It's been more than two months since the Containment Wall went up and everything got shot to hell. No one knows what's going on outside the Wall, whether or not any kind of rescue is being planned, and most people have already lost hope of ever escaping the Zone. Perhaps that's for the best...all those who've tried to run just ended up getting cut down by the tower guards manning the barricade. Old Man Winter is just around the corner, and no one's seen the sun since the Wall got erected. Some say this was the work of the UCAS military, who rubbed together some serious mojo to blot out the sky to prevent satellites from snapping photos of what's really going on in ground zero. On every street, down every alleyway, inside every derelict building, the expressions of your fellow survivors are uniform - grim, sad, afraid, hanging on by a thread. But tough, hard, each and every one of them, even the children. Maybe it comes from having to survive inside a wartorn wasteland, day after day, fighting for every bit of nourishment you can find. Or maybe it's because anyone who isn't tough has already perished. Things are getting better though. When this whole thing first got started, there was nothing but chaos in the streets. Now, some semblance of order is beginning to arise. People are beginning to band together into tribes and gangs, because there's strength in numbers, and strength is the only thing that matters these days. As for the bugs...there's still no question that they're the predators and we're the prey, but it's not like before. We know that they can be hurt, we know where to find them, and when fighting is not an option, we know how to run. When fighting is an option...well, sometimes getting a little payback can give you just the boost you need to keep on going another day.

Hope is a rare commodity these days, but if you look hard enough, you might just find some, tucked away in the unlikeliest of places.

>>>>>> [ The Wasteland Survival Guide (POST31)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
:::::prepared by ALICIA FADER

Are you one of those people who think that cold, hard nuyen is useless just because you're stuck here behind the Wall and bartering what you've got is the only way to get what you want? Well, you're not the only one with that mentality. Just last week I saw a family in Bucktown burning a giant pile of corp script to ash to keep a fire going so they can stay warm during the night. And who can blame 'em? Go wave a wad of cash in front of any street broker and he'll laugh in your face and tell you to get lost. The common consensus on the streets is that money is worthless in the Zone - after all, ya can't eat a credstick, it's not gonna cure your ailments, and trying to fight a bug with one is just gonna get your face eaten off.

Well, here's some friendly advice for these dark times: hold on to your nuyen. Don't throw it out, because one day it might come in handy for you if you find yourself needing to trade for supplies, because there's still one segment of the population for whom it has very much value indeed. What kind of crazy slags would want money during times like these, you might ask. The answer is simple: smugglers, vigilant reader, smugglers. Those guys and gals who have the know-how, skills, and sheer cast-iron guts to move vital resources of all types from the world outside the Wall to the world inside the Wall (and what kind of resource isn't vital these days?). Unfortunately, there ain't nothing free in this world. Smugglers want compensation for their services, and what do you think they want? Food? Medicine? Clothes? Dream on, chummer. They want nuyen, easy breezy. Money may be worthless inside the Zone, but the dollar is still king to the cozies outside. So keep your certified credsticks stashed in your pockets, and if you see some laying about on the street, pick them up. If you ever manage to get into contact with a smuggler or someone who knows a smuggler, that "useless" money may be able to get you all sorts of supplies that just might make surviving until tomorrow a lil' bit easier.

Jack was sitting in a lounge, sipping an expensive drink, at Midway International Airport on the afternoon of the 23rd of August, when the containment zone went into effect. He couldn't remember the previous week, but that didn't bother him - he had just finished a job where the client had paid a premium for access to his data-lock and ASIST-interface. He hated going on auto-pilot, but the job had promised enough cred to ensure that he wouldn't have to do that again, for a very long time. The fact that he woke up, at all, let alone with the impressive bonus he found in his off-shore account, had let him know that he had not, in fact, been double-crossed and that his reputation was still intact - and that the aforementioned expensive drink was well deserved.

His flight, which was due to take him to Europe where he was going to meet a man about a custom cyberdeck - a little something Jack had decided to treat himself too, after his latest windfall - had been delayed for the last 6 hours. The local matrix-grid had undergone a particularly nasty crash earlier in the day, and the runway was literally a parking lot as the struggling airport employees attempted to manually process the hoard of angry travelers. Jack had attempted to check on his flight, but was unable to get a connection with his pocket secretary - even the cellular network appeared to be down - but the trideo-displays scattered throughout the lounge assured him that his flight was still very far from boarding, so he contented himself to ordering another drink.

Those same trideo-displays were alternating between showing the ever-growing list of delayed flights and showing some sort of emergency broadcast - which, from the bad quality of the image, appeared to be coming in over the radio waves. The dull roar of the crowd was far too loud for Jack to make out the details, but he was able to piece together enough of the headings on the ticker-tape to get the idea that there was some sort of VITAS scare, as well. Great, he thought. I cannot wait to get the hell out of this city.

Halfway though his next drink, he noticed that the ambiance of the lounge had changed considerably - slowly at first, but now the suits around him were turning to panic and it drew his attention back to the trideo-screen. The biohazard symbol caught his attention first, then his eyes darted to the words "VITAS Outbreak" which were soon replaced with "Chicago Quarantine". He didn't even notice his glass shattering on the floor. He stood, transfixed, as the screen switched back to the channel showing the inbound and outbound flights. Where the word "delayed" had been moments earlier, the screen now showed that every flight had been "canceled". He also began to notice the passengers surging towards the exits, most of them covering their mouths.

Airports are notoriously bad places to be during a disease epidemic, and it had become clear that Jack was not getting a flight out of Chicago anytime soon. The good news is, he thought as the bartender began to hurriedly close close down, was that he wouldn't have to settle his impressive tab. The bad news, however, was that it was very likely that he would die from some new super-virus. On rare occasions, such as this, Jack considered putting himself on auto-pilot, and hoping for the best, however, he resisted the temptation - as he always did - and decided to see what he could do to maximize his odds of survival.

Although the majority of people fled the airport in a single panicked group, there were some, like Jack, who didn't have anywhere else to go - and, really, once the place emptied out, the risk of infection was probably worse out there. He watched through one of the giant glass windows as the crowd of business men from all over the world spilled into the streets. The few available cabs, busses, and helicopters were quickly claimed by those at the forefront of the wave, but they weren't going anywhere as they were quickly enveloped by the amorphous mass of people. The roads looked just as bad. Word must have gotten out much earlier. 63rd and Cicero were both clogged with vehicles as people attempted to flee the city - each, apparently, believing that the word "quarantine" did not apply to them.

The airport personnel rolled out cots, and made some arrangements for the people stranded there, and the first night actually went pretty well. Everyone was glued to the trideo prompts, which were reporting he news as it came in - confirmed by the airports long-range radio towers, and satellite uplinks. As information came in about a new strain of VITAS, his medical knowsofts recalled a number of facts about the virus that did little to settle his nerves - but it did give him a good idea of the symptoms he would have to keep an eye out for. Rioting broke out in the streets - particularly, just west of the airport, where the military had begun constructing a physical wall, or so they heard from the people in the streets who were going the other way who were still in any shape to talk. The emergency broadcasts didn't mention this, at all. They also didn't mention the aerial strikes that came the next morning, and destroyed the majority of the planes parked on the tarmac and created a number of craters in the pavement that would make taking off in the remaining vehicles nearly impossible.

It was at about that point that the dynamic between airport personnel and traveling businessmen had changed. The airport professionals, who had assured everyone that everything was under control and refused to let anyone board a plane until they had authorization, were now as scared and desperate as the rest of them. Some of them tried to make hasty arrangements to take off in helicopters or other VTOL crafts with some influential and insistent corporate VIPs. Jack isn't 100% sure what happened to those people, but the airport shook shortly after, following the sounds of large explosions not far to the west. A lot of the people who worked in the airport had families in the city, and a few of them braved the streets to get to them. Some of them returned, usually wounded and occasionally bringing with them a new wave of people - just ordinary citizens who were looking for a safe place to stay. These newcomers brought news, of the horrors found out in the Zone, as well as some stories of other safe-havens throughout the city - most with better defenses, and some with military protection. As the airport began to fill up again, the supplies quickly dried up, and it became clear that the situation was not sustainable.

When the looters arrived at their doorstep, the people of Midway Airport had little choice but to let them pick through the abandoned vehicles, aircraft, fuel tanks, and other very valuable supplies that were basically just left outside for the taking. This didn't sit well with a number of the people inside, who felt that they should claim anything on the premises (and that they needed to protect whatever supplies they still had) - but nobody volunteered to go outside and explain this to the troll with the chainsaw, or the dozen friends he brought with him. As long as the looters left the people inside alone, the general consensus was to live and let live, and hope that rescue came before the people outside became desperate enough to come inside for whatever meager supplies these people had left.

Things did get that bad in Chicago - and worse - but the people staying in Midway Airport were forced from their shelter, before then. It started a week or so after the wall went up, when someone spotted a huge insect attached to the side of the air-traffic control tower. By nightfall, there were three. By morning, a nest of some sort was visible through the tower's broken windows. That day, a group of scavengers arrived, and the people living in the airport watched in horror through the huge glass windows as two large insects emerged from the wreckage of one plane and tore the scavengers apart. Things got really bad, then. Some of it might have been real, but Jack was willing to chalk most of it up to hysteria after seeing that monsters had started living just outside. Some of the other "survivors" began to hear strange noises at night, scratching in the ventilation shafts, chittering or humming at the windows at night - sometimes even eerie whispers that sounded almost human. Nobody felt safe, anymore, and those "havens" they had heard about on the radio were starting to sound pretty good.

