《Freezing Shadows (A Fantasy Cyberpunk LitRPG Story)》 Book 1 Prologue - Nothing to Lose Honestly, it could have been worse. That wasn¡¯t just me putting on a false sense of bravado, or trying to make light of things. It was a simple fact that, yes, things could have been so much worse than they were. For instance, if I¡¯d been hit just a bit higher up, then I would have bled out before they could get me to the hospital, and then the government wouldn¡¯t be shelling out the money for my experimental treatment. So instead of someone getting their budget slashed because the courts were making them pay to take care of me for the rest of my life, they¡¯d just be down the cost of a casket. Another casket. There were already three they were paying for, after all. Two were my parents. At least it was quick. Squished flat. Tank rolling across the front of the car like it was at a monster truck rally will do that. The third casket was for the poor scrub who was just walking down the street, wrong place, wrong time. Another car swerved, the driver making the easy choice between driving on the sidewalk and playing chicken with a tank. That poor girl was the reason I knew it could have been worse. Apparently, she had just gotten engaged, and died in her man¡¯s arms, because life likes irony sometimes. Of course, that much should have been obvious, since my whole life had been thrown on its fucking head by a damn tank going on a rampage through downtown. On a fucking Tuesday, of all things! Like, couldn¡¯t even be bothered to wait for the weekend before going on a fucking bender? That was part of the reason the government was shelling out money for my care, actually. Didn¡¯t know all the details, but apparently someone found out they were getting in trouble for something or other, and they decided that if they were going to go down, they¡¯d make it worth it. So, they went and got shitfaced, before stealing a tank from the motor pool down at the National Guard depot, and running the streets like it was a fucking video game. That kind of shit made all kinds of bad press, obviously. Lots of people real deep in their feelings looking for the easy win of dunking on the military and everyone responsible. Last I heard, the driver of the tank was going away for a long, long time, and even if they got out, their kids would be paying of the debt fifty years from now. If they had kids. That was the real reason I was getting all the special treatment after all. Dawn of the 2030s, the ¡®Y Plague¡¯ hit, worldwide. Officially, no one knew where it came from, but anyone with two brain cells put together knew it was made in a lab somewhere. Some doomsday bioweapon, naturally. Just a bit of deterrence in the global game of superpowers against superpowers. Standard shit, really. So, like all stories of this sort go, some dumbass got careless, and a lab accident let the bug loose. And it quickly earned its name. See, the Y Plague was a nasty as shit piece of work, modified version of Ebola targeting the Y chromosome in all humans, and ramping the progression of the disease once it ¡®triggered¡¯ up to 11. Like a good bioweapon, it had a long latency period, when people were infectious, but didn¡¯t show signs. By the time anyone started getting sick, it was too late. About ninety percent of the human race was already infected, and men were dying as their organs liquified.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Not that women were unaffected. Oh, sure, they didn¡¯t drop dead with their organs leaking through every orifice, but that didn¡¯t mean they were off the hook (even if you ignored the therapy bills). See, the nasty part of the Y Plague wasn¡¯t that it killed, but that anyone who didn¡¯t have a Y chromosome became a carrier. Nasty shit, like I said. But it wasn¡¯t like the human race was in a death spiral, not yet. Ten percent of the male population either shook off the plague, thanks to getting a shitload of cutting-edge medicines that governments were stockpiling for just this kind of situation, or had a natural immunity. Of those survivors, though, roughly two in ten managed to avoid sterilization. Everyone else was shooting blanks. So fast forward to 2060, and you would think things would have started getting better once the men who could still put a bun in the oven went and started rutting anything that moved like it was a hentai, right? Wrong. 90% of live births post-Plague were female, but 50% of pregnancies recorded were male. Not hard to figure out what happened. Lot of miscarriages, stillbirths, and so on. The Plague kept fucking us, even after people stopped dying in the streets. Which brings that whole story back around to me. I was a guy, already a rarity, and my genes were about as healthy as anyone could expect in this fucked up world. Which meant that I was the hottest of hot commodities. And what happened? A fucking tank killed my parents (the news cared more about my father, obviously, but that¡¯s just how it was), and my legs were gone, about mid-thigh. Because that¡¯s what happens when a tank rolls over you. So, I was the sob story of the week. I played it up, sure. I wasn¡¯t an idiot. The world might have advanced in the twenty-something years since the plague, but prosthetic limbs hadn¡¯t changed at all. Some new materials, maybe, but it wasn¡¯t like we were going full cyberpunk or anything. I¡¯d be spending most of my life in a chair, or struggling to do more than hobble along. But I had a lot of influential people all really upset for me, wondering if there was anything they could do to help me. Oh, not out of the goodness of their hearts, obviously. World didn¡¯t work like that, and never had. But helping me was a big, easy PR win that even a freshman in ¡®Media Relations 101¡¯ would make bank off of, if they were given the proper tools. So, experimental treatment. No fixing the legs, that shit was still pure scifi, like I said. However, that didn¡¯t mean I was out of options. MetaTech came to me, and made me an offer I couldn¡¯t refuse. I played guinea pig on the medical prototype version of their Valkyrie Full Immersion Pod. Unlike the normal pod, which wasn¡¯t designed for sessions longer than 48 hours, or 168 for the Deluxe models, the Medical Pod had better systems for monitoring the occupant¡¯s condition, and included more features to prevent muscle atrophy, and larger nutrient tanks, allowing for someone to go under for up to a year at a time. And what would I be immersing in? Just their gaming division¡¯s newest product, a Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Roleplaying Game (VRMMORPG for short) using the game rules from some old tabletop RPG, specifically a version of the tabletop game that had been out of print for decades as new editions came out. So long as they didn¡¯t use any of the lore or named characters, their corporate lawyers said that they¡¯d be totally in the clear. Can¡¯t trademark a city like Seattle, after all. So, yeah, I was going to live in a video game, where I could actually walk around, like a normal person, and wouldn¡¯t have people looking at me with pity in their eyes. My necessities were being taken care of thanks to the government, and my ¡®tester¡¯ pay was added to a trust fund, so people couldn¡¯t fuck with it too easy. All I had to do was play the game. Wasn¡¯t like I had anything to lose. Chapter 1 - Start of Service The doctor smiled that professional smile at me. I¡¯d been around them enough to know when they were actually happy to see me, or when they were just doing their job. Doc Spinelli was doing her job. Saw a bit of pain in her eyes, as always. One of the nurses filled me in, back when I started with the testing. I reminded her too much of her fianc¨¦, back before the plague hit. They were supposed to get married the next month, already had a dress and everything. I was used to looks like that. I¡¯d grown up with it. Anyone who was old enough to have actual memories of the Plague had a story like that. A father, brother, son, lover, friend, whatever. One day everything was normal, and then they were gone, in one of the worst ways possible. My dad told me once that the surviving men actually had it the worst. Sure, things had changed, but society still expected the man to be the breadwinner, the protector. Now, the man was an endangered species, to be coddled and swaddled in bubble wrap so that nothing bad happened to them. And eight in ten of the survivors were sterile. The suicide rate following the Plague finally got the US to do something about gun control, though. The optics of the few men remaining in the country eating a shotgun finally broke through the ranks of ¡®over my dead body¡¯ gun nuts. The ones that were still alive, anyways. ¡°All right, Mr. Greene. I know you¡¯re eager to get back into immersion, but we have a few tests we need to run, first.¡± ¡°I know, Doc. This is the last test round of testing before we go for the full year, right?¡± ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± she nodded. ¡°As you know, the grounds for the trial is the gradual extension of immersion time, to ensure that the pod¡¯s systems properly combat muscle atrophy, and keep you properly supplied with oxygen and nutrients for the duration. This fifth test, the six month trial, was the last ¡®work up¡¯ test. Assuming everything looks good, we¡¯ll be going into the full year trial immediately.¡± ¡°Good. Just in time for the live service of Shadowmen to start.¡± ¡°Hmph. Well, while I can¡¯t say as I approve of the content of that game, I do have to admit that, given all the metrics I¡¯ve seen, it has proven to keep you and the other testers properly engaged, mentally. I would have preferred if they made it a bit more hopeful, though.¡± ¡°C¡¯mon, Doc. You know the answer to that. Just look at what happened to Flower Garden. They tried to make a game world that was literally pure sunshine and happiness, to give people an escape from the shitty way the world is, and people practically burnt it to the ground. Sure, living in Shadowmen¡¯s Seattle isn¡¯t a piece of cake, but the fact that you can have some level of control over the situation that you wouldn¡¯t in real life? That is huge to a lot of people.