Living in the Shadows: IC, Jan 8th-14th Options

[grendel]

18:55:52 Monday 8 January 2063 – Miner’s Landing, Downtown Seattle, UCAS

"No, I don't have any specific threats to warn you on. Just that there's been an unusual amount of activity lately. Pay on this job was good, between two and three thousand for a couple days work."

Zeyda consults his pocket secretary for the details.

[bclements]

18:56:03 Monday 8 January 2063 – Miner’s Landing, Downtown Seattle, UCAS

"Mark me down for it" Tony says. Making a note in his psec, he repeats "10:00 P.M at the Exxon-Mobil station West Van Medter and 30th Street." To Zeyda "After this job's over, I'll give you a call. I'm going to need a decent decker, nobody real fancy though, for some personal work. I'll give you more details in a couple of days."

Downing the rest of his drink, Tony gets ready to leave. "If there's nothing else, I'll get out of your hair. Take care hombre. Call me if you need me."

[grendel]

18:56:25 Monday 8 January 2063 – Miner’s Landing, Downtown Seattle, UCAS

"All right, I'll have a name for you when you check back in. Keep me posted, omae." Zeyda nods as Tony stands and makes his way downstairs and into the frigid night.

[bclements]

18:59:41 Monday 8 January 2063 – Outside Miner’s Landing, Downtown Seattle, UCAS

"...no Sam, probably won't be able to meet you till after 11 now, if then. Somethin's come up. Have Rebecca put what you get on my tab till I get there, and only get the cheap stuff" Tony shouts into his phone to overcome the high wind coming off the Sound and the higher noise coming from Sam's end of the phone.

"What you think I've been doin? You stand me up, and I'll buy the house a round of the best on your fraggin tab. Get your hoop back here in one piece." Sam shouts back over the no-name Elven neo-soul band in the background.

Hanging up and walking back to his car, Tony starts to think about the meet. I'm no expert bodyguard, but I would have picked a place that has, I dunno, an enclosed area to meet in. Especially that close to the Barrens. I'll need a piece and a change of clothes. Turning up his coat coller to the wind and keeping an eye out for obvious tails, Tony walks quickly back to the garage.

21:22:25 Monday 8 January 2063 – Capitol Hill Terrace, Capitol Hill, Seattle , UCAS

A shower, a Nuke-n-Eat meal and a call to a cab company later, Tony waits outside in the wind and light snow for his ride. A flask of whiskey would be good right now. One of those Dunkelzahn ones with him breathing fire on the front. At this point, I wouldn't even mind that. Of course, if you weren't so paranoid, you'd be in a warm car right now Tony thinks idlely to himself. Even in the normally warm securetech outfit he had on, the wind was biting; Tony could even feel the Browning in its holster getting cold. Grabbing his knife would probably hurt him just as much as the fragger he was going to use it on, if it came to that.

Just as he was pulling out his psec for an angry call to the cab company, he saw his ride round the corner. Getting in, he told the Dwarf cabbie: "One block east of West Van Medter and 30th Street. An extra 30 nuyen if you wait for me." "It's your dime, chummer" the cabbie answers back as they drive off into the night.

[grendel]

21:50:46 Monday 8 January 2063 - One block east of West Van Medter and 30th Street, Seattle, UCAS

The streets are white, even here on the edge of the Barrens where working streetlights are few and far between. The wind, driven hard from the west, cuts right through Tony's thick longcoat and armor. Visibility is almost as low as the temperature, thick veils of blowing snow drifting across the street. Pulling the coat close about him, Tony glanced up and down the street, being careful to include the building faces as well as rooftops in his scan. Or, at least, he tried to, in this weather it was difficult to tell what was a trick of the blowing snow and what was the shadow of a sniper hunched against the roof coaming. If it comes to that, at least it'll be as bad for them as it is for me. The thought, while true, brings little comfort. Approaching the address for the meet, Tony is surprised to see another figure standing in the snowstorm, gray longcoat buttoned up and hat pulled down low over his eyes. The figure lights a cigarette as Tony watches, the flame from the lighter momentarily illuminating a harsh, weathered face.

[Bastard]

1153 Monday January 08, 2063-Cooper's Automotive, Downtown Seattle, UCAS

Marquis enters the room, holstering his golden Savalette Guardian, but not before letting the client get a good view of its craftsmanship. The polished pistol finds its resting spot on the side of Marq's thigh, hidden underneath the unzipped coveralls. Taking a close look at the photograph, he steps toward the bald man.

"So you want the whole weapon destroyed, never to be seen again, or do you want the rifle back, with new barrel, new bolt and firing mechanism, different exterior, and of course, no serial number? Not that it has one now," Cooper smiles.