It only took one unexplained disappearance to make up people's minds - well, technically, it took five. One day, five people were missing. Nobody saw them leave, and there stuff was still scattered around their makeshift beds. They were just gone. That was it. Just about everyone wanted out. They wanted to take their chances making it somewhere else - somewhere safer. The minority, who thought they should stay where they were didn't want to stay by themselves, so it was sort of unanimous. There was no way they were going to be able to travel as a single large group, though, so they split up into smaller bands of people - mostly based on where in the city the were hoping to go. Jack stuck with some corporate-types who had impressed him, and were interested in heading south to the Core, where they thought they might be able to get in touch with representatives from their respective corporations. To Jack, this sounded like the best hope for escape. If anyone was going to defy the military quarantine of the city to salvage valuable property, it would be one of the megas - and Jack had made his living transporting valuable corporate property in his head. He thought he could fit in there, make himself useful - and if they could keep the bugs and the crazies off of him, he just might survive this thing.

They got outside, and made for the parking structure. Not everyone made it. There was definitely some sort of fight breaking out behind him, but it wasn't clear if it was more bugs, or people fighting with each other over rights to what was left of the vehicles. Jack and his group managed to get to a reasonable looking pickup that hadn't yet been scrapped (although its windows were smashed, it was missing a door, and its tired were in bad shape) and Jack's 'softs got the thing started. It was low on gas, but it would get them far enough, he thought.

It took a while get there - roads were blocked by debris, repairs on the truck were needed, and they had to barter for some gas along the way - and they didn't even all make it. A run in with a gang cost them two lives - and they almost lost another one when they hit some sort of booby-trap while scouting out an abandoned repair shop. When they got there, they found the place on lockdown. A couple of the suits with him were granted admittance to their respective towers - no quarter for the guys who brought him there, though. The rest found their buildings were either evacuated, locked tight, or swarming with bugs. In one case, a pack of ghouls was crowded around some downed security guards, and the guy who's stop this was urged them to keep driving. Everyone agreed.

The truck broke down shortly after that. Jack's software told him what the problem was, but it just wasn't something he could take care of without getting the thing to a full auto-shop. The group of men travelled north, on foot, and managed to make it to the Wind Transit Terminal. The survivors who also seemed like ex-businessmen and women were already squatting in the area made a big deal about 3 more mouths to feed, but someone in the group recognized Jack - Candace Merancio, who was apparently a secretary for the VIP who Jack had recently had an exchange with, and she knew of his professional reputation as a man who could get things done. This contact gave him an in with the group, and a foothold during negotiations, where he made a deal that they could join up with the people in the underground terminal as long as they made themselves useful. Jack, at least, knew he would have no trouble fulfilling his end of that bargain. Each of the people here - although you could barely tell by the ragged clothes they wore, now - once worked for one of the megas in the Core, and found themselves abandoned in the Zone just like he did.

The Terminal seemed to be much more defendable than the Airport was, and less attractive to the bugs and to the looters. He was told by some of the survivors who where here already, however, that the sub-basement levels were crawling with bugs - but that they did not often venture up to where the people were, and that the entrances were well barricaded. Outside, in the parking lot, there were a huge number of cars - the occasional looter came and picked through them, but Jack found a number of cars in very good condition, still. He picked out an economical sedan, got it started, and made a few minor repairs to it before driving it down one of the many bus-ramps into the Terminal, proper - where it could be defended. The survivors here had a working portable radio, and were listening to broadcasts from some of the Havens to the north - this was there major source of news, but the news was grim. It was clear that some of them wanted to try to reach one, but they were miles away and several gangs and rising warlords had made their turf in between. Supplies were low, but there were only 9 people, and Jack - who probably had the most combat experience of them all - took the lead on several missions to venture beyond the gates surrounding the terminal to secure a few more critical supplies.

Several more weeks went by, this way - punctuated by the occasional beetle running loose in the upper levels, ghoul pack stalking through the parking lot, or gang coming around looking for trouble (and free rides). It was now October. The chaos has died down, and the Zone has become a slightly more hospitable place - which is good, because everyone in the Wind Transit Terminal has just about given up hope of any sort of rescue attempt. Airdrops of supplies had begun, and the Terminal-crew had even managed to secure a couple before stronger forces arrived. Outside, the city is still dangerous, but the people who are left still alive have learned how to deal with it. They've learned where it is safe to look for supplies, and when it is not safe, they have learned how to fight back. There are only 6 of them left, in the Wind Transit Terminal - Jack is the only survivor of his original group - but he has been a key component in keeping the other 5 people alive, this long. Things have gotten to the point where the 20-mile drive north to Wrigley Dome doesn't sound like a suicide mission, anymore - but staying in the Terminal doesn't seem so impossible, either. Until the situation changes, both Jack and Candace think their best chance of escape still lies with the megas, and sticking near the Core. Candace, however, still holds out hope that a evacuation team will be sent for them. Jack has a much more realistic view of how much value a megacorporation would put on a handful of middle-rung ladder-climbers. He knows that if they come, at all, it won't be for personnel, it will be for their research data, and property. If they come, at all, it will be to the skyscrappers just a few blocks to their south, not to an underground bus terminal that nobody outside of Chicago has ever heard of.

The digits in the elevator car counted up rapidly, through 100, then 150 and 175, eventually they started to slow, ticking the last 10 floors off one per second almost like some sort of countdown.

Finally they reached the magic 200, which was as far as this car rose in Ares Chicago, and with a cheerful 'ding' the doors started to open.

For a brief instant the lobby of 200 was visible through the doorway. If one were able to see around the dozen angry Wasp soldiers that were hovering in the air waiting to attack this intrusion into their domain.

The lobby was unrecognisable, all the carpeting, soft furnishings and internal walls were gone and in their place a maze of paper-like grey walls and cells filled the space.

This impresion only lasted milli-seconds however. The opening of the door had triggered a mechanism, carefully attached to the large number of metal cylinders that filled the elevator car.

With a barely discernable pop tiny loops of monofilament were drawn taught around the valves that held the presurised gas cannisters closed.

Faster than even the Wasps outside could perceive a cloud of white vapour burst at horrific speed from the open door and through the open roof-hatch of the elevator.

The hovering monstrosities were blown backwards by the force of the escaping gas. They buzzed and fluttered in panic but after a few moments righted themselves and, apparently unharmed, they glanced, almost quizically, at each other.

Had they had time to enter the car they would have found, lying on the floor of the car, an old fashioned meter of the needle and scale variety. The glass was broken and the yellow casing was battered and dirty but it still worked.

It's needle was pinned against the end stop to indicate that the level of whatever gas it detected was now well above however many parts per million the device's scale went up to.

Slowly the needle began to fall and is it did so it almost touched a small wire soldered to the plate the scale was screen-printed on.

Almost, but not quite.

So close in fact that a tiny spark arced between the negatively charged needle and the positively charged wire.


----

On the corner of Kedzie and 111th Giblet watched with interest. For the longest time nothing happened and he was certain that it was time to go back to the drawing board.

Suddenly a number of Wasps burst from the broken windows of several of the floors above 200. There was even a vague hint of a puff of gas. The insects swarmed for a few seconds and then seemed to recover their composure and started back towards the tower.

He let the zoom level on his cyber-augmented vision slide down a couple of notches until he could see the whole structure.

It reminded him a little of the sort of safety matches you got in hotel lobbies and high class bars. A long dark stem with a bulbous tip in a slightly lighter shade.

And then the resemblance to a safety match suddenly faded. The bloody things were made of cardboard and always tore in half before he could get them to light no matter how careful he was to dial the servos in his hand down.

With a dull 'whump' this one burst into flame all on it's own.

He was recording the whole thing in the highest resolution and at the best frame rate his Zeiss optics would allow. Fortunately the top 50 floors of the Ares Tower had already lost most of their glass to the Wasps. The fifty floors above 200 were for executives only and had their own seperate elevator system which the bugs had destroyed to protect the hive. They hadn't minded KE boys coming up the stairs and the staff elevators because they had to get off at 200 and they were easy pickings when they did.

Most of the surviving KE troopers had bugged out to the Dome weeks ago but Giblet was damned if he was going to surrender his tower to the frakking wasps.

The tower looked very like a candle suddenly. Whatever that goop was that the wasps made by chewing up everything even vaguely fibrous was flammable as all hell.

He knew that the fire suppresion systems were still good all the way up to 200. The video he had studied of KE assaults on the hive had included several incidents where flash-bangs had tripped the system. It wouldn't put the fire out, there would be too much damage to the pipes but it ought to keep it from spreading downwards before it burnt itself out.

Judging by the way the wasps had concentrated everything flamable into the structure of the hive it would be out by morning. When it had cooled down he'd take the stairs up and dose the whole place with the industrial stregth Raid the army had been dropping in.

