The Second Battle for the Willows

November 22nd, 2058   0011 hours (Seattle Metroplex, local time)

Sheila X looked at me with an eyebrow cocked up.  It was the first time I had ever seen her look surprised.  She held that look long enough that I felt I had a definite need to explain things.

"You heard right.  I need to hire some shadowrunners.  We have a ghoul problem in the barrens, and it needs a solution." the words came out easily.  The truth is surprisingly easy to tell.

"Hooding?  Not very much like you Tommy, you're usually all biz.  Looking for anyone in particular? What are you paying?  Are you fronting as the Johnson, are you going to wear another face, or do you need a cut out?  What, and how much, are you offering?  Remember Tommy, I take 20% off the top."  Sheila X still had her eyebrow up.  I had never been "Mr. Johnson" before, but I had worked for enough of them.

"I'll need a cut out, someone who doesn't know I'm behind it.  I already had a swarm of ghouls burn down my apartment building, I don't need more heat." I said.

Sheila X let herself smile a little, "Understandable, a cut out is going to cost you extra Tommy.  Are you ready to talk about the money?"

"I am."  Sheila and I went over the numbers and the job I had in mind.  It was a week long street war, so I was looking for a few specifics with regard to talent.  Sheila's cut-out was a guy she had used before. That surprised the hell out of me, but shouldn't have.  He was corp-slick, well spoken, and made his money by coming in at or below budget.  It was just business after all, but I filed that away for future use.

I gave Sheila a week to get the team together.  My budget was more than Sheila expected.  I had done some work that hadn't gone through Sheila X, though I much preferred working on her jobs.  They tended to be cleaner on the back end with fewer Johnsons trying to stiff you on the bill.

Angel agreed to work the job after she and I had a few words about it.  She wanted a hefty favor from me after the fact, which I thought was more than fair as there was no guarantee that I was going to be alive that long.  She accessed every camera she could find, floated a few micro-blimp drones with surveillance cams, and remotely accessed some devices she definitely didn't have user permissions for ...

{enough, Tommy, "She set up surveillance" would have been sufficient, remaining 5.1 Mps deleted ~ Angel}

Talented street samurai aren't cheap, and cheap street samurai generally aren't very talented.  I opted for professionals, which cost me.  I sat in on a meeting with Suzy B and Gitti and the cut out, playing my role as the shadowrunner.  Edgy Ed didn't show.  He hadn't responded to anyone's messages, but that wasn't unusual for him back then.  Sheila X was set to make a very pretty payday on this job.

For those of you who may want to hire runners in the future, there is now a handy post on the Shadowland BBS that will give you some insights I didn't have access to at the time.  Suzy B and Gitti both signed on.  A trio of ork hard cases I had seen around, but never heard anything about signed on as well.  For our story here, we'll call them John, Joe, and Jim.  A troll who was new to the scene signed on as well.  He went by the name "Crank" and was almost as large as Little Rickie.

The drone rigger I wanted wasn't available within my budget.  Which really sucked.  I was hoping to have his rotor-drones available for fire support as both of them slung light machineguns.  He passed on what I could offer, and no fuss was made.  Sheila had told me as much was going to happen so she handed him a credstick good for 500 nuyen, for his time, and my rep with Sheila as a Johnson was preserved.  (Remember what happened to the last joker who tried to strong arm a runner in the Brick Yard?).

Magicians are hard to hire and expensive as hell.  They are hard to hire because there simply aren't many of them in the shadows.  They are expensive because even a modestly talented magician can bring a lot of ability to the team. Sheila and the cut-out Johnson still managed to hire a talented physad who went by the handle of "Adam the First" and a snot nosed wiz-kid (who was actually about three months older than me) who went by the handle "Creep".  I had heard of Adam, and most of it was good.  Creep was new to the shadows of Seattle, no one seemed to know where he came from, though I heard he worked at a Taco Haus in Lynnwood.

*****

Adam, Creep and I had been slipping around Redmond all week looking for ghouls.  We found a LOT of them, scattered about the barrens.  We watched them, with Angel floating drones to track their movements as much as possible.  Four days of detection spells, drone fly overs, and speaking to the local street folk gave us a good indication of where the ghouls were gathering.  Unfortunately, while we were looking for them, they were snatching people off the streets.  They were getting bolder, kicking in doors and dragging whole families away.  Chip heads disappeared nightly, dreaming away while they were hauled off to their new hell.  Wednesday evening, the 27th of November, a gang called "The Redmond Rangers" vanished.  We never even found their bodies.