¡± Spinelli sighed. ¡°I know, I know. We¡¯ve gone over this every time you log out. And I admit, I went and checked those figures you brought up, last time. The neo-skinhead and radical religious groups have seen a decline in engagement on their publicly facing platforms, because their target audience has something else to occupy them.¡± ¡°Radicalization often comes from a feeling of helplessness and being unable to control anything. Especially when someone gives you someone to blame for everything, and tells you that they¡¯ll make things like they used to be. All sounds like music to the ear for a desperate man. Honestly, if MetaTech hadn¡¯t reached out to me after the accident, there¡¯s a good chance I could have fallen down that road.¡± The doctor took a breath, and said, ¡°Really? You always seemed, well, as normal as any man is, these days. But then, I remember the mental health crisis right after the Plague.¡± ¡°It may be more socially acceptable for guys to open up about their feelings, now, but that doesn¡¯t mean it is easy. One fun thing about living in a game world, though, is that I had easy access to therapists. That, and not having to see these stumps where my legs used to be? Actually being able to walk around? Did wonders, even if it wasn¡¯t ¡®real¡¯.¡± ¡°Well, clearly you¡¯re not suffering from any post-immersion mental disorders, which is good. The physical scans we¡¯ve taken of you look fine, as well. Muscle function is good, heart and lungs all normal. And records indicate that the, um, reproductive system is fully functional.¡± I chuckled at that. First test period, we found out some interesting side effects that people either hadn¡¯t noticed, or hadn¡¯t commented on. Just like combat in game spikes the heart rate and the brain waves, and causes the pod to activate your muscles so they don¡¯t wither away on you, apparently getting laid in the game caused all the ¡®bits¡¯ to perform, as well. Now that I thought about it, people probably hadn¡¯t noticed because most guys didn¡¯t need to go into a game to get laid, so it just hadn¡¯t come up. ¡°The mail I got said the company had an idea on that front?¡± ¡°Ahem. Yes.¡± The doctor blushed softly. ¡°Obviously, with the population imbalance as it is, women who may want to have a child don¡¯t always have access to an unrelated male who is willing and able to make the proper contribution. So, sperm banks have become big business.¡± ¡°They want permission to ¡®harvest¡¯ every time I get lucky in the game, I take it?¡± ¡°Basically, yes. Other than the unique means of collection, it would otherwise work just like any other deposit to one of MetaTech¡¯s sperm banks. You would get paid a percentage of the sale price, naturally, which would be deposited to the same trust you are already using for the test work.¡±If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. I had no reason to disagree. Wasn¡¯t like I¡¯d be doing anything else with the stuff, after all. Might as well make some money instead of just letting it go to waste. So, a quick vid conference with a corporate lawyer and a few digital signatures, and everything was set up, and I was reclining back into the pod as the lid closed. ¡°Link start.¡± I was well used to the startup sequence by now. Blackness became multicolored lines of light that streamed past my view, before settling into the calming scenario of an aerial scene, overlooking a sprawl of a city. I knew from my time in the Beta that this was the Seattle Metroplex. Basically, what happens when Seattle eats all the smaller cities and towns around it like Redmond and shit. Shadowmen was a cyberpunk setting that literally had the entire globe involved. Where you initially started in the game was your ¡®home sprawl¡¯ in real life. That gave a bit more familiarity to the setting than you¡¯d normally find, and an extra level of immersion when you traveled, and had to get help finding your way around. Technically, this was my first login, since I was transferring from the Beta servers to the live servers, so I had to go through the initial ¡®worldbuilding¡¯ screens again. Nothing deep, the average gamer didn¡¯t have patience for that shit, but enough to give anyone a basic idea of the world, which they could then explore more in depth during character creation. I was a little upset that I didn¡¯t get to bring my character from the Beta over, but I understood why that was the case. I had some high end gear on that bad boy, that would shred anyone just starting out.
Welcome to Shadowmen! The year is 2070, chummer, and things have gone about as well as you might expect. Corps went and got themselves declared as people back in the early days after the big rollover from dates with a 19 to ones with a 20. Then, they went and got themselves named countries, because countries could still tell people what to do, and the corps weren¡¯t going to let that happen to them. Needless to say, nothing good came of that. Corps were unchecked, but had lots of money to buy lots of guns, so they used those guns to try and trim the fat on their competition in what became known as the First Corp War. It ended about like you would expect. Some winners, some losers, but the little guy getting shit on by everyone. Anyways, that¡¯s how the Corporate Court came to be, so that corps could rule over corps, and they all rule over us while the nations gnash their teeth. And then shit got strange. 2012 was the end of the Mayan calendar. End of one cycle, and start of the next, or something like that. No one really believed in it, not really. Not until a bunch of pissed off Native Americans blew up half the volcanoes in North and South America all at once, perfectly normal humans got a cold and then woke up the next day as an elf, orc, and so on, and, oh yeah, a FRAKKING DRAGON landed in Warsaw and said, ¡°THIS IS MY LAND, NOW!¡± Politely put, the world lost its collective shit, and there was a solid couple decades where things were utterly mad. Borders were redrawn all over the place, some countries ceased to exist, others clawed their way into being, and the superpowers of old got kicked square in the nuts as they found out that the world didn¡¯t play by their rules any more. Fast forward to 2070, and things have more or less stabilized. In North America, the Unified North American States (UNAS) makes up a solid part of what used to be the United States and Canada. The other nations on the continent are the NCSA, or the New Confederate States of America (yeah, they tried to make that work again), the Free American Nations (basically making up tribal lands that those pissed off Native Americans made Uncle Sam give up), the Free Republic of California (CalFree to their buddies), the Elf country of Ola Serin in what used to be Oregon, Mixsate (totally not a subsidiary of Mixsanto Applied Technologies) occupying Mexico all the way to Panama and parts of South America, and the Treaty City of Denver, where countries like to pretend the resident dragon doesn¡¯t rule over them, but everyone knows the chip truth. Seattle is in a weird place. When the big political types started making all the treaties to keep angry Indians, dragons, elves, and nukes from making a bigger mess than what was already happening, the UNAS was in a shitty place. They knew they were losing most of their territory west of the Mississippi, and California had already told them to frag themselves, so they needed something to keep a toehold on the Pacific. Seattle was that something. The Seattle Metroplex is an enclave of UNAS territory in the middle of the Free American Nations. While relations have improved to the point open war isn¡¯t on the table (usually), that doesn¡¯t mean everyone smoked the peace pipe and is happy happy with each other. That stuff only happens in bad trid shows, or good porn trids. Not quite Cold War tense, but there are plenty of people on both sides that would love to stick it to the other guy, so long as there¡¯s no chance of it blowing back on them. As for who actually runs the Seattle Sprawl? Despite what the Governor¡¯s office tells you, that¡¯s the corps. All the Big 10 megacorps (those with the badass AAA rating), have operations in the city, and more than a few of the AAs do, too. But they don¡¯t matter to you, except as who¡¯s likely to pay your fee when you do a job. You¡¯re a Shadowman (gender neutral, despite what some will tell ya), and since you¡¯re usually up to less-than-legal fun and games, that means the people you gotta pay most attention to are Red Knight Protective Services, the corporate police force contracting with the metroplex for all those law enforcement and head cracking needs. So if you see a Knight in shining armor, de-ass the area with a quickness. Now, let¡¯s get you into Shadowmen.
Notice: Due to the nature of the full immersion experience, MetaTech recommends your character sex and gender reflects your real life (RL) ones, at least for your initial character, to prevent Immersion-Based Cognitive Dissonance Disorder. There are means in game to experience other sexes and genders either through simulation, or through temporary or permanent changes to your character. MetaTech denies any responsibility for harm suffered due to IBCDD for those who ignore this warning.
Character Limit and Permadeath To increase the sense of immersion and stakes in Shadowmen, all accounts may have only a single character at any one time. When a character dies permanently in game (beyond clinical death), they are dead, and are deleted from your account, though tales of their deeds may live on in game. When creating a new character, you may carry forward a portion of the Karma (experience) and NuCred (money) your old character earned, and use it to enhance your new character, so death does not put you entirely back to the beginning.