He'd been experimenting with different ways of using it. He figured mixing the liquid stuff with some polyurethane paint he'd found on a maintainence floor would make it into an ideal wasp repellant. He'd been using the spray stuff on his sword, spraying the blade with the spray glue artists use and then following that up with the Raid when it was still tacky. It only lasted a few blows but it did the trick.

Things were looking up.

----


The Cermak blast was the turning point.

He'd been keeping his head down at Ares waiting to see how deep the rabbit hole went. Most of them didn't have clearance for the basement levels and you had to go through the bugs to get to them anyway but some of the mid-levels held some valuable corporate property so they required defending against the looters.

The KE troopers that that had been left behind, by accident or design, were more than happy to have a Firewatch operator to help them out. Particularly when it became apparent that relief wasn't coming anytime soon and having an expert in urban guerilla warfare might mean the difference between life and death.

And then dawn had come early on the morning of the 1st of October.

Two days later Captain Ravenheart had given the order to withdraw from the tower. It had been a surprise to KE personel that Ares had other forces still operating in the CZ. Command and control channels common to both KE and Firewatch had cleared for about 15 minutes and appropriate codes had been exchanged.

All remaining KE personel were to pack up all the sensitive hardware they had access to and ship it North to the Dome which was a much more defensible position. Word was that the True Forms had all been knocked into some sort of Torpor by the nuke leaving only the relatively weak Flesh Forms to contend with. Command felt that a strong force, acting now in the confusion following the blast, could safely move everything sensitive to the Dome thus strengthening the Dome as a safe haven and protecting corporate assets at the same time.

Ravenheart had been surprised to find that Giblet was in the city. Firewatch only had one group of operators that were officially in Chicago and all were under Ravenheart's command.

She had no orders regarding Giblet who is still officially on leave. While reluctant to alow him to stay behind and pursue his 'mission' she had no authority to prevent him from doing so. She also saw that there was some wisdom in keeping an eye on the tower's lower levels which contain things that can not be moved or are above her pay grade.

He'd spent a couple of weeks sleeping the days away in a vault on the 142nd floor. The looters had come back as soon as KE withdrew but after a couple of weeks of finding nothing but bugs they had moved on. Truman and Fuchi still remained a threat but they were convinced that nothing of value remained that could be extracted at reasonable cost.

The Wasps were a pain in the ass however. They had to go. Then he could get back on with his vendetta.

Physical was dealt with. Carmine's land grab had denied his enemies valuable real-estate and resources. He didn't have much land to defend but he had managed to snag nearly a third of the cities fuel reserves by using Union contacts to annexe all of CTA's bus depots and a freight terminal. He had buses, rolling stock and fuel coming out of his ears and supplied protection to two of the city's Hospitals.

Carmine had been smart, he'd always been the diplomatic one, and didn't so much control a territory as exert an area of influence. Much of the area in the centre of the CZ was considered Neutral territory where the competing factions traded with Carmine for valuable resources to prosecute their conflicts with each other.

Carmine had very little actual real estate but what he did have was heavily guarded. His base of operations, the Kedzie Bus Depot, was virtually impregnable, a massive windowless fortress before he had taken it over and started to make deadly modifications. Both it and the Chicago Garage are situated next to extensive parkland and are less than a block from small Hospitals. Carmine ensures that said hospitals still function at some level which ensures that supplies are consistantly dropped into his outstretched arms.

In truth Carmine had needed very little advice to capitalize on the early warning he had been given.

The next target was obvious. His Foe only had one true rival, the Yakuza.

Jack:

Your sleep this early morn is disturbed by a woman's voice, whispering your name in frantic tones.

"Jack, wake up. Jack!"

You yawn to clear the last of the sleepy haze dulling your wits and open your eyes to see Candace's face staring down at yours. She looks scared.

"Jack, there are men outside. I don't know who they are, but they look tough, and they've got guns. What should we do, Jack?"

You sit up, and find the other three huddled together in a semi-circle behind her. Jackson Bran, a balding middle manager from Yamatetsu whose wife and two daughters had been slaughtered in their home during the initial wave of the insect outbreak. Abraham Williams, a mild mannered lab chief from Ares Arms who didn't speak much. George Patterson, an elderly security guard who worked lobby detail in the Truman Tower. Together, with you and Candace, you five have been the only remaining survivors camping out in the Wind Transit Terminal for weeks, and you've only managed to make it this long because you looked out for one another - in a place like this, these men and women were as close to a family as you could get. Although no one officially pronounced you to be the leader of this ragtag band, there's no question that each and every one of them looked towards you for guidance when a crisis occurred. It looks like they need you more than ever now, here, where potential danger was threatening to rear around the corner once again, trusting you to make the right choice and steer them out of harm's way.

Giblet:

Your continual guerrilla campaign against the insect hive in Ares Chicago is progressing slowly, but steadily, and this latest attack will no doubt put another crack in their carapace. You've discovered that although conventional weapons don't seem to fare very well against these monstrosities, they seem to have a weakness to the elements - you estimate that this blaze will kill a good number of them outright and injure those who manage to survive. It took you awhile to procure the raw materials to cobble together your accelerant bomb, but it was worth it. Today is a good day.

You hear the dull roar of a supply chopper passing overhead, and some kind of mental alert flickers in your mind. You've memorized the usual drop sites and flight paths for the supply craft, and this wasn't one of them. Suddenly, you see what looks to be a small brown package come tumbling out of the chopper as it passes directly above you. It falls through the air and hits the pavement with a soft thud, kicking up dirt and dust about fifteen meters down the street from you. The sound of the chopper fades away as it veers off.

When you retrieve the package and tear through its thick padding, you find a palm-sized datapad with a small card taped to it that reads: PLEASE DELIVER TO THE HANDS OF FRANK CUTLER. Curious, you switch on the datapad, and the screen flickers to life with a ghostly green glow. It prompts you for a password.

Alex walks slowly along the nearly deserted street, empty windows seeming to peer down on him like dark eyes. His keen gaze scours his surroundings, alert to the ever present danger, but his relaxed demeanor seems to project a nonchalant confidence. A confidence that he is not so foolish as to feel. But attitude matters... especially here.

The sullen sky seems leaden, brooding. At least it's not raining. But he really misses the sun. Has it really been two months that he's been here? It feels like a lifetime ago. He remembers being stuck in traffic when they announced the quarantine, and panic hit. The desperate, futile press of people attempting to escape. He imagines a few of the power players made it out in private air transports. What are the rules to such as them, ever? The rest weren't so fortunate. He left the mad rush, deciding that his odds were better if he found someplace to hole up and wait the plague out.

But while no doctor, his medical knowledge was enough for him to start seeing the holes in the cover story sooner than most. When the true threat became apparent, he was actually relieved. The bugs were something tangible to fight, not some invisible plague. And unlike most of the people trapped like rats, he had the means to defend himself. It was more than his sorcery. It was also his survivor's instincts, honed on Seattle's unforgiving streets.

While most of the people were milling around in panic, there were a few people, like him, who kept their heads. One of them was Anton. His first meeting with him turned suddenly violent, as his gun shop was the target of a band of looters. He, Anton, and another one of the customers had fun turning Anton's heavy ordinance on the looters - there's a problem with trying to take guns away from people when you're facing the wrong end of them. But Anton was smart enough to move someplace more hidden, and smart enough to join up with a coalition of black marketeers, small time operators united by a desire to protect their business interests from the bugs, the gangs, and the emerging power players, such as the so-called "King Vlad".

Alex, savvy himself, got in on the ground floor of this burgeoning operation, winding up as a "special expediter". This suited him fine, as it put his wide array of talents to good use, and proved fairly lucrative, at least compared to others, spending every day wondering where there next meal would be coming from. Truth to tell, though, his quarters are rather spartan, compared to the others who have thrived in the Zone, who have stockpiles of supplies and live in rooms festooned with plunder. But while he looks out for number one, it seems faintly... obscene, to wallow in riches while people outside struggle to survive.

Of course, he tells himself that he is smarter, a survivor, and that his quarters should not have anything he is not willing to walk away from if he has to. And by helping other people out, he is cultivating possible contacts, gaining possible favors. Some ration packs and water, stitching up someone's wounds, zapping a roach spirit, all might pay significant dividends later. He shakes his head. He sounds like Molly sometimes. The fixer still brokers deals, but also works on relief efforts. Sometimes the two of them will exchange slightly sad, rueful smiles, aware that they aren't really fooling each other.

Passing by the storefront of a long-ago looted shop, he catches his reflection in the scratched security glass. The stress shows a bit in his face, but otherwise, he doesn't look that different than when he first arrived here. It's ironic. His magic can split open the carapace of a beetle spirit that bullets bounce off of, or fly him away from danger, or get a leaky radiator to work again. But in some ways, his makeover spell has been one of his most potent weapons. It's not one of his more powerful spells - intended for basic grooming and hygiene, really. But when nearly everyone else is gritty, unshaven, and ragged, being clean and smooth-shaven, with sharp creases in your trousers, is a great way to project a subtle power.

