[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:01 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

Santos thanks Shaka and asks him to return to the astral space and await his next request for assistance. He rises up from the deck and lifts his hands in the universal gesture of peace as he releases the cloak of mana hiding him from normal eyesight...

"I mean you no harm, do not shoot!!"

Standing on the deck is a handsome young man, with bronze skin, black curly hair and striking green eyes; he has a white bloodstained shirt, faded jeans and a leather jacket.

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:01 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

The truck pulls to a screeching halt just after smearing the last remaining guards into the ground. Harper poked her head out of the window, adjusted the side mirrors, and briefly looked back at the last few people unfortunate enough to cross her path. One side of the vehicle is almost bereft of paint in parts, where it had met brick. But, even the ‘good’ side of the vehicle is scratched like it just came through a messy drag-race in the streets controlled by a kid who couldn't reach the pedals and see over the dash board at the same time. Nodding to herself in vague satisfaction, Harper congratulated herself on her successful driving. If she had a Formula One cap, she would have taken this moment to adjust the brim. Like breakin’ a window; you never forget!

As she took a look around the blood-splattered pier, one of the side-mirrors fell right off the truck, dangling by a half-frayed wire. The girl frowned. Yes, the massive collateral damage was familiar. But, where are her teammates?

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:01 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

"Madre de Dios I am going to kill you, you f--"

Sonora saw it moving in, fast. It was small and quick, the smoke swirling around it as it moved through. A splash of water here, a scrape against the ground there. The gangplank bowed under an invisible weight for just a moment and Sonora turned, wielding the ungainly Barry about to train it where she figured it would end up.

That was about the time the cargo truck exploded onto the scene, barreling through three hombres and skidding to a halt on the crimson paste that Smiley had turned the dock into. A nigglingly familiar head popped out, adjusting the side mirror. At the same time, 'it' appeared on the visible spectrum. A boy, a local boy, pleading with her not to shoot him.

As was wont to happen when there was an overload of stimuli (wont to happen in the past 24 hours, anyway), time slowed. Sonora's mind took in the details, and presented it in a neat little package with a red bow.

There was a woman in a truck. Sonora recognized her after the barest moment - it was the girl on the end of the chain the Troll was hauling off. She'd escaped, somehow - and from the look of her, Sonora had a fairly good idea of what happened to the Troll. One less problem.

There was a boy on the boat. He was a local, and he wielded magic. He also had a spirit that looked like the one she'd shanked in her old apartment but days before - but at the same time, different.

Smiley was in the wheelhouse, getting this boat ready to drive. Alex was below, doing the same. Mono was on deck, getting the mooring lines loose in a most expedient fashion. That left Sonora and her giant rifle, with her finger just outside the trigger guard.

She let the barrel of the rifle drop, one hand waving tiredly at the girl in the truck, beckoning her to get onto the boat before it was too late.

"Mierda, this thing's heavy. All right, hijo. You're a magician, right?"

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:01 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

A dull ache throbbed in Alex’s side from where the rigger had stabbed his icon. An itch caught his attention behind his ear, which he used the front sight of his Asp to remedy. Below deck on the small vessel reeked pretty heavily of liquor, sweat, and God knows what else. His eyes roamed the darkened areas towards the back of the hold before he wandered in and situated himself in a corner.

The Asp and Predator that he carried lay draped in his lap as he slipped back into the ship’s LAN. The rigger he had accosted was a pain in the ass, but not as large as he figured it would be. Then again, Alex had no idea of what might still be lurking in the system.

A spectral figure with black eyes coalesced into Alex’s icon. He briefly examined the various processes of the boat before triggering the engines. More out of curiosity than thinking he would locate anything, the technomancer began sifting through the information still present in the network or any attached storage.

<<Team: Hey. Where the fuck are we going anyways. I mean other than the bottom of the ocean.>>

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:01 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

Santos sighs in relief when the elf chica is distracted by the truck and does not open up on him with the big Barrett, and a smile breaks on his youthful face revealing big, white teeth. He is about to respond when he notices the Azzie accent she uses... the smile holds on his face a fraction of a second too long and a quick frown replaces it, before he gains control and relaxes his facial muscles, This come mierda (shit eating) chica is a fraggin' Azzie! Now what the frag should I do? OK, keep cool and figure out what the fraggin' mierda is going on. Coño, she wants to know if I'm a mage...

"Yes linda, I'm a simple magician, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. My Gringa friend is the one in the truck...uhm", he pauses as he waves to the Gringa to get to the ship, "I was hoping we could catch a ride with you guys out of this fraggin' death hole..." he finishes weakly.

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:01 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

Alright! Now she was getting somewhere. Harper slammed the driver’s side door of the truck shut, dislodging the last side mirror and sending it clattering to the ground as she casually made her way to the boat and began boarding. On her way up, she glanced back at the mage once and then gave Sonora a once-over. It wasn’t the sort of expert look that one would expect from a negotiator or someone who crawled into peoples’ heads for a living. No, it was closer to the shallow looks that overly muscular thugs gave each other, estimating how easy it would be to take each other in fisticuffs.

As she clamored onto the boat, Harper leaned back and shouted to Santos, “Rest of the other chicas left, just so you know.” This definitely wasn’t her team. But, hey, it was better than hanging around the pier for any longer. After all, whoever was in charge of that troll wasn’t going to pleased, and it definitely wouldn’t be a good idea to hang around for that.

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:01 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

<<@Devilbwoy: Hey, Dev, wake up. I got the shipment! Guns, boat, and everything. I need a place to take the whole thing and lay low, and I need it yesterday... Tell me you got some little known drydock out in one of those tiny islands off the coast.>>

Smiley was left tapping his foot as he sat in the wheelhouse, waiting for an answer. Fuck, I can't believe I didn't remind him to find a place earlier... After resting his autoshotgun against the wall, he doffs his tactical vest and PMC ballcap before rushing back out to the deck. "Hey, that mooring line cut? We need to be outta he-" Noticing the new arrivals on board, Smiley instinctively brushes his fingers against the grip of the Colt 2066 in his thigh holster, tensing up for a brief moment before letting out a sigh. "You know what, I don't care. We gotta get outta here people, Those Azzies have hit everything but us, eventually they are going to hit us by mistake! Get inside so you don't get flung off deck when I get this tub moving."

Running back into the wheelhouse, Smiley speaks up on the teams commchat, <<Alex, forward me the access to the Rigger VR interface and the miniguns targetting systems. I want full control of this boat."

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:01 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

Santos shrugs at the Gringa, and explains to the Azzie Elf chica, "Gringa over here is pretty handy with a crowbar... I just helped her out with an ork pendejo, who was coming at her with a pistola." Looking back at the Gringa, "Well we did all we could for them. It's now up to the chiquillas to figure out how to get out of here. As for us... I was just asking the nice lady if we could catch a ride with them..."

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:01 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

Sonora could hear it in his voice; see it on his face. Maybe it was the fact she was toting a huge rifle. Maybe it was because she was covered in blood. At any rate, he showed disgust. Ay.

Hijo and Gringa were both on the boat now, Smiley allowing their boarding by omission as he went back below. Sonora shrugged as Hijo asked his question and went to follow.

"You're already on the boat. We're leaving now, you may as well come with."

So tired. Ten minutes, and I feel like I could sleep for a year.

