April 6th, 2064 - 11:00pm

The solid silence of night is broken by the tinkling of glass, and a sudden pop-hiss echoes out into the stillness, followed by a dull WHUMP. The crackling of flames is almost immediate, and figures scatter from the building like roaches when the light comes on.

Out windows, doors, whatever is the closest entrance, the troll making his own way out through a dura-crete wall. A few have the clinging, tell-tale tendrils of a close encounter with white phospherus. As each one scatters into the night, there is a succession of soft phuts. After each small noise, one of the figures falls. The figures had split in all directions, but none seems to be safe, as one after one, 6 figures slump over in the night. Flames quickly consume the small house, fire trucks lighting up the dark as they roar in to save nearby buildings.

Nobody seems to notice one small figure dart out and over the nearby fence, lithely slipping around a few obstructions in the yard beyond. Nobody, at least, until one last slight sound rings out, and the figure stumbles, droppping to one knee for a moment before darting into a parking lot full of cars and SUV's. Another soft phut rings out, but the shape is gone, disappeared into the darkness.

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April 7th, 2064 - 2:00am

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Joli - A brief chirp and you're wide awake, mana already gathering at your fingertips as your eyes sweep the small room. The shape of the room is unfamiliar, and the tension you hold only begins to dissapate as you remember that it's new, purchased just this evening as the result of the old, familiar paranoia.

The sound was the phone nearby, chirping almost cheerfully in the darkness. Shade never called, and nobody else you know would call at this time of night.

The voice on the other is thankfully familiar. "Joli?" Beth's voice is almost comforting.

"I know your situation, and I've got a lead on a job. I don't know what you know about organized crime politics, but this gentleman, Yamikaza, is looking for someone with your skills. You're under no obligation to call, and this doesn't come with my recommendation, but he pays well."

The call is short and to the point, as Beth always is, but kind, as Beth always was.

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Eric - The homicidally red bunny rabbit Tasha used as her icon was always a little disturbing. The fact that it occasionally sprouted fangs didn't do much to settle ones stomach either. It was behaving itself currently, sporting a pink bow and cutely wiggling it's nose, patiently waiting for you to open the message.

It was late...way too late, in fact, and you've just spent the last 4 hours picking apart the encryption on a safe that looked like it had been ripped out of a duracrete wall by hand.

You tap the message, opening it for display as you strip out of your clothes, already headed for the shower. She'd left a message, couldn't be that important.

"Eric, sweety, I need a favor. I owe this guy one, and I was hoping you could help me out. He wants someone to do some 'electrical' work, but it's a little too hands on for my taste. He's a slimeball in a suit, but he pays good."

The bunny rabbit batts is eyes cutely at you, holding up a little placard with an LTG number on it.

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Evans - Having spent your evening up to your elbows in cheap 'ware, the office didn't seem quite so cheap and dingy as you counted out the mixed handfuls of corp scrip and paper the thugs had tossed at you after bleeding all over your operating room table for most of the day.

The phone is an almost unwelcome distraction, pulling you away from thoughts of redesigns of the clinic, and maybe some new equipment.

Jeff's face does something to wipe away your annoyance, however. The conversation is good, as always...Jeff usually has good advice, one of the reasons you enjoy talking to him.

"Evan, I hate to cut the conversation short, but I've got a proposal from some people I know. They need someone that can patch people back together. In fact," there's a sudden thumping on the door, "they're stopping by right now."

There are two men standing outside the door, both Asian, both obviously sporting weaponry, carrying a third figure in between them. The figure is slumped and held between them, and blood is already puddling on the sidewalk.

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Blackjack - The Matrix flows around you, an electron ocean slipping through your fingers as you move in your space. You're respected here, known, and others call out, all part of the community, all accepting.

You feel the world shift around you, and you twist, deflecting a bit of code shaped like a shuriken off one of your metal arms. You twist the flows of information in your hands, and the landscape of the Seattle RTG parts, displaying a small figure, dressed like an old fashioned, Western-style ninja, complete with the mask covering everything but his eyes and the two-toed slippers, and sporting horns and a tailing. The figure seems to grin, despite not having a mouth, and darts away through the Matrix.

This is your place...nobody disrespects you here, nobody treats you like this! You tighten your grip, darting after the figure, nodes flowing by like water as you manuver. He darts down blind alleys and into data loops, obviously trying to lose you, but you pierce each deception, ferret him out of each hole he hides in, until you finally stretch our your grip, cutting off external data feeds as you force him into an abandoned node. He smiles as he realizes that he's cut off, spreading out his hands in a conilatory gesture. He reaches into a fold, drawing forth a small business card, and holds it out to you.

