Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => Fan fiction => Topic started by: Aria on <03-14-12/1331:46>
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We unfortunately lost our GM for part of a pbp thread on the other forum, and as I want to continue to explore the runner team Balefire which I created for it, I’m hopefully going to be posting a series of short pieces of fiction here (I’m aiming at something like the entry fiction in the source books). They will be a series of snapshots of their lives seen through the eyes of the principal character Silk (with perhaps the odd interlude to inject a different view point). They should be self-contained but also build towards a bigger picture so please do yell if anything is confusing or seems to be missing!
I intend to offer glimpses of the metaplot from my Emerging series of pbp games, hints and clues rather than spoilers, and perhaps explore some aspects of the SR universe outside of the normal ‘run environment’.
Thoughts, comments and suggestions very welcome. If there’s a particular scene you’d like to see I’m always open to new inspiration!
By way of some limited background material here are the links to the Balefire runners’ character sheets that are in varying stages of completeness:
<<Balefire Resources>> (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnYw4d165IBNdGtGaTNtTUs3bjRmRlVPVkhDcVVtTXc)
<<Silk>> (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnYw4d165IBNdHk5ZVdsWVdVYzNJa0VmcVhpTVk3OVE)
<<Bale>> (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnYw4d165IBNdHMwc1BQN3l1dXFPZm5lUEpMV3FTVlE)
<<Requiem>> (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnYw4d165IBNdGZFNklXcUNNdDNZblhOZ2p6Q01RTFE)
<<Riptide>> (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnYw4d165IBNdHE2NjI1VWQyV2FqZzZxYWZGWXRzdXc)
<<Opium>> (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnYw4d165IBNdDFsTzFCVm56QWc0dm9iTDAwRk9fb0E)
EDIT: Here's the story in full, renamed: Freedom (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T2x1wwU_mTaXjgPL5ptrsCV_DpG-B1tXmFi6AelELzM/edit)
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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…”
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Very nice scenes, well done. Most of the links in the first post are busted, Balefire Resources was the only one that worked for me.
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Thanks!
Sorry about the links...will try and fix that soon! For now you can probably find most of them in my Archive of Adepts and the link is in my sig.
Chapter 2 is in progress...hopefully have it up soon.
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Snapshot 2
[Tuesday June 14th, 2072; Approaching Elliot Avenue West, Downtown Seattle, from the Sound]
Her heart beat faster as the nightrunner crested another swell. After the debacle in April on the Henry VIII she wasn’t keen on being on the open water again but they had agreed that this was the best approach to the target. If all went well they would hopefully waltz out of the front door when they left. Of course this was a shadowrun so the chances of that were slim, still they had planned for other eventualities.
The lights of Downtown were off to their right and she briefly allowed herself to feel the thrum of life from the sprawl. She noted with interest that the looming bulk of the Arc, vast even at this distance, had more lights on that it had the previous time she was coming in from the west. Perhaps the fear of the place was gradually receding and more was being occupied? She vaguely wondered if the bitter memories of that time would ever truly fade, and along with it the new found fear of the technomancers. She forcibly returned her attention to the dark shoreline ahead.
With a gentle scrape of the keel the nightrunner beached and the small team of runners dropped soundlessly into the wash. Silk felt rather than saw their spread and only the pings on her tactical feed allowed her to locate the others as they moved, cloaked, up the beach and across the now abandoned parkland before the railway tracks.
The smell of brine lingered with her as she crouched in some withered vegetation to do a last check on her equipment. She brushed her fingers lightly across her weapons, sensation only marginally reduced by the ultra-thin gloves she was wearing. The two layers of chameleon coating did an interesting little dance as they reacted to one another before she synced them through her ‘link. Hopefully she wouldn’t have to use them today. Although her natural inclinations had been drummed out of her with the death of her mother, and reinforced by Requiem’s training, she still felt reluctance to deliberately attack another. In particular she felt for the poor saps that they normally came up against in the course of their work; individuals who were trying to earn a living at the heartless beck and call of their corporate masters.
Diagnostics run, tools checked and ready, the team ghosted across the intervening land to their target. It was a four storey office building separated from the shore by the freight tracks that they crossed in sequence with the fast moving cargo trains. The noise, even at this late hour, would add an additional level of security to their approach. Their legwork suggested that on paper this was a low level facility for Sintec and that any resistance should be minimal…of course their other information courtesy of Fractal said that this would be anything but. If their quarry were inside they would be well guarded. Wards prevented an astral sweep so they were relying on a faded set of blueprints that would be verified by a radar sweep once they were on station.
Now for the most unnerving part of the operation, Silk unfurled the wing suit and felt the gentle tug as Bale’s magic boosted her into the air. Her skin tingled as she rode the aerial currents towards the roof. Her senses stretched to their maximum, she absorbed the patterns and let them guide her movements until she landed with a tiny scrunch of gravel.