Alex hummed quietly to himself as he accessed the user files. He quickly crafted together an administrator access and shot it along to Smiley. <<Be careful. I don't know if there is anything else lurking in here. Still scanning icons and files.>>

The technomancer's ghostly icon drifted between different points as he probed and explored the node to give up whatever secrets it may have been hiding.

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:02 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

<<Dev? Devilbwoy! Come in you sonuf-Oh fuck it.>>

Smiley slumped into the helmsman's seat of the wheelhouse and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, placing an unlit stick between his lips as he looked over the controls. Motherfucker! No customer, no place to stash, half my crew went missing in the gunfight... What the fuck happened? He let out a sigh as he tucked the smoke behind his ear and went into the hot-sim VR, feeling his senses become one with the onboard sensors of this ratty old tub known as the Leviathan.

<<@Crew: Man fuck this bullshit. I'm going to see if we can't float along the coast, use a river to circle through and come out of it well outside of their blockade. It's getting to late out for this shit.>>

With that 'captains speech', Smiley mentally put forward the throttle and pull the boat away from the dock and, hopefully, to some form of freedom.

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:03 PM; The Soon-To-Be-Sinking-Coffin]

One of the few remaining pleasures in life for Alex was the hum of information flowing through him. There was no pain, no misery, no horror; nor did it matter what the information contained. It was simply there. One giant puzzle to be unlocked. His mind probed and sifted through the various icons and files that were available on the node until a pair of documents caught his eye.

<<Yo Smiley. I just found a couple lists that might prevent us from becoming irradiated shark food. One is a list of officials open to bribery. And the other is a data sheet on smugglers' hideouts. Maybe we can ditch in a hideout for a couple days or bribe our way into a protected dock?>>

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:03 PM; The Leviathan]

Alex's comment made it hard for Smiley to not roll his eyes within the digital landscape of the Leviathan's internal node.

<<Oh you just found this out? That's great, but why do you think we're going to end up as shark chow? I said I was not going to rush the damn blockade! Why does no one have any faith in my driving skills? Anyways... We'll take the hideouts for now, as it's probably a good idea to stay out of town for a little bit. At least anyone outside the city who wants to shoot at us would have shittier guns and body armor than the Aztlan armed forces.>>

<<Any objections to this plan?>>

Alex paused and stared blankly into cyberspace for a moment before replying, <<No, actually I was contemplating shooting some holes in the hull to see if we would sink before we reached safety. Don't get your thong in a knot, not every off-hand comment is a critique on your shitty driving.>>

The technomancer shot a copy of the file over to Smiley and began inspecting it himself, looking for likely candidates for their crew.

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:03 PM; The Leviathan]

Harper shrugged, rather oblivious to the nonverbal exchange between Sonora and Santos. She took a few hesitant steps around the deck, realizing that she really didn’t have much of an idea of what she was doing. It wasn’t even apparent that the elf woman who had waved her aboard was even looking for additions to her crew. And the razor girl didn’t even really know what everyone else aboard the boat was up to.

The girl decided to take care of the most important things first.

“Hey, do you got anything aboard this thing that I could use? ‘Cause this thing ain’t gonna cut it,” She took the gun she’d taken off of the ork out of her pocket and showed it to Sonora, regarding it the way most people would a tricycle.

Santos
[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:01 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

Not knowing what to do on a ship, Santos just paces along the deck, while he tries to figure out this group...

The Elf Chica is an Azzie, but looks as nervous about the impending attack as everyone else; plus she was trying to fire the big rifle at the Azzie ships. Maybe she has a bone to pick with the Azzie authorities...

The Gunner and the Kid... sound like local Caraqueños, but not sure what to make of them, why are they with the elf chica.

And then there is the Gringa. At least I think I understand her situation.

He will stay silent, carefully watching, his eyes darting from the Azzie ships to the crew of the ship, to the Elf Chica. After a few minutes of non-productive staring, he will approach the elf chica, "My name is Santos... I'm not sure I caught yours earlier..."

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:30 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

Smiley yammered across his commlink, sending messages at DevilBwoy in an attempt to communicate with the rasta. After a time he got a reply, of sorts:

<<...Ya deah..? Havin' tr--....*static*...--ckin' jammahs or sumt'ing. Az-- *feedback, long pause*....TARGETING MUH BOAT! BITCH, GETCHA CLOTHES ON... *more static, voices and explosions interspersed*...>>

Soon after, more shells were heard, and even some explosions. Some boats further down the dock were being smashed to bits. A column of water suddenly shot up right beside the Leviathan, rocking it violently as the shell erupted beneath the water. For a long few seconds the boat tilted dangerously towards one side, sending bodies to the deck before it righted itself just as quickly.

Engines were being started on ships large and small all along the Pier, and captains were attempting to guide their boats to safety. The Leviathan became just another ship in that number, though piloted by someone with a little more knowledge and skill than most. As Smiley hugged the coast, he also took some basic evasive maneuvers in order to keep shells, those either targeting them or blindly fired, from smashing them into bits.

After a time, they had left Pier 40 far behind, other ships behind them fading into the murky night. In the distance, vague outlines of even more Azlaner naval vessels could be seen, spaced out and effectively blocking ships from entering or leaving a tight naval blockade. The large destroyers were accompanied by smaller but more versatile gunships, which as of now didn't consider the Leviathan a credible threat -- so long as it didn't try to pass the blockade.

The blockade hugged a jutting area of land that bookended the artificially-constructed bay surrounding the Caracan ports. While Smiley could not leave without arousing suspicion and ire from the invading navy, he could at least tie off and the team could make their escape back into Caracas, to hopefully regroup safely and hopefully figure out what to do next.

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:30 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

With a sigh, Smiley left VR hot-sim and shook his head. "Goddamnit, one of those days..." After punching in some coordinates into the autopilot to bring them near a quiet part of La Guaira, he takes the cigarette tucked behind his ear, and lights up before grabbing the canteen full of Oaxaca from the tactical vest nearby and walks off to see the rest of the group. After tossing the canteen to Sonora, he speaks up to address the crew.

"Well folks, I tried but in the end it's suicide to try rushing out. They got this place blocked off tight, can't even skim the coast to pass them. We got no place to go, no one to offload the cargo to, and without a good plan we're dead in the water... So to speak." He pauses to take a drag from his cigarette, "Also I'd like some explination on who the fuck you two are. Firstly..." He points over to youthful human shaman called Santos, "Why is a 14-year-old sneaking aboard ships when there's gunfights breaking out? Does your mother know you're out at this hour?" He then points over to the woman wearing the oversized leathers, but hesitates to say anything for a second, "Uh... Why do I get the feeling the reason you don't seem to be wearing a shirt under that coat explains why I seem to remember you from somewhere?"

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:30 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

Alex slipped from VR and went to monitoring the systems in AR. Most of them had been powered down or were entering maintenance mode with Smiley having put the ship into dock. The only system he kept active was the minigun turret on the top of the ship. The disheveled technomancer pulled himself up the ladder and onto the ship. He quirked an eyebrow and looked between the two new arrivals then over to the rest of their crew. The crate he found a place to sit on was slick with water from their escape from Pier 40. At this point, he was coming to the realization that the ordinance they did have did not have a place to go.