A slight movement catches his eye, and he looks up. A huge butterfly, nearly two meters in length, is flying above, its gossamer wings seeming to shimmer with a rainbow glow. It's a weirdly beautiful sight, but Alex's eyes are cold as he extends his hand, a slight nimbus seeming to gather around him as he unleashes a burst of magical energy into the creature. It utters a plaintive-sounding wail as it plummets limply to the debris-strewn street, but Alex's face shows no empathy whatsoever. This is war.

He continues on, keeping an eye out for more than bugs. Despite having the bugs as a common enemy, there are still plenty of violent people who prey on their fellow metahumans as ruthlessly as any wasp spirit would. He frowns slightly as his pocket secretary gives a faint chime. He knows Molly's and Anton's rings, and this isn't either of them. Who else might be calling him? He flips up the screen and answers the call.

Sam sat chained to the desk for the better part of two days. His bio-moniter kept flashing a notice about his blood sugar was getting low. He'd tested the cuffs a few times and knew that it would give before the titanium than in his bones.

The door opened and in swaggered a slender man with a shiny suit. Over exagerating all his movements, he pulled two paper folders and laid them across the desk. "So one of these folders contains the notice that the district attorney will be pursuing the death penalty, which will be fun because you get to pick between lethal injection, the chair, or if you're feeling frisky firing squad. So which will it be?"

"Oh before I forget, this other folder contains what amounts to a full confession of your involvement in a recent kidnapping, ransom, and oh yeah murder of a miss Angela Lewis.."

"I didn't have anything to do with the killing..." Sam hissed, wondering if he could break out of his cuff and snap this fed's neck before backup arrived.

"Well all we have is your word (whispered) and that aint worth much, versus all the evidence and the final confession of your partner. I said final words because he was killed why trying to escape last night."

"So either I get a death sentence from you guys, or the guy who put me on this job gives me a death sentence for being a rat. Can I have some time to think about it?"

"No."

"Well then I guess, I'm going to have to take your deal then. What do you want to know?" asked Sam while slumping in his chair.


6 hours later

"So where we going?" Sam was tired, the last six hours was divided between confessing to a kidnapping, and reading the rules for his new life in witness protection. The van he was shackeled in was taking forever to get where it was going.

"We'll tell you when we get there." said the ork on the other side of the van in security armor.

"I hope you know how to use that big gauge kid, otherwise this might be a short ride for all."

When the van was hit and knocked on its side, Sam wasn't really surprised. He knew that his former employer would back a grab for him, he just didn't think it would be so fast. What did surprise him was the lack of gunfire or explosions wonder whats keeping them from coming in.

After a few tense moments, Sam used his feel to pull the other ork guard closer and searched him for a set of keys undo his restraints. Once free he quickly stripped the ork of his armor and weapons. Shotgun in hand, he managed to force the door open and escape.

Guess this means witness protection is out. He though to himself as he surveyed the accident. Well there was no firefight, but something big hit the van. Yeah, there's some kind of fluid splattered around, some kind of critter?

Know that it's always safer indoors at night he spotted a stuffer shack about a block away. Limping a bit from being bounced around during the accident, It took almost half an hour to sneak his way down the block. He was about half way there, when he realized that there were no other people out, no back up had come for their brothers in blue. In the distance he could here gunfire from all around, but near here it was deathly quite.

Once Sam reached the Stuffer shack, he circled it twice, surprised to find it locked. His first instinct was to blast the lock and take cover inside but his experience told him to pick the lock and leave as little trace of his presence as possible.

Two months later

Sam snapped awake and reached for the combat shotgun at his side searched for the detector that was beeping. Silently he climbed the makeshift ladder to the roof of the Stuffer shack and and proned out on the roof. Down on the corner a small gang roamed the street, probably on their way to mix it up with whoever was controlling the next block over.

He laid there for another fifteen minutes, listening for sounds of the gang rumble down the street. This had been what most of the past two months had been. No longer, he was down to the last of his supplies and knew he'd have to venture out sooner or later.

The Journal of Sid G.

August 19th – Ran closed circuit simsense security (CCSS) for an exchange location between the G. Family and a local corporate benefactor. Three undisclosed intruders tried to take over the security network, two died on the way to the security room. The last intruder, a rigger, was knocked unconscious by myself within two attacks in rigger combat.

The boys took him somewhere and did what they do best; I could care less what happens to some no-name, cowboy rigger. Turns out they were runners hired by the local Yakuza to frag the exchange via autocannon fire from the security system. Three less runners and a deal smoothly negotiated – aces.

August 22nd – 3AM: Payback for the runner team hired by the Yakuza. We got word of a Yak safehouse near Ravenswood. They had accepted a large shipment of arms and were distributing them to local dealers from this house. The rigger network was giving me problems usually associated with peak use.

Luck for us the Yaks didn’t have any serious security; they never had a chance. “Shooter� at the backdoor, “Boomer� & “Rex� at the front door. The family was loading the spoils within five minutes, well before back-up arrived. After torching the house, I still had rigger network problems – guess it wasn’t Yak jamming equipment.

August 23rd – Well, Shit. I spent the better part of yesterday ferrying stranded family & supplies in between killer bugs and fleeing civilians. Tried to catch the newsfeed in the lulls, “Bugs!� and then static. My Bulldog van took enough damage to slag lesser vehicles, but concealed armor is expensive for a reason – it works.

Half the roads are blocked and anyone with barricades has already put them up. The family has decided to gather in a few defendable safehouses and concentrate resources to maintain a presence in the CZ. Luci Genivese has an estate in Lakeview where we setup an outpost for moving family out of the CZ and supplies from the north in.

August 27th – We believe that we have evacuated all of the family from the CZ and a good number of associates. A few of the boys might still be in hiding, but I’m of the opinion that anyone out of communication this long is probably bug chow. And on that point…

Q: What happens when your drone hits a giant bug with a missile salvo?
A: The same thing that happens to everything else, Ka-Boom.

Shame that after the kill, the first couple, you realize it is an exercise in futility & resource wasting to fight when you can run. Bugs don’t have credsticks, chrome or choice pieces of hardware, better to run anyway.

August 29th – The kids these days; they don’t understand anything, least of all tradition. Back in my childhood, I knew that certain kinds of men, you respected, out of fear as much as respect. Made Men. Go-Gangers made a run on Luci’s estate today. Two family members were injured, one had to be evacuated out of the CZ. That’s no easy task now that the CZ wall is up.

You pretty much have to detonate yourself a doorway each time you want to get through and hope the gap still exists on your way back. Each time we go outside the CZ, we come back loaded with trade supplies to support the outpost. Arms are the standard cargo, but sometimes Luci asks for us to smuggle a “special friend� in for him. It’s good to be the King.

September 1st
Today, Chicago got nuked. That’s enough for today.

September 7th – We spent the better part of the last week bunkered down in Luci’s Estate. We hoped that the enviro-seal would keep the radiation from the blast. From what we could figure out from environmental detectors, the radiation was minimal, but are you going to trust a bunch of machines on this kind of thing? Not that we had too much to go out for. Occasionally, a trading partner would stop by and trade a case of medicine for a new predator or HK227.

September 9th – Because we exit the CZ via the north border usually, we noticed that the Wrigley Dome was becoming more and more active. Luci instructed me to take Stevie “Brock� & Tony “Doublejack� to the Dome and establish contact. We met the leader, Captain Ravenheart, and established communications. They also provided us with generator fuel in exchange for a number of prototype Ares Alpha.

September 17th - Food is in short supply. Most of the local Bloodtown slaughter houses have failed refrigeration and their meat has spoiled. Luci held a meeting today; we’re moving to the Wrigley Dome.

September 21th – Yaks must have realized something was up when resources started being ferried up to the Dome regularly. They attacked with a dozen bike gangers at high noon. Four family members were killed and the estate took significant structural damage. It appears the plan to move was not a bit too early.

September 28th – 90% of the resources from the estate were moved successfully to the Wrigley Dome. The estate was locked & boarded-up with bear traps here and there to stop looters. Luci, Stevie “Brock� & Tony “Doublejack� have moved into the Dome along with myself & a half-dozen other family members.

Intrigued he typed in his usual password. It wasn't good security procedure to re-use passwords but he always figured that if someone knew who he really was he had bigger problems than data security.

He liked to remember where he came from too.

Jack's eyes darted from Jackson, Abe, and George before returning to Candace. The looks on the three mens' faces told him that he wasn't going to get any volunteers for backup. Candace might, he thought, but if anything happened to him, the other three wouldn't last another day on their own. "Let me get a gun." He rolled over and pulled his wrinkled jacket towards him. If he didn't need the little extra touch of class, he might very well end up needing the armor. He was otherwise already dressed. The weather had been cool, for as long as he could remember, and the Transit tunnels were never well heated. "I'll try to talk to them. They might just be looking to pick through the cars up top - but if they're looking for trouble, they can probably find it." He reached in through the open window of the sedan and withdrew a taser from the glove-box. With one hand, he tucked the pistol into the concealed holster of his jacket. With the other, he gestured up the ramp. "Keep the gates down, for now. I'll take the stairs - but, if things go south, take the car and get everyone out of here." A curt nod from Candace let him know that she understood. Most of them kept their meager belongings in the car, which was ready in case of an emergency. He turned away for a brief moment before thinking better of it, and reached back into the car and withdrew a sleek black briefcase. The briefcase concealed more firepower than Jack ever hoped to need - but if he was sufficiently outnumbered, or the men had a vehicle of their own, the automatic fire and armor-piercing rounds would be essential. It was, however, the best weapon the small group of survivors had managed to find - and he felt a little guilty taking it, particularly if the others weren't expecting him to come back. "Which of you saw them?" He asked the room, at large. "Anyone see what they were armed with, or if they came on foot?"