It's stylized kanji that reforms itself into English as you watch, displaying an address, and LTG, and a figure...30,000

The figure bows again, seeming to grin, and tosses down a small icon that rapidly grows into a cloud of random data static. Sifting through quickly, you see the figure has logged off, erasing most of the trails of it's passage.

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Tombstone - The club is packed, as usual. Alfric never had a problem putting patrons into his establishment, but he treated them good. Most of the booze was real, wasn't watered down, and there was a live band every night. Not always the best, but always loud, and always live.

Despite the heavy electronic remixed classical/jazz/new age/thrash synth band on the stage, the night seems to be dragging you back through your past, tossing up displays of every single betrayal, every job gone bad, every one night stand...ruthlessly displayed, despite the alcohol, the noise, and the cute thing with the row of horns trailing back over her shaved head.

You snap open the cellphone as it rings, already growling. Eddie holds up two hands defensively, talking as if you'd been with him for hours.

"Nick, baby, honey, I love you look I've got this thing and this guy you know those guys that you really don't want to piss off the kind that pay well but expect speed and are pretty much dead set on professionalism ya you know those guys well I've got one says he needs a little muscle and he's willing to pay top nuyen for anyone involved I mean we're talking minimum 20k just for talking to this guy and I've got an LTG number right here he wants to meet post haste and talk about the job are you interested?"

Eddie is off the phone before you've really growled out more then a word or two edgewise, leaving a blinking 20,000 and an LTG number on the screen.

One of these days you're going to slip him a sedative just to watch and see what happened.

"Jeff, you have an uncanny sense of timing, you do. I'll call ya back." Evans put the phone down and darted out of his office to face the trio. He took one look at the bleeding body and whistled low. He then proceeded to strip off his overcoat, toss it onto a nearby broken valkyrie module cum coatrack and reached for a doctor's gown and mask on a nearby shelf. He grabbed the doctor's wear and snapped on the mask and gown in one fluid, practiced motion. Reaching the other side of the room, he pulls a spare bed over - one without the sheets overflowing with dried blood - and wheels it over post haste.

"Put 'er there, gentlemen." He says as he grabs the remaining components of his uniform. Once the two men place the body down on the bed, Evans turns it about and pushes the bed through a set of double doors, which led to the 'ER' room of his clinic. He flicked on the switch and started turning on the equipment in the room, his actions purely reflexsive andautomatic, his eyes not once leaving the body of his patient, already studying the injuries and wounds in greater detail than most doctors usually did.

The bed went under the light in the middle of the operating room, and the systems were all fully functional. At Evan's feet was a field medkit - his clinic wasn't as up to snuff as he would have wanted, and he wasn't going to risk a patient with bodyguards point shotguns in his face if the supplies went out.

Doc twirled a pair of syringes in both his hands filled with special nanites designed to provide quick biological analysis during a trauma op. "Alright, guys, this may be a serious one, it may be not, I'm not going to take any chances. Can you tell me what happened? Plus, is this fella here a magic user?"

Hmph! There are nicer ways to get a girl's attention. 30,000?! That's a lot! I better check who I'm working for before I go there.

Blackjack pings the LTG and then runs a quick scan to see who owns the grid before logging onto it. After the scan is complete, she walks up to the door of the LTG and waits in line.

Evan - The patient is suffering from a single wound in the shoulder. Subsonic ammunition, probably, from the visible trauma around the wound. It also looks like the bullet punched cleanly through both the victim's armored jacket, flesh, and bone, exiting cleanly on the other side.

He'll need blood, and some stitching up, but since he's here already, he'll probably live.

Blackjack - You reach out to test the space at the end of the LTG, and find the familiar cube of a personal LTG address.

Eric exhaustedly shoves the data cable into the jack. The knight in green armor pulls out a small piece of parchment and fluidly scribes out a note.

"My dearest bunny, I will follow up with the boar and get back to you."

He tosses the note into the air and a falcon dives down to grab the scroll and deliver it to Tasha.

The logoff was barely completed before Eric pulled the cable out of his brain. That shower was definitely calling him. He stands under the scalding water letting each pulse remove away the tension that had built up over the day. As the water starts to cool, the Englishman shuts it off. Toweling off to remove the dripping moisture from his body, he strides across the apartment much more alive.

Eric runs a cable from his small satellite dish to his deck and jacks in. This time the Green Knight moves much more smoothly, a master of his digital realm. He calls up his black charger and the two of them gallop through the village of Seattle passing peasant merchants and the Corporate Nobles. Arriving at the LTG address given to him, the knight ties his horse to a courrier post and looks at the building before him.

Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Joli rolls onto her back and stares at the ceiling. "Thanks Beth, when and where am I suppose to meet this guy and how much is he offering?" A small noise can be heard from the floor near the window. Joli gives a long suffering sigh as she sits up to see Sebastian eating what she hopes is only a squirrel and not someone's cat. That's disgusting you know. The small dragonette pauses, looking up with a strip of raw meat hanging from its mouth and a smirk. Then don't watch.

Eric - Your arrive at the indicated node, and find yourself standing in front of a tower with a spiral staircase around it, hundreds of doors dotting the surface as it leads up into the clouds. The number your looking for is several hundred virtual feet in the air, and opens into a small garden. Kneeling in the center is an Asian woman in a kimono. She glances up as you enter, not meeting your gaze, and speaks quietly.

"Mr. Yamikaza is not available right now. May I take a voice message or hold some information safe for his return?"

Evan - The two men look at each other, and one almost visibly shrugs. The other turns, speaking perfunctly in crisp, technical English.

"He's Awakened, and as far as we can tell, he was shot once. Probably from a sniper rifle, long range, hit in the shoulder."

Joli - You can hear Beth's smile over the phone, oddly punctuated by the occasional sound of chewing from the corner of the room.

"He's asking for a meet in 4 hours. I know it's short notice, but he's offering at least 20,000 for the job. " She gives you an address deep in Chinatown, along with a name, Yamikaza.

"Right. Then can't use these." He says, tossing both syringes over his shoulder. The two men duck and the syringes hit the back of the operating room with a sharp PING, rebound off the wall, and land solidly in an open biohazard waste disposal bin.

"Time to do this the old fashioned way." He brings out a surgical scalpel and looks at the wound. "Hmm, looks like a subsonic. Rifle caliber round, heavy fragmentation on and around the exit..."

The doctor mutters to himself throughout the short procedure. He uses a few basic tools to remove as many bullet fragments as he can and close up the wound.

"There." He says finally, putting aside the scalpel and snapping off his bloodied gloves and garb. "Give me a moment, gentlemen."

Evans reached for his office's commphone and dialed in Jeff's number.

"Okay Jeff, I did what I could. Now, my friend, what's going on?"

The Green Knight looks down at the petite Asian woman.

"Yes, would you tell him that a friend of Tasha came by to see him. Please have him contact me in the West Tower."

As the parchment leaves his hand and the knight strides away the world melts back to the traditional Matrix topography with an LTG address left for the West Tower. A brief gallop to the stars and back, Eric is back in his apartment.

Tombstone flips the screen shut on his wrist phone, pondering. Normally, he would resent having his leisure time interrupted by business, but it was almost a relief tonight. He'd heard getting a mnemonic enhancer would help him learn faster, especially languages - which it did - but unfortunately his improved memory could have its downsides at times.

His stony face softens slightly as he excuses himself, and leaves the girl he was flirting with. He moves to the back of the club where a few matrix kiosks are, since his potential employers are apparently in a hurry.

His wired reflexes are shut down as a safety precaution in the crowded club, but he still moves with an effortless grace that makes him stand out in the crowd composed mostly of slummers and posers. Focused on the kiosk at the end of the club, he barely notices the people unconsciously moving out of his way. Plugging the dangling cord into his datajack, he dutifully dials the LTG number.

"I'll have to check out these guys later," he thinks. "Eddie's always too busy doing umpteen dozen things at once to follow through with decent logistical support. Still, I guess it can't hurt to listen to their spiel." He smiles to himself ironically, his too-vivid memory reminding him of how many times he's thought that before.

Finding no information other than that the LTG is a personal domain, Blackjack shrugs and decides to enter. Her flaming body floats apprehensively into the LTG.

I wonder what this LTG is like... maybe it'll be fun!

Joli rolls out of bed. "Thanks Beth for the chance and I'll take it. Go ahead and send me the info for where to meet for this job." She looks around the mostly bare room, taking in the lack of personal touches. I live in a hotel room. I have a whole house here and I still haven't made it mine.

Tombstone - The number is answered just after the beginning of the first ring, and the voice on the other end sounds like a professional receptionist.

"Good evening, Mr. Tombstone, we have been waiting for your call. Nick indicated that you have some skills we would consider a valuable addition to our team. If you are interested, we have a late night meet scheduled for approximately 6am in our downtown office. Will you be attending?"

Joli - The address comes over, with his name and a brief personal note on watching your back when dealing with his type. As mentioned it's in Chinatown, and at least 20 minutes from where you are now.