He produced a battered cigarette from a small wrapper in his breast pocket and put it between his lips. Lost in thought for a moment, he sparked it and looked intently at Harper. His gaze was hard and he did not blink often. "You look like you've had a rough night. Tell you what, why don't we duck below deck and I'll stretch your cunt for you in new and interesting ways. Frankly, you look like you could use the relaxation and I don't want to go into the afterlife with a hard on. It's bad for the soul, or some preacher told me."

Alex held up a hand to preempt any reply, "And before you tell me to fuck off. I would like to remind you of the Aztlan army and navy. We're all probably going to be dead within the next 12 hours anyways. So why not go into the next life a satisfied woman, eh?"

The technomancer smiled warmly at Harper and took a pull from his cigarette.

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:03 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

When Harper asked for something in English, showing a pistol and looking forlorn, Sonora wordlessly handed over the giant rifle she was having a problem carrying. She no longer required Barry, and the girl looked like she needed a friend.

And some clothes. But first thing was first.

Sonora picked up the assault rifle off the dead guard and tossed it back into the crate from whence it came. She tried to push it with her foot back towards the hold, resulting in an angry yelp as the crate didn't move while her foot did and a moment or three of silent fuming as Smiley got the boat moving.

"Just, ah...let's get these down. Or something. I don't even fucking know right now," she muttered in rapid-fire Aztlaner Spanish while gesturing towards the crates. She didn't need this right now - taking on two charity cases after a bloody gun battle that had most of the team missing.

"Call me Sonora for now. Get below, the jackass driving this thing is going to try to make the boat either fly or dive underwater, or maybe even both. Guns too. We don't ha-"

She could hear the whistle. This one sounded all kinds of wrong, the kind of wrong that meant a shell was perilously close to their position. In English, she shouted "Incoming!"

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:30 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

"...and that's why the boat pilot is insane. You don't do that with a van. You don't! You should see what's left of his car! And we still let him drive! And now this outfit is completely-COMPLETELY fucking ruined."

Sonora was soaked, and letting the rank sea air dry her off as she sat on the deck. She had been angrily yelling in a pastiche of three or four different languages for the past twenty-seven minutes, admonishing Smiley, Alex, Santos y Harper, and even God and Aztlan as they wove their way through the escaping boats. After she started repeating herself in minute five, she took it upon herself to explain in Spanish and English as to why Smiley was the devil incarnate, with corroborating evidence.

The object of her tirade threw a canteen to her as he exited the pilot house, which Sonora caught for once, taking a pull. Then a longer one. It was enough to keep her silent while Smiley explained that the plan was completely schnockered.

"I can try and talk to Sergei and see if he's got a market, or we load them into our vehicles when we make pickup and take them back to the shop. Up to you."

Sonora then pointed at Harpert, explaining. "Remember the chicas on the chain we walked by? She's the one-woman liberation army that was on the end. Santos there is some kind of spell-flinger and adrenaline junkie."

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:30 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

Judging by Harper’s expression of glee, it probably looked like Christmas had just arrived early for the razor girl. She looked at that rifle the way the sons of corporate executives looked at the second new car they got for their sixteenth birthday. Yeah. This was something she could relate to. And a rifle like this? Shee-iit. Her chums would think it was fantastic when she saw them next, if she got to keep it. Every once in a while, she looked from person to person, eyeing the mage and the pretty woman between more exploratory examinations of the rifle she'd been given.

In the aftermath of Smiley's maneuvering, Harper leaned against one of the crates of weapons and listened vaguely to Sonora’s tirade. Mostly, her attention tuned in and out as various parts of the elf chica’s crew began filing onto the deck. Equally soaked through with sea water as the other woman, the street sam didn’t seem to mind so much about herself as the poor sniper rifle she had just acquired. By the time Smiley and Alex made their individual ways to the deck, most of the blood that had previously coated Harper had been washed off.

She let Sonora answer for her identity, only supplying, “Name’s Harper,” to supplement the adept’s explanation.

Turning towards the technomancer, Harper adopted an expression of generic irritation. Although, it might not have been the exact flavor of annoyance that Alex was expecting. “Hold your horses, amigo. Let me get a shower and some food and dry off first, then maybe we’ll talk. God, all y’all men are so damn impatient,”

Whatever effect the young woman’s response might have had was probably lessened by the yawn punctuating the end of her words. As yawns went, it was rather high pitched and sounded more like a child’s yawn.

Alex held his hands out in a show of acceptance with a slight shrug. "Alright, alright. Fire's burnin' though. I will eventually need the blood to probe for unprotected ports. Crack the encryption to reveal the sweet, sweet paydata. Slip into the node and subscribe the user to my services. Brute force my way past the firewall. Force a system crash that takes the entirety of a corporation's tech team a day to recover.." Alex narrowed his eyes and stared up at the sky for a minute. "That's all the euphemisms I can think of off the top of my head. Was kinda reaching at the end there."

He narrowed his eyes and stroked his chin for a moment before sticking the cigarette back in his mouth. "That gives me a phenomenal idea. Harper, you said? Let me know when you're down to fuck. In the mean time.. I'm Alex. Probably have a last name but who gives a shit. You don't, they don't. No one does. I'm fine with that. In the meantime, you fuckers let me know when we decide on a plan of action. For all I give a shit I'd just sleep on the fucking boat. At least it has a minigun turret."

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:30 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

Smiley rubbed his temple in annoyance as Alex blathered on, "Okay Alex, I'm sure some people think it's cute that you swear like a preteen on his first night out, but shut the fuck up already. You suck at cussing, and it's giving me a headache." He turns his attention back to Harper, "Yeah, nice to see you got free of that bullshit. I've met the kind of people that buy muneca's. They got some weeeeiiird kinks, and rarely are any of them the fun kind. You probably figured it out from that screeching I think I heard a minute ago, but I'm Smiley."

After exhaling another puff of smoke, he nods to himself before replying to Sonora. "Yeah, we'll do a bit of both. First we're going to loot this boat for all the good stuff, then hand the boat over to Sergei for safe keeping. Have him sit on it for a week or two before selling any of it, just in case. He'd probably do it anyway as this shipment is pretty hot right now, but it wouldn't hurt to remind him of that and that it's not technically his until that time is up."

After taking the smoke out of his mouth, Smiley facepalms. "Aw shit, forgot about DevilBwoy. Probably wants some of this too, even if the operation didn't work out right... Nevermind. Solve that when I get proof he's still alive."

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:30 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]


"I'll let him know," Sonora replied.

<<@Sergei: Are you and yours all right, old friend? The Aztlaner Navy is blockading the harbor and we find ourselves in possession of a boat and cargo. Are you open to new stock and a new boat that may need to lay low for a few days?>>

While she worked out the details of the deal with Sergei(provided his business wasn't on fire, artillery wasn't accurate and Smiley's car was on premises), Sonora's eye started to wander over the bedraggled band sitting on deck and the weapons they'd procured. She had little to no idea what half of this shit was, let alone what was good and what wasn't. Harper seemed very happy with Barry; Santos would get knocked on his ass if he fired anything above a popgun and Smiley had the largest gun of them all with the mini on deck.

Her mind started imagining possibilities: Selling the guns themselves piecemeal, giving the guns to the people of the favelas and raising a guerilla army, offering the weapons to La Alianza to assuage their anger towards her and Coatl - where did he go? He still had the co-

"Chingame! I didn't take that bitch's commlink! Her or the pilot has the account codes to their whole operation! Where is that pendejo? We're going to need to shop."