By "stairs", Jack was referring to the escalators, which once carried a steady stream of salary-men and women down to the tunnels, or up to the parking lot. The power was still running - the grid was up, at least for the time being - but Jack had found the control switch and turned them off soon after arriving. He figured the noise and motion could only draw attention to the building, and the fact that it was still in fairly good shape. He had to admit that if he thought it would draw the right sort of people, he would send up flares - but the only people likely to arrive would be those wanting to comb the place over for anything, or anyone, of any use.

He waited for a better description of what he was walking into before heading to the stairs, and, as he did so, he glanced at himself in the reflection of one of the glass-covered displays that was alternating between electronic posters for various events and the bus-schedule - both, about two months out of date. His Vashon Island suit had once fit him like a glove, and looked like it was worth every nuyen it had cost him - but these days, it looked like had been wearing it day and night for months - which is only half true. He had one other suit - a Sleeping Tiger line that he carried for certain jobs where it fit in better - but, once the wall went up, he simply alternated between the two as best he could to make them last as long as possible between washings. He inhaled deeply, through his nose, and exhaled just as deeply, through his mouth - taking a moment to focus his chi, and clear his head before continuing towards the stairs, with his small group of friend escorting him as far as they dare while debriefing him on what they saw.

Alex:

There's a moment of silence on the other side of the line before an unfamiliar female voice comes through the speakers. The display is completely blank, this is an audio only call.

"Alexander Darton." It was not a question. "We've not been previously acquainted, but I am an entrepreneur with the Carcer Group. I received your contact information from my associate, one Mr. Anton Reeds, who recommended your services with the highest accolades. I hear that you are a man who can be trusted to get things done. I have a business transaction that I need someone to oversee - you would be required to deliver a package to a certain location, and return with the specified amount of payment. By my estimate, there ought to be little physical danger involved, although you would be advised to proceed with all necessary caution nonetheless - of course, you don't need me to tell you that. You will be compensated for your services both in material goods and in priority selection for future jobs. Are you interested?"

Sam:

You've seen a lot of turf squabbles around this slice of the Zone since you took up residence in the abandoned Stuffer Shack, and occasionally you would make bets with yourself on which colors would emerge the victor. This time, you were banking three one against the home team, and a few bloody minutes later, your pick proved to be the right one. This new bunch seems to be particularly brutal and bloodthirsty, even for thugs - they slaughtered every local ganger down to the last man before moving into their new turf. Those who surrendered just died on their knees instead of on their feet. You've developed a keen instinct for danger on the rough and tumble streets of Detroit, and your gut is telling you that these guys are bad news. There appeared to be about a dozen of them in all, mostly humans and orks with a couple of dwarves and trolls thrown into the mix. They had rolled into the block on a rusty old Ares Citymaster - the battle having been won, you watch with interest as they begin to unload even more people off the bus. You think at first that there are even more of them, but it soon becomes evident that this isn't true - all of the people they brought off the bus are chained together at the wrist. This is new...these guys are hauling captives around, though for what purpose you don't know.

Sid:

You're camped in your bunk, ready to pen the latest update to your journal when you hear three sharp raps on the door to your quarters. Before you can even call out your permission to enter, the door swings open and in walks a burly ork in a Knight Errant security uniform. You recognize his face - you've seen him around before, though you've never talked to him personally. If you remember right, his name is Victor something or another, and he's part of the security team operating in the Wrigley Dome directly under the command of Anne Ravenheart.

"Captain Ravenheart is calling a meeting," the ork says stoicly. "Be in the conference room in ten minutes."

He turns around and leaves without waiting for a reply. You're pretty sure that you know what the meeting is going to be about...although you weren't personally present at the scene, you know that the family had been conducting a deal with one of their suppliers yesterday night at the Dome when things went south, and words escalated into steel. The supplier and his retinue of executive protection had been killed, and although no one from the family was hurt, a stray bullet had punched through the wall to find one unlucky resident of the Dome who had been coming down the wrong hallway at the wrong time. As far as you know, the man is still in critical condition, and to say that Captain Ravenheart was not pleased would be an understatement. Things are already strained between members of the family and the other residents of the Dome, who felt uneasy sharing a living space with organized crime, and this latest development will no doubt do nothing to improve relations.

Giblet:

You know that the password would be something that would be significant only to you, and after a few failed attempts and a warning of an impending lock out, you wonder if whoever sent you this datapad would be so bold. You type in the family name of the man you've left for dead so long ago...the screen goes blank for a second before two words appear on the display: "Password Accepted." That, too, fades away before a message materializes.

Operative Cutler, this is a message from Knight Errant Central Command. We are aware of the efforts you're making above and beyond the call of duty to defend Ares Chicago against hostiles, and you can be assured that you will be properly recognized for your work when the Containment Wall is lifted. However, there is a sensitive matter that must be dealt with, and it is the decision of Command to assign the mission to you, because we believe that you are the agent who is most suited for the task. In Subterranean Level 6 of Ares Chicago is a mainframe computer, designated 56-A9. There is data contained on that system that we wish to extract, in order to ensure that it does not fall into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, the system is secured by state-of-the-art technology, and we know that that is not your area of expertise. Unfortunately, none of our Matrix specialists are located inside the Containment Zone at this time, so your mission is two-fold: track down an individual with the skills to hack into the mainframe, and then move to the mainframe itself to download File 602837E. Once you have the file in portable storage, erase all data from the system. Be advised that all the subterranean levels of the building are outfitted with automated defense systems that are now active, so proceed with caution.

A warning flashes on screen that the datapad will undergo a full memory wipe in ten seconds.

Jack:

Candace speaks in hushed, rapid-fire tones as she follows you up the steps. "George and I, we were the ones who ran into them. We both got up early today and decided to go out and do some scavenging, you know, see if we could find something useful while the rest of the Zone is still sleeping. These guys rolled up to the parking lot in an armored van right as we were coming back. Neither of us really got a good look at them, we ran back inside as soon as they showed up, but there seems to be three of them. They're wearing body armor, and they've got some pretty big guns, like assault rifles and stuff."

George nodded. "I know firepower when I see it, and these guys are decked out like one of the HRT teams back when I worked at the Truman. Whoever they are, they mean business. Be careful out there, Jack."

When you arrive at the parking lot, you find the men your friends were talking about. There aren't three of them - there are four. An elf, two humans, and an ork. By your assessment, they look like some kind of mercenary company. Each one was armed with an automatic weapon, and all were wearing some form of security armor. They watch patiently as you approach them. It appears as if they had been waiting for you. When you get close, the elf speaks up with a cheerful smile on his face.

"So, I take it you're the leader of whichever raggety taggety band of fellas be living down in that transit terminal, then?" he asks.

"...Unofficially," Jack replied, straight faced, but he was secretly quite pleased to see that the men wanted to talk, rather than fight. He was seriously outgunned, here, and bringing his social skills to bear might allow him to level the playing field, somewhat. He eyed each of the men, appraising them before returning his attention to the elven spokesman. "...Just passing through, or is there something we can help you with?" he asked, cracking a carefully crafted smile.

Sam continued to study this new player, watching for who gave who was taking orders from who. He could feel his legs start to go to sleep as he lay prone on the roof of the the stuffer shack having watched this latest turf war.

The weighed door to Sid’s space closed behind the ork. Even with the door closed, Sid’s roar of “Sonna’ bitch� could still be heard ringing across the mafia quarter. He knew it was going to be bad; he had heard about the botched meeting. As Sid started walking to conference room, he thought about the conversation he had with Luci yesterday afternoon.

Luci: No, Sid. You need to relax once in a while, take a day off. The guys are long-time friends, from the way back days, so security over-watch & drones would needless, if not reckless.

Sid: You’re the boss, but I still think that CCSS would be a good idea. The only way they would find out about the security system is if they want to be cowboys.

Luci: That’s right, I am the boss. Now get out of here and enjoy your night off.

“Now some unlucky chummer is in the IC and we get to go make amends. The hell am I even doing at this meeting; I was on my day off, so I dunno know nothing about this drek or how it happened.� Sid grumbles as he walks and then stops dead in his tracks.

“Blood Debt,� Sid lets the phrase slip as he realizes why he has been called to the conference room. Guess the Indian is going to get some pretty good rigging for her injured tribesman’s suffering; Sid’s last thought before he entered the conference room.

Alex's eyes narrow shrewdly, as a thin smile flickers on his face. "Provided that Anton verifies contacting you, yes, I'm interested."

He listens carefully to the details of the offer, before calling up Anton to verify that he recommended him for this other job. "Well, since working for Anton is my regular job, and he sent this job my way, I guess I don't have to worry about any potential conflicts of interest," he thinks, slightly amused. So Anton is branching out to fixing now? Maybe Molly needs to watch her back.