***
The feed from the tiny drone ahead of her showed that the office below was clear. The duct was impossibly small but no trouble for her enhanced body to deal with. The fibre optic cable led back past her to the roof top providing a breach of the wifi protection that the corp had so carefully installed.
Her fingertips grazed the grille, testing for the minute vibrations that might indicate movement.
<<Breach in 10. Control confirm, do you have the alarms offline?>>
<<Confirmed, breach when ready>>
With Riptide’s reassuring voice in her ears she eased the grille out and with a whispery slither dropped to the floor, her chameleon coated armour making her barely visible in the muted night time lighting.
She set the ultrawideband radar unit down on its tripod and engaged the sweep mode. A rapid pass would hopefully go undetected and confirm the accuracy of their three dimensional model data. She watched as the results plotted themselves on her AR overlay, discrepancies picked out in orange and living personnel highlighted in red…so Fractal’s intel had been correct, this place was much more significant than an office unit.
***
The wind raced in from the Sound through the cut out pane of polyglass along with a flurry of rain drops. With Riptide in control of the alarm feeds to the security spider they had a window of opportunity to make their strike before they were detected. The others lowered themselves down from the roof and cautiously swept their weapons around the room. Silk glanced back from the doorway and slipped into the corridor past the motionless cleaning drone, the self-diagnostic light blinking where it had been put into a perpetual loop.
Taking point she moved at a smooth lope down the centre of the corridor away from the possibility of ricochets and to give her maximum time to respond to anyone stepping out of a side room. Her AR overlay scanned ahead and behind with sub windows for the recon drones and the viewpoints of her fellow runners.
They were three minutes into the insertion and everything was quiet…perhaps too quiet. No signs of wageslaves working late or any security staff. It was almost as if this level was unoccupied…the serried ranks of corp cubicles standing forlorn in the dim blue light.
In the emergency stairwell Silk dispensed with the stairs and simply dropped down the well, trusting in her magic to see her safely down. It was just as well she did as a security guard was heading back up the stairs and she caught a brief glimpse of his bemused face as he sensed the air movement beside him but failed to spot the illusive glimmer of the ruthenium working overtime to conceal Silk’s drop.
The guard turned away as her micro drone buzzed round the corner and she regretfully lined up the targeting reticule on his back and squeezed off a burst. The gun coughed and the gel rounds slammed into his back and hurled him forwards. Requiem, making a more conventional use of the stairs, eased the guard to the floor whilst slipping a tranq patch over his carotid to complete Silk’s handiwork.
<<One down. Start the countdown, we have two minutes to locate the package.>>
***
It was immediately obvious that this was the floor they needed to be on. Gone was the energy saving lighting, everything was bright and sterile, and on the third floor rather than the stereotypical underground lair.
Lab coated technicians looked up in surprise as the gas canisters bounced and rolled before beginning to hiss their intoxicating payload into the atmosphere. With the aircon set to recycle it would fill this level within seconds. One slightly more alert guard reached for a weapon and Bale executed him for his trouble. Silk winced as the lethal rounds abruptly and prematurely ended his existence. She briefly wondered who he was and whether anyone would miss him at the end of the shift…
<<Spider is on to me, I’m bugging out, virus propagating now – sever any connections to the on-site matrix>> Riptide’s alert ensured that they intensified their efforts, and in the next room Silk stopped worrying about what the sec guard’s family might think…they had been doing the world a favour…
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Hope you enjoy the cliffhanger! Part 3 coming soon ;D
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I read it while listening to The Eagles and it was oddly fitting.
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Very very good stuff. If you don't mind my asking, are you male or female?
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Male, although most of the characters I play are female, don't know why, certainly isn't because of any great insight :)
Even being married, women are still mysteries, but perhaps that's the appeal :)
Glad you're enjoying it! More to come...
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Interesting. There is just a touch of that ethereal female quality to your writing, but then also solid elements of how men guys usually write. Don't worry, I don't mean that you sound effete or anything! I think you're very lucky to be able to do that, it makes your writing very interesting. Looking forward to more!
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;D
I'll try and keep the balance of action verses introspection!
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Snapshot 3
[Tuesday June 14th, 2072; Sintec Facility, Downtown Seattle]
The maglock was isolated from the system so Riptide had no access to it. Silk crouched down and with a deft swipe of a laser cutter freed the cover plate to expose the delicate circuitry beyond. Allowing her breathing to slow she extended her fingertips out, hovering them just above the guts of the machine. She traced the patterns in her mind, discerning the necessary changes that would trigger the door to open. With a flash of clarity she extended a microelectronics probe and with a flurry of movements that belied her stillness the door indicator changed to a steady green.