Blackjack - You follow the datatrails through the LTG, pulling up short in front of a tall building, styled after the ancient Japanese castles. There are dozens of sliding rice-paper doors lining the front, going up for stories upon stories. You locate the specific address you seek and slide the door open, greeted by a petite Japenese woman kneeling in tradational style. She nods demurely, holding out her hand for the card you hold.

She nods as you hand it over, and presents to you with both hands an ornate looking scroll case with a simple brass catch. Opening the case, you see a roll of parchment, thin and almost transparent. Rolling it open reveals an address, and a time not 3 and half hours from now. There is a small amount of text as well.

Greetings, Blackjack. I received word from [LTG]Invisible that you posses several skills we currently have need of. As you can see by the amount you were shown and the time I've listed here, we are in urgent need. Please attend us at the named location at the indicated time for more information.

Eric - Your phone is beeping even as you back into your personal space in your deck, insistently calling even at this hour. The voice on the other end is soft, polite, and tinged with a Japenese accent.

"Mr. Eric, we have received your information, and are interested in making your acquaintance to perform certain tasks for us. Our need is urgent, and while we regret the inpropriety of requesting such a quick meeting, we would like you to attend a more formal dissemination of information at our location in downtown Seattle in approximately 3 and one half hours. Are you interested?"

Evan - Jeff is apologetic as soon as you get him on the phone.

"Look, Evan, I'm sorry, but this guy I owe a favor called me up and asked where he could find a good street doc at this time of night. I sent him to you, of course, you're the best, right? Anyway, I guess this guys part of some thing they're doing, and they want to have a doc on staff. The pays good, but they're a little Asian, if you know what I mean? If you're interested, talk to one of the suits that brought the guy in, and they'll give you an address. I guess they wanna meet in just a few hours..."

Eric checks to make sure the call is voice only, and shakes his head mouthing "why me?".

"Yes sir. I would be happy to come down and meet with you."

He jots down the information, hops on the grid to make sure the driving directions he remembers are correct and walks over to his closet.

Well, since I'm working, I guess I'd better get dressed.

Pulling on the form-fit, he grabs a solid black tee out of the drawer and some loose slacks off the back of his chair. Eric sweeps his jacket off the hook as he steps out of his apartment with his side satchel.

With time to stop by the StufferShack for an ultra-mega sized cup of soycaff, he begins walking the thirty or so blocks to the meet site.

Evans chuckled a bit to himself. This was so typical of Jeff.

"Well, Jeff, we've both pulled each other's hoops out of the fire multiple times before, and it's not like I'm looking forward to another day of having to deal with patients with cheap outdated ware who scream at me whenever I tell them their ops aren't possible. Consider it done. Lemme know if anything else turns up."

He puts the phone down and turns to the Asian men who followed him into the clinic office.

"My friends says to talk to you two for an address. May I have it, please? Oh, and what would you want me do with your friend there?" He points to the patient snooring on the op table. "You can leave him here and I can instruct my nurse to look after him, but if you want him brought somewhere, the clinic doesn't have any van or anything, so..."

Blackjack smiles big at the Asian lady and says, "Thank you!" finishing with a giggle. "Here's your box," she says as she hands the case back to the lady, keeping the scroll in hand.

Blackjack converts the scroll to a text file and writes it to her offline storage. She pouts, thinking

Guess I won't get much sleep tonight. I hope I don't yawn too much in the morning.. er today.

She logs off and strips out of her clothing for a 2 hour nap.

The alarm sounding in her head goes off, seemingly only minutes after she has gone to sleep. Checking the time displayed on her imagelink by the math SPU against the alarm clock on her nightstand, Blackjack lets out a groan as she stretches under the covers.

She sits up, and after a few minutes, she gets out of bed. The trip to the bathroom in the dark is made treacherous by her grogginess. She ends up smacking the bedframe with her shin. After some morning relief on the toilet, she showers, the water helping to wake her up. Afterward she gets dressed, choosing to wear a new tight-fitting olive cotton t-shirt with swooping bust line beginning just under the neck and a tight pair of black stretch slacks with flaired legs over her underwear and form-fitting half suit. A pair of stylish brown hiking shoes completes the outfit. She leaves the forearm guards off, having recently integrated her cyberdeck into her left forearm.

Blackjack quickly brushes her long, blonde, curly hair, brushes and flosses her teeth, and does her makeup. With no time for breakfast, since she has to go to Chinatown, Blackjack just straps on her gun, grabs her other gear, shoves it into the pocket of her Ulysses coat and heads out the door. Her Westwind Turbo beeps as she remotely unlocks it. The engine roars to life, and she speeds out of the neighborhood. She stops at a stuffer shack on the way for some strong soycaf and just a single breakfast sandwich.