[grendel]

11:54:03 Monday January 08, 2063 - Cooper's Automotive, Downtown Seattle, UCAS

"I'm sorry, perhaps I was unclear. I require the destruction of only this portion of the weapon." The pale-eyed man taps the picture to emphasize his point. If he noticed the Savalette in Marquis' hand before it was holstered, he gives no indication.

[Bastard]

1155 Monday January 08, 2063-Cooper's Automotive, Downtown Seattle, UCAS

"No problem, I would like to do more with it, but if all you want me to do is destroy that portion, I can do that. You dont neen any new parts then? When can you get it to me?"

[grendel]

11:55:45 Monday January 08, 2063 - Cooper's Automotive, Downtown Seattle, UCAS

The pale-eyed man cocks his head to the side as if considering the implications of Marquis' statement. After a moment, he nods.

"Before we make delivery arrangements, I would like to talk fee. I am willing to pay 100 :nuyen: per hour for the destruction, and a flat 1000 :nuyen: for disposal of the remaining pieces. Is this acceptable?"

[Bastard]

1156 Monday January 08, 2063-Cooper's Automotive, Downtown Seattle, UCAS

"Some of those other parts I will have to modify or destroy, before they are 'disposed'- that is if you want them untraceable. Don't worry about the time, I spend a lot of extra time on my work. A flat fee of 3,000 :nuyen: will cover everything."

[Slipshade]

09:00:05 Monday 08 January 2063 - 6 Bellevue Way, One Lincoln Tower - 41st Floor – Penthouse

Knowing he would be getting his hands dirty, Max throws on a pair of boots beat up denim jeans and a long-sleeve, black Futura shirt and black soft leather gloves. Figuring on heading to the meet after his day at the Respite is done, Max packs a nice beige pair of Zoe’ slacks with a matching sports coat and black sweater in a travel bag alone with a pair of black dress shoes. Max slings the bag over his shoulder and grabs his ID off of the mahogany end table before entering the foyer and punching his passcode into the elevator keypad. A few seconds later the elevator doors open. Max enters his private elevator and places his hand on the palm pad.

“Good morning Mr. Steiner,” a soft feminine voice emanates from the elevator speakers. Max had never physically met the security rigger, but her voice was wonderful. “Good morning Roxy. How is everything?”

“Boring as usual Sir, just the way we like it,” Roxy replies in a playful tone.

Max appreciated their little conversations, since he absolutely hated elevator rides. It wasn’t that he was claustrophobic, it was just being incased in cold, dead metal. The only astral presence, his own. It just feels uncomfortable.

The ride doesn’t take long and the elevator doors whoosh open revealing the underground parking garage.

“Have a good day, Mr. Steiner.”

“You as well, Roxy.”

[grendel]

11:57:15 Monday January 08, 2063 - Cooper's Automotive, Downtown Seattle, UCAS

Again, the pale-eyed man tilts his head to the side, considering Marquis' counter-offer.

"That is acceptable. I can deliver the parts to any location you specify. How soon can you begin work?"

[bclements]

21:52:09 Monday 8 January 2063 - Exxon-Mobil station, Corner of West Van Medter and 30th Street, Seattle, UCAS

Tony approaches the man, continuning to scan discretely at obvious sniper positions. Picking them out in the wind-whipped snow and reflected light was almost an exercise in futility, though. Even keeping his eyes on a location for enough time to determine anything was difficult in these conditions. If that's the Johnson, then he's either stupid or daring someone to kill him. I don't know which is worse. This is a perfect place for a hit Tony thought to himself. Stopping a few feet from the man, Tony clinches his teeth and gets ready for business. "Mr. Johnson, I presume?" Tony asks while getting a face-full of secondhand smoke.

[grendel]

21:53:20 Monday 8 January 2063 - Exxon-Mobil station, Corner of West Van Medter and 30th Street, Seattle, UCAS

The man takes another drag on his cigarette before exhaling to the side. He knocks the ash from the end with a careless gesture as his eyes rake over Tony. Finally, after another long drag, he flicks the cigarette away into the shadows.

"Radian."

He motions towards the boarded up gas station.

"Step into my office."

