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Paris by Night

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Lord Scythican

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« on: <09-24-10/2054:23> »
Okay here is a little taste of my character that I am working on for a campaign I am playing in. I don't usually write sci-fi stories, so this is a little new for me. The story has some stuff in it that is not found in the shadowrun fluff and there is also a little Deus Ex thrown in there for good measure. (like Versalife). Also I took some current news from last week and "futurized" it a little. I hope you all like it! I plan on writing more later!


Paris by Night

                Aydan woke up from his internal sleep mode. He always liked the put his wetware’s hard-drive on sleep during intercontinental transits. It was a necessity considering how I 888, the Alantic Intercontinental Highway could impact one’s mood. It wasn’t the transport that was uncomfortable, because his Honda Kaneda 2021 CB 1500 RXU Bike was designed for comfort. Its reclining seat and auto-transient functions were admirable even for a bike that was considered a classic. Aydan had never cared for the current model bikes. They were designed to use the least amount of energy as possible in order to conserve their charge. To Aydan they were tad bit “dainty”, and looked like they would fall apart if they impacted a curb. No his bike was fine, but traveling on I 888 could take close to eight hours, and at traffic assisted speeds of over 300 MPH, the trip could get a little intense, especially on the back of a jet engine with wheels. Sometimes Aydan liked to get in the fast lane for about 500 MPH so the trip would take closer to 5 hours, but regardless of the speed the trip was pretty intense on the optics.
                Aydan could take any of the Corporate Airlines but that was a little too risky for one of his profession. The Corporate Airlines could be bought or sold at a moment’s notice. In flight scanners could activate and register his black market biomods legal for one corporation or illegal for another. There was no way of telling who was in control or an airline at any giving moment. So Aydan preferred his own transportation for the time being. If he ever worked for one specific corporation he might consider using their airliners, but since he was freelance for now, he thought it would be better to avoid any entanglements. Besides there was something better about having control over your destination that appealed strongly to Aydan.
                Despite his travel preferences, Aydan was close to his destination. He turned off the auto-transient and took Exit 765 for Nantes, France. Aydan had always liked Nantes as a child. At one time it was considered the greenest city in France, but those days were long gone.
                Versalife Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of the Evo Corporation had almost wiped the populous of Nantes in 2056. VersaLife, a commercial behemoth at the time, operated as a pharmaceutical company and specialized in established and theoretical applications of nanotechnology, especially in conjunction with living creatures. They made many products which used nanites, such as nanoaugmentations, nanotech swords, to Ambrosia, a nanite-composed vaccine for the Gray Death. In secret, and in accordance with Majestic 12's plans for world domination, they had also produced the fatal Gray Death virus, a self replicating nanite cloud that when inhaled, people would succumb to Gray Lung, as the tiny nanite machines slowly stripped a person of the carbon it their body in order to self replicate. Versalife wanted to be the source of both the virus and the only working vaccine, so anyone susceptible to the virus was effectively at Majestic 12's mercy. Such was the way of the Megacorporations and it was easy to be squashed like a nanomachine, if you were not careful.
The populace of Nantes had suffered greatly at the hands of Versalife and their Gray Death virus before a group of Shadowrunners exposed Majestic-12’s plans to the world. They had stolen the ambrosia vaccine and gave it out freely to the people of Nantes. Evo Corporations liquidized its assets and shares in Versalife and disavowed any knowledge of Majestic-12 or Versalife’s involvement in the Gray Death virus. In retrospect, Versalife Pharmaceuticals had essentially disappeared from the world. It pissed Aydan off to no end that corporations could get away with the things they did to mankind. However they paid the bills and helped keep his bike on the road. He knew that the people behind the the Gray Death virus were still out there in the world. Majestic-12 was still a threat as well, even if FOX Intercorp News had swept the entire event under the world’s rug. Majestic-12 may have gone back into their shadowgames, but Aydan knew they were still behind many of the big corporations plotting for their control over all.