The air hissed out as the seals were broken, a waft of metallic gasses that had nothing to do with the narcotics they had pumped into the nearby rooms. Although the lighting was bright Silk wasn’t concerned about being seen as she slunk down the short corridor. Her suit would mask any thermal signature and the ruthenium polymers rendered her all but invisible. A subtle change in the flooring warned her of a pressure sensor, presumably to activate the door ahead.
Riptides warning about the system spider and alarm flashed across her vision and galvanised the team into speed over stealth. Silk gestured for Requiem to come forward, his hardened military armour making him the obvious choice to barge into the unknown. His wires allowed him to glide forward with unnatural grace, his own chameleon system blending into the hard white floor tiles and plastisol corridor walls.
They ghosted through, Requiem automatically peeling to left while Silk slipped to the right in a crouch. They were on a raised balcony overlooking a lab on the floor below them. Large pieces of air handling units and ductwork obscured their view but they could still see the sensory tanks and a glass enclosed operating theatre. Silks augmented vision did her little favours here and she had to force down the desire to gag at the sights below them.
As she watched guards scrambling to stop their incursion she became aware of the lack of the typical blaze of wifi signals, her tactical network was frantically signalling that it had lost contact with the others as they entered the room. She briefly regretted not having time to change to some more vindictive ammo before she gently squeezed the trigger of the smartgun and sent a flurry of sound suppressed fire towards their foes. She made the mental switch after seeing what was happening below, these were no longer people just doing their jobs, now they were the enemy.
The staccato bark of Requiem’s rifle dropped two of their assailants in a welter of blood, the armour piercing rounds being far more effective than the gel rounds from Silk’s weapon. As Bale joined them he too took a startled moment to take in the scene and then, what could be seen of his face locked in a rictus of anger and pain, he fired on the guards. They took the hint and retreated back to seek better cover.
To cut them off Silk launcher herself into the air, did a flip to bring her feet back under her and landed neatly on the roof of the operating theatre. The glass held, as she had suspected it would, and she found herself looking down into the acne covered face of the junior tech inside. On the table behind him was a girl, somewhere in her mid-teens. Silk’s facial recog flagged her as Emma, one of their targets who was taken in the raid on the Freedom hacker tribe. Silk knew that she would remember the look on that girl’s face in many sleepless nights to come. Her pallid shaved head had numerous surgical probes rammed into it and she appeared almost skeletal, wasted away under the barrage of Gods knew what tortures she had been subjected to.
Without any feeling of pity Silk drew her sidearm and fired through the glass at the tech. The sabotted rounds were barely deflected by the transition through the glass. At close range she witnessed the ruin of his hopes and dreams and couldn’t find it in herself to care… She would berate herself for her unprofessionalism later; he wasn’t a threat after all, and there were more pressing targets but she was filled with contempt for this corper and what he was doing to that poor girl…perhaps there were benefits to the detachment that Requiem had been trying to drum into her, she might not have forgotten herself for that brief moment…
A whirring sound made her jerk her head away from the grisly scene below her,
“Drone! Rail drone incoming!” she yelled at the others, mentally cursing their reliance on tech to communicate urgent messages. The intensive training they had been through however meant that they were in tune with one another, and although they probably couldn’t hear her through her respirator and over the sound of gunfire, they saw the threat almost as quickly as she did.
The runners scattered, Riptide retreating to guard their exit whilst Bale and Requiem split along either side of the gantry. Requiem charged down the stairs towards the retreating guards, relying on his armour and concealment to foil their attempts to bring him down. Bale stood tall and faced the drone. Flinging an arm out he let rip a scintillating bar of light that shrieked as it super cooled the air it passed through. The drone came to an abrupt halt and he was just turning away having killed it when the high velocity rounds spat from the underslung machine gun and stitched a pattern across the wall and then him.
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I suspect the last snapshot is slightly less ephermal, but hopefully still enjoyable!
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You can't stop with a cliffhanger, you evil man ;)
Rasmus
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Best place to stop ;D
I think the links at the beginning of the thread should be working again now for anyone interested...
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Snapshot 4
[Tuesday June 14th, 2072; Sintec Facility, Downtown Seattle]
Silk spun round as Bale fell and time seemed to dilate. With calm determination she levelled her Scorpion at the drone that had killed him and fired. Normally the tiny calibre rounds would have been deflected but in this case they had been replaced by tungsten penetrators that easily found the ammo drum of the machine gun and cooked off what remained of its supply. Molten shards of weapon went whickering through the overhead ductwork.
Miraculously Bale struggled to his feet and waved a feeble all clear down at them but it was evident that he would now be as much of a hindrance to their escape as the recumbent test subjects around the room.
With precious time slipping away Requiem drew his customised hand cannons, vicious matte black Guardians, and launched himself into the centre of the remaining guards. The gyros on his wrists stabilised the weapons as they danced a brutal weave of fire through the last defenders.