He continues on, stopping to give a ration bar to a street kid - after assensing to make sure the kid isn't a bug, and keeping a wary eye out for a possible ambush. "Ew! This candy bar tastes gross!" says the kid after taking a bite - he still wolfs it all down, though.

He ponders the offer, and the potential it represents. Getting a good reputation, getting a wider circle of potential employers, all good. The only downside being the stress of surviving in this treacherous war zone. But he only needs to be patient. This can't go on forever. The truth must be leaking out, in bits and drabs. Eventually, that wall will come down. He needs to be ready for that day. Until then, he needs to survive. He's done more than survive - he's actually thrived. But every day, the score resets to zero, and it's a brand new game.

Jack:

The elf tilts his head sideways and studies you for a moment. "Actually, you can be of some assistance to us, if you're feeling to be in a charitable mood this morning. You see, me and my friends..."

He gestures at his companions with the hand that wasn't holding a gun.

"...we are, as some would call our kind, 'tomb raiders.'" He chuckles. "You are familiar with the term, yes? We venture boldly into abandoned corporate properties and use our collective talents to liberate items of value either to ourselves or to our fellow residents of the Zone. I like to think of it as our way of giving back to the community...for a handsome profit, of course."

"There are several prime targets located in this area, headquarters for some of the richest and most powerful corporations that used to operate in Chicago that was. We are planning on hitting all of them within the span of the next few weeks, and we need to establish a base of operations. We were planning on setting up camp in the Wind Transit Terminal, since it's conveniently situated near all the corporate properties we'll be traveling to, but we were unaware that others have already taken shelter here."

"I don't know how many are in your party, but according to my intelligence, the terminal is a pretty spacious infrastructure," he says. "Do you think you can share your living quarters with us for a few weeks? We would of course keep to ourselves, and would not interfere with your daily operations. We would also be willing to trade you some of our supplies in exchange for your generosity."

Sam:

Most of the gangers are garbed in casual street clothes, ragged and frayed, with some light body armor thrown on top. They seem to be armed with an wide variety of cheap weapons, from wooden clubs with nails sticking out to heavy pistols. A few have automatic weapons slung across their back. The prisoners for the most part are wearing the bland, dark gray jumpsuits that the government has been air-dropping into the Zone since the quarantine went into effect with force.

You watch as they park their transport on the curb, ramming a few other cars out of the way in the process, and hustle their captives into a large brick building two blocks over. The flickering electronic sign above the doorway informs you that it's an abandoned Gravity X workout gym. It appears that they're planning on setting up shop there, though for how long you don't know. One of the gangers, a tall Amerindian man wearing a boiled leather vest with an assault rifle strapped to his back, gestures towards the bus and shouts something. A few gangers break off from the pack, take some stuff out of the bus, and carry it inside the building. If you had to guess, you would probably pin down the Amerindian as the head of this little troupe.

Sid:

When you arrive at the conference room, you find the entire family assembled there, with Luci at the forefront wearing a scowl on his face. Facing them is Captain Ravenheart, and flanking her is Kyle Teller and six Knight Errant security personnel. Ravenheart's cool brown eyes flicker to you for a split second to register your presence as you enter the room before returning to Luci.

"That makes all of you," Ravenheart says. "Now we can begin. I'm not one to beat around the bush, so I'm just going to say this straight out: yesterday's tragedy was unacceptable. The agreement we originally made was that the Genivese family would be allowed to reside in the Dome and given the freedom to maintain your previous business relationships, provided that the actions of your members do not jeopardize the safety of the residents living here. That agreement has been broken. As a result, the Genivese family is no longer welcome at the Dome. You have 24 hours to pack your belongings and move out."

Dead silence hangs in the air. You know without even looking at Luci's face that there's a slowly mounting rage building inside him, and it'll only be a few seconds before it erupts.

Alex:

"Good. Make whatever preparations you need, and at 6 PM today, be at Rex's Guns and Fishing at the corner of South Aberdeen and Van Buren. Ask for McDouglas, he will give you the shipment and tell you where to deliver it. Bring back the payment to the same address."

The connection is cut. When you call Anton, he verifies that the job is indeed legit, but not before nearly chewing your ear off for interrupting him while he's out drinking with a couple of elven hookers that he'd given up an Ares HVAR in nearly mint condition to purchase.

"Yeah, her name is Catalina, she was looking for a delivery boy for some job and I know you're always gung ho for new work, so I dropped your name. She's a straight dealer, ice cold bitch and smart as a whip, but she won't screw with you if you don't screw with her. Is that all? Good, now fuck off, Darton."

"Hey baby, so where were we? Oh yeah, that's what daddy likes. Put some tongue into it...wait, is this shit still turned on? Fuck me. Alex, you pervert, stop listening."

The call goes dead.

He considered his options as he stomped his way back to the tower. He could speak to Carmine, but every time he contacted his old friend he put them both at risk. Perhaps there was another option.

Back on the 19th floor he made his way into the KE comm's room. Most of the gear was running on standby now that the garrison had been evac'ed. He fired up the comm's terminal the evacuation order had come in on and composed a brief message.

Have received orders. Resources are limited. Seeking a freelance Matrix Intrusion Specialist. Is there any possibility that you have such a freelancer that you can spare?

Cutler

Sid:

And so it begins.

"What the hell, Ravenheart!" Luci roars. "We've been risking life and limb to help protect this place and now you're kicking us out? That's bullshit! Last night was..."

Seeing an opportunity, you slowly inch your way towards a small surveillance camera located on the far end of the room while everyone is distracted by Luci's diatribe. You prepare to splice your dataline tap into the port when you hear a small cough behind you. You turn around to see Teller standing there with both arms folded across his chest and a bemused grin on his face.

"And just what might you be doing, my friend?" he asks.

“I’m hoping to get a trid copy of the current ‘conversation’ between Luci and your Captain,� the Dwarf sputtered as he tried to explain his actions. “Luci is notorious for his blowups when things don’t go his way and this appears to be one of those situations. We’re hoping to create a compilation of his ‘greatest hits’ for his birthday this year and this would be a great ending. Maybe you can help with the project, buddy, can you get us a copy before we say our goodbyes?� With that, Sid walks back to the other family members and waits for Luci to exhaust himself so they can begin packing-up and getting out of Dodge.

In the back of the Dwarf's mind, steel & fuel comes together in a rich alchemy to guard its creator. Rex, Boomer & Shooter would soon be heard parking outside the conference room by its collective members. He hoped they would just be an escort back to the Mafia quarter, rather than one-half of a M.A.D equation.

Alex grins and shakes his head as he snaps his pocket secretary shut. So it is a legit job. He checks the time, already plotting his route to the meeting spot. It sounds simple, but most runs are, really. They hire people like him to avert the potential of things going sideways. At least the Johnson sounds like a straight shooter.

He wends his way back to his own well-hidden place, taking a circuitous route. He wears his armor jacket and packs his gun and his valuable (and well-hidden) foci everywhere, likewise the pocket secretary and transceiver that tenuously link him to the few people who have his back. Add to that his medkit and a pocket flashlight, and he's good to go. That's the good thing about living in a war zone; you're already mostly kitted up most of the time.

Already, he can feel the heightened alertness, the faint hum of adrenaline, as he mentally shifts to a higher gear, from survival mode to runner mode. Hopefully the inevitable trouble won't be more than he can handle. Maybe afterwards he should look for an elven joygirl of his own - it's been a while. Unbidden, an image of Molly suddenly pops up in his thoughts. "Bad boy, Alex, bad," he mentally berates himself.

Jack thinks about the elf's words for a few seconds, considering the various pros and cons of inviting battle-hard strangers into their home, before glancing back at the Terminal. If nothing else, they were asking rather than taking which meant a lot to Jack and earned them all some bonus points, up front. "I don't know about our living quarters, per se, but you guys are right - the Terminal is spacious, and there is more than enough room for everyone." He points westward, towards one of the other entrances. "I don't think anyone would mind if you guys set up base on that end. That would mean we could both concentrate on defending fewer sides, but I think that having a bit of breathing room would make things more comfortable for everyone - at least until we get to know one another better, ya know?" Jack added this last bit with the friendliest face he could muster this early on his watch - but he thought that either side showing too much undeserved trust at this point would appear foolish, at best. If these were men he could deal with, realistically, they would understand a little reasonable suspicion on his part. He also knew that if these men wanted the Terminal for themselves, they could take it - so he was in no position to make any demands, reasonable or otherwise.

If he played the game right, though, he thought that he might be able to convince them that the Terminal isn't the best place for their plan. He wasn't sure he wanted to, though. He and his friends could use some skilled protection, nearby - and these guys seemed interested in getting close to Corporate property. Whether he could use this connection to get himself just as close, or to barter for the data, secondhand - it seemed like a good opportunity to advance his escape plan. "I should warn you, though," Jack added, helpfully, "that the structure may not be quite as safe as you might think." He moves his gesturing hand towards the ground. "... place is crawling with roaches down below, power comes and goes, there are a lot of open entrances and exits to cover, and all of the automotive scrap draws a lot of looters." He shrugged slightly, gesturing back at himself as he did so. "Still, my friends and I have managed to get by - as well as can be expected - but we haven't had a lot of extra resources to spend... well... improving our situation, much." His smile dissolved a bit, as he got to his point. He was trying to read the elf, but found that the other man seemed to be at least as good as he was at putting on a friendly demeanor while holding an automatic weapon. Jack's weapon was simply less obvious. "If we pooled our resources, I'm sure that could change, for both of us."

