy. You sure you don't know her?"

I had thought about her all day and I was confident I didn't know her. "Never seen her before that I recall. Maybe she saw my face on an image file or something.  Her corp masters would have no love for me."

Angel nodded thoughtfully and I took the next step, "Angel I need to hire you to run against their system.  I need whatever they have on me gone.  Can you pull it off for me chummer?"

Angel looked me in the eye and named her price. I thought I was going to die.  People say deckers make the real money in the shadows, and they would be correct.  The price Angel quoted to me was more than I had made in any given year, much less far more than what I could lay hands on.  I didn't know what to say so I cleared my throat and tried to appear thoughtful.  Angel didn't buy it.  "Tommy, you've never had that much money, so why try the act?" Deckers also know things you wish no one knew.

"Sorry Angel, I just don't know what to say.  I can't pay it." I was genuinely sorry and horribly embarrassed.

"As it happens, there is something you can do for me that I'll take in trade." Angel said.  I listened to what she wanted, weighed my options, and agreed to her terms.  {As if you had a choice chummer~Angel}

****
No, I won't tell you what she wanted or what I gave her.  If you want to know, then I suggest you ask Angel.

{Don't ask~Angel}

****

I can't pretend to know what Angel encountered when she made her run against that corp.  I can tell you that I had been the subject of an investigation that had been going on for about two years by the corp police.  They had identified me from surveillance footage that had survived a few runs I had made against them, and eventually they identified me from my old school records.  I was well and truly found out.  I was apparently on a wanted list that circulated among the corp police.  The rap sheet listed a litany of horrific acts I had never committed along with a longer list of things I had actually done.  I was flagged a corp-cop killer which meant that if I ever got picked up by any law enforcement agency I was going to get extradited, and probably executed or "shot while attempting to escape".

Angel managed to remove my old records, wipe out my photo and replace it with a composite she put together, then she filed a report to their system indicating that I had been killed that morning when I ran out in front of a bus two blocks from where I had been spotted by one detective Olivia Raintree.  Detective Raintree was being held in the corp infirmary "for observation" as she showed signs of being mentally manipulated by magical means.  She was going to be enduring a psychiatric assessment for the next few months to determine if she was still fit for duty.

My death certificate hit the corp system from a bot that Angel had trigger it from Lone Star, and suddenly I was officially very dead.  Nice work that.

{You are making it sound much less difficult than it was~Angel}

I slipped back into my apartment and gathered up things I couldn't leave laying around, as well as some things I couldn't replace.  I held onto my digital library, grabbed up my real books, threw my magical gear into my rucksack, and wiped all the electronics I used in the place.  My landlord had been an okay sort, and I liked my neighbors so I didn't burn down the building.  I did sterilize every inch of the place before I walked out.

I spent the next four days in safe house I had set up for just such an emergency.

I spoke with Sheila face to face.  I was very much in the business, but who I had been had to go.  She was able to lay hands on a spell formula for a tricky shape-changing spell I needed.  It cost me half of the money I had in the world but was worth it.  It took me three weeks to master the spell's nuances.

I looked in the mirror one night, wondering when I would see my face again.

October 12th, 2058 0815 hours

I had drawn the circle the night before.  It was complicated, meant for transformational magic and incorporated elements of spell craft for health and life magics.  I had checked it over and couldn't find a problem with it, which was a relief but also made me wonder if I had missed anything. I laid out the components for the rituals I was about to utilize, grabbed my spell foci, and stepped, sky clad, into the circle.

The first incantations were uttered into an eerie stillness, the power growing quietly behind each word.  Hundred year old powdered ginseng, mixed with powdered horn of a narwhale was cast into air above me, my magic and incantation activating the magic potential in each particle so that I was slowly showered with motes of light. From a stoppered bottle I poured out water from the blood falls over my head, shoulders and chest, and from a sealed jar I took slices of gold colored apple and ate each of them.  I finished the incantation, pushed the full force of my magical might and sorcerous skill into it, and felt my body respond. I felt, better is as good a term as any, more solid.  I held the spell in place, working mana into a self-perpetuating loop to hold the spell together, and with a final shove of my magic I felt the spell seal itself into place.

I took a half hour break before I began the next spell.  Once more I stepped sky clad into my circle, made a few specific changes to it's design, then planted my palms to the floor and began the spell.  It took several minutes as I poured magic into my body.  Every muscle tightened and I struggled with the incantation at first.  My materials came in one handy formulation, a salve I had made from essential earths from China, the fat of a bear, and ashes from a living phoenix.  My joints felt the strain as mana flowed through me.  I felt the spell reach it's climax and held it firm.  I wove its mana loop together, quickening it to me permanently.

I collapsed from the strain of the casting, and lay there for most of an hour before I moved.  I got up, ate a snack of peanut butter on soycakes then got busy reordering my circle for the last casting of my day.  Sand from deserts of every continent were mixed with cinnamon oil in a glass bowl.  Once more I stepped into my circle, still wearing only the sky above me, and began my intonations.  I spread the gritty paste over every inch of my body then grabbed the small doll that had been laying at the center of the circle.  Locks of my hair stuck out from it's head, and drops of my blood stained the area where the doll's heart would be.  My breathe came harder as I was tiring quickly.  My body started to hurt. It was a small thing at first, but it intensified to point where it was hard to continue. I was able to complete my spell, pushing my magical power to its limit then locking it into place by weaving another loop of mana.

I stepped out of the circle as a young amerindian man with short, close cropped black hair.  My skin was a nice and healthy brown, and my eyes were a deep chestnut color.  My features were such that I would pass as native to the Salish Sidhe territories.  My elven ears gave some legitimacy to the narrow cant of my features. I stepped from my circle and put on the suit I had brought with me.  It didn't fit well at all. It was tight in the arms and chest, and loose in the midriff.  I resolved to get some clothing tailored to me when I could afford it.

The old strip mall I had used for my rituals burned as I strode away.

I made my way to the Brick Yard and walked around to the front.  Little Rickie was there in his fully imposing glory.  As I approached he put his hand on the cannon he called a pistol. "Watch'r chummer, I think you're in the wrong place." I was impressed I didn't piss myself.  I definitely wanted to.

"Donut delivery for Sheila X.  I'm here to pick up the glazed with sprinkles." It was a weird pass phrase to give but it was what I was instructed to say, Sheila had been very specific. Rickie nodded and pointed to the door, "No trouble or I'll have to chuck you out."  It was a weird sensation, walking in and no one recognizing me.

I made my way to the bar and claimed a chair.

*****

Sheila kept my identity to herself. She was really great about that.  For the purposes of our continuing conversations I'll still refer to myself as "Tommy 'the machine' Gun" which is what I am perhaps most notoriously known as.  I went by a lot of different names over the years.

Those are stories for another time though.

I bet you're wondering if this is my real face.  The one you see in front of you, right?  We know each other pretty well.  Well enough that I'm telling you my stories, but we don't know each other that well.  Maybe in a few years, if you're still around, I'll see if I can find my real face.  I know it's hidden under here somewhere.

***************

Dedicated to Josh, Happy Birthday Chummer