Silence momentarily fell apart from the pinging of hot metal above them and the breathless panting of the two remaining techs who were scrabbling out from behind the pods they had been cowering behind and were making for an adjoining room. With a silent snarl Silk leapt, swung off an overhead duct and with a deflection from a wall mounted cylinder, landed between them and the door. She mentally flipped the ruthenium coating on her armour and she became a figure of darkness, the coating seeming to absorb the light, apart that is from the feral glow of eyes in the faceplate of the helmet she wore.
The techs froze and then began to back away with their arms held clear of their bodies, only to bump into the armoured form of Requiem who had similarly appeared like a spectre behind them. With undignified whimpers they slipped to the floor with their hands cradled protectively around their heads.
With containment temporarily in hand Silk approached one of the workstations and connecting her link, sent Herne into the system to dredge up all the information on their targets. A bleak tally was projected into Silk’s mind’s eye as the agent rifled the corp’s hardline system. It would seem that the test subjects in this room were the only ones here left alive of the original nine who had been taken.
While a meaningless stream of medical data filled the data files Silk gazed sorrowfully into one of the sensory pods at the victim strapped down inside. The face of the young man was set in a ghastly rictus that was painful to look at.
“We can’t just drag them out, who knows what will happen to them…” She pushed her gun into the temple of the older tech kneeling in an expanding pool “Wake them up now, don’t and you die.” The voice mask made her voice deeper, more threatening, but probably nothing compared to the looming barrel.
“I, I can’t…they are deeply immersed, the shock could kill them…”
“You are already killing them! We walk out with them now or you never walk out again.”
In hindsight this would probably sound melodramatic and over the top, but then Silk hadn’t brushed up on intimidation techniques and she didn’t have time for a more subtle argument. The gun was doing most of the talking for the quivering wageslave anyway. With a little bit of rough assistance from Requiem he made it to his feet and approached a central bank of computer equipment. What Silk vaguely recognised as brainwave maps slowly changed as he fiddled with the AR controls. In the pods they began to stir and dimly heard cries of distress filtered into the room.
“And turn the jamming off!”
Another flurry of commands and suddenly the tactical feeds blazed back into being as the severed wifi links re-enabled. Riptide’s voice immediately came across the comm.
<<We have company. Looks like a tactical team arriving at the front. They haven’t flagged this with KE so I guess they intend to deal with us themselves. I estimate we have five more minutes before they begin the assault>>
<<Ok. We knew the chances of making it look like we were never here were slim indeed. Judging by the feeds they don’t have enough people to sweep the building thoroughly yet so we will try and divert around them and still go with exit plan A. Get ready with those distractions. There is still a spider in here with us somewhere, we need to take out his eyes otherwise they will lead them straight to us>>
<<With the jamming off this system is mine! Attach the wifi bridge to a socket and I’ll flash this virus through it, should give us time while they reboot>>
Silk did as she was bid whilst Requiem and the limping Bale began to help the woozy victims out of their pods.
***
They staggered through the corridor on the floor below the lab, Requiem leading and the other three supporting the five test subjects. On cue the air was suddenly sucked backwards towards the impromptu hole in the ceiling they had just descended through. The white phosphorous would be spreading in an incandescent sheet across the lab, the automatic fire suppression systems would only spread the stuff around further. It would burn out any forensic evidence and hopefully destroy any data the corp had gathered so far.
They were hampered by the general condition, or lack of, of their targets who were weak and disorientated. Silk, who was barely able to get Emma to stand, looked worriedly at the girl, her condition was deteriorating rapidly and her breathing was coming in ragged gasps. They had hesitated to subject them to further chemicals but it looked like stims might be their only option.
Opium’s voice sounded in their ears <<The tac team obviously know about the fire, they are proceeding more cautiously and I would say they don’t yet know where you are. I am ready to neutralise their command vehicle when you are ready>>
Riptide’s response was decidedly less reserved <<Suckers are using last year’s encryption. I’ve broken in and I’ll tweak their tacnet to lead them on a wild dance. Once they split up I might even be able to get them to shoot each other!>>
Things were becoming ridiculously tight but Silk was still confident that they would make it out, the trick would be doing it without further harm coming to the innocents with them. Breaching the lift shaft ahead they prepared to descend to the parking garage below. The lifts themselves would have been fried by Riptide’s virus so they provided a handy escape route. Whilst she anticipated that the onsite spider would be trying to regain control of the system the virus was virulent enough to resist attempts to eradicate it, which, coupled with the fire above should buy them some time.