They had a hacker. They had at least the pilot's commlink, if what's left of him didn't get tossed in the harbor as they made their escape. They even had a few mooks that might have personal accounts to drain. She still had a balance to pay on the shop and clothes to buy.

Santos
[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:30 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

Santos had been flung onto the deck and crashed against a crate filled with weapons as the Leviathan was rocked by the shell blast that had barely missed the ship. He stayed crouched low, holding on tightly to the ropes that secured the cargo to keep from being hurled into the sea... As the ship rolled against the water column he was drenched by the filthy sea water of the polluted bay.

Nausea threatened to overcome his body, caused not by the jerking motion of the ship, but by the foul smell and slick slim of seawater mixed with blood that covered his body. He ignored the chatter of the ship crew and just stared across the rolling waves towards the Azzie blockade. Every few minutes he would turn away from staring at the open sea, and focus his sights on the sparkling lights that shone along the coastline and along the mountains that sheltered Caracas in it's valleys. A feeling of dread and despair rushed through his soul, making him shiver and spasm like an epileptic off his medication.

When the one called Smiley returned on deck and started hurling insults at everyone he saw, Santos realized he had mistaken the man for a local, but he too was a foreigner... a gringo who spoke Spanish like a native Azzie. The only local seemed to be the retarded kid, who had a hard-on for the Gringa. He couldn't blame him, after all he knew the charms that hid beneath that filthy leather jacket she had taken off the dead trog's body.

So what was he to do? What was the plan? He let Sonora, what a beautiful name, speak on his behalf and kept quiet. He knew that if he kept a low profile they would quickly dismiss him and let him continue studying the strange group.

Unsure on how to proceed, or even if he wanted to proceed with the ragtag group, Santos kept a vigilant eye and ear on what was being discussed...

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:31 PM; Some Dock]

Alex tilted his head to the side and looked intently at Smiley for a moment. He shrugged to himself and swung the minigun turret out to sea, unloading a ten second burst of fire at nothing in particular. After the gun spun down he asked, "Hey Smiley, did that help your headache any?"

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:30 PM; La Guaira, Pier 40]

Harper nodded vaguely as Sonora, Smiley, and Alex made their introductions. “Yeah, the rest of the girls ran the hell away, too,” she added, before returning to examine Barry. She nodded her head a few times in rather impatient understanding in response to Alex. The razor girl hadn’t even decided if she wanted to sleep with someone right now, or not. While it was always good to have options in that department, the girl thought she remembered her teammates saying something about her being more careful about who she fooled around with. Maybe she’d wait a day or something to think about it.

As Harper’s attention drifted in and out of the chatter, it sounded like the other woman had the best handle on the situation. It sounded like she must know people, and that was important. At least there was one person with smarts around, so she wouldn't have to do too much thinking.

Her nose wrinkled at the smell of the sea and slick of human fluids, but the girl didn’t really mind. After all, she’d smelled worse in her own time. Food sounded nice. Looking down at her own state of dress, it was only then that the razor girl considered the possibility that she might need to get some other clothes.

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:31 PM; Some Dock]

Looking over to the minigun as it winded down from it's prolongued burst, Smiley calmly took a final drag of his cigarette before flicking it off the deck. After withdrawing a flashlight-shaped directional jammer from his pocket, he grasps it in an underhand fashion, turns in on, and points it at Alex. "Can't quite say yet, Alex. Does this thing work on you people too?"

Without waiting for an answer, he looks over to Sonora. "You sure they'd have much money left? We don't know how they were doing before taking this shipment. If their bodies did get flung overboard you can go ahead and search the bay for them. Commlinks are supposed to be waterproof to at least a hundred, maybe hundred-fifty meters depth for standard casings. Up to five hundred meters for basic 'diving-proof' models."

Alex took a final draw off his cigarette. "As a matter of fact. They do. Feels much like the three-fourths of Caracas actually." The smell of burning flesh wafted lightly through the area momentarily as he ground the cigarette out on his wrist. Absently, he stared out over the harbor at the looming shapes in the darkness; waiting for someone to say something useful.

[Thursday, November 19, 2071, 10:31 PM; Some Dock]
Awake: 94 hours, 01 minute

...this should be all lightning fast and smooth as buttered glass... Who had said that? Fucking bullshit, through and through. It had been fifteen minutes of pure Hell. For a quarter of an hour, the universe was nothing but blood and death. during the fight, there had been no time for fear. No time for pain. No time for anything but moving and killing. No thinking, just action. Enemies in every direction, no cover would last more than second. Run. Shoot. Climb, Duck. Jump. Shoot. Roll. Run. Shoot. Dive. Reload. A steely-eyed killer, without hesitation or remorse, to took the lives of anyone who crossed his path. In those fifteen minutes of Hell, El Mono had been El Diablo.

Afterwards, when the shooting had stopped and there was nothing happening but the survivors talking shit at each other, El Mono was terrified. Heart pounding and limbs shaking, he sat in the prow of the boat trying to forget the nightmare. The faces of his victims flashed in his mind. His rifle was covered in blood from the woman whose skull he smashed in with the butt. Her brown eyes wide with fear, and her mouth trying desperately to form words. His hands shook, but they couldn't shake the blood from his skin. Had she been carrying a weapon? He couldn't even remember now. Was she a fighter, or just some poor soul in the wrong place at the wrong time? He would never know. His shook as he gulped in the salt air, but he couldn't shake the image of her face. Soon, the Long Haul would wear off, and he'd slip into the cold dreamless oblivion that followed. For the first time in his life, he welcomed it. The blackness that would erase her face could not come quickly enough. She had been pretty. He wondered what her name was...

[Saturday, November 21, 2071, 10:30 PM; Caracas]

War had finally come to Caracas.

General Marón had wasted no time gathering his standing Army and moving them to the front lines to meet the Aztlaner advance. According to the numerous and biased news agencies, his leadership held the invading forces at bay long enough for many civilians to get to safety. An airborne military presense did little to assist the Aztlaner ground forces in the thick foliage of La Muralha Verde, so it was mainly an infantry battle.

Speaking from a military perspective, the protection of Caracas was surprisingly tenacious, and the Aztlaner invasion was forced to break their teeth on a defense that was a spirited as it was desperate. These people LIVED in Caracas. Even if it was a corrupt shithole, well, it was their corrupt shithole, and some of them were patriotic enough to lay their lives down to keep out a foreign army, especially one that was trying to enter under what was widely considered to be false pretenses.

Marón's propaganda did much to whip his army into a fighting fury, and at first the Aztlaner army, taken aback by the vigor with which Caracas was defended, suffered noticeable losses. Certainly, higher brass was taking note of this turn of events. This city was supposed to be ripe for the plucking. Some field commanders were most assuredly going to be scheduled for "competence evaluations," perhaps atop some sacrificial altar still wet with the blood of convicts.

But even as fiercely as the Caracan army fought, they were ultimately no match for the near-infinite military resources of a regional AND corporate superpower. When the battle seemed to be lost, Marón instructed his rear guard to begin laying traps in the jungle. Once they were set in place, he ordered a retreat into the city. The warriors left their dead and moved back inside the sprawling city. There General Marón, and his army... vanished.