The IBCDD and Permadeath rules had tweaked a lot of noses early on in the testing process. People didn¡¯t like that they couldn¡¯t just hop in and out of characters testing new things as they liked, and even if they never considered playing as the opposite sex, some people just didn¡¯t like being told not to do something. Still, those concerns had died down as people actually got into things. Eventually, anyone who really didn¡¯t like it just stopped logging in, and that was that.
Beta Test Account Thank you for your help in Beta-testing Shadowmen! As a reward, all characters on your account will be given Prime Runner status, starting with 500 Build Points, instead of the normal 400.
Pre-Order Account Thank you for your pre-order of Shadowmen! As a reward, all characters on your account will be given the following rewards: Access to certain player-created spells, items, and abilities for purchase in character creation NuCred limit for purchases in character creation is removed (all other limits remain in place)
Now, that was interesting. They hadn¡¯t shown us these windows during the Beta. The actual rewards were cleverly done. The Prime Runner thing was a nice boost, since some things could be bought easier with BP than with Karma later on, but the truly broken things weren¡¯t allowed in character creation, even with more points to spend. Same deal with the money limit. Normally, you couldn¡¯t spend more than 250k NuCred at character creation, but you had to ¡®buy¡¯ NuCred with BP, and the really broken things were all unavailable at the start. Basically, it made people who were in the Beta and pre-ordered the game feel a bit more important without giving them too big a jump on the other players, since anyone who tried would catch up to them quickly enough. Now, time to get started making my new life for the next year. Chapter 2 - Crunch I couldn¡¯t carry my character from the Beta over to the live game, but I¡¯d had plenty of experience making characters with Shadowmen¡¯s system during that time, especially since it took me a few characters to understand that running in like a Big Damn Hero ended up getting you very dead, very quickly. The system Shadowmen ran on basically decided that they weren¡¯t going to let you do the typical MMORPG thing where you can run around murdering your way across the land. Nope, they straight up told you that high velocity lead was bad for your health, so you should avoid that shit at all costs, or you¡¯d be going back to character creation.
Welcome to the Character Creation room. This is where you will create the character that you will immerse yourself in while playing Shadowmen. To streamline your initial experience, we offer both guided and unguided modes. Guided character creation is the default, and will use the answers to several questions to create a character that fills one of several archetypes. The resulting character is likely to be effective at their given role, even if they are a little generic. Unguided character creation leaves all the choices up to you, but if you choose poorly, the only way to change those choices is to start again, from the beginning. Do you wish to turn off Guided Character Creation? Yes / No
Hmm. So, they took one of my suggestions to heart? I¡¯d left feedback during the beta that just throwing people into the full character creator experience was going to overwhelm most new players. Bad enough on the visual side of things, where you could literally craft your dream avatar, but it was too easy for newbies to get lost in the weeds on the mechanical side, and that would just hurt player retention. Apparently, they decided that the guided creation mode was the answer to that issue. I turned it off, all the same, since I was very familiar with the character creator by this point. More importantly, I already knew what I was going to be doing for this character. The world of Shadowmen was this weird fusion of Cyberpunk and Fantasy, where the three pillars of the game were Magic, Matrix, and Meat. Meat was obviously your character, and all the augmentations you could slap in their body before it broke apart. The Matrix was basically the internet dialed up to 11, where you could literally dive in and explore like it was another world. And Magic? Well, there were elves and dragons, so you knew there had to be magic! Starting off, I picked a character name, and a ¡®street¡¯ name. Mirikon Mollen was the character name, since I¡¯d used it in some other games before. For my street name, I picked Iceblade, since I was going for a Combat Mage archetype that focused on blades and ice magic, amongst other things. There was a difference between ¡®race¡¯ and ¡®metatype¡¯ in the game. Race was still color of your skin and all that idiocy, same as in the real world. Metatype was whether your ears were pointy and shit. The game was in a cyberpunk world, so there were definitely people that got discriminatory about those things. Fortunately, punching them in the teeth when they started spewing shit was more acceptable in game than it was in real life. The unguided character creator had a bunch of tabs you went through, popping back and forth as you needed until you were satisfied. I put down 30 BP to grab the Elf metatype. They came with a few stat changes from baseline human, and got the ability to see in dim light just as well as a human could in daylight. When you¡¯re needing to move around in shadows, that was pretty handy. Popped over to Qualities, which came in two forms, positive and negative. Positive qualities gave you some boosts to your character, while Negative qualities gave you challenges. You paid BP for taking positive qualities and got BP for the negative ones, but couldn¡¯t have more than 35 BP worth of either at character creation. Not all qualities were the same. Some gave you cute little bonuses, like letting you resist fear effects a bit better, while others were seriously powerful. Some also scaled, like the Addiction negative quality, which got progressively nastier the further along you went. Still, they did help make your character feel more ¡®alive¡¯. Turning my attention back to the character creator, I started with the Positive qualities. Picked up Magician for 15 BP, which let me cast spells, summon spirits, and stuff like that. Mentor Spirit was an additional 5 BP, but it gave some bonuses that most people didn¡¯t think about until they learned more. And two ranks of the Martial Arts quality for 10 BP, so I could buy some maneuvers to flesh out my fighting style. Flipped over to the Magic tab that just opened up, and smiled when I saw that one of the available options for my ¡®Tradition¡¯ was the one I¡¯d designed during the Beta. Traditions basically said what type of mage you were, and what kind of spirits you could summon. It also determined what stats you used to resist the draining effect of using magic. I happily picked up the Swordmage tradition, and grabbed the Shark mentor spirit, for its lovely +2 to Combat spells and summoning Spirits of Water. Yeah, it also gave me a chance of going berserk if someone dealt damage to me, but it was worth it. For negative qualities, I started with a -10 BP Geas or restriction on my magic, where my magic was restricted if I didn¡¯t have a blade to hand. I could still use it, but I¡¯d be weaker without holding a blade. Then, I picked up a minor Addiction to Alcohol for -5 BP, and Sensitive System for -15 BP. That doubled my Essence loss from getting cyberware, but I was a mage, so any augmentations wrecked my magic, anyways. Finished off with the SINner quality, which meant that I had a legitimate System Identification Number from one of the governmental entities out there, filling out the final -5 BP of Negative qualities. Flip back to the ¡®Basics¡¯ tab, start buying up attributes. Attributes and Active Skills were the hardest thing to level up after character creation, because of how the upgrade system worked, so I wanted to spend most of my points in those areas. In character creation, Attributes were a flat 10 BP cost per point above your racial minimums, except for hitting your racial maximum, which cost 25 BP. For my Swordmage tradition, the key stats were Charisma (CHA) and Willpower (WIL), but I also needed Body (BOD), Strength (STR), Agility (AGI), and Reaction (REA) to be effective, and not just a glass cannon. And I couldn¡¯t overlook Intellect (INT) or Logic (LOG), either, since they were important to a lot of skills.Stolen story; please report. As an Elf, my racial max on CHA was 8, so I put mine to 7. That¡¯d help me with my magic, but it was also the key to most social skills, which helped in talking your way out of (or into) trouble. WIL to 4, REA to 4, everything else to 3. Humans topped out at 6 on all basic attributes, so that meant I was extremely charismatic, and average or better on everything else. Cost a whopping 190 BP, though. On top of those basic attributes, there was also Edge, and being a Magician unlocked the Magic attribute. Edge was basically ¡®luck¡¯, and you could spend it to try and get out of a sticky situation, or to make impossible things merely implausible. I¡¯d played around with it in the Beta, and didn¡¯t really trust it much, so I left it at the racial minimum of 1. Magic, though, I bumped to 5, just below the racial max. Another 40 BP spent. Quick flip to the Martial Arts tab. I picked Carromeleg as my martial art. It was an in-game creation of one of the elven beta-testers, so was a ¡®traditional elven martial art¡¯, which focused on looking completely loose until the flurry of motion in a sudden attack. Two ranks of the Martial Arts quality let me pick two advantages, and four maneuvers. The advantages were free, but the maneuvers cost BP. For the advantages, I picked a +1 for Interception attacks, which was basically attacking someone trying to get out of melee with you, or trying to run past you, and a +1 to defend against Charge attacks, which was someone charging at you to try and smack you. For maneuvers, I picked Iaijutsu, which let me quick-draw melee weapons, Off-Hand Training (Blades), which let me use a blade in my off-hand without penalty, Sweep, which let me do damage if I swept someone off their feet, and Two Weapon Style, which let me go Full Defense with an off-hand weapon while still attacking with my main weapon. Another 8 BP well spent. Now for Active skills. They came in ranks from 1 to 6, and cost 4 BP per rank, and 2 BP would let you buy a specialization in that skill granting you a +2 bonus with that specialization. You could purchase whole skill groups at 10 BP per rank, as well, but that was only useful if you saw yourself using three or more skills out of the group with any regularity, and you couldn¡¯t specialize in any of those skills. At character creation, you could only get a Skill Group to rank 4, and had to pick between getting one Rank 6 skill, or two Rank 5s, and all your other