Someone inside opens the door as the two men approach, but the interior remains dark until they are both through, and the worn plastic panel is closed again. Only then does someone unshutter a portable lantern. The light provided is dim and red, barely enough to see by, but it won't interfere with anyone's night adapted vision nor is it likely to be seen from outside. Four other figures crouch within the abandoned gas station. All of them wear hooded insulated ponchos, white with digital gray camouflage. Beneath the winter wear, Tony catches a glimpse of black and gray patterned urban camouflage jumpsuits, tac vests, and suppressed submachineguns. Radian takes his hat off, brushing snow from the shoulders of his longcoat. Tony blinks in some surprise at the face revealed. The flesh of his face is covered in scars and patches of too-smooth skin indicative of vat-grown replacement. The scars begin on the left side of his chin and travel outward in straight lines that disappear beneath his hairline. Extensive reconstructive surgery has obviously already been completed, but it looks as if the cosmetic reconstruction was stopped halfway through. The result is nothing short of horrific. Tony wonders briefly at the state of mind of the individual who would chose to wear a mask such as that. Radian smiles, a gesture which twists his face into a gruesome facsimile of the expression.

"Don't look so surprised, you're off the map now, omae, here there be monsters. But the job isn't difficult. A day and a night. I've got a couple of packages which need to be delivered to a dock in Everett. The truck is parked in the garage. You drive it out of here, sit on it for twenty four hours, drive it to Warehouse 414B at the Everett docks tomorrow night at midnight, and I pay you 3000 :nuyen:. We have a deal?"

[bclements]

21:55:57 Monday 8 January 2063 - Exxon-Mobil station, Corner of West Van Medter and 30th Street, Seattle, UCAS

Wierd people on the streets. Well, they're not on the streets anymore. They're right in front of me and I'm way outgunned. And Scarface here wants something I'm not here to do. That flask sounds really good right now, Tony thought to himself.

"I think there's been a misunderstanding. I'm supposed to be here for bodyguard duty, not as a postman. I can be a postman, but I'll want more than 3000 nuyen for that. Also, if you want me to haul stuff, I'll need some more info on the cargo. "Tony said to Radianwith a lot more confidance than he felt. 5 guys? Submachine Guns? No fraggin way I'm doing anything other than talking my way out of this. At least I didn't drive. Keeping his hands at his side and staring at Radian with a gleam of annoyance in his eyes and voice that didn't match the feeling in his stomach, Tony waited for a response, spoken or not.

[grendel]

21:56:11 Monday 8 January 2063 - Exxon-Mobil station, Corner of West Van Medter and 30th Street, Seattle, UCAS

Radian flicked his left hand, as if to brush aside Tony's concerns.

"Bodyguard, escort, delivery boy, same thing. I pay, you play. 3K is the going rate for a cake job like this. Why should I pay you more when I've done all the work for you? The cargo's inert, pre-packaged, sealed, and signed for. Just don't go nosing around in the rear compartment and everything will be fine."

[bclements]

21:57:51 Monday 8 January 2063 - Exxon-Mobil station, Corner of West Van Medter and 30th Street, Seattle, UCAS

"Fine, show me the truck, and I hope to God you don't need a rig to run this thing. Or else you really are going to need someone else. Anything I need to know if the Star pulls me over or if summer breaks out tomorrow?" Tony said with a mirthless smile. Where the hell am I going to hide a truck?

[grendel]

21:58:04 Monday 8 January 2063 - Exxon-Mobil station, Corner of West Van Medter and 30th Street, Seattle, UCAS

Radian laughs, a rasping, brutal sound.

"Don't sweat it, I told you I had everything covered. It's a standard Ford Workhorse with an enclosed cargo bed. The cargo is marked as foodstuffs, if anyone asks, just tell 'em you're on your way to a BBQ."

He moves to the connected garage, opening the door to reveal a beige Ford Workhorse parked next to an idling Ares Roadmaster.

"Keys are in it."

[bclements]

22:00:10 Monday 8 January 2063 - Exxon-Mobil station, Corner of West Van Medter and 30th Street, Seattle, UCAS

"Half now, half on delivery, and don't give me any lines about delivery-boy vs bodyguard. That part isn't negoiatiable. And at least 20% extra for expenses, if needed and proved upon delivery." Tony said. Remembering a line from an old movie about something like this, he added "Anything I need to know about the truck? Break lights out, GridGuide corrupted, Star knows this truck, stole it from the Yaks? I get this bad boy out on the road, and anything happens, I need to know that. I may know of people that can get rid of that stuff, but they don't get by on a smile, kay?"

[grendel]

22:00:49 Monday 8 January 2063 - Exxon-Mobil station, Corner of West Van Medter and 30th Street, Seattle, UCAS

"Truck is factory standard, clean record, legitimate VIN, plates, and registration...." Radian is about to say something else when one of the white ponchoed men leans through the door.