Friday, November 29th, 2058 1900 hours

A week after my meeting with Sheila X, I was standing in a rubble choked lot in the Willows with the rest of the ground team.  We had communication running through some slick tech Angel had set up, and everyone had spent the last hour going over the ammunition supplied for the run (If it puts things in perspective, I had allotted 1000 nuyen in ammo per runner).

"Stay together and keep the fire on point.  If you get bit I'll kill you myself." Suzy B said.  "I hope you'll do the same for me."

Gitti nodded.  Jim, Joe, and John looked up, then at each other, then went back to loading out their assault rifles. Crank laughed, "You want I should shoot you now?"

"No way chummer.  Make sure you save a round for yourself though." Suzy B smiled at the large troll.

Adam brought a heavy iron spear with him.  It had a short haft, about a meter and a half long, with a large, broad, thick head.  The thing had to mass at thirty kilos. It was also a potent weapon focus.  In the astral plane it hummed with barely contained power, and it's aura seemed to flow into and combine with Adam's.  It wasn't the first time I wished I had a weapon focus of my own, but it did affirm my desire for one.  That Adam had it with him was oddly reassuring.

Creep brought an assault rifle.  The little scrawny fragger had one that had to be a custom job.  It had an honest-to-ghost wooden stock, and seemed to fit his frame like a glove.  Creep didn't bring any foci, which had me wondering if he was going to survive the night. He was a bit off-putting, and smelled of fast food.  As I glanced about in the astral, I noticed that his power was nothing to sneeze at.  He had a solid talent, and a pack of elementals hanging about in astral space.  I made note of that, switched the safety off on my slivergun and chambered a round.

I had foregone my usual armored trench coat for the evening.  This wasn't a night for subtlety.  My form fitting body armor kept me plenty warm in the November cold and didn't impede my movement.  Black fatigues and my rescue rated combat boots, my slivergun, a heavy ballistic vest, and three full extra magazines of ammunition completed my load out.

Our commlinks had micro cams mounted above the mic boom to pick up our individual fields of vision.  Angel was going to be recording and "blanking" our faces in real time. She would be able to watch from the matrix and feed us information.  Adam, Creep and I were relying on audio instruction as we couldn't risk having an AR goggle overlay breaking line of sight.

The sun was down, and it was sleeting, as we walked away from the moving truck we had "acquired" for the job.  My detection spells were buzzing away, informing me of dozens of ghouls within two-hundred meters.  They were close, the night had fallen recently, and they would be prowling out soon.  Each of the street samurai had slung their assault rifles, and were cradling sound suppressed sub-machine guns.  We had crossed a block when Angel chimed in my ear, "I've got motion on the street, six ghouls heading south.  They'll cross in front of you in about six seconds"

"Creep, you're with me.  Adam and the rest close and put those six down quietly." I whispered.

Everyone nodded and started jogging up the block, the noise was slight but I knew that if I could hear them the ghouls likely could too.  Creep and I moved to the other side of the street,  opposite of where the ghouls would be coming from.  As they came bounding into view I wove a spell around them.  They saw the street samurai and Adam closing on them and opened their maws as if to howl... and no sound came out.  My spell absorbed the sounds just long enough for the samurai to raise their weapons and open fire.

If you live in the barrens, you know that suppressed SMG fire is pretty quiet.  You could mistake it for a number of things.  In the oddly still quiet of the Willows, it was a brief melody of soft burping sounds.  Six ghouls fell dead in the street, landing without a sound.  Creep unslung his assault rifle, worked the action and said, "nicely done".

I nodded to the spooky little fragger and replied, "Six down, dozens more to go."

There were a handful of exit points for the building we were approaching.  Jim, Joe and John planted motion sensitive claymore mines at four of those points, while Crank and Adam watched over them.  Angel had two drones in the air over the building, streaming video, and spotted a ghoul on the roof.  Creep floated up silently, his assault rifle shouldered.  He fired and his weapon's suppressor did its job nicely.  I didn't hear a sound at street level.  Creep floated back down while Angel verified "roof is now clear".

I could smell ghoul, thanks to my detection spell, and knew they were close.  Creep held up a hand, lay down on the sidewalk and slipped into the astral.  I knew right then he was one crazy son of a slitch.  He opened his eyes a moment later, "First room past that entrance, no ghouls, whole place is tainted though.  Astral reeks of terror and pain."

"Sounds like prison," Adam added.

"Worse, actually," Creep replied.

"Are we go or no go?" Angel chirped.

"Go." I said.

*****

Gitti and Suzy B, took to the roof on the building across from the target structure. Once they signaled that they were in position, I waved the team in.

