To: OperationsDirect@Interpol@------------
From: [Adress Removed]
Re: Sam Riley

I got the following from a recent cellular intercept. This was being dictated into a recorder, from what I can tell. The subject has been working for some time in the shadow community, offering freelance technical services.

-Begin Transcript-

It's hard to keep below the radar these days, with so many eyes out there. It gets to a point where you just duck, and hope that you're only seen by the good guys, though I'm not so convinced there are any good guys left. No, there are some, they're just part of the System, and the System can't be trusted. That's why I'm going International. You start to cross borders and the System gets confused, because then they start fighting over juristiction, and old rivalries start to flare up. Russia might be a possibility, stoke the old fires between the CIA and KGB. Problem there is the KGB's slave to the Russian Mob these days, and those boys aren't part of the System. No, they've got their drek together right. I'd got to the UK, since their internal intelligence is woefull at best, but the food's just aweful, and I can't get over the accents. France might do. Sure, I'll have to slot the linguisoft and pick up the tounge, but maybe I won't. The System would expect me to try and blend in. Maybe I'll be too obvious for them, just be myself, or one of my covers at least. I know they've figured out by now that Sam Riley, the telecom repairman, has slipped their net. I know they're looking for him, but they haven't figured out that he's currently subverting them whenever he can. That's just how it is. They're on my trail, but never quite to me.

I know they'll find me soon. Until then, the hunt's still on.

-End Transcript-

Shortly after this recording, the subject dropped out of our sight. With his indications of intent to travel internationally, I felt it best to forward this to you.

John always knew that he was different than the others, even from childhood. While the rest of his siblings were distracted by butterflies and flickering shadows, he would sit still, uninterested in these games, thinking about things beyond the ability of even his mother to understand. It marked him as very much the odd one out in his litter. It was especially hard for him when his mother abandoned him and his siblings, feeling that they were old enough to be on their own. Although tigers were solitary by nature, _he_ craved companionship, but others had very little patience for one whose mind could never stay focused on the all important necessities of food and safety. Because, his 'language's' sole purpose was centered around events in the here and now, it was usually impossible for him to even begin describing the things he was trying to think about, making his daydream all the more useless.

Then he discovered the humans. Even with the Awakening and advent of the sixth world, life had changed very little in the far corners of rural China. He watched as the bipedal inhabitants of the village engaged in the most interesting activities. Because they kept livestock, it became very easy for him to laze around watching them all day, raiding their chickencoops at night. Doing so made him feel guilty though, because the following day he would see how angry his raids made them, and sometimes men with metal and sticks would come looking for him.

He didn't like that, and thought that if he made a show of deference, they would accept his presence like they did the many small cats he saw living in the village. So he went out hunting, bringing down a fine, buck deer and dragging it into the village in the middle of the day, to leave at the entrance of the lair where the man everyone deferred to lived.

The reaction was not at all what he'd anticipated, with the shouting, screaming, and running. He laid his ears back against his head, but waited for the tumult to lie down, completely surprised when the net came down over his head. That just made everything worse, until calm was restored by an ancient man, whom everyone deferred to despite his absolute lack of physical presence. He declared the tiger a spirit envoy from the Yellow Emperor, sent as a blessing to the village.

The old man took him to his home. He seemed to understand John, but John could not say anything back and he wanted to try and speak back to the old man so badly it became the only thought in his mind. Suddenly he found himself sitting on the floor, in the form of a human child. As time passed, the old wujen taught him to speak, the human way of life, and adopted him as a grandson. John's greatest treasure were the gold rimmed glasses his grandfather used to wear (although the old man was now blind), but gifted to the curious boy. Wearing them made him feel like he had become a genuine human.