Fast food is sooooo bad, but I don't care. I'm hungry. I'll eat a light lunch to make up for it. It's ok.

While the car autonavs to the destination, Blackjack devours the sandwich in a lady-like fashion, sipping her coffee. Once her sandwich is done, she cleans her hands off with wipes that she keeps in the glove compartment and touches up her lipstick in the mirror, being careful not to push too hard, in case the route contains a bump or sudden stop. Being over halfway there, she repositions the mirror and disengages the autopilot, revving the engine past legal speeds, she shaves off some of her time on the approach to her destination.

Oh.. I hope I'm not late! I HATE that!

Joli flicks on the small lamp near the bed and begins to gather her colthes from the floor. If you're done eating whatever it was, and I don't want to know, we have a job. She slips on a black tank top and pulls up a pair of jeans. Sebastian flys across the room dragging her sneakers by the laces. It was tasty, thanks for asking. I'll be right back, I just need to bury the remains. Maybe next door in that old bat's flower garden?

Joli shakes her head and fumbles into her shoes. She takes a moment to examine herself in the bathroom mirror. Her face screws up at the sight of her face. She runs some water and tries to finger comb her hair into some thing passing for a look. She quickly brushes her teeth and puts on some more deordorant. She wanders back into the bedroom and grabs a denim jacket. Ready boss. Sebastian wings in through the door as she opens it and shift to the astral, taking a perch on her shoulder and she locks up and heads for her car.

Well, I still need to eat something so I thought I'd grab a bite and then we'll head for this meet.

Evans - One of the men looks at you, rolling his head around on his neck and audibly cracking several vertebrae in the process. He smiles, and you realize that you can't really tell the two of them apart, old racial jokes aside.

"We'll be more then happy to take you and the patient," nodding towards the man still passed out on your 'operating table', "to the location whenever you're ready. The schedule mentions 6:00am, and we have also been instructed to 'assist' you in making the meet ontime."

"Fair enough. It's...oh, maybe midnight now. You coming back in the morning or do we leave now, or what? ...And you do have a vehicle... right?" Evans indicates to the injured man in his op room.

"Yes. I'll be there." Tombstone listens as the woman gives him the location, then leaves the bar and eases himself behind the wheel of his Toyota Elite.

When he gets back to his place, he cleans up a bit and changes clothes, mainly to get the bar funk off of himself. He puts on one of his Sleeping Tiger line suits. He won't take much gear to the meet, just his phone, pager, and pistol. The essentials. He adds two spare clips, just in case. Neither of them with gel rounds, and he doesn't bother taking the silencer, either. If something goes wrong, it will be far past the point where subtlety or restraint will be a factor.

He boots up his Comet and does a bit of checking. No digging for secrets, merely the public information about the location's owners, as well as studying a city map of the surrounding area, in case he winds up having to bail in a hurry. After that, he unwinds with some music and stretching exercises. He puts on his Ulysses coat and heads out the door. Rather than risk his own car, he has a cabbie pick him up a few blocks from his place - he still arives 25 minutes early.

He makes an effort to put on his bland, expressionless "business face" before he enters, reminding himself to stay cool. There have been a few exceptions, but most of his dealing with Japanese suits and the Yakuza have involved tiresome formality, lots of green tea in dinky little cups, and subtle insults mixed in with the polite small talk.

About a block away from the building, Eric throws away the remnants of his now chilled coffee. He blows warmth onto his hands and rubs them vigorously together to keep the blood circulating through his extremities. The thief shifts the lockpicks from his bag into a concealed inner pocket of his coat. The last adjustment is to turn the bag to his back. Pressed safely against him by the longcoat, the bag is as well hidden as it can be. There's nothing illegal in it yet, but secrets have always come in handy in the past.

With everything settled, Eric continues his trek. Turning the corner, he sees the building and steels himself for what is to come.

Approaching the building, Eric looks for doormen, obvious signs of security, as well as the unobtrusive forms that could record his presence.

Tombstone - The information is fairly basic, the building in question is owned by the Hazoikya family.

The streets are fairly empty, with the wan grey light of predawn washing over the few people up and moving about at this time in the morning, most of them street people or early sararimen.

The building is huge, easily 50 stories tall, but matched by the line of other faceless corporate buildings in the streets in this section of town, nothing out of place. Stepping out of the building to stand in front is a slim man, dressed in a western-style suit. As you walk up, he steps forward to meet you, bowing very slightly.