***
Silk eased herself through the impossibly small gap in the lift doors. The car park seemed to be deserted for now with no sign of their hunters. This grace period couldn’t last much longer before they called in significant reinforcements. Bale was struggling even further after using his power to help stabilise their charges down the precarious climb and Silk was concerned that he was hiding the extent of his injuries from them.
The corp motor pool was as expected, and stashed between them were the two Rovers they had arranged to be delivered this morning. They responded to the open commands and the runners gratefully bundled in with their charges in tow.
<<We are set, take out the command vehicle now>>
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I'm trying not to go overboard with this one...if anyone thinks I need a sanity check then let me know :)
More to come soon!
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no'p your good keep it going
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The links do indeed work now. Good writing and good room clearing tactics as well. I don't check in as often as I should but good work.
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Snapshot 5
[Tuesday June 14th, 2072; Under the Sintec Facility, Downtown Seattle]
Silk watched the tactical feed that indicated one of Opium’s aerial drones circling in towards the corpsec team’s Citymaster. A blinking light indicated the launch of the stick-on jammer that spiralled down and attached itself to the vehicle’s roof. Following pre-programmed instructions two micro drones detached themselves from the cradle they had been carried down in and headed for the wheel arches. The detonations would be barely audible from outside but hopefully the damage to the vehicle axels would prevent that vehicle at least from giving chase.
The Rovers they were in accelerated smoothly towards the exit ramp. If Riptide’s tinkering had done its work properly the barrier should have retracted, if not this was going to be a very short trip. Behind them two of the motor pool whirred into life as Riptide overrode their dog brains and programmed in decoy routes that would help to mask the runner’s escape.
Silk silently cursed to herself as they sped up the ramp. She prided herself and her team on being in and out of run with nobody being any the wiser. In this case the necessity of rescuing the test subjects meant that was impossible, but they were still leaving too much evidence of their presence behind them. They had prepped as much as possible to ensure anything they left behind wouldn’t lead directly back to them but there was always the chance of a slip up…and Sintec would be none too pleased with the removal of their prizes.
The Rover’s engines echoed eerily in the concrete confines of the parking garage, coupled with the squeal of the overlarge tyres as they fought for purchase against Requiem’s not so gentle driving style. As they made the final approach to the exit ramp Silk swore as Emma struck her in the side of the head, that quickly turned to concern as the girl began to writhe
“She’s fitting, damn, this medkit isn’t equipped to deal with the sort of abuse these people have been put through”
The other two captives looked at her in mute appeal. They still didn’t seem capable of coherent speech but she was fairly certain she understood their meaning.
“Stop the car, we need to get her stable before we head out. I know it’s a risk but I’m not prepared to leave her here to die.”
Requiem slung the car over to the side of the ramp and, muttering to himself, unlimbered his assault rifle and propped it on the window “Just in case the fraggers come down here…”
Bale’s concerned tones came over the comm from the Rover ahead of them
<<What’s the hold up?>>
<<One of the packages is in distress, administering aid, won’t be long…I hope>>
***
With rudimentary medical aid offered, about the best that could be achieved in the back of a vehicle with a portable medkit, Silk held Emma tight to stop her hurting herself. She felt tears of frustration in the corners of her eyes and she was glad of the inhuman helmet masking her from her fellow runners and the people they had come here to extract.
The pattern was becoming frayed and Silk felt more and more as if they were losing control of the situation. This was hardly helped by the sudden proliferation of red AROs across the tactical display
<<They’ve found you. Get out now>>
Opium’s worried communication was drowned out by Requiem’s more succinct “Shit!”
The delay with helping Emma had clearly given the corp tac team sufficient time to work out that the runners were still in the building. The feed coming in from Opium indicated a squad making its way around the outside of the building towards the garage exit whilst another team leapfrogged out of the service exit from inside. They were calm and professional, moving with purpose towards the stalled runners.
<<I’m releasing the cats. Engaging in 5. Switch to secondary frequencies>>
Opium’s terrifying cat drones, the size and ferocity of small tigers, would be bounding towards the corpers outside. With their ruthenium coatings coupled with the projected howls they hopefully wouldn’t realise what hit them. That just left the ones inside the garage to deal with…
***
Fire lanced towards the runners from the opposing team sheltering in the parked cars some twenty meters or so into the garage. The whickering thuds of stray rounds suggested that they were using armour penetrators which didn’t bode well at all for Silk and her crew. Whilst the Rovers they were in had a modicum of armour they hadn’t been subjected to the rigorous customisation that the team would normally have performed on their vehicles.
Emma’s struggles had subsided but now they had a new difficulty as repeated shots struck the rear wheels, shredding even the runflat tyres that would have withstood more conventional rounds. In desperation the runners had released thermal smoke grenades to mask their retreat.
“Out, get out now, follow him towards the ramp” Silk urged the bewildered test subjects as she staggered out with Emma, trying to support Emma as she did so. Keeping the now riddled Rover between them and their opposition was only possible because of the tactical positioning mapped over her vision. Ghostly AROs advised on the safest route out based on the current data.
