As I dove behind my kitchen counter, dodging the spray of automatic gunfire that tore through my apartment’s front door, I reflected on the events that led up to a corporate strike force attempting to kill me.

Two weeks earlier, I’d received a comm. message from my fixer. She’d set up a meet for me with a Mr. Johnson who required my particular skills. She was terse, but, then, she always was. I didn’t give it a second thought. I should have.
The meet was at a place called the Radioactive Pirate. Don’t ask me why. The Radioactive Pirate was, despite the name, one of Seattle’s least memorable restaurant/nightclubs. Its décor was singularly bland, the music was spectacularly mundane, and the food was remarkably mediocre. In fact, the entire place’s only real feature was a total lack of real features.
I dressed for the occasion; a drab sarariman’s shirt, a pair of nondescript slacks, and a twenty nuyen long jacket. There wasn’t much I could do about the reflective covers for my cybereyes, but when I pulled my hair back (the half of it that wasn’t shaved to the scalp), it almost looked respectable. It’d have to do.
I entered the joint and approached the bar, where a half-dressed elf chick seemed to be practically lighting the entire building with her fiber optic hair. I casually asked about a reservation for a Mr. Johnson. She pointed me toward the private room, and I slipped her some cred.
The private room was dark, dark enough that a normal human would’ve been mostly blind. My cybereyes immediately flipped to low-light mode, compensating for the dramatically dim lighting. He was one of the showmen. Great.
He sat at one end of a long table, in the darkest part of the room. Mr. Johnson, like every Mr. Johnson I’d ever met, was dressed in a black power suit and mirrored shades. It was almost comforting. Beside him stood a massive troll, which is as wholly redundant as saying a wet ocean. Then again, even for a troll, this fragger was big, and there was no doubt he was a vatjob. They made a great pair, like Beauty and the Beast.
Mr. Johnson gestured toward the chair opposite him at the table, and I sat. “Welcome, Mr…?”
“Snoop will do.” Some ‘runners didn’t like street names, but I’ve found they make me more memorable. When a Mr. Johnson remembers my name, then he tends to be more likely to hire me, which means more money. Also, it keeps Lone Star off my hoop.
“Very well, Mr. Snoop. Would you like a drink, or shall we get right to business?”
My etiquette chip looked him over. He didn’t look Oriental, so he probably wasn’t a Yak, Tong, or Triad. That meant he probably wouldn’t mind a hasty meeting, and, in fact, probably wanted to be here as little as possible. I love skillsofts. Besides, I didn’t think we had much in common, so skipping the social pleasantries meant avoiding some potentially awkward silences. “Business, please, Mr. Johnson.”
“As you wish. I need you to provide surveillance on a man. I’m offering four thousand nuyen. Are you interested?”
When this Mr. Johnson got down to business, he didn’t split hairs. “What’s the likelihood of violence?”
“Minimal. Target is not a violent man, and all you’ll be doing is watching.”
I considered. It wasn’t much as far as ‘running went, and it was clearly a job outside the skills of your average P.I. It could be dangerous. On the other hand, I could use the paycheck. Like everything in the Sixth World, money made the decisions. That didn’t mean I had to go down without a fight.
“Ten thousand.”
“Six.”
“Eight.”
“Done.”
I nodded. “All right… now I’m going to need more information about the target.”
Mr. Johnson pulled a manila folder from his jacket pocket and slid it across the table. “Within you will find a very slender biography on one Dr. Shiro Hideo, an employee of a company called NTS, or National Technology Services.” Bland name. “NTS, however, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Renraku Computer Systems.”
I glanced up, though my mirrored lenses hid the motion. Renraku had been dealt a fairly significant blow when their Seattle arc went crazy in ’59. They’d been playing a small game of catch-up ever since, though, like all the corps, Renraku was too big to be seriously wounded by a single event. If someone was hiring me to gather intel on one of their employees, it meant I’d been keeping my eye on Renraku news for the next year. This might be the first step in a Machiavellian scheme to bring the megacorp down. Then again, maybe not. Life in the shadows makes a man paranoid.
“We’ll be needing Dr. Hideo’s schedule, personal habits, and itinerary, as well as flaws and exploitable openings in NTS’ security protocols.”