"Good evening, Sir." His English is the perfect technical English of a chip

"If you would be so kind, we are waiting for several other members to arrive."

He proceeds to make small talk, asking various non-probing, non-personal questions.

Eric - You stroll up, kicking aside the debris of some sort of festival...cheap paper lanterns, firecracker remains and the like. You see the building, faceless and very corporate, and a slim Asian man chatting with a large orc dressed in one of the better lines of corporate attire.

There are several devices covering the building, and you give them credit...there are three obvious camera's, at the two front corners of the building, and one on a lamppost on the sidewalk. There's also two more that most people probably wouldn't see, one directly above the door, another one further up, with a wide enough angle to see the entire street.

The Asian man moves to greet you as you walk up, smiling widely and giving you a slight bow.

"Good morning, Sir. We're waiting for just a few more members."

Evan - The gentleman never actually leave your office, but they come to get you promptly at 5:30am. They wake your 'patient', helping him out of the office and into a large, tan sedan waiting outside. One slips behind the driver seat, the other into the back with you.

The right seems short because of the lack of population on the streets, nothing but a blur of buildings and lights. Your patient is groggy, barely conscious, and not up to conversation.

They arrive promptly at 6am in front of a large corporate building. Standing in front is a slim Asian man, chatting with an orc in a well cut suit. A few feet away is a slender Caucasian male in a longcoat.

They help your 'patient' out of the car, and he shakes them off, taking unsteadily to his feet.

Both men nod to the Asian gentlemen in front of the door, and he walks up to you, giving your 'patient' an odd look as he bows to you.

"Thank you for coming on such short notice, Sir. If you would wait with us, we are expecting another few members."

Blackjack - You pull up at the indicated destination, parking in the attached structure and strolling out to the front door, as there does not seem to be a separate entrance in the parking garage itself.

Standing in front of the building is a slim Asian man in a western-style suit, an Orc in an Eastern cut suit, a Caucasian man in a long coat, and 2 more men, standing in between a pair of larger Asian men, both dressed in flat black suits and looking more like bodyguards then shadowrunners.

Joli - You catch sight of a breathtakingly beautiful woman strolling out of the parking garage as you pull in, moving with the natural grace and poise one would expect of a super model. There's a flash as she turns the corner out of your view, and the sudden sight of the obvious cyberhands below the cuff of her coat is a jarring contradiction to the form itself.

You park in the strangely empty garage. Even at this time of night, a large corporation like this should be bustling with wage slaves. Moving outside and around to the door, you spot a group standing clustered in the street in front of the main entrance, sticking out in that special way that only a large group on an otherwise deserted street can.

Lee - This has been a rather interesting night. To the best of your recollection, the group was sitting around the safehouse arguing about the best methods of sneaking a gardner or a cook onto the grounds when the room exploded into smoke, and the flash of a white phosphorous grenade going off. You managed to avoid the burning, but a couple of the members screamed as they dove out windows and through doors, clothes alight.

You were smarter though, and slipped out a side entrance, positive you'd gotten away until a sharp pain exploded through your shoulder, throwing you to the ground. You scrambled, Bandit urging you on as you melted away into a parking lot. Things sort of go black after that.

Your next memory is of a car ride, and half-falling, half-crawling out of the back seat of the car still illegally parked in front of the building.

A slim Asian man steps up, talking to the man behind you that you didn't really realize was there. He turns to you afterwards, a less cordial look on his face.

"You, Sir, are in great debt to Mr. Yamikaza for rescuing you and providing you with an opportunity to wipe some of the stain of your failure from your name."

Jester - The phones ringing. Why is it that the calls for the jobs that you needed and wanted always came in at the worst hours? Might have something to do with the fact that most people that needed your services didn't operate in the daylight, but that's just a guess.

"Jester?" Zoe's voice is, as usual, firm, polite, all business, and completely awake, even at this hellish hour in the morning.

"I've got a job, pays good, we're talking 20k starting. But it's Yaks, and not the nicest group of them. They talk straight, but they don't give a damn about you beyond the job. They meet in one hour, the meet spots in downtown Chinatown. You up for it?"

Bloodmoon - You snap awake in the darkness, mana building around your hands as the distorted face of the ghoul ripping into your neck with it's teeth fades back into dreams. Spectre is shaking you gently, crouched amid the other bodies wrapped in whatever they could find in the abandoned building you called home tonight.