skills would be 4 or lower. This was why the Prime Runner bonus didn¡¯t make me too much more powerful than other characters. I could get a wider range of skills, yeah, but they weren¡¯t going to be more powerful. For my two Rank 5s, I picked Blades and Spellcasting, and took a specialization in both, going with Swords for the Blades Skill, and Combat spells for Spellcasting. Con (with a specialization in Seduction) at 4, Pistols (Semi-automatic specialization) and Summoning (Spirit of Water specialization) at 3. Two ranks of the Athletics skill group (which included things like Climbing, Running, Swimming, and the like), and then a bunch of rank 2s and 1s, with some specializations here and there. Another hefty 166 BP gone. Back to Magic, because I needed spells. With a Spellcasting of 5, I could get up to 10 spells, at 3 BP a pop. I paid the full 30 BP, and got a good selection of all the spell types except Detection. Most of those weren¡¯t worth it, for my build. Ended up with three Combat spells, dealing different types of damage, two Health spells (one to Heal, and the other to Increase Reflexes in combat), two Illusion spells that basically overwhelmed targets with pleasure so they couldn¡¯t focus on killing you, and three Manipulation spells, including one that created a deflection field to protect me from bullets, one that created a sheet of slippery ice that could cause people and vehicles to crash, and another of my creations from the beta, Permafrost. Basically, it turned a living creature into an ice sculpture, permanently, but it was hard to use on the really tough foes, and would stick out a lot if used carelessly. Back to the Knowledge and Language skills tab. Everyone got some free skill points in this area, equal to your (INT + LOG) x3, plus a Native language that you got for free. So, I got 18 free points, and I picked Sperethiel the ¡®traditional¡¯ Elven language as my Native tongue. Like Active skills, Knowledge and Language skills had ratings from 1 to 6. I kept it simple and grabbed straight 3s for English, Japanese, Knowledge (Gangs), Red Knight Police Procedures, Nightclubs, and Ola Serin, my intended ¡®homeland¡¯. Still had 41 BP to play with, but Weapons, Armor, Comms, Contacts, and Lifestyles all needed attention. First, the big spenders, a Focus or two. Foci were magical gear that boosted your abilities, but you needed to not only buy them with NuCred, but pay BP (or Karma, in game) to bind them before you could use them. Grabbed a Katana, turned it into a Weapon Focus to give me extra attack dice, and so I could use it on spirits, which were immune to normal weapons. Also picked up a Sustaining Focus for Health spells, so I could keep that Increase Reflexes spell up without suffering the -2 penalty to basically everything you normally dealt with when sustaining a spell. Next, a vehicle. The Suzuki Mirage was a fast as hell bike in the ¡®crotch rocket¡¯ style. I gave it some Run-Flat Tires, so spike strips and blowouts wouldn¡¯t be as painful, and added some other fun things like Motorcycle Gyro Stabilization to help me not crash, Spoof Chips to change the vehicle ID, Morphing License Plate and Chameleon Coating to allow me to make the bike look different and maybe throw off pursuit, and a Vehicle Tag Eraser, so any pesky RFID tags someone planted on my ride would get zapped, instead of leading people to my door. Grabbed 12 BP worth of contacts, which I¡¯d get to define more later. Bunch more weapons (which I happily customized to give me more bonuses, like putting the Personalized Grip mod on everything, which gave a +1 to melee weapons, and reduced recoil of firearms by 1), armor to keep my insides on the inside, and a bunch of gear like glasses which linked up with the smartlink in my guns, a pair of commlinks (one regular, and the other a burner I could toss if needed), a decent condo attached to a fake name with a fake SIN, and a crappy bolthole under a different fake name for if the shit hit the fan. Had a little bit of NuCred left over, but under a certain level it added to your starting money in game, so I left it.
Shadow Record
Name Mirikon Mollen Alias Iceblade
Metatype Elf Archetype Combat Mage
Karma / Karma Spent 0 / 0 NuCred 16000
Street Cred 0 Notoriety 0
Public Awareness 0
BP Costs
Attributes 230 Metatype 30
Active Skills 166 Extra Knowledge Skills 0
Positive Qualities 30 Negative Qualities -35
Martial Arts 8 Gear 24
Social 12 Magical Resources 35
BP Allowed 500 BP Used 500
One last look over everything, to make sure I was satisfied, and I locked that in. Now that all the ¡®crunchy¡¯ bits were done, I could move to the ¡®fluff¡¯ and flesh out my backstory, and my looks. After all, if I was going to be living this life for a year or more, I didn¡¯t want to hate what I saw in the mirror. Chapter 3 - Fluff Most people, when starting an online game, don¡¯t really pay much attention to the ¡®fluff¡¯ parts. After all, the ¡®big numbers go up¡¯ bit is the more important part, right? You¡¯ll eventually find or buy the cosmetics to make your character look like you want in game. And what does a backstory matter when you¡¯re all going on the same quests? Sure, you have some people who customize looks more in RPGs than MMOs, but the background for those games is still a generic, typically. Maybe a choice of one of three or four options, if you¡¯re lucky. Shadowmen wasn¡¯t like that. While it wasn¡¯t wrong to call it a VRMMORPG, that wasn¡¯t quite right, either. In the Beta community, people had coined the term VRMMUSH, or Virtual Reality Massively Multi-User Shared Hallucination. Apparently, the idea came from back in the dawn of the internet, when the forerunners of MMORPGs, MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) were being played over entirely text-based clients, if you can believe that. They were mostly the ¡®kill things¡¯ kind of games, while MUSHes arose to be more roleplay-heavy. Personally, I liked the term. It definitely fit how Shadowmen operated, after all. This was a game to be lived in and experienced, not just run through, going from quest marker to quest marker killing mobs. And part of living in a world was all that ¡®fluff¡¯. Kept my looks mostly simple. Scan of my RL face, courtesy of the pod keeping me alive. Ditch the short hair for a long, wavy mane, almost down to my waist. A neatly trimmed goatee, as well. Some of that was a vanity choice on my part, but there was good reason for it, too. If a guy needed to disappear, the easiest way to completely change your look was to swap up facial hair and haircut. If I really needed to, I could cut the hair, shave, and look like a totally different person with just a trip to a barber. Obviously, I¡¯d do more to change my look if it came to that, but the point still stood that it was easier to get rid of hair than to suddenly grow it. For my build, I went average elf on most things. Shoulders, muscles, and so on. I would look gym-fit, and neither overly tall nor too short. OK, so I did go above average on one part, but I dare any guy to say that he actually wanted to be average or below on that scale, unless they were asexual, looking to transition, or had a humiliation kink. Looks set, I turned my attention to backstory. I knew some of the game world¡¯s history, thanks to the Beta, so I didn¡¯t need to go trolling through wikis or other resources to pull together something to make a non-generic backstory. Starting off, homeland would be Ola Serin, the elven land that used to be Oregon. During the general insanity of the Cataclysm, as people called the period where magic woke up and everything changed, the elves teamed up with the Native Americans to try and carve up bits of North America for themselves. However, instead of a tribal council, or other methods that the different sub-countries of the FAN created, the elves decided to go old school, with a full-on monarchy and nobles and everything, with a strong elven supremacy vibe. Surprisingly, most people were OK with that, at first. After all, Ola Serin was far more stable than other places, and with a lot of humans expanding their bigotry to include ¡®nonhumans¡¯, having a place by the elves, for the elves, sounded damn good. Unfortunately, the good times didn¡¯t last, and some people started getting upset. Nobility acting like nobility and fucking over normal people, and the non-elves in the country not liking that they were second class citizens definitely didn¡¯t help things. So, when the internet (now called the Matrix) crashed and burned for the second time, about 6 years before current day in the game, the plebes decided it was a great time to make the nobility burn with it. Ola Serin was technically a republic, now, but there were quite a few faces who somehow still managed to be in charge, despite not officially being nobles. My plan was to be a minor noble, forced to flee the country when the rabble revolted. No place for me at home, with the family killed or scattered, so I went and got myself lost in the Seattle Metroplex. Becoming a Shadowman might be quite the fall from being a noble, but it beat being dead, by a long shot. I spent the next hour answering questions from the system, tracing out my family life in Ola Serin, before the rebellion. I picked a prestigious private school that I attended, included a couple childhood sweethearts and old flames, the swordmage who trained me, and so on. The world outside may have still resembled a capitalist hellscape rather than a cyberpunk dystopia, in that there was all the corporate greed and oppression, but a distinct lack of functioning cybernetics or other hallmarks of a cyberpunk world, but at least computers and AI had kept advancing. Otherwise, the way Shadowmen built in NPCs and ¡®plot hooks¡¯ for the player base would never have worked. Basically, the more questions I answered about my backstory, and offered more ways to link me into the world, the more immersive the world would be for me. Of course, there were limits. During the beta, one tester had tried to make himself the bastard child of one of the big corporate bigwigs, and tried to game the system that way. Either the AI or the people at MetaTech figured it out, though, because he spawned in thinking that¡¯s what he was, only to find out that he was an escaped clone, waking up just as they were about to harvest his body parts. People decided against pushing the limits after that.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. So, I made a solid backstory for why my elf was living in Seattle, instead of his homeland, and why I had some skills and abilities that common folk didn¡¯t usually have access to. Of course, there were some NPCs who would hate on me because I was an elf, or because I was a former noble, or any number of other things, but that was part and parcel of a cyberpunk dystopia setting. Everyone had someone they hated, even if it was just the fans of that team they couldn¡¯t stand.