Aztechnology security forces and Aztlaner military personnel began meandering their way through an out of control jungle, doing their best to avoid the traps left behind under Marón's command. Then they started to filter into the city. Once in a while, Caracan soldiers, out of uniform and blending in with the populace, lashed out to take shots and do damage to the forces now moving into the city. Guerilla warfare was now in full swing.

Suffering more losses than anticipated, the Azzie forces became ragged with paranoia. Suspicion was enough to cause several brief incidents around the city where unarmed civilians were slaughtered en masse by soldiers who saw enemies everywhere. This in turn created even more enmity towards the invaders by the citizens. Slowly, the resistance grew.

As the military moved into the key spots of the city, notably La Guaira and Chacao, the remaining oligarchs in the city began giving lip services to the occupiers, publicly welcoming a "stabilizing presence in these troubled times," forget who caused the troubled times in the first place.

Parts of the still still blazed, either by the panic that came before the invasion, or in the fighting after. From atop buildings all around Caracas, one could see the fires blazing like giant beacons in the misty, drizzly, shitty night.

Santos
[Thursday, November 21, 2071, 10:30 PM; Caracas]


Santos helped the crew of the Leviathan unload the crates of weapons off the ship. He played along, behaving like a good lackey, carrying the heavy weapons and cataloging the armaments, but he was also listening to their disagreements, plans and goals. By Wednesday morning it was clear to him that even though many of the crew were of Azzie background they were in fact opposed to the invading army, and he felt more at ease with revealing his motives and plans to them. He trusted Sonora above all, maybe it was her beauty that got his hormones afire, or her natural charm, but as morning broke and the team sat exhausted after a long night of work, he moved besides her and shared his story...

"I'm not sure why you are here in Caracas or what your plans may be, but I was at the Pier looking for you. You look surprised... Why was I looking for you? Well, I am able to commune with spirits, the Orishas as we call them. They revealed that an Azzie invasion was heading towards Caracas. My friends chose to run from the city, abandon everything and flee. I however have chosen to stay. Don't get me wrong, I am not a patriot nor a hero. Far from it... I am here only because I was asked to stay by the only person who has ever given a shit for me. But if I was going to stay, I asked the Orishas to give me a clue into what I should do next... then I saw a vision of you and your team on the Pier. So here I am. The way I interpret the vision, is maybe we are supposed to work together or something. Anyway you now know who I am, and that I have some skill in magic. I have a small shithole that I call home, but you are all welcome to stay there if you need a place to crash. My goal is to stay alive, and I think I stand a better chance with you than alone..."

[Thursday, November 21, 2071, 10:30 PM; Somewhere in Caracas]

"...I think I stand a better chance with you than alone..."

"There's some space as long as things can stay quiet," Sonora replied. "We'll move some of the gear there, go through it, lay low until we decide what to do next."

[Friday, November 22, 2071, 6:44 PM; The Cat's Paw; Nueva Caracas]

Business was once again booming not 48 hours after a pair of gunmen and an alleged third assassin all but decapitated the management and security personnel in Caracas' red light district. The Paw was still running, but it was a different kind of place now. It was darker, a bit dingier. The Juans didn't take as many liberties with the girls as they used to, and what girls that did disappear came running back after the Aztlan soldiers took their own liberties with one or two. If it wasn't for a bit of chance that turned things around for the girls at the Cat's Paw, the place would remind people more of La Rinconada. Carmen and NodePhreak told her all about it during Happy Hour the following day.

The Cat's Paw itself looked much the same as it always did. Plainclothes guards stood at the door and at the corners, blending into the human river of people with practiced ease. Some carried openly, what looked like military-grade hardware in one or two hands, smaller sub-compact weapons in others. These particular guards were different than the ones before, however. Sonora could read their postures, their clothes, the cut of their hair. They were remnants of the Caracas Army, fighting in a pitched guerilla war. Their presence changed the Paw from a dive to a friendlier place. The girls were happy, if not subdued if any Azzies came in to sample the wares, but the presence of armed guards means the muñecas were safe, and the presence of Aztlan troops meant the girls became the perfect spies.

Sonora's trip to the Paw wasn't to catch up on recent developments regarding Aztlan, though it helped - it was so they could hear about her curious problem, one that had her worried. Calls to the office where she had her medical work ready went unanswered, and AZT security was all over the building when she went by. As she had nowhere else to go - it was time to tell the researcher she knew would listen, as well as her old roommate.

"...And the weirdest part was, it felt like I was seeing into the future," Sonora said. A half-empty bottle of Oro de Oaxaca rested on the table, and the lulls in the conversation were punctuated with a shot from the glass that was near her outstretched fingers. NodePhreak had about two dozen empty bottles of Jarritos and was nursing a twenty-sixth, his attention riveted on Sonora's story. Carmen had probably smoked three bowls since then, but her attention had been taken up by several fellows asking - or begging- for a round upstairs. When happy hour was over, the woman stood to make an easy grand.

Sonora herself had taken a great deal of care to ensure people weren't going to talk to her. The trick to being forgettable was to be unforgettable - or at least part of you. She chose a hairy mole, big enough for people to squick, and a few facial alterations to soften the curves and hide the ears under a frazz of long hair would make her look like a Hispanic housewife that just wanted to get away from the house for awhile and see how the other half lived. All people would see were the hairy mole on her false nose, and the red ribbon bow in her hair. It worked wonderfully.

"So that's the whole story?" NodePhreak asked. He took another hit of his soda bottle. "I need to do a bit of digging, but I think I've heard of something like this before. There was this thing, you know, off the trid, where they talk about unsolved mysteries, and aliens, and dragon puppets and all that great stuff. It's a pirate cast out of Pueblo norte, some double-wide out of El Reino del Nye. Gringo named Antiono Bell. Love his stuff."

Carmen, to her credit, snorted. Then inhaled. Then exhaled, letting the acrid purple smoke hang in the air. "Doesn't surprise me. You could always find my keys, or my commlink, or even that one time you found the bag with all my toys in it, and told me if I wasn't careful I'd leave it in some Juan's car, and sure enough I did! There was that other time that..."

Carmen and Phreak both continued to prattle on about their stories and theories on what was happening to Sonora. They both seemed interested in what was going on, but weren't really looking at it as an affliction. It was a mutation, or a miracle - but all of these things had their cost.

What was the cost of this? Sonora thought.

[Friday, November 22, 2071, 10:53 PM, Garcia Auto Works, Barrio Santa Rosa]

Sonora had parted ways with the other two after several hours, a datadump of information on her commlink and her head swimming from the combination of drink and weed. She'd kept her eyes moving and her hand on her Colt on the way back to the doss, moving through shadows and away from large concentrations of people. Sonora had barely said anything to the others and disappeared into her room at the first chance, reading through the information Phreak had gotten for her. It was horrible stuff, but there was enough of it for her to realize that there was basis for it in science.

They called it 'Kittomer Syndrome', after Elias Kittomer, one of the first adepts to experience it. Already near hyper-perceptive, Elias was a forward scout in a Desert Wars platoon that was sponsored by Horizon. Midway through the season, the cameras and the rest of his squad had picked up on cues that he wasn't feeling well, and might be going crazy. He would answer questions that people hadn't asked yet, and when questioned he would simply point to the tent flap where someone would walk in and ask their question. He could infer tomes of history from the smallest item left away, such as the time that the Horizon team got the drop on a Saeder-Krupp mobile command unit when he'd traced them back to their stopping point based off the pattern of urine a driver had left in the Tunesian sand. His squad had taken to calling him "Cleo", after a historical psychic figure that was well known back in the 20th century.