Ahead of them Riptide and Bale were firing blindly over their heads towards the corpers in a vain attempt to provide them some additional cover. The staccato whisper of silenced fire echoed strangely in the underground space.
Suddenly Emma became a dead weight against Silk’s side and then collapsed forwards. Silk stumbled down beside her only to feel a searing heat across her shoulder and a haze come across her vision. The shock of the impact didn’t register as pain and looking down she could see where the round her cored cleanly through her upper torso. This was hopeless, she relied on mobility and hampered by their charges she was a sitting target. Looking down she could see that Emma’s troubles were over and she felt a pang of regret that she had been unable to save her…the other emotions would come later when the adrenalin wasn’t driving her on.
Bale took charge of the situation, his words overriding the confusion running through the team
<<We can’t do this by running, we have to take the fight back to them before they take out the packages. They aren’t equipped to deal with this combat and if we try to protect them directly they will get us all killed!>>
<<On it, Cobalt is inbound>>
The smoke swirled as a vaguely glimpsed shape sprang over Silk, it’s rear claws striking sparks from the roof of the stricken Rover as it launched forwards. The mounted high velocity rifle on its back shrieked in a rising crescendo with the dreadful howl projected from speakers in its maw. Silk engaged her chameleon suit once more, noting briefly the damage to the sensors and she leapt effortlessly upwards to cling like a gecko to an overhead beam. She nearly plunged back to the ground as her injured shoulder grated and only her innate sense of her body allowed her to cling to the metal.
Below her Requiem’s cloaked form charged back down the ramp with his Guardians blazing in a weird double flamed image, the muzzle flashes reflected in his suit. A round appeared from nowhere through the smoke and struck his leg and his biomonitor feed in Silk’s vision spiked an alarming amount. Despite that his wires drove him on, ignoring the injury…
-
Snapshot 6
[Tuesday June 14th, 2072; Under the Sintec Facility, Downtown Seattle]
The quiet was shattered by a sudden grinding and then crash as a rent wing mirror finally gave up its fight against gravity and crashed down on the still form of one of the corpsec team. Cobalt’s high velocity rifle spun slowly to a stop, the barrels glowing a dim red against the darkness of the chameleon cloaked form.
Bale’s voice came weakly across the comm
<<Sound off, who’s still here?>>
<<Still alive, barely>> Requiem
<<Yes, I’m still here>> Silk replied
<<Now let’s get the frag out>> Riptide
<<Amen! Sounds like they’ve finally realised we’re too much to handle. A call went out to Knight Errant and they are inbound. We do not want to tangle with them! I’m recalling my drones and bugging out, see you at the rendezvous>>
Silk struggled out from behind the crumbling car that had been sheltering her, favouring her shoulder and inwardly wincing at the sticky feeling of blood that was restricting her movements. Her mind instinctively catalogued her surroundings, the ruined bodies and the traces of the fight in the smells of cordite and the streaks left in concrete and vehicles from stray rounds. Her chrono and senses told her that the fight had lasted a brutal twenty seconds, no more, it was the strange effect of ‘combat time’ that made it feel so much longer.
<<Are our charges ok? We lost Emma, did the others make it?>>
<<For now. Sam is injured but he’ll live. You take the decoy Rover. We’ll jam your signal through the link and we can scrub the vehicle for tags once we are a distance away, or just ditch it>>
So they had rescued four of the nine, and the cost was higher still considering the damage these bastards did to the tribe when they came hunting. The loss of a research lab would barely dent Sintec’s bottom line but hopefully liberating these people would slow whatever their foul research hoped to achieve. There was even a chance that they had their data backed up on site, the fire above them might eat through their servers and cause significant harm.
***
About a mile from the rendezvous Silk and Requiem pulled over. As far as they could tell they had avoided pursuit for now but given they were using one of Sintec’s motor pool it seemed prudent to change vehicles now rather than spend the time trying to clean it for digital tags. It wouldn’t take long for Knight Errant to track their route through the gridguide cams if they wanted to, it depended on how much Sintec wanted to involve them, so this underpass offered them a momentary haven.
Levering herself gingerly out of the passenger seat Silk climbed down. She lifted the helmet away from her head, wiping the sweaty strands of hair off her face and drying any traces of tears. Requiem was limping badly and the people they had liberated weren’t in much better shape.
Peeling back the blood soaked armour it took all of Silk’s willpower to stop herself crying out. Even then a whimper escaped her as the medpatch was stuck on just over the reddened flesh around the exit wound. At least the round had gone through cleanly and she still seemed to have some use of her arm. She had been shot a couple of times before and it wasn’t something that she particularly wanted to repeat. Usually the work that they did was more successful and everyone walked away unscathed.