Identities
Name Description
Mirikon Mollen SIN (Ola Serin), Weapons Permit, Driver¡¯s License
Jack Frost Fake SIN 3, Fake Weapons Permit 3, Fake Driver¡¯s License 3. Cost: 3600 Uptown Condo: Comforts (Middle), Entertainment (Middle), Necessities (High), Neighborhood (Middle), Security (Middle), Network Bottleneck, Rough Neighborhood, Well Made, Workplace. Cost: 6000 / month
Matt Whitemane Barrens Bolthole: Comforts (Low), Entertainment (Squatter), Necessities (Low), Neighborhood (Street), Security (Middle), Alternate Energy, Defective CHN, Free Access, Fully Stocked Bar, Loud Neighborhood, Network Bottleneck, Poor Condition, Rough Neighborhood. Cost 800 / month
That was good for where I came from. Now I needed to work on where I was now. I had three identities to work with. Two of them had property, while the third was my real identity. In essence, this part was easy. I just went through the two fake identities, and started fleshing out the lifestyles I was living. Obviously, I started with the condo, since that was where I¡¯d spend most of my time, unless things went bad. Middle-class neighborhood allowed me to pick a place in Olasar, the Ola ex-pat community. New construction, so things in my condo were well-made, and I had enough room to put my magic lodge in there, but the Laesans, an elven mafia, to put it plainly, had a drug processing business in the area, which made things a bit rougher than normal, and slowed down the Matrix. Still, I was able to get good food (not that flavored soy crap) and get tailored suits when I wanted them, and could live it up at a nightclub fairly easily. Even had a couple drones to do the cooking and cleaning that came with the place. The bolthole in the middle of the Redmond Barrens (so-called because Redmond had descended well past shithole status long ago, and no one who had a choice stayed there) was not nearly so nice. Solar panels were a great idea, except Seattle was known for clouds and rain. There wasn¡¯t much in the way of comforts, but the place was stocked with some quality booze. The area was even more of a shithole than much of Redmond, with the Fleshtearers, a ghoul gang, claiming much of the area. Oh, yeah, that was gonna be a surprise to some of the people playing the game. Magic went and made some of the ¡®bump in the night¡¯ things real. Just, not as you might have hoped. Ghouls, Vampires, and other such things were all poor fucks that got infected by a plague, only this one wasn¡¯t so kind as to kill its hosts, it changed them. In the case of Ghouls, they were mostly the same, though they tended to get grey skin and lose their hair, and they needed to eat human (and all the various metatypes of human) meat or they starved. Some kept their brains, others went feral. The Fleshtearers were some of the ones that kept their heads. I¡¯d run into them a couple times in the Beta, and honestly, they were fairly chill to live nearby, provided you didn¡¯t bring trouble to their door, and were willing to help them out, those times they needed a pretty face to smooth things over or get things done. Also, they were more than happy to take a body off your hands, no questions asked. Even if the body was still screaming when you left. Only thing left was fleshing out my contacts. Otherwise known as the people I could call for help, information, or making introductions, if I needed them. They were important, and Shadowmen learned fast to not burn bridges with them. Or they died. I only had three contacts, now, and each of them at a 2 of 6 on Connection and Loyalty, but it was possible to gain more during the game, if you played your cards right. Maybe even get your existing contacts more loyal, or better connected, as time went by. So, first up to flesh out would be my fixer. Random name came out as Alisha Cooper, better known as Pixie. The elf was a former Shadowman, one of the better deckers out there, but the second Crash burned her bad, so that she couldn¡¯t sling code like she used to. Didn¡¯t mean she was helpless, though. She could still shoot just fine, and she knew people who knew people. So, she¡¯d started working as a fixer. And the ex-pats from Ola Serin were all more likely to work with another elf than a filthy human, or audible gasp an ork or troll! Pa-Akanti Stormcloud was a talismonger, which was a fancy word for ¡®guy who took magic shit, and made usable magic shit out of it¡¯. You wanted a fetish for a spell? Maybe a focus? Or just the materials to put up a nice, solid ward? He could set you up. Wanted the inside details of Mexsanto¡¯s newest gun? Talk to someone else. He was from the Kiowa tribe, supposedly, but there was some trouble in his past, and if he showed his face there again, the welcome he received was likely to be at muzzle velocity. Finally, there was Foxy, one of the leaders of the Blacksuns, a motorcycle gang that, amongst other things, ran quite the smuggling operation between Ola Serin and, well, anywhere their bikes could reach, really, but Seattle was one of their main hubs, and the Olasar community could usually count on any Blacksuns around to show up and push out any non-elf troublemakers. Foxy, otherwise known as Amelie Fox, got hit by a patch of wild magic during a ride a few years back, and got mutated, rather than dying horribly, like some did. Unlike some other mutants, though, she didn¡¯t become some horrific monster but a nine-tailed foxgirl. She had to put three guys in the hospital before the jokes about that, and her name, stopped. I took a deep breath as I took another look over everything while the AI set about generating the links from my backstory and working them into the world. The previous tests had all been just that, tests. Now, I was about to go into the game for real. I couldn¡¯t wait.
Generation complete. Introduction Scenario ready. Proceed? Yes / No
Of course I hit yes. Chapter 4 - Stuffed Up The world around me went black, and then I was standing near one of the most ubiquitous things in the Shadowmen world, a Stuff House. Why was it called Stuff House? Because it had all kinds of stuff. Just, not very good stuff, and definitely not stuff that was good for you. But it was cheap stuff, and you could get stuff there pretty much 24-7-365. That last bit wasn¡¯t a lie, either. There were a few unwritten rules to living in this game world. Some of them were mantras boldly repeated to anyone who would listen, like, ¡°Watch your back. Shoot straight. Conserve ammo. And never, ever, cut a deal with a dragon.¡± But there were some that people just understood, at that deep, primal level, whether they were a barrens rat scrabbling for anything they could get, or a C-Suite executive come down from on high. And one of those was that if the Stuff House was closed, you needed to be somewhere, anywhere, else, NOW! The Stuff House was open, so things weren¡¯t completely dire. However, from the looks of things, the game had put me down in Tacoma. Not the worst part of the metroplex, by a long shot, but definitely not upscale living, either. Quick check of my gear told me that I had my weapons, and my ¡®walking around¡¯ armor set. The ballistic face mask may give more protection from bullets, but that kind of screamed ¡°I¡¯m here to shoot things,¡± which tended to get the Knights on your ass sooner rather than later.