“Can you give me something concrete to work with?” I didn’t need any more info. I’d done surveillance jobs before, but the more info I could get, the more I might learn about Mr. Johnson’s agenda, which might be profitable in the long run.
“Focus on Dr. Hideo’s vulnerability. Depending on your analysis, Hideo may well be the target of hostile activity.” As if I hadn’t already figured that out. He managed to answer my question without really giving me any new information. Well played, Mr. Johnson.
I pocketed the envelope. I’d look it over later. “Time frame?”
“I understand that these things can take time. How long will it take you to assemble a comprehensive picture?”
“A week, tops.”
“You seem very confident, Mr. Snoop.”
“I’m very competent, Mr. Johnson.”

The surveillance itself was fairly easy. NTR was pretty secure, with three rotating guard shifts, each one consisting of three men. I was pretty sure one of each was a magician of some kind, but I couldn’t be positive without watching them. Unfortunately, their security made watching them unobserved somewhat troublesome.
However, because of Seattle’s overpopulation problem, NTS had been forced to build their offices next to another building, a private software company, probably soon to be owned by one megacorp or another. Stealing a uniform was fairly simple, and actually infiltrating NTS’ neighbor became a great deal easier once I hacked their security system. They didn’t have anything heavy, so between my Matrix backdoor and my spoofed I.D., I had a rooftop view of NTS.
I got to know Hideo. He was a forty-two year old Japanese man, born and raised in Seattle. He was skilled in his field, something involving research and development, but he was so top secret, I couldn’t find out exactly what. Something SOTA. Fortunately, I didn’t have to. Hideo was a workaholic, fueled by his unpleasant home life. His wife was a spoiled shrew who kept him away as much as he could manage. Since he wasn’t a big bar-hopper, he spent long hours at the office, burying himself in his work. Just in case, I followed him home and got his home address, phone number, commlink I.D., and vehicle registration, but this “hostile action” would probably take place at his office.
After a week, I reported back to Mr. Johnson. I uploaded videos, audio recordings, blueprint schematics, and data files, and he uploaded my nuyen. That, as I look back, was the moment everything turned to drek.
“Before we conclude our business, Mr. Snoop, I wonder if you might be interested in a contract extension. If you are interested, I would like to secure your continued services for a substantial financial recompense.”
I hated him. Secondary jobs, or step-jobs as I called them, almost always turned out poorly. It was always better to take your nuyen, thank the Mr. Johnson, and go spend it on booze and hookers, but I almost never took the smart option. Money talks too loudly to me. Frankly, it’s the most common ‘runner motivation, and I’d have to say it’s our biggest and most exploitable weakness.
“I’m in.”

The next day, I met with Mr. Johnson at Shits and Grins, a cruddy little bar in the lower class section of Seattle. It was the kind of place most Mr. Johnsons met to hire ‘runners for the usual dirty jobs. Looked to me like Dr. Hideo was about to become the target of some “hostile action.”
Mr. Johnson asked that I arrive early, and so I did. He explained his desire to “secure my continued services” as advisor and assistant to whatever group of ‘runners he managed to hire. We agreed on a sum of seven thousand, and settled in to await the rest of the party.
They were a motley bunch. There were four of them, two humans and two elves. One of the elves was a chromed-up street sam who went by Dienekis (a quick Matrix search suggested something to do with ancient Greece), and the other was a tiny slip of a girl, completely lacking cyberware, who called herself Starchild. Codesmith was their hacker, a kind of gangly fellow who always seemed vaguely distracted. Finally, the other guy went by Eastman. I didn’t spot much obvious ‘ware, so I guessed he was the rigger.
Mr. Johnson had me act as his bodyguard and assistant, which meant I got to step and fetch. I didn’t mind. With my cyberears, I was able to eavesdrop from across the room. There’s a reason I go by Snoop.
Dienekis was the group’s face, and he talked a smooth game. Mr. Johnson laid the whole plan out: he wanted Hideo. It wasn’t an altogether uncommon occurrence. Often, one corp would hire ‘runners to perform a “hostile extraction,” to steal another corp’s employee. It made me sick sometimes, treating people like resources, but then I reminded myself that I steal and kill for a living, so the moral qualms go away pretty quickly. Apparently, Hideo was about to get a new job.