While first aid was applied to all their wounds a signal was sent out to their backup vehicle; a basic Americar that had been tasked with circling the run site on a random route waiting for their call. The thrum of its ethanol engine was very welcome and the four of them climbed in onto the plastic sheets thoughtfully spread across the interior to catch any rogue forensic evidence.
***
As they pulled up beside Opium’s Hermes van Silk took particular note of the feed from the invisible gasbag drone hovering above them. It provided a reassuring degree of aerial surveillance for a significant distance around them, and barring milspec grade sensors, should be more or less undetectable. She had been taught not to rely on it, but it felt good to have the tactical grid up again. Tonight’s activities were proof enough that it sometimes was unavailable and there was always the risk of it being compromised as Riptide had done to their opponents.
The team’s Roadmaster was also there and this would make a more convenient meeting place for the team and the people they had rescued. Opium would join them via AR feed as usual; the illusive hacker could be the other side of the world for all that Silk knew. She did know that her skills and the drones she manipulated with them had saved their collective arses tonight.
Wearily the runners gathered in the back of the truck, gratefully slumping into the comfortable seats installed for just that purpose.
Bale stood as they clambered on board and helped them in one by one. He gruffly indicated that Silk should peel the remainder of her armour off, and sitting in her underwear she withstood the numb stares of the people they had liberated. Requiem received similar treatment, gingerly removing his armour and the body glove under it. Silk watched once more in amazement as Bale worked his magic, the wounds in Requiem’s leg visibly scarring over under the gentle blue light that emanated from Bale’s palms.
By the time he was finished he was staggering from exhaustion but the worst of their injuries where nothing more than painful memories. That wasn’t to say they weren’t hurting, if another significant threat came after them now they would probably just stare at it as it ripped through them.
***
After the brief rest that was all Bale would allow them he addressed their charges
“Sam, Casie, John, David…” the bewildered quartet just nodded mutely “We’re going to take you back to Prospero now. The tribe had to move on after the attack and they’ve relocated to the south so don’t worry if you don’t recognise where you’re going. You’re safe now with us. I’m Bale, this is Silk, Requiem and Riptide in the front. Opium’s out there somewhere” he gestured vaguely “keeping an eye on us all. There will be time for questions later, just take it easy now and we’ll get you home. If there’s anything you need let one of us know…”
-
Another installment...things are winding down, or are they?!?
For those of you taking the time to read this would you be interested in some of the other runner's perspectives?
I'm also considering putting up some prequel stuff that explains a bit more about Balefire's history if that might be of interest?
Lemme know!
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Honestly it's been really interesting writing so far and while I've been enjoying Silk's perspective, I really just want to read more of your work. The team seems like a good group of pros and it's interesting to see them work.
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Thanks :)
I'm much more mirrorshades than mohawks and my characters have always leant towards the 'pro' angle...not many former gangers...quite a few come from an 'ordinary' background because i've always liked that aspect
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Snapshot 7
[Tuesday June 14th, 2072; Meridian Ave E - Heading South, Seattle]
Requiem watched Bale as he healed the group, marvelling again at the ease with which the magic sorted their ills. Of course magic had been known to cause them too and whilst he wasn’t one of those who wished it had never come back, he was a bloody elf after all, he could have done without it.
He looked briefly over at Silk and resisted the impulse to comfort her. The sight of blood on her lithe body made him feel uncomfortable and he regretted again that their relationship had changed the dynamic between them. He was old enough to be her father, he certainly felt old enough right now, but outwardly his heritage meant that she hadn’t seen him that way and he had been grateful for the attention.
He pushed the thoughts aside. He was a professional and he would not let things cloud his judgement. Time to focus on the present and the completion of this run. The diagnostics floating across his vision told him that his ‘ware was in working order, guns were reloaded and ready to go, all in all things were smoother than might be expected given the opposition they had faced.
***
Riptide finished his sweep of the dense web of signals surrounding them and was satisfied that there was nothing out of the ordinary out there. The grid was thinning out as they approached the barrens and the affluent downtown areas were left behind. Leaving an agent monitoring signal traffic he mentally waved off the AR images and rubbed his tired eyes.
There was no denying the fact that they had been lucky this evening. The system had detected his meddling far faster than he might have expected and there were clearly bigger backers to Sintec than their initial research had suggested. There had always been that risk in the back of his mind, it would have been unusual for such a relatively small enterprise to have the balls to snatch technos of the street; that was usually the hallmark of the megas.
But luck only got you so far and their training had enabled them to get out moderately unscathed. As a test of their abilities as a team this had pushed them and they would be stronger for it.