Adam moved in through the front entrance, the doors were splintered and scattered across the floor inside. He moved with a grace that simply isn't possible without magic, and made no sound at all on the old floor.  A moment later he waved, and Jim, Joe and John crept in.  Jim and Joe each took one side of the hallway, while John knelt at the base of the stairs and trained his assault rifle up toward the second floor.  Creep slipped in, almost as quietly as Adam, and placed himself next to John, his own assault rifle trained up the steps.  I crept in is as best I could, but my fatigue pants found a screw jutting out from the door frame and tore with soft ripping sound.  Everyone froze.

Old dark blood stains splattered the walls and marred the floor. The walls down the first floor hallway, were marked with tears, holes, and more dark stains.  It reminded me of my recently vacated building.  Crank was on the steps when Angel chirped in my ear, "I've got thermographic signatures moving toward the stairs, I count eight, now nine, approaching."

John and Creep already had their rifles trained up the stairs.  I moved behind them, brought up my slivergun and wove another spell to absorb sounds at the landing above us.

The ghouls must have known something was up.  Maybe it was the mana coalescing or maybe they just smelled us.  They appeared at the landing and came careening down the steps faster than I was expecting.  John and Creep opened fire in eerie silence.  My viper, normally very quiet anyway, made no sound as I added bursts of flechettes to the storm of metal that tore through the oncoming ghouls, splattering the stairs with gore, and blowing holes in the walls beyond.

It was over in a span of less than three seconds.  Ghoul bodies tumbling down the stairs.  John and Creep backed away from the blood, gore and corpses.  I let the spell's mana dissipate, and heard the soft sounds of John and Creep sliding fresh magazines home.

Creep levitated the corpses outside and dumped them on the roof.  An expendable focus, a thin wand of pine stained with ginseng oil, helped me sterilize the blood and gore on the steps and landing.  It did nothing for the stink, as my spell was still alerting me to ghouls within twenty meters. Dozens of ghouls were above me, and even more lurked below.

We advanced down the hall, applying my silencing spell as Crank kicked in locked doors.  In the first apartment on the right we found gnawed bones and a trio of ghouls.  They died in silence, with their guts splattered over the remains of their victims.  So it went, room to room, through the first floor.  We were hunting the hunters, and they weren't ready for us.  When we cleared the first floor I checked my chronometer and found that twenty minutes had passed since we entered.  It was slow going, but caution was the operational word.  Jim, Joe and John placed a pair of claymore mines at the top of the stairs leading down to the basement and sub-levels, then we moved on the second floor.

The second floor was much the same.  We moved room to room, clearing each apartment in unnatural silence. Thirty minutes and twenty-seven ghouls later we moved to the third floor.  Apartment by apartment, room by room we swept and cleared the floor in silence. There was no hesitation, nor moral ambiguity.  We came, we saw, and we gunned them down.  I saw things that night which I wish I could forget.  Bodies of victims, old and young, in various states of being consumed by the ghouls.  The whole building reeked or rotting flesh and death; and we were adding the stench of sweat and cordite to the mix.

2235 hours 15 seconds...

Angel's drones record the sound of the first claymore detonation.  The gig was up.  We were on the fourth floor and wrapped in silence.  We didn't hear the claymore go off, neither did the ghouls around us or above us (sound didn't pass through the spell effect), but the building trembled a bit.  The AR goggles the samurai were wearing flashed a message to the team.  Joe looked at me and patted his ear.  I let the silence spell unravel.

From below us, I heard a baleful howling set up and above us, on the top floor, dozens of ghouls screamed in response.  "Creep, you're with me, the rest of you, first floor and execute plan two".  The orks nodded in unison, Adam was already bounding down the stairs, and Crank stuck a stick of gum in his mouth and said "time to make noisy".  His wide smile was oddly very comforting.

"They're coming," Creep whispered.

"Lets light them up."

Two fire elementals manifested at the landing above us.

"Kill them all" I said.

"Burn, baby, burn" Creep called out.  The elemental he summoned looked like a demoness, horns and all.  She blew him a kiss as she passed from sight.  I heard ghouls screaming a tick later.

I headed down the stairs and noticed that Creep had a huge grin on his face.  Like I said, he lived up to his alias.

I just made it to the first floor landing when I heard the barking of assault rifles. Creep stuck to the plan and made it to the door where Crank was covering the street with his weapon.  It must have been clear because he wasn't firing.  Adam was standing next to Joe, his spear held ready while Joe, Jim and John poured hot death down the hall.

"On first" I called out.

"Frags out!" called out Joe and Jim, the two orks each hurled small metal spheres to the end of the hall.