Also, Mr. Johnson wanted a ruckus kicked up. He didn’t want this to go completely smoothly. He made it clear that the group only got paid if the NTS building was a pile of rubble at the end of the ‘run. Since most ‘runs ended with one manner of explosion or another, I figured he was just giving us an official reason.
After some haggling, the ‘runners took the job, and Mr. Johnson turned the meeting over to me. I passed them the surveillance data, Mr. Johnson excused himself from the establishment, and we got down to planning.

It was that Friday when we got our chance. They came up with a pretty good plan, overall. Codesmith started, as all hackers do, by cybernetically entering NTS’ system via his backdoor. He slipped into the camera system and confirmed my surveillance.
As always, there were three guards on duty. We were justifiably concerned about the magician. Dienekis, however, had a plan. Apparently, Starchild was some kind of magician or other, with some kind of magic that let her duplicate voices. Codesmith tapped the guards’ commlinks and got her a voice sample of the mage’s companion, which would later be used as a lure.
First, however, we had to get them in. The building had two doors, a front and back, and both had cameras watching them. Dienekis, Starchild, and Eastman snuck along the side of the building, approaching the back door. One of the guards was a smoker, and I knew he always took a break about two hours into his shift. I accessed the neighboring building again, set up my Walter 2100-A rifle, and took aim on the back door.
I sent the confirmation signal to the others. Codesmith fed the cameras some false information, looping previously recorded footage of the guard smoking. At the same time, he jammed the guard’s commlink, preventing any distress calls. Dienekis, Eastman, and Starchild whipped around the corner of the building. The guard, startled, fumbled for his gun, but between those three and my rifle, he didn’t stand a chance. The altercation was over in a few moments, and Renraku would be paying out mortality benefits to the poor slot’s family.
Using Starchild’s magic, we tricked the mage into a ground floor bathroom, flash packed him, and put him down like a rabid dog. Understand, when I say “we,” I mean Dienekis, Eastman, and Starchild. I was still comfortably ensconced on the opposite building, monitoring wireless activity and not getting shot. I’m not afraid to admit, though, I unclenched a lot when the mage went down.
Fragging spellcasters.
The rest of the ‘run went smoothly. There was some excitement when they found Hideo, because apparently the fellow kept a tripod-mounted chain gun in his office. Seems he was a weapons designer. Fortunately, no one was hurt except the third guard who came to investigate the noise and got a face full of molten lead courtesy of Starchild.
They pulled the fire alarm to evacuate the building and set the explosives on the fifth floor. I began prepping to evacuate the premises, when I caught a burst of flurried communication over the comms. The others had run into a group apparently purloining a large box from NTS’ top floor, some warning shots had been exchanged, and they hypothesized that Mr. Johnson had used them as a high-profile diversion for a second group of ‘runners. I’d tuned out the chatter by this point. I was gone. My part of the job was done, and I wanted to get paid.
What I really should have done was start paying attention to all of the subtle and not-s-subtle clues that pointed to me getting fragged.

This is where it gets fun. I contacted Mr. Johnson and arranged a credstick drop at a local coffin hotel. I made my umpteenth mistake of the ‘run and failed to scan the slotting credstick before I got home. It’s an amateur mistake, but the ‘run had been so easy that I was lulled into a false sense of security.
I’d stepped into my lousy apartment in a lousy part of town, and I idly ran a Scan program on the credstick as I tossed it onto the bed. When I got a blip from an outgoing signal, I started getting nervous. When my audio enhancement picked up the sound of booted feet in the hallway, I dove behind my kitchen counter for cover. This was when the automatic gunfire ripped my faux-wood door to faux-splinters.
This is where you came in.
I pulled my Ares Predator Mark IV and switched to therms. Through the counter, I could make out four heated forms moving swiftly into the room, periodically releasing short bursts of suppressing fire. Drek. Mr. Johnson had turned on me, slipping a tracer signal into my credstick. The seven thousand nuyen was worthless. In other words, I’d just gotten bent over a desk. Fragging corps.
I locked my smartgun link onto the foremost soldier, popped up, and gave him two to the chest. His armor absorbed most of the impact, but the slugs hit him hard enough to knock him on his hoop. I dropped prone again just in time to avoid his friends’ return fire.
They were advancing again, and I needed a way to slow them down. My apartment only had one light, so I shot it out and switched to low-light vision. They probably had goggles (or had ‘ware themselves), but it gave me a moment. I couldn’t fight them, so it was time to run.