***
Bale looked over his charges with a proprietary air. They had been lucky to get through this one intact and he was glad of the training they had put in beforehand that had enabled them to work like a well-oiled team. There were still areas open to improvement, and there always would be, but he was satisfied that no major flaws were evident.
He felt Sirene’s satisfied approval in the back of his mind and not for the first time wondered at her influence over him and, by extension, his team. He didn’t regret the pact that he had made with the spirit as it gave them one more edge over the opposition. Given the stakes that they would be playing for, any edge could make the difference. She had been right about getting Balefire back together, it offered them the best chance of flushing out his brother’s killer and he’d be damned if he would let that one rest.
He winced as Silk tightened the last of the bandages across his abdomen. Whilst normally he might have been expected to comment on everyone’s state of relative undress he was just too damn tired. He had given up on the magical healing for now; he needed a long rest if he wasn’t going to pass out from drain.
He assessed the reactions of the people they had liberated but they seemed to be almost catatonic. Whatever those bastards at Sintec had been doing it would take more than their rescue to put things right. But he was no psychologist and he would be just as glad to get them off his hands and back to their tribe. Pro bono work would be good for their rep but after this little fracas they would need to lay low for a while and that would put a pinch on their resources.
Opium’s normally bouncy voice came across the comm
<<Time to change rides if we are heading into the barrens. I’ve got you lined up with a couple of bone shakers but they will be less conspicuous than the Roadmaster.>>
<<Thanks O. We’re ready to move out when you are. I’ll be glad to be shot of this run.>>
Swinging himself out of the bucket seat he grabbed the stirrup hanging from the ceiling and addressed the others in his best ‘calm in the face of adversity’ voice.
“Ok, we’re ready to switch vehicles and then it’s a short hop to where the tribe have set themselves up. You’ll be safe once you are back with them, they won’t let those corporate bastards close again. We’ve taken all the precautions we can to move undetected but the last stretch will be underground I’m afraid which might be a bit rough going. It’s the best way to shake any last aerial surveillance they might have managed to slip past our sensor watch.”
***
Opium watched through her sensors as the runners piled out of the Roadmaster and made their way over to the two old-model land rovers parked on the forecourt of an abandoned garage. Her diminutive form wilted back against the smart padding of her cocoon and she finally began to allow herself to think this might just end well.
They had thrown considerable resources at this run and it had only just been enough. Her family would have scoffed at her for her materialism but this was about more than that, this was about the opportunity to do something. She briefly missed the physical camaraderie of the clan but recognised that she wasn’t quite ready to reveal herself to Silk and the others just yet. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust them, just it was something that would only complicate things and she preferred them to see her skill with her drones rather than her size and the lurking Disney image that seemed to be associated with her kind.
The internal sensors showed the previously flagging runners gather themselves and prepare for the last stage of this endeavour. They should be able to get the technos back to their tribe safely, subject to the vagaries of travel in the barrens, and she didn’t anticipate any further entanglements with Sintec. The combination of the virulent programs that Riptide had seeded through their system and her efforts at blocking external surveillance should put them in the clear.
***
Silk sat in the back of the bumping vehicle and let the back wash of air ruffle her hair and blow the last vestiges of sweat and fear away. She cradled the smartgun in her lap and ranged her vision across their back trail looking for any sign of pursuit. Her augmented senses absorbed the patterns in the ash filled air, in the derelict buildings and the withered trees. There was an ethereal beauty to the Puyallup barrens that wasn’t visible in the desperation of the Redmond equivalent.
About a mile from their final target they pulled over and Silk helped Casie down from the truck, gently supporting her arm as she wobbled. “Nearly there” she whispered, as much to herself as to the shocked girl she was guiding.
Leading the way into an abandoned mall building she followed the AR map projected in front of her. This place had once been a bustling hub of rampant commerce until the ash flows had swept it all away. Inside there was the usual array of gang graffiti but little else that might indicate the place was occupied. Once into the basement area she led them to the storm drain that would eventually take them to the tribe that eagerly awaited them.
***
Silk smiled as they were all swept up in the rapturous greeting. She let the energy of the tribe wash over her, enjoying the feel of peace that came with it. She recognised the tinge of sadness too, these people had suffered recently and nothing more than time would make that okay.
Briefly she considered that their escape might have been too easy but she also knew that the precautions they had taken were by some of the best that she had ever worked with, perhaps even better than the original Balefire team. There was nothing they could do about it now, either Sintec would come after them for the damage they had dealt or they wouldn’t. They would just have to deal with it as it came. For now it was time to rest and lie low and this seemed as good a place as any.
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And so that rounds off snapshots for now...I will try to get a full version up on Google docs and link it at the top for anyone who wants to read it complete.
I've also renamed it 'Freedom' and it will be one section of fiction about the Balefire team. A prequel is in the works and I have more ideas lined up.
Hope you've enjoyed it so far!