Elias had asked that no one ever touch his sidearm - a custom Ruger Thunderbolt that he called 'Bliss'. It was his center point, he'd explained - the feel of the barrel, the way it filled his hand, the weight of it - all of these things calmed him, he said, and quieted the voices. He said the voices told him the future, and Bliss did not. Bliss showed him nothing at all. His squadmates played a joke and switched it one day with another, one taken from a squaddie that had bought a ticket home the show before.

Kittomer dropped it in the sand the moment he touched it, openly weeping about the squaddie's impending divorce, him losing his house, and getting hit by an artillery stike before he could make it back to HQ. He mentioned several times that 'This is the end, this is it, there's only darkness' and begged for his squad to return Bliss to him. They wasted no time in returning his weapon - and Elias Kittomer promptly stuck the barrel against his head and fired.

Researchers afterward discovered that acute perception could be further refined into hypersensitive perception. Combined with a logical and rational enough outlook, adepts were actually visualizing probability pathways extending anywhere from a few moments to a few days based on the amount of data they were absorbing. Tests were still being conducted, but the affliction was very rare.

Sonora simply wasn't certain anymore if this was a blessing or a curse - but she had to try to control it. She had to see if it worked, and she had just the thing to test.

It was a silver hip flask wrapped in a bright red ribbon, her ribbon. The metal engraved with the words, Roja, may we always have Morocco. Yours, Claude. It was empty and smelled of virginal metal, untouched by liquid. The finish was still free of any varnish, having sat in paper wrapping in a small box that she'd carried from home to home in a vain expectation of a better life and everything going according to plan. Claude was gone, long gone. He had to be. He never came back, after all. He never returned for her. It was merely a trinket from another time. Or, perhaps it was a link. Perhaps she could still see him, just once.

Sonora uncapped the flask and inhaled deeply of its scent. There was the faintest trill of amber, part of the scent he wore so well. The grain on the silver was smooth, unyielding yet familiar. A flick of the fingers resulted in a resonant chime, as if it were a small silver bell. She could see a reflection in the shine, the light catching on the engraving that had been done. She could see...

A cloudless night, a white box on a velvet pillow, wrapped in a red ribbon--
The sure hand that had left it there, a note that said 'I'm sorry'--
A palatial room blurred with tears, an uttered plea for him to return--

She tightened her grip on the flask, urging her psyche to see the future, and not the past. She lost herself in the details of the flask. She could see...

A casino lounge, featureless in construction but with a polished mahogany bartop--
A well built gambler that was poured into a tuxedo, a practiced smile and familiar face--
His arm around a striking woman, a ring on both their fingers, a sign--
Happy Sixth Anniversary.

Sonora keyed the second file Phreak had given her, a request that she knew would embolden many, but verify what she had feared. She had left the information where it should have been, dead and buried. It could stay such no longer.

<<Profile: Maisson, Claude. Born, April 6, 2044, Marseilles, France. Master's Degree - Finance, University of Paris, 2068.
Spouse, Maisson, Bernadette. Born, October 9, 2045. Date of Marriage, November 23, 2065.>>

Seven years, wondering - and he had married but a year after she had left to fix her heart, to make it whole with him.

That was the price to be paid. This was the gift, and the curse. She knew how it worked, now, but at what cost?

Sonora threw the flask against the wall, swearing to Claude, to Aztlan, and to God. Outside, the thunder rumbled, and a heavy patter of rain began to fall on Caracas. The angels wept again for the city on the sea, coinciding with a dying woman's bitter tears and a dented memento of times long past.

Alex remained mostly quiet for the remainder of their time on the dock. Words, and his mind were failing him at the moment. The unquiet mind of his that howled to be let out barreled full force through his personality. His thoughts were continuously disjointed, periodically joining together to make complete thoughts. More often, they dispersed into the nether of his mind much as an icon dissipated into the depths of the Matrix once nuked.

The technomancer assisted the team in getting the crates to the safe-house before heading to the roof. It was from that roof that Alex sat complacently, feet dangling from the side, watching as the events of the conflict began to infiltrate Caracas. He looked down into the alley that ran beside them.

The background activity of the Matrix kept fading in and out of his mind. He could sense the different layers of communication that were currently being used. Many encrypted communications were passing back and forth. A faint echo called to him through the Matrix.

‘Go ahead Alex, you can do it,’ The soft voice whispered to him through the soothing sounds of the technological flow.

“I’m not jumping. Fuck you,” Alex said aloud.

‘Why not? You have nothing to live for. No reason to exist. Isn’t that why your parents abandoned you? The little freak who could play with commlinks with his mind?’

“You miserable cunt.” Alex closed his eyes and tried to force the images out of his mind.

‘Don’t you remember, Alex? Dinner from garbage heaps? Drinking water fouled with human waste and worse to survive? Don’t you remember how your parents, your own family did not love you enough to help you survive? Or are you still trying to push that out.’

Tears welled up in the technomancer’s eyes. “These new people like me. That one woman, she saved my life! Kept me from being shot..”

‘Are you fucking stupid? She kept you alive because you were keeping them from getting massacred with the minigun. They don’t give a shit about you, Alex. No one does. How could anyone care about you? It’s not possible. You’re a miserable, worthless bliss junky. You might as well jump and get it over with.’

Alex opened his eyes, licked his lips, and looked down. He thought about sliding off the roof to the ground below for a moment but then realized it was much too short of a drop. The fall would probably only break his legs and cripple him.

The Colt Asp he carried somehow found its way into his hand. He did not remember sliding it out of his belt. He sat quietly, looking at the revolver, studying its individual features.

‘Go ahead, Alex. The last 28 years were Hell, what do you think the next 28 will be like?’

The tears stopped and Alex’s jaw set tightly. He pulled the hammer back and spun the cylinder, stopping it in mid spin by dropping the hammer back in place. The gun barrel pointed to his temple, he stared into oblivion as he pulled the trigger.

Snap.

Empty chamber.

Laughter. The voice laughing, slowly receding until all that was left was the hum of information; and war.

The technomancer let out a long, agonizing moan of frustration as he curled up in the fetal position on the roof. As quickly as the hammer had fallen against the chamber, Alex’s mind slammed into a proverbial brick wall. The hyperactivity, the constant racing; it was all stopped instantly. Alex closed his eyes, laying in his clothes and vest, pistols clenched in his hand; and drifted off to sleep as his mind forced him into a shutdown. The reports of gunfire and artillery exploding drifted off into the back of his mind.

* * * * *

Several hours later; Alex finally woke up. He was soaked almost to the marrow of his bones and extremely sore from the time spent on the roof. Regardless, he found himself whistling a happy tune as he climbed his way back in to the building. Anyone sitting in the common area of the safe house was treated to the sight of Alex stripping off all of his soaked clothes. He carefully draped them over various objects along with his vest. Completely nude, he sat down off to the side and out of the way of the rest of the team.