I rolled to my feet and squeezed off two shots at my window, sending spiderwebs arcing through the glass. Bolting, I braced for impact. Gunfire peppered all around me, and one well-aimed burst hit my armored vest right between my shoulder blades. I stumbled, so instead of leaping gracefully like a gazelle through my second-story window, I sort of rolled out through shattering glass, cutting myself and hitting the awning below on my back.
I didn’t have time to hurt. I fired twice up at my window to discourage pursuit and rolled off the awning. Some scattered gunfire and cursing followed me as I ran down the street, but neither hurt me. I needed answers and a place to crash from the only person who had both.

Lauren Llaelialyse was understandably nervous when she opened her door and saw my smiling Ares Predator Mark IV greeting her. I backed her up and forced my way inside, slamming the door behind me.
“Hello, honey. It’s been a while.”
“Are you out of your fragging mind?!”
“Just about.” I pointed to her couch, and she sat. “Tell me, when you set up the meet with Mr. Johnson, did you know he was going to turn on me, or were you just hoping he would?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I put a bullet in the couch next to her, and she screamed. “Jesus fragging Christ! Are you nuts?! You’re going to bring Lone Star down on both of us!”
“Then you’d best start telling me what I want to know.”
“I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
I blasted a vase into shards and leaned in close. “You always were a drekky liar, Lauren. I know you. You do background checks of every ‘runner and Mr. Johnson you’ve ever dealt with. Hell, you did a check on me, and we were married for two years. I know you checked this guy out. You’re going to tell me what you found out, or your furniture’s going to get a lot more perforated. Then, I’m going to draw some conclusions about whether you’re an incompetent fixer or a traitorous fixer.”
“Jesus, Rupert... look, he checked out as much as any Mr. Johnson checks out! There’s no way to tell if one is going to frag you! They’re all corporate suits!”
I put my gun against her head. I honestly didn’t know what I planned to do. “For God’s sake, Lauren, he tried to have me killed! I want to know if you knew!”
“I didn’t! I swear, Rupert, I had no idea!” She was sobbing, but I couldn’t tell if it was fear or regret. Probably both. I sighed and stepped back.
“Fine. I believe you.” She lowered her head into her hands and cried. I wanted to feel bad for her or feel guilty about making her cry, but I couldn’t. “You do know who he works for.” It wasn’t a question.
“Ares! Jesus, Rupert, he works for Ares.”
I looked down at my Predator Mark IV, made by Ares Macrotechnology, and tried to figure out what it all meant. Something was going down, but I didn’t know if it went beyond this Johnson or not. Ares hit Renraku, then tried to blank the ‘runners it hired.
‘Runners... oh, drek.
“Lauren, you have to get out of here, right now. If he sent people for me, then he might be trying to erase his tracks, which means he’ll have sent people for you, too. Get to a safehouse. I’ll contact you later.”
“Rupert...”
“Go!”
She went. I got the hell out of there and dialed up my headware commlink. The other ‘runners were in trouble.
“Hello?” It was Dienekis. He sounded frazzled.
“It’s Snoop. What the frag is going on?”
“The Johnson turned, tried to double-cross us.”
“I know. I just survived. Why?”
“We’re not sure. It might have something to do with the second group of ‘runners he hired to steal something from NTS.”
“So we were a cover-up.”
“Looks like it.”
“Where is he now?”
“Dead. A sniper shot him in the back when he tried to sell the thing the other ‘runners stole.”
“Great. So, where are they?”
“Dead. We killed them to get the thing they stole.”
Lovely. “Explain this to me again, slower.”
“In short, Mr. Johnson tried to frag us. We turned the tables and made him cut us in on the sale of the thing, which turned out to be nanotech. We had to kill the other ‘runners to get it.” Professional courtesy didn’t go far in our world. “Then, when we went to sell the thing, we got jumped, turned the tables on them, and took them out, but not before Mr. Johnson got himself shot. We’ve got some extra nuyen, though.”
“Lovely.” So, Ares was hitting Renraku. For nanotech. I sighed. Typical megacorp bulldrek, and here I was, caught in the middle again. “Keep me informed, will you?”
“When we know anything.”
Typical day as a shadowrunner.