Unfortunately, although the village was far off in the hinterlands, it was not cut off completely from the rest of the world, and word eventually reached the right(wrong) ears about the tiger 'shifter living there. A megacorporate team was sent to acquire him. They hadn't expected any resistance from such a backwater locale, and did not know that John's grandfather was a Wujen. In the resulting melee, John was captured, and his grandfather was killed. He was put on a boat with a corporate shipment, which was attacked by pirates just after it reached the ocean. Since they had no awakened support, he was able to talk the pirates into letting him go, although they included the caveat that if he wanted to live, he'd have to join them, and kill the rest of the crew to prove his loyalty. Several members of the team that captured him were part of the crew, and it amazed him how _good_ it felt cutting their throats.

Life wasn't much better as a pirate. They'd been fleeing trouble in Africa, and with the corporate hit they'd just pulled, needed to keep fleeing across the Pacific. They spoke very little Chinese, and entertained themselves by abusing their diminutive new deckhand. He forced himself to keep his temper under control. He knew he was at their mercy for the moment, but he would not forget their disrespect. By the time the ship reached the territory of the Big Sur, John was an accepted member of the crew, and considered a full member of the brotherhood by the time the ship passed through the Panama canal, setting course for the caribbean. Because of his proven talent for interacting with people, he was one of the members sent out to get a feel for the pirating community. What he did was sell them out to their corporate enemies for a hefty payoff, manipulating the crew to be at the right place, at the right time, for him to watch the hammer fall.

He slipped into the CAS, settling into the outskirts of New Orleans where he would actually be among the least of the oddities. It was during this time that he discovered the wonders of digital libraries. His time amongst the pirates had taught him how little he really knew about the world, and they hadn't been ready teachers, but a simple set of 'trodes opened it all up to him. He devoured philosophy, history, sociology, philosophy, supplementing his finances as needed with a little creative larceny. If there was one thing his experiences had taught him, was that few humans had any qualms about preying on each other, so why should he? What he didn't realize was that his activities weren't quite as unobserved as he'd thought they were, and one day he was offered an 'invitation' to take part in a covert operation against a local drug lord. It turned out to be an ultimate deniable asset run, and he was the only survivor, barely. He had to go underground after that, as he planned his revenge against the fixer who had put him under the hammer. This ended with the man and his family trapped in an Americar rigged with incendriaries, and him on the run from the fixer's allies. He had a few contacts still on his side, and they helped him get as far from New Orleans as possible. Neither Seattle or anywhere in the UCAS topped his list of places where he wanted to be, but he wasn't in any position to be choosey.

Setting up in Seattle was not as hard as he'd expected it would be. He'd had to leave his old name, Bao Lao Hu behind, taking the name of John Calvin after a religious philospher whose works he admired. He had to be very careful to keep under the radar, but his natural ability to get along with people smoothed some things along, and helped him work his way into the Shadowrunning game, on his own terms this time.

Aaron Donovan a.k.a. Grendel (Magic Bounty Hunter)