Great care was given to the two weapons he carried which had been left out in the rain for the duration of his sleep. Stripping them apart was no difficult task and Alex paid a great deal of attention to each part. The guns stripped down and laid out, he leaned against the wall and smiled happily. His mind slipped away and he coalesced into the ghostly icon he used as representation on the Matrix. The technomancer pulled bits and streams of information from the surrounding node and nurtured it into masking his activity. The familiar pull of the information struggling against him brought some comfort, but it was soon put to work for him.

The node melted away from him as he cut through the Matrix deftly. Plenty of activity was going on between the invading factions and local factions. Plenty of people trying to save their own hides, terrified of Aztlan atrocities. Plenty of idiots.

He couldn’t help but smile to himself. The editing screen made quick work for his idea. A payday that would hopefully bring him and the team enough cred for hookers and bliss. It took little effort to set up a series of black accounts for the transactions and locate a host for the page he had authored…

**********

*Do You Live in Caracas?
*Are You Being Hunted by Aztlan HeadHunters?
*Are You Being Hunted by a Hostile Faction Native to Caracas That Will Probably Kill You in the Ensuing Chaos?
*Afraid to be Tortured to Death?
*Don’t Want to Die Alone In A Gutter?
*Don’t Want to Have Your Skin Removed While Still Alive?

Have I got good news for you! For six hours and six hours only, we will be auctioning off TWO count them TWO safe houses that are still accessible in Caracas. These former safe houses were constructed by a former military official to withstand the fallout of an attack by hostile forces! The dumb bastard “accidently” got himself shot in the street and we are opening up the doors to TWO lucky bidders. (We are sorry, but his third safe house will be used to save our own asses.)

Once the confirming bid is collected, our operator will immediately send you the coordinates, security information, and how to access your brand new hidden safe house!

*TIME THAT YOU CAN STILL BE SAFE FROM AZTLAN FORCES
**Big fucking timer here.

*Bid on Safehouse 1 Min - 2,500 Nuyen - Buy Out 20,000 (Provide commlink info for winning bid!)
*Bid on Safehouse 2 Min - 2,500 Nuyen - Buy Out 20,000 (Provide commlink info for winning bid!)

**********

He smiled to himself and ghosted his way through the Matrix to various black nodes, leaving an icon link behind to generate interest.

[Saturday, November 23, 2071, 10:30 PM; Garcia Auto Works, Barrio Santa Rosa]

Two days later, and El Mono was still trying to come to grips with the battle. He'd been in serious shit before that, up to and including gunfights. Shit, even gunfights with crazy-ass spec-ops types come to assassinate him. Being bombarded by the fucking Navy was a new level of Hell, but it was a change of degree, not of kind. Yes, he'd shot people before, and he was pretty sure he'd killed before, but he was pretty sure he'd always always been shooting the right people. Before Pier 40, he could have said honestly that he had never hurt a bystander. He may not have always been the good guy, but he had never been the bad guy... not really. He saw that young woman's face in his mind's eye, and he thought of his sisters, violently torn from him. Did she have a family? Were they wondering what happened to her? Did she have children? Were there some kids out there, hiding in a hole from Azzies and waiting for mommy to come home?

War is Hell. That's what El Mono had heard so many times over the years, and he had thought he understood what it meant. He thought the gang wars and drug wars and all that had been the same. He thought he knew what the soldiers were talking about. He was wrong. War, real war, was a different kind of Hell altogether.

He went over and over the events of that night in his mind. He watched the pirated video and read the reports on the Matrix. He knew that a lot of people had fought and died, and he knew that far too many had died trying avoid the fighting. He knew they were still dying. Mono was under no illusions about what Caracas had been like before, but he knew it was a Hell of a lot worse now, and he knew who to blame. The Azzies had brought this new Hell to his home. Well, he was going to hold a mirror up to their fucking faces and make them live the same Hell they had brought down on his people.

The crates had held weapons, ammo, armor: tools of war. He'd claimed one of the big Barrets for his own and started practicing. There was no shortage of targets in the city, and Mono wasn't picky. In the sim flicks, a good sniper would always target leaders, special weapons teams, things like that... the grunts were just guys, doing a job, right? Fuck that. Motherfucker had a gun and an Azzy uniform, he was the fucking enemy. Yeah, the officers called the shots, but these were the guys pulling the fucking trigger. It was the grunts robbing, looting, raping, and killing the people of Caracas, and El Mono was making them pay. Everybody pays.

He didn't bother counting the men he killed. The only count that mattered was the number of soldiers left, and that number was too big for El Mono. So he made it smaller. One soldier at a time, he made the count a little smaller.

If the Azzies knew how much of it was one person, they'd likely come looking for him, but with the amount of resistance all through the city, there was no way to know who was doing what against them. El Mono didn't go looking for Azzies, and he didn't go where he knew they would be. He would use his skills at running, jumping, climbing, and hiding to find a good perch, then he would wait. It didn't matter where it was, or what he was watching, sooner or later, some Azzie puto would wander through his field of view, and Mono would drill a hole in him. Sometimes, he would go for the headshot. Cold, calculating. One less soldier. Sometimes he would shoot them in the groin. Make them suffer the way they made the people of Caracas suffer. This afternoon, he had read that some snipers would shoot to wound, hitting a man in the leg so he'd fall, then pick off his comrades as they came to try to rescue him. Knowing this, the Azzies, coldhearted bastards that they were, had a policy to leave the wounded man until the sniper was found. So El Mono shot a man in the leg and left, laughing to himself at the though of the sonofabitch lying in the street bleeding while his friends hid nearby, refusing to help until they found the shooter who was already long gone...

He studiously avoided the brujo they had picked up somewhere. Fucking wizards were bad news for everyone involved, even if they weren't plants, which Mono wasn't entirely sure this one wasn't. The way everyone just shrugged and let him in smelled like fucking magic to Mono, and he wasn't about to let the fucker magic up his own head. Showing up at the same time as that stray gringa was little too convenient, too. Best not to trust her too much either, really. And the technomancer... that guy had always seemed fucked-up, showing up out of nowhere like that. Yeah, his skill might have saved their lives, but only because he had some kind of long-term plan. When he was done with them, he was going to leave them high and dry, no doubt about it. Best to ready for it, and not rely too heavily on his ability if they could avoid it. Usually when any of them tried to get anything out him, Mono would shrug and say he was "heading out to the range."

Sonora was all quiet and antisocial, but that was nothing new. They had lost her troll somewhere during the firefight, along with a few other members of the old "team," but somehow she had made it through pretty much without a scratch. He'd fucking called that shit way back... on fucking Tuesday. Goddamn it, shit happened fast, didn't it? Smiley, too. Grizzled old soldier, angry chrome-head, both down... or at last gone. Bodes well for the street kid. Even got a fucking wizard on the team, and this pendejo was no Brimstone, P.I.

Yeah, maybe it was stupid to put it all in terms of movies, but a lot of those flicks were based on true stories. Gritty shit, not just from Desert Wars, but from every conflict since they started making moving pictures. Wait... am I turning into the steely-eyed sniper? Fuck, that guy always fucking dies, doesn't he? Unless the whole flick is about him, he does. Better find a different way to bring the fight to those bastardos, then...

Yeah, his thinking was a little crazy, but not as crazy as what he was trying to avoid thinking about: the impossible memory that he hadn't run down the dock to get on the boat... he had run on the rope.

