Snapshot 1
[Sunday June 12th, 2072; Coffee Xtreme, University District, Downtown Seattle]
Her mind traced the patterns of the people moving through the coffee shop almost of its own volition. She watched the ghostly after traces that tracked each and every movement, indelibly lodged in her mind’s eye even if she didn’t pay conscious attention to it all. It was like those long exposure pictures of car headlights at night…each moment drawn out in a sweep of colour but also captured in minute details should she care to think back and analyse it all.
And it wasn’t just the visual clues that her magic tracked. It was buzzing in here for a Sunday morning, the rare sunshine bringing people out in droves. The smells of coffee, both the burnt acrid scent of Kaf and the richer aroma of real coffee, mixed with floral perfumes, slightly unwashed bodies and a host of other scents. The air tasted of energy, the vigorous bustle of people desperately trying to have a good time.
And there she was again. The weird kid, Summer. She stood motionless amongst the all the movement, the patterns diverting around her. Only her eyes followed Silk. It was disturbing to be scrutinised like that, even if she knew that the technomancer was in theory friendly, or neutral at the least. She wanted to blend in, be unnoticed, and someone was bound to remark eventually about her pint sized stalker.
Silk supressed a sigh as she accepted yet another transfer without a tip. It wasn’t that she needed the money and she certainly didn’t begrudge the students holding on to their precious cash but her cover almost demanded that she complain about it to the other staff members later and she really didn’t have the energy.
She was still sore from the procedure and her new muscle fibres were taking some getting used to. She found she had to reign herself in as she moved faster and more gracefully than before but hadn’t adjusted to the feel of them. She had raised more than a few eyebrows when she had caught that falling stack of cups and the last thing she wanted to do was draw attention to herself. All in all this was shaping up to be an interesting day and that curse would always be the bane of a shadowrunner, particularly one that relied on stealth and obfuscation.
Her body, and the magic inherent in it, itched to align itself with the pattern and help her to fade into obscurity. Not for the first time Silk regretted taking a job in such a public place but in order to avoid questions about her real activities she needed a place to be in Seattle and this was the most flexible job she could find in keeping with her supposed role as a student. Well, she was a student in reality but thoughts of her degree had been subsumed by her desire to find the truth about her mother’s death.
Damn Summer, and damn her interference. Silk surreptitiously engaged her ‘link and dialled in the back door code that accessed her work ‘link, a customised Avalon, quietly resting in her apartment several blocks away. The mesh opened before her and she fired up Herne. Although the powers of the agent were severely diminished running through this connection it should be sufficient for this task.
A mental command through the trode net woven into her hair sent the powerful tool on its appointed mission
~Find the biological node of the entity Summer and send her the following message. “I can’t talk here. Meet me outside on my break. You are drawing attention to yourself, and worse, to me. Please leave before people notice.”~
With her back turned to the room she felt Summer get up and leave, noting the change in the feel of the air. She dismissed her feelings of unease for now, she would interrogate the girl later, assuming she did try and contact her when she stopped for a break. She returned to a rowdy group of male students who seemed more interested in her than the coffee, but that was the kind of attention she could deflect without undue concern.
***
A short time later, Silk meandered onto the Green outside the new Arts block. The place was awash with students enjoying the warmth, playing games, reading, most interacting with the matrix despite the ephemeral beauty of the early summer day. Of course an AR overlay would also wash out the litter blowing across the park and the grey tinge to the blighted grass. She extended her senses, feeling the reverberation of the nearby traffic and the hum of human life.
And Summer was there, a point of stillness amongst the tumult. In a teenager such calm was disturbing, although Silk sensed that it was the calm of imposed restraint rather than nature. As Silk approached her she became animated, breaking into a smile that Silk felt was entirely warranted. She spoke more gruffly than she had intended but something about her sparked a nerve
“You found me then? I haven’t got long so what do you want?” Summer’s response masked a shyness that lurked under the surface
“I needed to see you. I have news…”
“About my Mum?” Silk broke in, her stomach clenching at the thought of finally getting something to go on
“No, I’m sorry, not that. It’s about the missing people, the ones you were looking for. I’ve seen them.”
“I… okay, but couldn’t you have sent me a data package? Look, you know what I do, having attention drawn to me is the last thing I need. Give me the info and I will pass it on to the others. If there’s something we can do then you know we will help. Hooding is an established tradition after all.”
“Oh, I know you’ll help. I just wanted to see you, to see if it’s true”
“What’s true?”
“You’ll see” and she smiled coyly up at Silk. Damn hackers, this one was almost as bad as Aria, and trying to follow her mercurial mind was impossible.
***
Silk paused in the door to her apartment, letting her mind subconsciously scrutinise the space for signs of an intruder. Thankfully there were none and she felt her body immediately lose its tenseness as she returned to her sanctum. She tossed her lightweight coat onto the worktop in the kitchenette and poured herself some water from the filter, not being about to trust her system to the crap they pumped in through the mains supply.
The place was spartan, bare of almost any decoration visible to the naked eye. The AR display more than made up for this though and she let the images wash over her now that she was convinced she was alone. A stunning vista of the Seattle skyline opened up before her, one that would never be visible from this cramped student block. Diaphanous curtains wafted in an invisible breeze and the late evening sun struck across a cool marble floor.
Perfunctorily checking her messages in a window she allowed herself a moment to scan through the search material that her fetch had been winnowing off the matrix. Still there was nothing that offered a clue about those harrowing events, over a year old now, and she began to despair of ever finding anything useful. Aria had advised her not to give up hope, that all information was out there somewhere, but Silk suspected it was going to take more than luck to offer them any concrete leads.
***
The virtual Citadel game offered the perfect meeting place for a group of shadowrunners looking for a quiet location to be unobserved. The VR game attracted so many different types that it would be all but impossible to track one small group. In fact the place was so large, metaphorically speaking, and so real when run hot that they had even used some of the game worlds as training exercises before a run.
Silk’s icon was not her usual celtic maiden, she had chosen a medieval far-eastern beauty in diaphanous silks, more appropriate to the setting that were meeting in.
Striding past the Gatekeeper she avoided the throngs in the gathering hall and went to a little used portal in a quiet corner. Using the codes that Aria had provided them with she slipped through a seam in the wall and into the blistering heat and dusty sands of a desert plane. Wind blasted rocks were stark against a violet sky, sculpted into impossible forms. A vizier in heavy robes was waiting for her, Bale, and behind him she could see the others already here.
“I have some news…it looks like we have a location on our missing persons, now we just need to decide if we are going in…”