Iceblade casts Increase Reflexes (Force 3) Iceblade¡¯s Spellcasting roll: 10d6 = 6,6,5,4,4,3,2,2,2,1 (3 Hits) Increase Reflexes: +2 Initiative, +2 Initiative Passes Resist Drain (3S): 13d6 = 6,6,6,5,5,5,5,4,3,2,2,2,2 (7 hits) (Resists Drain)
I placed a hand on the katana at my hip, and focused on my magic, like I¡¯d learned in the beta. The system for this game was a bit complicated. It was based on rolling a number of six-sided dice, but the only numbers that mattered most of the time were 6, 5, or 1. 6 and 5 were ¡®hits¡¯, and 1 was a ¡®miss¡¯. Whenever you rolled, you were looking to either reach a certain threshold of hits, or you wanted to get more hits than the person opposing you. Bigger dice pools meant a bigger chance of getting hits, obviously, but they also protected you from danger, because there were consequences for getting too many misses. See, if you rolled more than half your dice pool as 1s, that was called a Glitch. It meant the game system was going to mess with you in some way. Usually, it wasn¡¯t something dire, just annoying or potentially disruptive. It was totally possible to succeed on a task, and still Glitch, which could lead to hilarious outcomes (for those watching). The big problem was when you glitched, and didn¡¯t get any hits. That was a Critical Glitch, and that meant that big pain was coming your way. Maybe even death. Something bad was about to happen. One of the main uses I found for Edge that wasn¡¯t straight wishing on a star for a Hail Mary pass was spending a point to downgrade a Critical Glitch to just a normal Glitch. You¡¯d still fail at whatever you intended to do, but that was the difference between falling on your ass, and falling on your ass in such a way that you shot yourself in the face. One was infinitely better than the other. In this case, I was using the Increase Reflexes spell, and sustaining it with my Sustaining Focus. I¡¯d light up to anyone looking at me from the Astral Plane, which was a weird magic dimension that spirits came from, but most people didn¡¯t go around looking in that plane. Hell, most people couldn¡¯t even access it, since it was generally the domain of Magicians, Spirits, and some Dual-natured creatures, like Ghouls. Safe enough, for now, and it meant that I could move at speeds that rivaled a chromed up street samurai with his wired reflexes on. As a bonus, it also meant I thought a bit faster, to keep up with the enhanced speed. But magic had a price. Casting a spell was like going for a jog, compressed into an instant. The bigger the spell, the bigger the drain. How big the drain was depended on the characteristics of the spell, and the Force you cast it at. Lower Force, lower drain. Problem was, Force capped the number of hits you could get when casting a spell. You cast a spell at Force 1, to minimize the drain? You could have gotten all 6s on your roll, but only one counted. Which was bad if you had a target number to beat, or were doing an opposed roll. On the flip side, if you cast a spell at a Force greater than your Magic rating, that drain turned from Stun, which would just knock you out, to Physical, which could kill you. So, the balancing act of the Magician was to cast spells at a high enough force that they were useful, but low enough that you weren¡¯t killing yourself with drain. If you had a team with you, then that gave you more options, since if you knocked yourself out throwing down an ice slick to send the bike gang chasing you crashing all over the place, the rigger driving the van could keep going while you slept it off. I actually was the rigger for that exact scenario once, during the Beta. Looking back at the window, I decided to compress things. I didn¡¯t need to know all the numbers, after all. Just the hits and misses. A quick change in my game options, and that was set. Feeling better now that I had some extra spring in my step, and managed to avoid taking damage from it, I stepped through the doors of the Stuff House. If you¡¯ve been in one Stuff House, you¡¯ve been in all of them. Literally, every Stuff House had the exact same corporate-mandated layout, with the exact same products on the exact same shelves, with employees wearing the exact same uniforms. Same instantly recognizable and yet unidentifiable aroma. Pretty much the only thing that changed were region-specific promotions, which were always held in the exact same part of the store, on a little stand at the counter. I didn¡¯t bother looking at the ¡®pay-by-the-minute¡¯ simsense arcade on my left as I walked in, with all their flashing lights and sounds to try and get people to pay the 1 NuCred per minute rate. The games on offer were all generic crap, good for kids or those who couldn¡¯t afford better. Same with most of the products in the store, honestly. But cheap and convenient often won out over good for most people.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. My eyes scanned the store, noting the inhabitants and exits, a habit that had become instinct during the beta, thanks to a few close shaves. The human clerk behind the counter was chatting with a pudgy dwarf girl, probably his girlfriend by the way they were talking. Some guy over by the frozen foods, looking at ice cream. Wannabe rocker and his girl, dressed in skin-tight leather making out by the pet food. No threats. No, scratch that. Human woman, just stood up in Aisle 9, looking at the simsense trids. Cybereyes, with red lenses. Coat with an armor lining, same model as mine. There was a sling under the coat, pinning her shirt between her fairly impressive breasts. Not a purse, that was a weapon sling. SMG, maybe assault rifle. Not a ganger. Maybe a Shadowman, like myself? Our eyes met. I could see her doing the same scan of me as I was doing to her. I offered her a small nod, which she returned. Neither of us were here for the other, so that was fine. Still, like recognized like. She at least looked like she could hold her own in a fight. Keep her in mind in case something happened. I made my way back towards the ¡®cold food¡¯ area. The ¡®homemade sandwiches and meals shipped in overnight¡¯ were a bit more expensive than the soy-based Stuffburger, but they had actual meat in them. Add a couple packets of mayo from the area by the microwave, and it was a decent meal on the go. Plus, the Stuffburger tended to either stop you up or give you the runs if you ate too many of them. But that¡¯s what cheap gets you. The ¡®Stuffed Club Sandwich¡¯ was a simple thing. White bread, ham, turkey, bacon, processed American cheese, lettuce, tomato, cut in half diagonally, to make for easy eating on the go. The expiration date said it¡¯d be good for the next three days, but you never wanted to push that too hard. Two of them made for a decent meal. I heard the door open, and the sound of a wailing baby. Looked up, and yeah, there was a semi-cute elf lady, who would probably look better if she didn¡¯t have that half-dead, hasn¡¯t slept in two weeks look a lot of parents had with newborns. Looked like the kid was maybe a few months old? Not a threat, so not my problem. Grabbed a kafsoda from the cooler, and was just ducking into Aisle 15 to grab some cookies for a treat when the world exploded. Well, not the whole world. Just some car out front.
Initiative Iceblade¡¯s Initiative: 9d6 = 1 Hit, 3 Miss (Init 10, 3 passes) Berzerker¡¯s Initiative: 9d6 = 5 Hits, 1 Miss (Init 14, 3 Passes) Stooby¡¯s Initiative: 9d6 = 3 Hits, 0 Miss (Init 12, 1 Pass) Crank¡¯s Initiative: 6d6 = 2 Hits, 1 Miss (Init 8, 1 Pass) Fornis¡¯s Initiative: 6d6 = 3 Hits, 1 Miss (Init 9, 1 Pass)
Shaking the ringing out of my ears, I looked towards the front of the store. Lights were flickering, there were a few fires going, and the place looked like shit. More like shit. At least the kid wasn¡¯t crying anymore. On the other hand, three goons with guns were walking in, yelling something or other. Two humans, one dwarf. First human had an armored jacket that was basically an up-armored and less subtle version of the lined coat I was wearing. Also looked cheaper. Heavy pistol in his hand had the unmistakable lines of a Mars Predator IV, probably the most recognizable handgun in the world, thanks to all the trid shows and movies it was in. Heavy hitter, only semi-auto. Chrome hand holding it meant a cyberarm, so possibly a heavy hitter there, too. Second human had an armored vest. Lighter and less armored than the big guy, but still pretty good at blocking bullets. AK-97 Carbine in his hands, the modern equivalent of the dirt cheap assault rifle, cut down to SMG size. Rugged, reliable, and crap for anything beyond spray and pray. Dwarf was an outlier. Only light pistol, couldn¡¯t tell what kind, and he clearly wasn¡¯t wearing any armor. First thing anyone learns living in the shadows was that if someone showed up armed, but unarmored, it meant one of two things. Either they were too much of a bottom feeder to even afford the crappiest armor, in which case they were no threat, or they believed that they didn¡¯t need armor. That meant they were either cybered to the gills, some kind of adept, or a magician. Any one of those three meant they were a major threat, and needed to be dealt with first.