"You got a call. Pipedream says he's got a job for you, and wanted me to give you this address, and that you'd have to be there in an hour. " He thrusts a crumpled scrap of paper at you, and you glance at the scrawl on it. Chinatown.

"Are you going to take it?" Spectre looks at you, concerned, as he was for all of his gang of outcasts, scraping by on the outskirts of even the Redmond society.

Eric returns the bow, a fraction deeper than it was given.

"Well met, I will wait there if you do not mind."

The Englishman steps over to the lamppost, stands, and waits. At the same time his mind is going back over the map of the city between here and his apartment. If bullets start flying, Eric will have a way out planned.

Tombstone chats politely with the man, glad that his game face is firmly on - as always, he finds watching someone use chipped skills somewhat disturbing. He is almost tempted to switch to Japanese - his command of the language exceeding that of many native speakers - but why tip his hand, even if it's only to show a deuce? Maybe if they think he's a dumb trog gaijin, they'll let something slip in Japanese. Not bloody likely, considering that Japanese is practically Seattle's unofficial second language, but you never know.

Taking his cue from his host, he limits his conversation to innocuous subjects, and resists the urge to start asking questions about the job that he's being hired for. He unobtrusively scrutinizes the other runners as they arrive, trying to guage their professionalism. He's slightly relieved to see one or two familiar faces. It's good to work with people who have already proven themselves capable of acting as professionals.

Blackjack strolls up to the gathering of people outside of the building and slows with some trepidation as she gets within several steps, waiting to be acknowledged and invited to join. She bends her head slightly, smiling big at everyone who notices her coming. After a moment, she notices Evan.

"Evan!!" she exclaims. Blackjack runs up the steps, with arms outstretched and a big smile, to greet her friend and give him a big hug.

"Zzztt...zeten...encellophagram, 50 milligrams, stat! Wha? Oh... It's you two." Evans looks up from the sofa at the mildy amused Asian men staring down at him. He wondered why they had to look that way.

"The meet. Come on." One of them hustles him out the door.
"Give me a break, it's still early. Let me hop in the shower first."
"You have a shower here?"
"This is a clinic, you know."
"That was my point."
"Ugh. Five minutes. My stuff's in that case." Evans thumbs the suitcase by the door, packed with his clothes and gear he sorted through last night.
"Five minutes." The men echo as threateningly as they can.
"Right, right. Yawnn...damnit, it's still dark out...wonder what's the rush anyway.

- - - - -

"Careful with him. I don't want to have to bandage him up again."

The men grunt in response as they haul the patient off. Evans turned to the people gathered at the meet and hoped he looked presentable. It felt like it would turn into a run of some sort; he didn't expect less from Jeff.

"Okay, rules of etiquette..." He mumbled to himself. "Uh...look...for most confident person...no, that's not it...look for guy in cha- K-YARGH!"

And the medic gets caught off guard by Blackjack's tackle.

"I'm a medic and I'm not afraid to defend mys-! Oh, wait...is that you, Black? Well, whaddaya know, it is you!" He smiled and returned the hug. "Fancy meeting you here, Blackjack... What's going on here anyway?"

Joli moves towards the motley crew assembled in front. She stands about 5' 8" with short red hair. Her right ear is pierced from top to bottom with small hoops. She pauses at the edge of the crowd. "Morning."

Eric turns at the sound of his previous employer. Sweeping his gaze over the rest of the gathering criminals and social malcontents, he recognizes Evans. The medic and he had made a good team in the past.

After watching the display of affection between Evans and his close friend, Eric steps over to Joli.

"Good morning, ma'am."

Joli smiles at the sight of Eric. "Good to see you again."

The English thief returns the smile.

"So, what brings you to this part of town at such an early hour?" Eric gestures to the growing crowd of professional murderers, thieves and magi. "Tupperware party?"

Joli chuckles. "I need the nuyen, can't find much work out in the real world and the way Sebastian's eating his way through the neighborhood pets, I'm going to need to move soon."

"Sebastian? Oh, yes...you're pet. I had nearly forgotten how my stomach turned when he started eating the guards. You have trained him since then I hope."

Eric looks over the assortment of runners and for the first recognition starts to spark as he sees through the more mundane trappings and recognizes the faces of previous crimes, memories of near antiquity.

"Does a Piazma rip of heads, hell yeah I am up for it. Thanks for the tip Zoe. I'll be there with bells on."

The trid disconnected and the old man with a limp went about securing all the right items in his Opel Marauder. The large vans EFC engine fired to life with it's usual quiet hum. Jester rolled out of his hangar in Tacoma 10 minutes after the call came in. His chrono tolled him that he had 45 minutes to get to the meeting. His onboard nav computer updated his time line. It would be close. He would probably arrive on time though... probably.