"Assuming you guys are still interested, I'll talk to the folks inside, and I think it would be a mutually beneficial arrangement. We all used to work for the various Megas, in one capacity or another, and after being abandoned for a few months, I think their loyalties are starting to wain. I'm sure, if you asked politely, and maybe offered a little something in exchange, my friends could provide you with useful information about the Corporate structures, assets, and defenses, in the area." His smile returned. "Me? I'm from out of town, so I won't be of much use to you, there - but, until recently, I made my living by transporting Corporate property," He tapped his head, "and being able to do just about anything, while doing so. If you guys find yourself short-handed," he paused, for emphasis, "I would be happy to fill in whatever niche needs filling, for a cut of the action." Without lingering to long on his offer, so as to let the idea blossom on its own, Jack turned his head towards their van. "You should be able to use one of the old bus-ramps to safely get that thing in and out. Say the word, and I'll have George open up the gate on that end so that you guys can close it behind you."

"Oh, and my name is Jack, by the way - Renaissance Jack." He extended his gloved hand towards the elf, and waited to hear what he might have to say.

Sid:

Despite Luci's best efforts to convince her otherwise, Ravenheart's decision to evict the family from the haven was adamant. It takes you little time to gather your sparse belongings, and a few hours later finds you standing in the parking lot of the Dome next to your van, with the rest of the Geniveses assembled around you. You were on the receiving end of a few colorful comments from some the civilian residents in the Dome during your exit journey, and you assume the other members of the family had to suffer through similar indignities, but your departure was otherwise unremarkable. It's high noon, and everyone is in a bad mood.

"So what the fuck do we do now?" Luci asks, addressing the entire family at large. "Anyone got any bright ideas?"

Jack:

The elf grips your offered hand and gives it two cordial pumps. You can feel even through the glove the raw sinewy strength coiled in his fingers.

"Nice to meet ya, Jack. Call me Sage," he says. "That's Wires, Cutlass, and my tusky friend over yonder is Razorback. Now, shall we go inform your colleagues of our arrangement?"

As you fall into lead to return to camp, you take the time to more closely observe these newcomers. The elf, who seems to be the leader of the group, is tall and lean, built like a slab of steel, with powerful broad shoulders, ice white hair cut short and spiky, and deep blue eyes. He moves with the smooth, focused motions of a samurai, though you can see no visible chrome on him. The human he referred to as Cutlass is more slightly built, with long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and a full beard coating his square jaws. He seems to be the most lightly armed of the four, carrying only a Steyr machine pistol that's holstered across his gunbelt. The ork looks to to be of Jamaican descent, with a head full of Rastafarian braids, and you notice that he's wearing a bone necklace with what looks to be a shrunken head dangling from the end. The other human is the most slender of the bunch, with large, owlish eyes and one visible datajack on each temple.

Later in the day...

Alex:

When you arrive at the address given to you by your mysterious new employer, you find a run-down storefront with a faded poster of the Marlboro Man taped to the window. When you ease open the splintered wooden door, it jingles a bell mechanism strung up atop the frame, informing whoever is inside of your entrance. You look around to see glass displays lining the walls with a wide variety of hunting and camping equipment. Your eye is drawn to an unusually large shotgun racked on the far wall, that looks more like an anti-tank weapon than a firearm...even a troll would have trouble firing that thing.

You can hear the soft murmur of a television drifting out from the back doorway, and after a few seconds, a middle aged dwarf with firey red hair and an alarming amount of facial hair pokes his head out.

"Yeah, what do you want?" he grumbles.

Frank:

A few hours later, you receive a response back from Ravenheart.

No deckers under my command, sorry Cutler. We did have a resident here who I believe was something of a Matrix jockey, but he was evicted just this morning. His name is Tony Genivese, he's with the Genivese organized crime family. They no longer live here due to actions that compromised the safety of the haven at large, but you can try tracking them down if you wish. I don't recommend it though, trusting anyone who belongs to Mafia is ill-advised.

Sam slides down from his roof top lookout post and begins packing a to go bag. Not much left here anyway. After leaving the stuffer shack that had been his nest for the past few months, a sad smile spread across his face.

Carefully Sam approaches this new gang on the block, he keeps his shotgun at the ready. "Hoi, looking to trade?"

He hadn't planned to actually bring them inside, right away, but Sage seemed to be pretty reasonable so far. He nods, in turn, to each of his companions, repeating their names as he does. With another prodding nod from Sage, Jack smiled and led them across the parking lot towards the motionless escalators. He considered asking them to leave their firearms at the door, but figured that being refused would just cause him to lose face. Instead, he let his gaze linger, overly long, on the weapons, just before beginning their decent down the stairs - he hoped that Sage would catch the subtle hint, and instruct his men to at least take their fingers off of the trigger. A few minutes later, Jackson was opening the glass doors to let them enter - not that the glass would keep much out once something decides it wants in. The fact that the glass doors were still intact spoke to the relative safety of this location, though.

The other three were standing near the Americar, but came quickly when they heard Jack returning. Everyone looked surprised to see he had brought visitors down with him. "Everyone gather 'round, we have guests." They moved closer, but it was clear that they shared Jack's initial concerns. "This is Jackson," he gestured to the man who was now closing the glass door behind them, and glancing up the escalators as though expecting to see more people waiting just outside of his field of view. "He used to manage a small team for Yamatetsu - what was it your team did?" Jack paused for a moment, trying to remember what Jackson had managed to explain about his previous position, during which time Jackson issued a series of short wheezes, as though the words, themselves, were afraid to come out. "... something in marketing, I think," Jack added, ignoring the fact that Jackson was already walking away from the group and taking up his usual place on the mattress near his things, looking fearfully back at the newcomers.

Jack moved on, gesturing towards Abraham, "Abraham here used to work for Ares." Abraham simply nodded at this, and nervously adjusted his clothing. "Chief scientist in one of their labs," Jack added, after getting the silent response he expected from Abe. At this, Jack saw Sage's eyebrow raise slightly. This was what he was hoping for - to point out that the small group of mostly-helpless corporate wage-slaves here could be valuable sources of information, since Sage was planning to loot their old stomping grounds.

"George here used to work in the Truman building," Jack said, and was delighted to see George step up and offer a hand in greeting.

"George Patterson," the older man said, looking Sage and his men over as though he expected trouble. "Truman Security." George was still wore his old uniform, more often than not, and it was looking about as bad as Jack's suit. The uniform was not like the security armor worn by the mercenaries, though. It screamed "mall-cop", as there was not usually any trouble in the Truman building, and it was more important that their security guards look sharp, than intimidating.

Jack then waved his hand towards Candace, who was now kneeling near Jackson, making sure he was alright. She seemed to have also dug the dart-gun out of the glove-compartment, because Jack noticed it being held loosely in her hand. "And this is Candace Merancio, formerly of Fuchi, and personal assistant to Mr. Lionel Gloff." A moment of silence passed between them as Jack realized that the Gloff name, which was almost royalty among the corporate elite of Chicago, clearly held no significance to these men. He wasn't surprised. He had not heard the name, either, until he was reintroduced to Candace in these very tunnels - despite having worked for both of them recently.

Candace stood, and smiled, and, of the four of them, she did the best job of hiding her displeasure with the intruders. "Nice to see some friendly faces around here," she said, shooting a look at Jack.

Jack let the look pass, and turned to Sage and his men, once more. "... and I have already introduced myself. As I said, I am from out of town, but was making a delivery for Candace's boss when the wall went up. Since then, I've been doing my best to cover whatever jobs we've been lacking: Mechanic, doctor, chef," Candace let out a small laugh at that last one. "... you name it. Like I said, if you need a hand with anything your guys can't cover - let me know." He was tempted to go into his usual sales-pitch - but had to remind himself that in this post-Containment city, it might not be wise to let anyone know that you have about a million nuyen worth of SOTA technology packed into your skull.

Jack then stepped aside, as though to display the four men he had brought with him. "Everyone, this is Sage," the elf smiled, "Wires, Cutlass, and Razorback." He pointed at each man, in turn, allowing them to say something about themselves if they were so inclined. "They are... how did you put it? Yes, 'tomb-raiders', and are planning a series of jobs in the Core." Jack paused, looking at Sage. "That's rather a dark metaphor, now that I think about it." He then moved closer to Sage, returning his attention to his four friends, and continued. "They had planned to set up base-camp in this Terminal, but when they found out that it was occupied, they were polite enough to ask permission to share the space." Jack could read the expressions of disbelief on his friend's faces, and added, "That, alone, speaks volumes for them - I think."