Berzerker¡¯s Attack Roll (Fornis): 10d6 = 4 Hits, 2 Miss Fornis¡¯s Defense: 3d6 = 0 Hits, 1 Miss (4 Net Hits) Burst Fire (Short, Narrow): 12P, -1 AP Fornis¡¯s Damage Resistance: 3d6 = 0 Hits, 0 Miss Fornis: 12/10 Physical Monitor (Dying) Berzerker¡¯s Attack Roll (Crank): 10d6 = 7 Hits, 1 Miss Crank¡¯s Defense: 3d6: 1 Hits, 0 Miss (6 Net Hits) Burst Fire (Short, Narrow): 14P, -1 AP Crank¡¯s Damage Resistance: 10d6 = 3 Hits, 0 Miss Crank: 11/11 Physical Monitor (Unconscious)
Clearly, the other Shadowman in the building had the same idea as I did. People who go blowing up a Stuff House aren¡¯t the type who are gonna get talked down, so they need to be put down, fast. Producing an SMG with an underbarrel grenade launcher from under her coat, she brought it up and fired two tight bursts of three rounds each. Dwarf and SMG guy both went down, as I heard the telltale crack of Ex-Ex Ammo. Of course, fight in an enclosed space like this, with all the ¡®joys¡¯ of a Stuff House around? The two people on the ground weren¡¯t the only casualties. The remaining human got sprayed with what looked like purple, sticky metal, before getting a face full of blue, spongy ¡®meat¡¯. Just another reminder that you didn¡¯t want to know what was in any of the products on the shelves in a Stuff House.
Stooby¡¯s Attack Roll (Berzerker): 6d6 = 1 Hit, 1 Miss Berzerker¡¯s Defense: 10d6 = 0 Hits, 1 Miss (1 Net Hit) Semi-automatic: 6P, -1 AP Berzerker¡¯s Damage Resitance: 20d6 = 9 Hits, 3 Miss (No damage) Stooby¡¯s Attack Roll (Berzerker): 5d6 = 3 Hit, 1 Miss Berzerker¡¯s Defense: 10d6 = 5 Hits, 0 Miss (0 Net Hit) Berzerker¡¯s Defense: 10d6 = 4 Hits, 0 Miss
¡°You fucking BITCH!¡± Armor Jacket clearly wasn¡¯t happy that two of his buddies were lying on the ground. Probably REALLY wasn¡¯t happy that he was covered in unidentifiable gunk. His pistol barked twice, but even though one of the bullets hit the woman in the chest, I could tell that it did sweet fuck all to her. Definitely armored up. Unfortunately, all the armor in the world didn¡¯t keep her from ¡®enjoying¡¯ a nice coating of purple, smelly plastic that sprayed everyone in the area from the first shot. Worse, the second decided that she was getting off too easily. Not only did she get enveloped in a bloom of yellow metal that somehow looked soft, but she had to duck as several cans of dog food somehow got detonated, and flew past her head!
Iceblade¡¯s Attack (Stooby): 13d6 = 6 Hits, 2 Miss Stooby¡¯s Dodge: 3d6 = 0 Hits, 0 Miss (6 Net Hits) Winter¡¯s Breath: 11P, -1 AP Stooby¡¯s Damage Resistance: 11d6 = 1 Hit, 0 Miss Stooby: 10/10 Physical Monitor (Unconscious)
I darted forward as quickly as I could, minding my footing as I crossed the exploded puddles of gun. Armor Jacket looked like he wasn¡¯t going to be much of a problem, if the SMG girl had another go at him, but I couldn¡¯t just sit back and let her do all the work. Plus, even an idiot might get lucky and hit someone or something important, if you gave him long enough. As I got closer, I unsheathed my weapon focus katana, which I¡¯d named Winter¡¯s Breath, and cut the man down in a single slash. Not dead, but definitely out of it. I heard footsteps behind me, and turned to see the other Shadowman nodding as she approached. ¡°Nice moves. Slinger or adept?¡± She was asking if I was a magician or an adept. No harm in letting a little info loose, I guess. ¡°Slinger. Iceblade¡¯s the name. Good shooting. Nice and clean.¡± I offered her my hand. She smiled, and shook it. ¡°Call me Berzerker.¡± Chapter 5: An Offer ¡°So, Berzerker, what you think these goons were after?¡± I wasn¡¯t standing idle while I asked the question, and neither was she. Weapons and ammo are weapons and ammo, after all. All three had some spare clips to go with their weapons, so that was a bonus. No commlinks or credsticks, so they were definitely coming to cause trouble. ¡°Hit of some kind, I think. Car blew up just before they stormed in. Think the lady with the baby was the one who got out of it.¡± I nodded slowly as I helped her strip off the men¡¯s armor. ¡°Makes sense. So, pick what we want, fence the rest, and split the difference?¡± ¡°Yeah. Share contact data? Might be good having a wizboy on my side, if trouble¡¯s going down.¡± I chuckled, and sent my commcode her way with a thought. Neural link made shit like that easy. Hers came back as well. Didn¡¯t mean either of us trusted the other further than we could throw them, but things had to start somewhere in the shadows. ¡°Another gun in the party is always welcome. Lot less likely to get people trying to bug you when you have a plus one, rather than flying solo.¡± ¡°That¡¯s chip truth,¡± she laughed. ¡°Um, excuse me?¡± Turning around, we saw the elf woman there, and her kid was apparently getting over the shock of the attack. I looked over at Berzerker, and raised an eyebrow. She shrugged slightly. Turning back to the woman, I asked, ¡°Yes?¡± She took a breath, and said, ¡°You¡¯re shadowmen, right? I think these people were here for me, me and my kid. Would you be interested in a job?¡± Glance over to Berzerker, and she nodded slightly. ¡°Probably should move before we talk. Knights may be slow, but they¡¯ll get here eventually. Parking garage not too far from here, but far enough they won¡¯t look there right away. You got wheels?¡± ¡°Bike. You?¡± ¡°Bulldog. Made it a poor woman¡¯s APC.¡± ¡°Wiz. Meet there?¡± ¡°Yeah. Here¡¯s map data.¡± I nodded as I authorized the map file Berzerker tossed me, before looking back to the woman. ¡°All right, miss. We¡¯ll hear you out, but we should move before speaking. My chummer here has a van that can get you someplace where we can talk without cars blowing up.¡± ¡°Thank you! Thank you so much!¡± We moved quick after that. Woman and child got into Berzerker¡¯s van, along with the loot (and the sizeable arsenal I saw she was carrying), and I got to my ride, which the game had spawned in the parking lot nearby. With a thought, I triggered the color-changing tech in both my coat and the bike as I started it up. Before, the coat had looked a muddy brown, to not draw as much attention, and the bike was a cherry red. Now, both were black, like I normally had them when I was on business, back in the beta. We drove the speed limit. Yeah, the big, up-armored GMC Bulldog Berzerker was driving was about as subtle as a Troll in a mankini at the bachelorette party, especially with the all-black paint job, but the vehicle ID was saying that it was from Rider Armored Couriers. Armored couriers were definitely a thing when you were transporting documents, or other items, between businesses, or even between different departments of the same company, so as long she didn¡¯t do anything suspicious, it should be fine. So yeah, driving the speed limit and obeying all the traffic laws. Another thing which told me Berzerker wasn¡¯t some newbie. Noobs would run the engine hard and loud, getting out of there as fast as they could, all the way home. That was, frankly, stupid. Sure, getting out quick was important, but the cops or corpsec would be looking for people running away. Once you were around a corner or two, slowing down and acting normal was the smart play, making you damn near invisible, without any magic or fancy tech. As I drove, I was surprised when a text message came in from Berzerker. It was a text chat, clearly thought-to-text, using the fun that a commlink could do. But what interested me was the contents. Berzerker: So, Ice, figure you gotta be a player, right? Iceblade: Yeah, which means you are, too? Preorder, guessing, given all your gear? Berzerker: Yeah. What about you? And are you actually a guy, or just running one, despite the warning MetaTech gave us? Iceblade: Beta, and Preorder. And yes, I¡¯m a guy IRL, too. Berzerker: Ho-lee SHIT! I heard there were only 2000 spots in the beta! But wait, only like a total of four guys were part of that. It caused a big scene because three of them were identified because the Beta started everyone with their real face, and they had stalkers looking for them out of game once someone figured out what town they lived in! Crazy bitches thought that they could snag a husband that way.