"Boss, Wheels says we have hostiles moving up, crossing three hundred meters." He holds out a submachinegun, butt first. Radian snatches the weapon, not bothering to cycle the bolt to check the load since his smartgun link performs that function automatically. He turns back to Tony, tossing him a credstick and moving to the garage door.

"Fifteen hundred plus expenses. Get that truck out of here. NOW." He throws the garage door open, as two of the men in ponchoes duck out the back.

[Bastard]

1158 Monday January 08, 2063 - Cooper's Automotive, Downtown Seattle, UCAS

"I can start as soon as you can bring them to me. I will be here for two or three hours. Or you can bring it by tomorrow morning around eight."

[grendel]

11:58:35 Monday January 08, 2063 - Cooper's Automotive, Downtown Seattle, UCAS

The pale-eyed man nods, reaching in to his attache case for a certified credstick.

"My associates will be by in an hour with the parts. Here is the agreed upon fee."

He nods his head slightly, before putting his sunglasses back on.

"It's been a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Cooper."

[grendel]

10:03:40 Monday 08 January 2063 - Apartment 875, Parkewood Village Apartments, Tacoma

With a tired sigh, Todd leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms over his head. His eyes were bloodshot and the lids felt as if they were made of sandpaper. The sunlight streaming into the apartment through the cracks in the blinds didn’t help, either. A glance at the master chronograph on his display confirmed that thirty two hours had passed since he began the extensive information search. At last he had the answers he was looking for, although he had to admit that they offered only additional questions.

The troll’s name was Crash, and although it sounded like a street handle, it appeared on all of his records starting back with his first juvenile conviction for battery. That was sixteen years ago, when Crash was only eight. His early years were spent drifting from foster home to foster home, involved in a gang called Burndown. Most of his juvenile convictions stem from that, minor stuff that saw him doing two weeks to three months in various detention centers. As his street education progressed, though, so did his criminal exploits. Several drug charges appear on his record, as well as armed robbery and auto theft. The last entry in his Lone Star record, though, was what sent him away for three and a half years: assault with a deadly weapon, kidnapping, and armed robbery. He was paroled early for good behavior, and seems to have had something of a revelation while in prison.

When Crash got out of jail eighteen months ago, he sought out and joined a small church group in northern downtown called The Church of the Lord’s Way. Crash apparently worked as some kind of missionary or relief worker for the church, although not in the traditional sense. Crash and a team of five other individuals were responsible for several “Robin Hood” type shadowruns which seemed to benefit various people around the metroplex. They shut down a brothel that the Mafia was operating which employed underage girls. They destroyed a Terra First! cell which was operating in Puyallup. A vicious street gang charging protection for local merchants was burned out of its safehouse. The last mention of the team is just over a year ago, something about an operation against Novatech where the team was betrayed by someone else inside the Church. In the resulting firefight, half the team was killed along with the informant, and the church building burned to the ground. Since then, Crash has been off the grid, probably lying low and waiting for any residual heat left to blow over.

Lone Star’s records are pitifully incomplete, listing no next of kin, or home address, or any details of schooling. The name Crash is only associated with the criminal SIN assigned by Lone Star, so Todd is unable to utilize population statistics or demographics to assist in the search for any of Crash’s family. His medical record really wasn’t much of a help either. Somewhere along the way he’d picked up a datajack, some headware memory, a math SPU, although only a rating 1, and a second-hand cyber-forearm with a cyberdeck already built in. Todd thought the last part was a sign of clinical insanity.

In the end, the questions he had about the troll’s identity had been answered, but that didn’t solve the greater mystery of what he’d been doing at the apartment building, nor why he was so brutally gunned down.

Cross checking with information about the Church of the Lord's Way provided no additional information, either. Started two years ago by an ex-shadow runner named Gabriel, it operated on a shoe-string budget and offered the usual comforts of food and shelter to those less fortunate on the streets. The actual faith practiced at the Church appears to be a modified Unitarian approach, more common these days in the smaller denominations. It was registered as a legitimate faith with the UCAS government. No mention is made of any of Crash's fellow teammates, or what happened to them after that fateful night.

[Bastard]

1159 Monday January 08, 2063 - Cooper's Automotive, Downtown Seattle, UCAS

"Thank you, the same to you sir."

Marquis watches the man leave, then returns to the garage to assist Chavez. What a strange guy, but I guess we all are.

"Well lets get to work then."

[bclements]

22:01:35 Monday 8 January 2063 - Exxon-Mobil station, Corner of West Van Medter and 30th Street, Seattle, UCAS

Pocketing the credstick with his left hand and drawing his Browning with his right in one smooth motion, Tony moves toward the drivers side door of the truck. "Which way are they coming from?" he asks Radian as he chambers a round.