[Friday, November 22, 2071, 10:53 PM, Garcia Auto Works, Barrio Santa Rosa]

Waiting was absolute shit. And that’s all Harper had done in the last two days. After helping to drag all of the crates around, there hadn’t been much else to do. She got a space in the safe-house and loaned a shirt and a pair of pants before being dragged out for clothing that actually fit her. If anything, resupplying the razor girl proved a nice distraction for a few hours out of one afternoon. She even fired off a few messages to her teammates, expecting a response within the hour at the latest.

Every hour that passed after that meant another email sent from Harper, and nothing in return. With nowhere else to go, Harper alternated between lounging around the safehouse and getting into a fist fight or two when watching the rest of the team proved too boring or too strange.

Harper spent her fair share of the time shooting at Aztlander troops from the rooftops. If El Mono got to fuck around with his rifle, Harper should get to take a pot shot here and there, too. Harper couldn’t have cared less about Caracas rotting from the inside out, or the invading forces making it worse. It would be difficult to say if the young woman didn’t have the brainpower for it, or if she had just trained herself not to think. All she paid enough attention to was the fact that she wouldn’t get hassled by anyone on the team for ripping apart people in a certain uniform. That was nice. Harper figured as long as she didn’t make too much noise, or cause too much trouble, it would be all right.

When Harper lost interest in that, she returned to the safe house to do a whole lot of nothing. She picked a spot on the couch and lounged for almost two days, spread out like a cat. In between naps, Harper checked the comlink over and over again. Why weren’t there any replies, yet? It was Thursday before something started to move in the girl’s mind, right outside of her consciousness. It ate at her, just out of reach. Always gone when she tried to follow the thoughts to…somewhere.

There was something important about this, Harper bit her lip and slouched on the couch, staring at Barry and the automatics she’d gotten earlier. This was one of those times when she was supposed to know something. Sonora was the most obvious choice to go to for advice in this situation. But, she was nowhere to be found, and Harper didn’t feel like going out to look for the other woman. After the technomancer crawl onto the roof and start talking to himself, Harper reasoned that he might not be the best to ask about something this important. The man was staying out in the storm, presumably to marinade all night.

The soft audible notifier of incoming messages roused Alex from his thinking. The plan had come together rather seamlessly as he had dared hope. Something actually went right for a change. Once that realization had passed, he turned to his old fashioned commlink and a trio of credsticks. The nuyen that once flowed between black accounts now had a much more permanent home.

Alex pushed himself to his feet and retrieved his still slightly soggy pants. They were cool and still a bit clammy from his time spent on the roof. He fidgeted uncomfortable for a minute before looking around at the team members that were gathered in the warehouse. A sigh heaved past his lips as he moved through them to locate Sonora.

A look of puzzlement crossed his face as he walked up to her and she simply stared straight ahead. He waved his hand back and forth in front of her, trying to catch her attention though it did not seem to be anywhere at the time. That failing, he simply stood and waited until she shuddered and looked around with wild eyes for a moment.

“You alright?” Alex asked the woman. He paused for her answer before continuing, “I used some of the data I retrieved from the systems files of that ship’s node to pull a minor scam.”

He took hold of one of her free hands and turned it palm up. Raising a credstick in the other he studied her eyes and continued, “There’s 30,000 on this stick. I feel the group should benefit from profit I was able to reap from information stolen while running as a group. So if someone needs food, ammo, car parts, or whatever. I’m giving it to you to see it disseminated to who genuinely needs the funds. Primarily because you’re one of the only ones that have not treated me like a 30 year old child or avoided me altogether since I got here. I feel more inclined to think that you won’t simply take the stick and skip out.”

* * * * *

He walked back down into the more communal area and let his eyes roam around the building. They settled on Harper, his next stop. The technomancer walked over to the couch she had claimed and sat at the other end of it, looking at her with placid eyes. “I want to apologize for the way I spoke to you. I don’t know why, but sometimes I cannot control what is coming from my brain to mouth. It’s like there is someone else talking through my mouth and I can only stand by and watch it happen.”

Alex heaved a sigh and leaned forward, offering her a credstick. “There’s 8000 on that stick. I acquired it by exploiting the stupid, mostly to see if I could. The way you looked last night was someone in confusion, completely out of place and out of her element. For some reason when my mind is warped, I find that to be extremely erotic; which is why I ranted at you to try and fuck so I could enjoy your misery and confusion. Indulge in your pain.”

The area grew silent as he thought to himself, “Regardless. My verbal apology does not mean a whole lot since I could be doing the exact same thing next week, still standing by in my mind watching it happen, powerless to stop it. On the other hand, I can actually show you I am apologetic with some assistance to work from. If you can buy passage to your home, or use it to get yourself on your feet; whatever. It’s yours.”

He tossed the credstick into her lap and leaned back. The last two thousand nuyen he kept for himself. It had been a couple days since he had eaten anything worthwhile. A couple grand could get him a few decent meals, a hefty bag that would fuck him out of his mind, and a few hefty hookers that would fuck him out of his mind. Even though Hell and the screams of the dying and injured seemed to be all invasive; Alex was in a genuinely good mood.

[Saturday, November 23, 2071, 12:01 AM, Garcia Auto Works, Barrio Santa Rosa]

Midnight found Sonora staring out the window at the favela that butted up against the lot the safehouse sat on. Blush added color to pale cheeks, mascara hid - or explained - the red-rimmed eyes. Sonora's study of the communication of movement, kinesics, left a prevailing sense that she was fine, if not quiet.

Her eyes traced the night sky along the trajectory of the shell she'd thought she'd witnessed hit the area. Nothing there, still nothing. She felt the familiar sinking feeling as her perception expanded, her heart sped up, and color bled from the area.

There was nothing there. It wasn't working. Her mind betrayed her, flashing back to a ballroom in Monte Carlo, the smell of champagne and cigar smoke, of the latest scent line from Ce'Magnifique and an oppressive haze of a lifetime that should have been hers and was wrested from her grasp by a meddling AI and know-nothing terrorists intent on bringing about the end of the wrold.

Sonora snapped back to reality to see a hand waggling in her face. It was the Technocra-Alex. He looked a bit the worse for wear in damp clothes, but the look in his eyes reflected concern.

"You alright?" he asked.

Sonora nodded, gesturing out towards the city that wept as it burned. "Yes. Gathering my thoughts."

Alex explained that he'd come into a bit of money by running a quick scam, pressing a credstick into her hands. Sonora eyed the amount as he said that 30,000 was avaialble as a general slush fund for the team.
That was a lot of money. More than Sonora had been able to come into in a while, not since Morocco. She could take it and disappear. Flee this dying city before a bullet found her heart and stopped it prematurely.

Then again, Sonora reasoned, it would probably pass through the hole already there.

With a smile, she closed her hand around the credstick and put the other one on top of Alex's.

"Gracias, Alex. Let me know what you need and we'll get it."

As the brain-addled man went off to chat up Harper, Sonora thought about what they should do next. They had guns, they had some cash for supplies and bribes, and they were still somewhat under the radar. With the Azzies invading, it would be questionable as to whether or not Bolivar '49 knew their shipment had been hijacked and La Alianza likely had their hands full with the same.

Perhaps the first thing to do, then, would be to steal some Azzie uniforms and a military vehicle. Add a touch of chaos that was glued to the team like macaroni on a child's picture, and there could be a full-fledged street war with the Azzies, Bolivar '49, and La Alianza all trying to wipe one another out.