Blackjack steps back from hugging Evans and giggles.

"Glad to see you're here, Evans. Look!" she says, pulling her medkit out from her coat enough to let it be seen, "I'm learning."

Seeing Joli coming up, she says, "Hi, Joli!"

Joli nods her head at the greeting. "It seems someone has done their homework on this one. They wanted a team that had worked together before." Joli pauses to give Blackjack a friendly hug. "Either of you know anything about the Johnson on this one?" She takes care to keep her voice low and conversational.

Lowering his voice to a whisper as well, Eric shares what sparse knowledge he has accumulated.

"Friend of a friend, or favors being exchanged in higher places. All I know is that he's Japanese with an answering service on a very polite host. My guess would be Yak. These guys don't have the corporate vibe so much as the attempt at corporate."

Blackjack shakes her head and whispers, "No.. do you?"

Looking at Eric, she whispers, "Yeah maybe."

Jester parked a few blocks away from the meet. The old man rested in the chair for a few minutes. His cyber holster spit out his Glock and he double checked the ammo load out in it.

Jester exited the vehicle, with a mental twitch he activated the van's security alarms and made his way to the the building.

The crowd was obvious on the steps. All of the runners he was sure. He didn't recognize any of them unfortunately.

He stood back, on the edge, not wanting to get to close yet. At 52 he was easily the oldest man there. His short silver hair and crows feet made it obvious. His hip hurt him as he made the walk. The silver cyberleg didn't quite synch right with his movements, causing him to walk with a limp.

"That's, uh, great, I think. I guess I won't be dead if I'm the one shot up. Friends of yours, Black? I only recognize Eric over here." Evans says as he walks over to shake Eric's hand. "Missed you, chum. You did a great job with headware, and the clinic's never been the same without you."

Eric smiles, reflecting back on the various successful surgeries he aided with.

"Just glad I could help. You can always call if you need me. Evans this is Joli. She's an associate of mine from times gone by. Joli this is Evans, a fine street doc and a man of my homeland."

Tombstone looks over to smile and nod to the runners he knows - Blackjack, Jolli, Eric, and Evans. One of his eyebrows raises slightly as he sees the crowd forming on the steps.

"Damn" he thinks. "This must be a pretty big job for them to be bringing so many people into it. And all seasoned pros, by the look of it. I wonder how many more will show up?"

He is almost tempted to ask his host that question, but he knows that showing any signs of impatience will cost him face in their eyes. He's damned if he's going to do that before the negotiations even begin.

The slim Asian man at the door politely breaks off his conversation with Tombstone, glancing out over the streets in an obvious silent headcount. He glances at his watch, smoothing his face abruptly and speaking to the group.

"I had been assured that all prospective members of the team would be on-time, but apparently one member has run into some difficulties. I am sure she will be with us shortly. Please accept my most humble apologies for the delay."

Evans gives Joli the best smile he can and offers his hand.

"Say, any of you knows what's going on here? I was kind of rushed over here without being told of the cause. I can guess it's a run of some sort by the looks of it, but...any idea what it's about?"

Blackjack looks a little flustered and says, "No. You know what? Somebody attacked me online and then had me chase them to an abandoned corner of the matrix just so they could throw me a card with an LTG address on it. It made me mad. Neither the persona nor the icon I met on the LTG told me anything."

Shaking his head, Eric looks over to Evans.

"Like I told Joli, all I know is that a friend of a friend needed me to do some work. She said it was a little too hands on for her taste, and that it felll into the "electrical" category. It makes me think closed circuit computers or B/E--both of which mean running."

Joli shakes Evan's hand. Her grip is warm but uncertain. "I just got a call offering me some work since I'm a little hard up for nuyen at the moment."

She takes a moment to look around. "I was just told to be careful."

"Me too," the old man pipes up when he hears that bit of conversation.

"Handles, Jester. I haven't worked with anyone here before but it looks like I am the only one."

Jester is easily in his fifties with silver hair and crows feet. He walks with a military bearing that a lifetime of marching pounded in to him. He also has a relaxed easy going quality about him, and a perpetual grin, like he is laughing at a joke no one else hears.

The English thief and sometimes decker offers his hand to Jester.

"The name's Eric. This is Joli, Blackjack, and Evans. They're all good people who have watched my back in the past and I've been privileged enough to return the favor."

He is in his late twenties, lightly tanned over a naturally pale complexion. Eric has a nervous habit of constantly looking around at any new noise or flash of light. You get the feeling that he is always ready to run.