Dog Days.
A new Shadowrun short fiction story.

/Captain Obvious Mode

The poor doggie! WAHHH!

A nice slice-of-SR-life sort of story, Dashiell Hammett style. Thought the ending was rather abrupt and out of pace with the rest of the story, though.

If you're a dog lover, it's seriously not going to brighten your day to read it. Be warned.

Nice story.
And Fangirl you shoulda put that in spoilers.

What a pro runner. Because the J stiffed him on a grand for a run where he didn't even get shot at, he kills him (with one blow, no less. I r impressed at the SR4 rules).

I am truly impressed that this guy is going to be a core shadowtalk poster. He can explain why Johnsons keep sending him on suicide runs because he's a douche.

Seriously. Hes all slick and, 'Bam' broad day light kill the client.
Id get his ass killed in one of my games for that sorta dreck. Especally for that kind of money.

Hey, I'm still wondering why in a ubiquitously wireless world KE wouldn't have swarmed the area after the first officer flatlined and before he regained consciousness.

But that's me.

There is one thing about this story that just doesn't ring true. I'm surprised that the people at fampro didn't catch it.



It is a simple matter to clone new one.

Good point. Cloning is easy.

That was a sinister answer to an honest question.

FanGirl, that's just groping.

It was a really bad end to the story. Any Shadowrunner would pay a whole lot more than 1000 for a loyal cyberdog. You just can't buy that kind of thing, even with a good drone. A drone can be spoofed, E-War'd, etcetera, but if you have the dog's behavior ajusted and close-circuited, it can think for itself, but it'll never be disloyal.

Granted, it might do strange things like try to eat people once it's taken them down, but...

I agree, killing the Johnson was a bad idea, but after Mr. J got the bright idea of calling Lone Star on me, it became a really, really good idea. You don't rat out your Shadow contacts to the Star, unless you're gunning for a quick geeking. As for the Runner, maybe he was a PhysAd, to be so deadly with melee weapons?



And yes, having the dog's testicles cloned and reattached would be a simple matter. For that matter, so should cloning the dog whole cloth, so I have to question why there's any shortage of trained dogs at all.

The word you want is "reaching" or "stretching", not "groping".

That said, feedback: it was entertaining, but a number of things didn't feel right about the story.

1) Present tense. Agh!

2) Magical Appearing Staff. The first time you mention the staff is when he pulls it out because he needs it. I ended up doing a text-search just to make sure I hadn't missed a reference to it, but that was the first time the word shows up.

3) Way too abrupt. Someone's been reading too much Beowulf—it's much the same "setup setup setup setup setup setup setup setup ok, we're done" sort of style. The meet takes a bit over two pages, the legwork a little under nine, and maybe three-quarters of a page to retrieving the dog. I blinked the first time I read through and missed it.

4) You've established on page 8 that the augmentation process drives the animals psychotic (as has canon), but when the main character finds the pooch it's friendly and normal-acting. It also should be added, though this is a reasonable mistake on the part of the character, that psychosis is very rarely accompanied by violence (this in contrast to psychopathy, AKA Antisocial Personality Disorder).

5) Hutchinson leaves his throat exposed even when the staff is right next to his head and being wielded threateningly. Protecting the face and throat is instinctive—one-hit kills aren't rare because hitting someone in the throat with a staff won't kill them, they're rare because it's difficult to pull off a clean attack on someone's throat even with an untrained opponent.

6) The main character does way too much of an about-face with regard to the dog—you need some more setup in there.

More if I think of it.

~J

*Whine*

If Chester didn't eat Stick while he's unconscious, why would he eat him at any other time?

It's good fiction but I find it amusing that apparently the FanPro people don't have a firm a grasp of t3h r34l Sh4dowrun as DSFers have.

Heh, I got to bullshido.net to be reminded how much I suck at being a martial arts hobbyist. I go to forums.dumpshock.com to be reminded how whenever I play SR I've actually been doing it all wrong.

George was trapped. Even in the event that they could do what you describe (it's been too long since I read the book, did George even know how to drive?), they'd still have been hunted down. They didn't have resources, they didn't have significant experience as outlaws, they had nothing.

The same can hardly be said of the main character of this piece.

~J

Kept me occupied for a couple minutes at least.

As a relative SR n00b though, one q: the story mentions respirators? Is the air quality so bad in places in Seattle that you have to wear masks everywhere you go or is the main character impaired in some way?

What if the people wanted to take you away in order to perform experiments on you? Chester was the justice of the street personified, revenge against those who persecute you. Stick invalidated it by deeming it evil and killing him over it.

It was a play-on-words, SL James. Lighten up.

I was being sarcastic.

BTW, since he called the police and KE officer showed up I guess this means KE finally won that ever-lucrative Seattle policing contract from LS.

In other news, Bill Loudoun was found in his office hanging from his tie.

Then my sincere apology for mistaking your subtle witticism at face value.

I got the impression that the K-E that showed up was an animal containment squad sent to retrieve their guard doggie, not the 'Star.

Sticks is a fragging idiot. Get the RFID tag removed, and you then have your choice of:

• Keep the dog. It's not that hard to look up "the care and feeding of cyberdogs" on the net, and loyal backup is always a good thing to have in the business.
• Fence the dog intact. There have got to be people out there who'd pay for a cybered-out security dog, and undoubtedly a good bit more than a thousand nuyen.
• Part it out. This is unlikely to bring as much profit as the previous option, but even without the meat, the 'ware has to be worth a pretty penny, and it might be safer than keeping the dog intact... if, y'know, you think that trying to kill a dog that has just demonstrated that it can take out three KE officers who kicked your ass is safer than giving it a bowl of kibble and KE liver and playing a bit of fetch until you can line up a buyer.

Or... you could kill the dog and leave it and the 'ware it's loaded with to rot in an alleyway. 'Cause that totally makes sense!

I told you already, orphanages cost double. You don't get the bulk discount until you're ordering at least five at a time.

~J

Sigged.

It just seemed somehow, forced. Hyzmarca had it right. The only thing we had any chance of identifing with gets removed, and the end just kinda falls... Meh.

You hit the nail on the head! ^_^

the dog licked my soup
HE MUST DIEEEEEEEEEEE

Where was the soup when he started licking? Your attitude may change completely if you just move the soup to a more "friendly" location.