Living happily with his wife and well out of the containment zone, Aaron had always thought of shadowrunners as vile and contemptuous because they kill without asking questions. During the day he taught English at the Chicago Community College and at night he was a loving husband and father. All that changed on August 28, 2057. Aaron and his family where traveling to Davis's Pizza like they did every Tuesday, when out of nowhere comes a group of shadowrunners in a stolen 18-wheeler, Aaron and his family never saw it coming. He woke up in a hospital two and a half weeks later, trying to get out of bed and falling flat on the ground he soon discovered the accident had rendered his legs useless. Shortly after falling out of bed a nurse on duty came by to check up on him, discovering the struggling man on the floor, she called a doctor and after a few minutes of work they had Aaron back in bed. With the grievous look doctors have when they are the bearer of bad new he tells Aaron that he has some stressing news. Upon hearing that his wife and child were killed, Aaron lost it. He began to plot his revenge against who ever had taken his family. After three weeks of physical therapy, and close examination Aaron was asked to leave the hospital when a power bolt from his newly awakened magic ability destroyed several thousand dollars worth of equipment.
Upon arriving home Aaron found that he could no longer live in the place that had brought him so much joy, and he moved in with an old college friend. Jack Forelli was a lonestar officer and when Aaron moved in and started asking questions about who had slain his wife and son, Jack began to worry about the deep psychological effects the accident coupled with his now defunct lower half might have on Aaron. Jack had seen it all to many times, a guy loses his family and the next thing you know he goes and hangs himself in the shower; he thought with little comfort that Aaron could not actually hang himself from anything, since he couldn't reach it. Jack was almost relieved when Aaron bought his first gun, and began practicing with it at the range.
At first Aaron purchased everything through legitimate channels but when his insurance company paid him the remainder of the settlement from the accident his desires in gear turned...less legal. As a way of dealing with the great trauma he had endured he began to think of the Aaron before the accident as a different man, which was not far from the truth anymore. After sometime of acquiring gear his roommate Jack Forelli asked him to move out, partly because of the fact he was a lonestar cop and the things that Aaron had been buying as of late were highly illegal but mainly he couldn't stand to see his old friend take this kind of descent.
On his own Aaron's condition worsened. Moving to Houston a place where his newly acquired street sources had said those responsible for his accident had migrated to, he took up residence in a run down apartment complex called The Laguna Seca Heights on the north side of town. Once he got settled he decided to take a street name due to the nature of his business in Houston and he settled on Grendel because he felt his new shattered view of the world reflected, in many ways the twisted views of The Walker of the World's Weird Wall’s.
The business he had come to Houston to attend to was rapidly approaching. He was on the eve of discovering the exact location of the runners responsible for the death of his family, when his Lonestar friend and former roommate called him and told him the group he was chasing was already dead. The run they were on had back fired and all of that team but a single member had been killed. Still hell bent on revenge Grendel tracked down the last remaining team member and slaughter her. Holding to his namesake the demise of the last team member was all but quick and painless. After finishing what he had made his life’s mission, Grendel was at a crossroads, he could return to his original life of being a school teacher, or he could continue doing what his old self had deemed evil, being a shadowrunner. Deciding that he could no longer go back to the way things were, and vowing not to kill anyone who didn’t deserve it he quickly found work from a local fixer/gang leader Ark Grueli. And thus his life in the shadows began.
Deciding the heat was picking up around the Houston area Grendel migrated to Seattle, where his brother Gerard lives, around 2063. He quickly took to the sprawls hectic way of life and nuzzled his was deep into the shadows. Finding friends had always been easy for Aaron but Grendel had changed so much it was hard for him. Grendel has lived in Seattle ever since doing various runs.

Project: Elite Cyber Security
Archangel: Christian Steele
Project ECS was developed by Aztechnology as an elite shadowrun team. Taking volunteers from its Jaguar guard, the corp loaded them up with SOTA cyberware, bioware and anything else they could put in them. In case things got out of hand, the engineers also emplaced an override CPU, so they could somewhat control these ECS soldiers.
Now the project is getting a facelift, new soldiers, fresh bodies, better cyber. During implacement of the new system, something went wrong. System crash, frying the headware of most of the team, killing most. Of the six original guards and the ten new ones, only five survived and three of them were left with severe brain damage. The orders came to terminate the project were sent down immediately. Archangel didn't know if this meant him and his surviving partner, some rookie without a codename yet.

"Lets go Rook."
"Are they going to terminate us?"
"I don't think so, but I wouldn't put it past them. All I know is this is as good as anytime to cut my ties with them, before the drek really hits the fan."
Picking up weapons of all sorts, the two entered the control room. There about four or five deckers and surgeons stood over the computers, trying to get things operational. They didnt even have a chance to see Archangel raise his SMG, before the supressed auto fire tore them apart.
After quickly striping the arms room of most supplies, the facility was packed with plastic explosives. Being on the ECS team, Archangel had to learn all the ins and outs of all Aztechnology buildings, so getting out undetected would be a sinch. Getting across the boarder, that could prove difficult.

It wasn't easy growing up for Lin. Born as one of the worlds first elves - if arguably a very human-looking one - in Japan, she never did get along well with the rest of her family. She were protected like her brother and sister, but given only marginal attention, as if the strange mutant would go away if ignored. No tears were shed on either side as soon as Lin reached maturity and went away to Tokyo. She neatly severed all ties to her family after signing up for an aptitude test for a scholarship to enter the university. As an exceptionally talented mathematician, she passed with flying colors and even passed for a human long enough to be enrolled and given a scholarship.