                Aydan’s gaze shifted from Exit 765 to the streets of Nantes. They buildings were ridden with microscopic holes and in some buildings; the holes were so numerous that the buildings had actually collapsed. They Gray Death virus may have been wiped out by the Ambrosia vaccine, but its effects had essentially turned Nantes into one of the world’s slum cities. The International Emergency Management Agency, or IEMA still operated with Nantes. People needed food and the Gray Death always seem to reemerge every six months or so. All of the major corporations donated annually to IEMA and their “management” of the situation, but to Aydan the whole thing reminded him of someone kicking a powered down bot. No one wanted to invest the billions of credits it would require to rectify the situation. To the corporations, Nantes was a liability and the credits would be better placed in the construction of a new megacity. The constant quarantines that would go up every so often made Nantes a very unwelcoming place to visit. Any inhabitants could apply for an exit visa if they showed no signs of Gray Death nanites in their system for two years, but after almost two decades of this ruse, many of the people gave up trying to leave Nantes. Even Aydan avoided going into the city at all costs and preferred the keep to the sealed Loire Pneumatic Tube that was constructed over Nantes’ main river. The tube still allowed transatlantic traffic to enter France but kept the travelers from the danger of contamination from the quarantined city. Aydan could only gaze at the inhabitants that still lived in the city. There was nothing he could do for them even if he wanted too.
                Exit 765 onto the Loire Pneumatic Tube led Aydan to the European Route 501. Aydan plotted a course for Paris and engaged the auto-transient function. He decided to take a little time and check up on the city’s current events. Focusing his search on Paris, he discovered some reports about the bombing in Paris earlier that day. The bombing had taken place at the annual France Defense Forces (FDF) fund-raising event several hours before Aydan had arrived in France. The event had been postponed last week due to another bombing that had taken place at the Hotel Sofitel Baltimore, where 68 people had been killed in the explosion. According to Le Journal du Dimanche, Ahmaeen Sascrifvot had been captured and detained as a suspect for the previous bombing and the one several hours before. Currently he was being detained at the United Megacorporations Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UMATEC) headquarters in Paris.
                UMATEC was known for policing the world. It was basically a privatized military funded by all of the megacorporations, both large and small. UMATEC could not police any specific megacorporation but they could keep the average citizen from snooping around in that Megacorp’s business. The FDF fundraiser was organized to help fund UMATEC, so one could imagine the treatment that Sascrifvot had already received since his capture after the bombing.  
                Aydan reached down and felt the hilt of his Victorinox Memory Blade. He had made several upgrades to it that would help him in his endeavor. With it and his long list of infiltration skills Aydan would have no trouble acquiring Sascrifvot. However if things got ugly and UMATEC unleashed some heavy bots on him, Aydan might have to rely on his Barret Model 121 Sniper Rifle, which could easy level a building after a dozen shots. Aydan didn’t want to have to rely on this method for his escape but he would level the UMATEC headquarters if it meant avoiding capture. Sascrifvot was Aydan’s friend of twenty years, and he knew that Sascrifvot had nothing to do with the bombings. Aydan knew this for sure, because it was his hand that had set both bombs the day after last year’s events. Aydan was a UMATEC agent himself and he had followed orders to plant both bombs a year in advance. UMATEC’s executives had ordered the bombings to instill chaos in France. The logistics were simple, blow up a few UMATEC soldiers and the people would fear for their lives. Donations would flood out of the average citizen’s bank accounts, anything to restore peace and prevent any future bombings. Aydan was ok with this. It was his job to conspire and create shadow-bombings, but making Sascrifvot the fallguy for these bombings was too much for Aydan.
                Aydan knew that this was probably a set up in order to prove his loyalty to UMATEC, but he wasn’t about to let them get away with this. He would infiltrate UMATEC’s headquarters, rescue Sascrifvot, and exit before anyone knew what hit them. He would keep his identity a secret with the latest self-transponder scrambler he picked up in Old York and his profession as UMATEC shadow-bomber would remain undisclosed. He would have Sascrifvot in Russia by the next day and finally be able to get back to that vacation UMATEC assigned to him last week.  Everything would go according to plan. The only catch would be Sharva. If Sharva would show her pretty little head, everything could come crashing down in minutes…