I bounded out the door as the grenades exploded.  My team was right behind me.  "Angel, sit rep" I called over the comm.

"I've got thermal sigs all over coming up from below, counting thirty, correction, fifty targets moving toward the exits."

"Reload." I called out. "Adam, you're on for Creep.  Creep, astral coverage now."

Creep lay down in the middle of the street, and Adam took up a spot next to him.  "Its going to be hell'uva mess" Joe said.

"No doubt," Jim replied.

"Wings after this?" John asked.  Everyone looked at him.  "What? I'm hungry."

Whatever reply was coming was cut short as another claymore detonation rang out in the night.  The building shook as a cloud of dust rose up from the east alley.  An answering blast came up from the west side and the front facade collapsed under the force of the shockwave.  Crank pitched a grenade down the alley a tic later, I heard a ghoul scream in surprise then the grenade went off.

"I've got twenty plus coming out the back entrance.  Claymore didn't discharge.  You're about to have a lot of company." Angel said.

"Blasts must have knocked the motion sensors off line," Joe said.

"Fraggin cheap Aztlan gear, Joe.  Told you we should stick to German or Israeli models." Jim called back.

I peeked into the astral and saw Creep and his spirits beating down a trio of ghoul sorcerers. The slimy little fragger had things well in hand, but I sent a bolt of mana into one of the ghouls anyway.  No sense in taking chances.  The ghoul's astral form dissipated, and I forced my astral sight closed with the usual effort.  My head was starting hurt from all the spell casting, but my trigger finger worked fine.  Ghouls came clambering over the rubble.

Gitti and Suzy B opened fire, spraying the rubble choked area and putting a handful of ghouls down with gaping wounds.  Dozens more came dashing right over them, slavering in rage and unnatural hunger.  Crank, Jim, Joe, and John opened fire as the ghouls tried to bound down the rubble.  I looked at the wrecked building, shook out an expendable spell focus in the form of a magic dust, and let loose the best "powerball" spell I could muster without hurting myself.  Brick exploded, beams shattered, and iron girders collapsed.  The building came down in a cloud of choking dust, flames, and scattering debris.

Creep came back from his astral assignment and yelled "Got them!"

"Gitti, Suzy B, get down." I called over the mic.

"Suppression fire!" Joe called out.  The three orks started spraying rounds into the dust cloud, Crank pitched another grenade.

I called out to my spirits and they manifested next to and behind me. A quick mental command and my air spirits brought up a wind that blew the dust cloud away, exposing a dozen ghouls who were trying to wade through the hail of bullets to get to us.

"I've got a group trying to leave the scene, back end of the rubble" Angel reported.

"Flashlight." I called back.

"detonation in seven.... six... five ... four... "

One of the blimp micro drones dropped quickly from the sky and vanished behind the rubble.

Gitti and Suzy B ran out and added their rifles to the rumble of automatic fire pouring into the ghouls

"two... one.."

Three kilos of compound twelve, strapped to the little drone, exploded on the far side of the collapsing building.  The little drone was disintegrated and any ghoul within a dozen meters was blown to bits.  Anything another dozen meters out was either dead or wishing it were.

The street samurai ceased fire and reloaded.  It was strangely quiet for a  moment.

"I've got no targets," Joe called out.

"Same" Crank replied.

My spell wasn't detecting any ghouls at all.

"Clear." I called out.

*****

We met the cut-out at the Brick Yard with Sheila.  He handed out certified credsticks to each member on the team.   Angel had been paid in advance, but we didn't share that information around.  I got my dummy stick, the cut-out kept his money, and no one was the wiser.  Sheila got her money and the op was called a success.

I stuck around at the Brick Yard for a while, and had a sirloin.  I bought a round for Solomon, and put a hundred nuyen tip on for Sandy and even put a thirty nuyen tip on for Aria (who brought me a lemonade without asking, bless her).

I was digging into a slice of peanut butter pie (which is the next best thing to heaven on Earth chummer, believe me on this), when Sandy tapped me on the shoulder.

"She wants to see you," Sandy said with a smile.

I picked up my plate and started walking back to Sheila's booth.  Hopefully there was paying work to be had, I really needed the money.

_______________________________________________


From the author:   Thanks for checking out my fan fiction.  These stories are derived from game play, and are fictionalized from memory.  If you enjoy them please do share them with other Shadowrun fans.  As I mention above, I do not own Shadowrun.

I do publish rpg materials for other role-playing games under open game licenses and you can find those on Drivethrurpg.com and on Kickstarter.

Thank you!  I hope you enjoyed it!