She managed to pay for a meagre living in a campus dormitory, studying like so many others for a year and a half before her professors began suspecting what she were. By then of course, they could not really deny her access to classes. They withdrew the scolarships as best they were able, hoping that this alone would be enough to force the strange freak off-campus. Lin had been suspecting that though, and had landed herself a job as a bartender in a small bar frequented by the local underworld. Studying by day and working by night, she managed to alienate the few students who would still relate to her simply by never being around. Not going anywhere to party meant she could make do on less though, and as her finals approached, her bank account was still in the healthy black numbers.

She graduated at an age of 26, in the summer of 2050, with little ceremony. A few of her professors were there for token appearances. Her family was not invited - nor did she suspect they would have cared to come - and Lin set about trying to find a job to put her not inconsiderable skills to work in.

After trying - and failing - for a year to get a job in one of the most Xenophobic cities in the world when it came to metas, an unexpected offer came from one of the patrons in the bar where she were still working. A simple courier job that paid thrice her normal salary. Lin saw a chance and took it. Her new benefactor were a member of the Yakuza and knew talent when he saw it. Proving a knack for getting in and out where everyone else failed, Lin quickly rose through the ranks - high enough that her superiors did not care much when they eventually suspected she were a meta. The secret behind Lins success were that she were awakened. It was a talent she had suspected for some time, but which never really manifested itself until her time in college.

She proved to have an extrodinary aim, and an almost unnerving affinity for killing people dead. Some might theorize that a lifetime of being spurned by humans left her emotionally distanced enough to kill without blinking, but her superiors didn't care much. They saw a potential for an assassin in her, and were quick to put her to the test. Using her magical tricks, she met and surpassed all expactations until eventually her immediate superior decided to invest in a bioware and cyberware packet for his protege.

Lin never suspected a thing. In the Yakuza, you did not ask questions and by the time she realized what were about to happen, she were already drugged and on her way to the operating table. The operation didn't go without a hitch either. The doctors did not suspect she were awakened until it were too late, leaving her with more scars than strictly necessary. When she came to, Lin were smoldering with cold, determined rage at what had been done to her. Even limited as it were now, her magic, raw talent with firearms and utter lack of compassion for the humans whom she felt had betrayed her, it were a trivial matter to kill her immediate superiors - the only ones who really knew who she were.

Afterwards, she made a break from Japan. America seemed as good a place to go as any, and she had enough nuyen for a ticket to Seattle and a few months worth of living. She joined an informal group of magi, initiating once, but not showing up much save for paying her membership dues. She ran in the shadows between 2060 and 2064 for various fixers, specializing in wetwork, but doing a little of everything. She never did stay with one group long, though she had a good business relationship with many. In the end, she found she could not trust most metahumans farther than the range of her rifle.

Rich Hopkins grew up in a good, wholesome home. His father worked security for Ares, while his mom stayed home to take care of the kids. He always did well in school and had tons of friends. But, there was always something wrong about him. He just never seemed to be happy and no one ever knew why. He would have times where he was social and got along with everyone, then others where he would draw back and not want anyone near him.

He went on to Yale and did well for himself there. More and more, he grew distant from the rest of society. He would still have manic states from time to time and he started to struggle with the idea that he may have a form of multiple personality disorder. Just after graduation, a CIA recruiter came to him and offered him a job.

Rich jumped on it. He always dreamed of doing the spy stuff and this gave him an outlet for his mental state. Every day he could be someone different if he really wanted to. He also got to be very very good at what he did. He could get in an out of enemy areas without ever being seen, which in time earned him the nick name of Wraith.

After a while though, his boss patting him on the back just wasn't enough to fulfill him. He started to see that a lot of the information he came across would be worth a lot of money to the right people. For two years he worked both sides of the law and made a lot of money for himself. But like all things, this too had to end.