Jack gestured westward. "They're going to move into the west tunnels, and deploy in and out of the bus ramp over there. This should allow us all to exchange resources, when necessary, without making anyone's current living situation more 'uncomfortable', or asking anyone to place too much trust anyone they just met." He shot Candace back the same look she had given him, and she turned slightly to the west, as if considering this new information, carefully. "I've already warned them about the bug problem, and the amount of effort it will require of them to maintain a base of operations here - Sage assures me that the Terminal is more than adequate for their needs."

Jack then smiles, wishing he could be more candid with his friends, but will have to wait for Sage and his men to settle into the west tunnels, it seems. "I hope everyone can see that this arrangement could greatly benefit both of our communities, and I hope that all of you," at this, he swept his gaze across the room, even across Sage and his men, "will put in the extra effort to see that the arrangement works out."

His little speech concluded, Jack turned to Sage. "Anything you wanted to add? or would you like to have your men pull your van down into the west ramp, and we'll get you settled in?"

Alex is a picture of studied nonchalance, but he is not underestimating this place's security. To boldly display gear that would be choice for any looter, this place has to have more than a bell on the door for security. The fact that he can't see any obvious signs of it only raises his estimation of them up a notch.

"I'm here to make a delivery for McDouglas," he answers. Belatedly, he wishes they had given him some kind of verification he could use - unless the name, itself, functions as that.

Idly, he wonders if some of this equipment will be the "goods" that they pay him with. Not a bad deal, if that is the case. Some of this stuff would be pretty useful, and the rest would be easy to barter with.

Alex:

"Yeah, that's me," the dwarf says. "You must be the new guy. Be right back."

He disappears, and returns a few moments later hauling a canvas backpack and two enormous duffel bags. He dumps them unceremoniously at your feet, produces a hand-torn sheet of crumbled up looseleaf from a jacket pocket, and slaps it into your hand. You unfold it to find an address for a house in Little Italy scrawled in splotchy black ink. Below it is a list of pharmaceutical drugs with specific quantity amounts scribbled next to them - you recognize most of the items on the list as prescription brand antibiotics and antihistamines.

"Recipient is a man named Connor. Give him the bags, get the drugs in exchange and bring them back here. Count 'em to make sure there ain't any bottles missing, some people like to be smart asses. Don't get mugged on your trip, or you're gonna to be responsible for the cost of the goods. Since you're new, you get one question before I kick your ass out of my store and go back to watching my show."

Sid:

Off the top of your head, you can think of several Mafia-run establishments operating inside the Zone. There's the Romano family, who's making most of their yen these days running a prostitution racket in the Noose. There's the Bassos, who've aligned themselves with an emerging warlord named Catherine Cunningham, a rising power player who's hacked out a large chunk of turf about a klick south of the Cermak crater. Finally, there's Carmine Falconi's crew, who deals primarily in transportation and fuel supply...last you heard, they were still encamped at the Kedzie Bus Depot.

Alex scowls thoughtfully as he give one of the duffel bags an experimental tug. Bad enough that a backpack and two big duffels will make him stand out like a neon sign to any of the city's predators - if they too heavy for him, forget it. No way in hell he's levitating this load all the way to his destination, then back. He thought this would be a courier job, not a pack mule job.

Hmm, Genivese? Well I have no beef with the Italian families, in fact they might be useful in dealing with O'Toole, they certainly ain't big fans of the Irish contingent. Hell, if Carmine weren't so 'lucky' there might not be any Italian families left in Chicago.

He dug out his 'pager' and spent some time composing a message to Carmine before heading off to explore the damage he had caused on the upper floors.

Hey, Lego-lam.

Possible you might be contacted by members of the Genivese Family seeking safe haven. Would appreciate you helping them out. Am in need of a Decker and/or a Security Rigger for an operation that might be mutually beneficial and a 'birdy' tells me that they may have one of the former with them.

Giblet

Jack:

Your fellow survivors seem to have accepted your arrangement with the mercenaries, at least for the time being. You notice Sage tuning in when you introduce Abraham, and his gaze continues to linger on the scientist even after you move on with the introductions. He turns to you when you ask him your question.

"Nope, I think we'll be getting along fine," the elf says with a smile. "Cutlass, bring the van down here."

"Good looking woman, that one," Razorback says wistfully, looking over at Candace as his companion splits off from the group to retrieve their transportation.

"Keep it in your pants, big man, else I'll cut it off," Sage says amiably. He turns his attention back to Abraham. "Jack said you worked for Ares before the quarantine, yes? According to our schedule, that's the first building we're going to be hitting. Mind having a chat with me?"

Abraham blinks and looks at you, seeming to be unsure of what he should say.

Alex:

The packs have some heft to them, but from the feel of it, you should be able to haul them around without toppling over. They are fairly bulky though, and if you find yourself in an altercation, there's no doubt that you won't be able to fight well while carrying your load.

The dwarf notices you checking the weight of the bags and laughs heartily. "I always forget how weak you breeders are. If they're too heavy for you, I can rent you a car for the trip, but it's gonna cost ya."

Frank:

After a quick run-through to make sure that your weapons and armor are combat ready, you step off the street and enter Ares headquarters. You're immediately greeted by a holographic projection of a beautiful woman welcoming you to Ares Chicago - the playback equipment has been damaged, and her image flickers in and out as she recites corporate statistics for prospective investors, with segments of her spiel fizzling into electronic garble. You know the infrastructure of this building like the back of your hand, and you quickly weave your way through the lobby to the main elevators. Ready to ascend, you press the call button, but nothing happens.

Perhaps the blaze had damaged the control systems. Unless you find a way to repair it, the most apparent way to make it to the hive up top seems to be to hoof it on foot. A 200 floor stair climb is not something you would relish doing.

Grimacing at the weight of the stuff - sure, he could carry it, but it would encumber him badly in a fight - Alex is about ready to walk out when the dwarf mentions a car. Now that would be much better. But he's still ambivalent about the whole thing. He doesn't like the notion of paying "rent" for the conveyance needed to so the job. Still, he might as well see how much he's going to be gouged on it - he can still choose to walk away if the dwarf gets too greedy.

"Well, even if I was a troll, I wouldn't want to trundle down this war zone carrying three big bags. Might as well paint a target on my forehead. So the wheels it is, maybe, depending on how much they affect my pay for this job."

Alex's demeanor is still relaxed, but his tone is slightly more neutral, and the look in his eyes shows that there is only so far he will let himself get pushed around for the sake of a job he doesn't really need to take.

"Wait," Jack calls out, as Cutlass leaves to bring the Van down - causing the man to pause for a second and look back. "Pull it around to the west ramp. We'll have someone down there to open it up for you." Jack continued, while casting Sage a glance to make sure their leader understood the arrangement and had no sudden objections to keeping some distance between their camps. Cutlass seemed to hesitate, also looking back at Sage for orders, before continuing up the escalators.

"George, take this," said Jack, as he handed him the briefcase he was carrying, "and go open the gates down there, for him. Show Cutlass how its done, and give him a tour of the place until we meet up with you." While he said this, Razorback had made his comment about Candace, which Jack had only barely picked up. He was pleased to see Sage handle the situation before it became a problem, but he quickly added "Candace, why don't you go with George?" She nodded, moving from Jackson's side and catching up with George before he made it out of the room, with the dart-pistol still in her hand. Jack had a feeling that she was going to want to keep that thing on her for a while, at least.

Jack looked, coldly, at Razorback, who was watching her leave, until Sage's mention of Abe's name drew his attention away. Jack's mouth curled into a practiced smile, and he moved closer to Abraham. He wasn't sure if Abe was looking for advice about giving away corporate secrets, or just about whether or not he should help out their new neighbors, and Jack wasn't entirely comfortable making either decision for him. The two men turn their heads slightly away from Sage, as if to speak privately for a moment, but Jack did not significantly lower his voice. "Your call, Abe. I didn't make any promises, but Sage and his friends are going in, with, or without, your help. If you can help them out, I'm sure Sage is prepared to compensate you - maybe even cut you in." Then, he did lower his voice a little. "...and, if you don't and he loses a man in there, I'm sure at least a few of the survivors will blame it on their lack of intel." Jack didn't feel that he needed to paint any more of a picture - particularly with Sage's team standing only a few meters away. Abe was silent, as always, but his eyes flicked towards the mercenaries and then back at Jack - he had caught the implication.

Returning his voice to its usual volume, Jack stood up a little straighter and added. "But, I understand that Ares was your family, and that kind of loyalty can run deep." ...and doesn't run cheap, he added, in his head. "...but, if it is any consolation, I don't think anyone who was left in this Hell-hole, like we were, would blame you for trading what you know about Ares, to make your life here a little less miserable. As far as I'm concerned, they voided your non-disclosure agreement when they wrote you off as dead and stopped writing you paychecks." Jack shrugged, "... although, I'm sure in the fine print of your contract, it says otherwise."

Jack was eager to get Sage and his men moving westward - he wasn't entirely comfortable with having their groups split in two - but waited to suggest this, until Abraham had made up his mind. If he decided to help Sage out, they could negotiate compensation and talk details on the way to meet up with Cutlass and the others - they would just bring everyone with them, in that case. If he wasn't, though, Abe could keep an eye on Jackson, while Jack escorted their guests to their new home, which would be a convenient reason to excuse him from the group, and separate him from Sage until Jack could talk to them both, privately.