When he started to suspect that the agency was catching on to his act, Wraith went underground. He had planned for the day this would happen. He made one phone call to a friend of his and like that, Rich Hopkins was dead, as the decker wiped all records of Wraith's old life and initiated the life of Dean Malis, Wraith's new identity. Wraith moved to Seattle after laying low for a while, where he knew his skills would come in handy within the shadows.

Ricky Wallace was your average twentysomething University Student, well, on the outside. See, he Awakened in his early teens, but no one ever knew it. Why? Becuase he's an Adept, and his brand of Adept wasn't even known about widely until recent studies. Ricky is what most would deem a Social Adept. He's got a knack for smoothtalk, and an insatiable desire to use it. Ricky's early applications of his gifts were rather innocent, he took to smalltime huslting in school. He had a reputation for being the guy you went to when you needed something, like test scores, or the ever elusive hall pass. Thing is, that got boring fast, so he started to use his talents elsewhere. He turned to the world of Urban Exploration.

See, every city has its secrets, the places that either time has forgotten, or people would rather you not know about. Ricky became part of an underground society which existed to discover these places, and to plum their depths. He had a simple philosophy: disturb as little as possible. Why break down a door when the window is unlocked? Why pick a lock when you can smooth your way past a guard? He became versed social engineering, even moreso when he discovered his gift, and his voice became his most potent weapon. Everything was cool until he was caught.

Now being caught by the cops, that would be one thing, but instead he was caught by the Russian Mafia. Well, he wasn't as much caught as spotted. He'd been checking out seemingly abandoned warehouses on Vancouver's North Shore, when he came upon a smuggling operation. He was content to sit up in the rafters and watch, maybe take a few pictures for his little corner of Shadowlands, but no, he just had to be seen. And of course the goon who saw him asumed Ricky was a cop, for some dumb reason. So he had to flee the scene, problem was in his haste he had been caught on camera, and the mafiosos used that image to track him down to the BCU, the school he was attending, studying Matrix Architecture.

The hitman must have had a bad day, because he ended up whacking one of Ricky's roommates instead of him. Thing is, the guy thought he was successful, and so must his handlers have, because they didn't send anyone else after our intrepid hero. That didn't do much to bolster Ricky's confidence in his safety, however. So he took to travelling, under the guise of International Study. He's not so keen on the studying anymore, but so long as his folks are paying, it provides decent cover for his most recent activities. While on a trip to Seattle, he was approached by a fixer, who happened to be an associate of one of Ricky's old professors. The professor had been the one to discover Ricky's latent talents, and to explain them to him, and upon finding out Ricky was headed by way of his associate, he'd dropped the man Ricky's name.

Ricky fell into Shadowrunning fairly easy. While he's not too keen on carrying a gun, most often a smile and a few quick words are enough to get him by. For when that fails, there's always gel rounds. He still maintains the cover of being an International student, which means he occassionally has to go to a class, but his old professor keeps the paperwork, provided he keeps in touch.

Gwynn Sawyl was born in the Welsh Wild Zone. Despite it being the tamest of the Wild Zones, life still wasn't easy. But to the Sawyl family, it was theirs. They were for the most part left alone aside from the occasional tax collectors.

The concept of taxation didn't really make sense to Gwynn. It wasn't like the government was doing anything for them that they couldn't do themselves. But that was the way it was, and he let it be. At least until Pendragon came.

Pendragon, with his legendary sword Excalibur. The first time Gwynn heard him speak, he knew that the time for change had come. His parents refused to catch the vision, though. They were too afraid of possible repercussions. But how were things supposed to change if you never took a risk?

Gathering together with like minded people, Gwynn took part in a number of strikes against the authority. With his inherent magical abilities to aid him, he quickly rose to prominence in his group. For his superior marksmanship, he was given the name Lleu Llaw Gyffes (Sure-handed Lleu), after the Welsh hero.

As skillful as he might be, eventually the authorities began to close in. It was only by a warning from Pendragon himself that Lleu was able to get out of the country before the net was closed. Lleu was left across the channel, waiting for the heat to die down...