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Berzerker: But they were in Tokyo and New York. No one ever found out who the Seatle guy was. Iceblade: I may have had a bit of help staying off people¡¯s radar, IRL. Don¡¯t need to go hiding my face in game when I wasn¡¯t showing it in public outside. Berzerker: Shy type? Iceblade: Long story. Buy me a drink when this is over, maybe I¡¯ll tell you. Berzerker: Fine. But, listen, just for some transparency, one of my qualities gave me an automatic moderate Addiction, and it chose randomly when I took it. Iceblade: Not any of the hard drugs, right? Berzerker: No, that would have been bad. But, uh, well, I got saddled with a Sex addiction. So, I¡¯m gonna be needing regular relief. Normally, I¡¯d find some lucky guy at the club, since there¡¯s a bunch of male NPCs, but if this ends up being a job¡­ Iceblade: Then that introduces an unnecessary risk. Well, if this becomes a job, then I suppose I could bend you over and see what a good girl you can be. Berzerker: Ugh, I don¡¯t need to be thinking about this while I¡¯m driving! Just, fair warning if you got any addictions, the System isn¡¯t going to let you just ignore them. Iceblade: Mine is just a Mild one, to Alcohol. Berzerker: Lucky. I laughed, and signed off the chat, to focus more on driving, until we made it to the parking garage. Once we¡¯d settled in a quiet corner, with no visible cameras, I joined the others in Berzerker¡¯s van. As I noticed earlier, when we were piling the loot in, she was well-stocked for action. Shotgun, grenade launcher, a battle rifle, and a freaking light machine gun, all strapped to the walls for transport. And a couple bandoleers with grenades, too, of different types. Woman was armed up and ready for pretty much any situation short of a dragon. ¡°All right,¡± I said, smiling, as I sat next to Berzerker, who was sorting through the captured weapons, and trading out the partial clip on her SMG for a full one. ¡°So, who are you, miss, and why do you think those guys were after you?¡± The woman rocked her kid, trying to get them to be quiet, at least for a bit. Not terribly successfully, but at least it lowered the volume. ¡°My name is Brandeen Mettlinger, and this is Cody. And I think they were after us because Cody¡¯s dad, Mel Cozi, is a senior VP at Allegiant Designs. It isn¡¯t even a single-A, much less one of the big corps, but that still means Mel has nucred to spare. That¡¯s why I was dating him, anyway. Certainly wasn¡¯t for his shining personality, or because I thought we had a future together. Man was already stepping out on his wife with me, and maybe others, too. Even if he ditched her for me, it isn¡¯t like he''d suddenly get loyal, you know?¡± I nodded sympathetically. Keeping her talking was cheap, at this stage, and it might give us more info we could use. ¡°So, I take it things soured about the time Cody came into the picture?¡± ¡°Heh. You could say that. Found out the hard way that ninety-three to ninety-eight percent effective isn¡¯t one hundred percent. Mel, charmer that he was, cut me off once I told him, and let him know I was keeping Cody. Didn¡¯t want to be attached to a ¡®whale¡¯, his words, which is why he made sure not to get his wife knocked up.¡± ¡°Yeah, this bastard sounds like quite the charmer,¡± Berzerker practically spat. Brandeen sighed, and said, ¡°Well, I wasn¡¯t going to just lie back and take that, right? Only reason I took anything from that jerk was because he was loose with his money. So, six months ago, when Cody was born, I got a paternity test done, with a SIN registry. Once it got shown that Cody was Mel¡¯s biological son, I sent a copy to Mel, and told him to start the money flowing again, or the next one goes to his wife.¡± I nodded. ¡°I¡¯m guessing he paid. But you were looking for a subscription service, not a one and done, right? What happened next?¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t get stupid greedy or anything. Kept the cost low. Enough for me to live my current life, plus a little left over to save up, for emergencies or when Cody got older, maybe making sure he could get some good schooling. 4000 nucred a month. Chump change to him, and not even enough for me to afford the normal wage-slave life on my own.¡± She took a breath, and said, ¡°But I guess you don¡¯t get to be VP without being a shit person. He kept trying to talk his way out of paying, and I had to threaten to go to his wife. Last week, when payment was due, it went through without me even needing to rag him. Guess I know why, now.¡± I nodded sympathetically. ¡°Yeah, no sense kicking up a stink when he¡¯s already putting out feelers on where he can get a hit squad. Of course, it looks like the cheapskate skimped out on that, too. If he¡¯d had hired actual pros, they wouldn¡¯t have waited until you getting into the store before blowing the car. And they wouldn¡¯t have dressed or acted like they did. Hell, the dwarf didn¡¯t even have the good sense to wear armor, and if he was a slinger and had a spell to sort things, he damn sure didn¡¯t have it up and ready, which means they weren¡¯t expecting trouble.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Berzerker nodded. ¡°Though, if we hadn¡¯t been there, she¡¯d probably have still been toast, since none of those civvies was going to risk their necks.¡± ¡°True,¡± I nodded in return, before looking at Brandeen. ¡°All right, so, now we¡¯ve got the who and the why, but now comes what. As in, what kind of job do you want us to do, and what kind of payday are we getting? We¡¯ve done a lot, so far, just because we¡¯re good people, but being good people doesn¡¯t keep the lights on and food on the table, yeah? So, what kind of gig are you wanting, and what are you offering?¡± ¡°Good thing about playing the bubbling blonde bimbo is that people think you¡¯re as stupid as your hair color makes you look. Mel didn¡¯t think I paid attention all those times when he was dealing with work while we were on a ¡®date¡¯. Left his commlink locked with only a fingerprint scanner, too. Put his finger on the reader, and boom, I could look through all his stuff. Didn¡¯t copy or take anything, of course. That¡¯d tip him off. But I found stuff out, stuff he doesn¡¯t know I know.¡± ¡°Slush fund, embezzlement, or selling out to the competition?¡± Those were the three biggest possibilities, after all. If she had something to blackmail him with, she would have done so before getting knocked up. But all three of those options left potentially juicy stockpiles of nucred just taking up space in a digital account somewhere, crying out to be used. It would be a crime to just leave them there. ¡°Embezzlement,¡± she nodded, clearly glad she didn¡¯t have to spell things out. ¡°Second account that his wife doesn¡¯t know about. Year ago, it was worth over two million.¡± She took a breath, and said, ¡°As for what the job is? I want the money. New SIN, flight to New Angeles, and start a new life there. And if his wife inherits all his legit fortune, then that¡¯s just bonus points. As for your payment? Ten grand, each. Plus, Mel was just starting on a vintage gun collection. Pre-Magic stuff. Prize of his collection is something he called a ¡®Chicago Typewriter¡¯. Some kind of early SMG, according to what I found on the Matrix. Also found that a vintage piece in working order can be worth over a hundred grand, on its own.¡±
Iceblade¡¯s Negotiation (Sense Motive): 11d6 = 2 Hits, 2 Miss (Success) Iceblade¡¯s Negotiation (Bargaining): 9d6 = 3 Hits, 3 Miss Brandeen¡¯s Negotiation (Bargaining): 6d6 = 2 Hits, 0 Miss
Didn¡¯t seem like she was lying, which meant that there was potential, there. Still, taking the first offer was a sucker play. ¡°Vintage guns are good, but they take time to sell. And if you want that money, then we¡¯re going to need to go in differently than those punks your former sugar daddy paid. We¡¯ll need to bring in a couple more, and properly case the joint so we find out what security is like at his place. While we keep you out of sight, so he doesn¡¯t make another play at you and your boy.¡± She bit her lip, and I could see I¡¯d scored a point there. ¡°So, here¡¯s my counter. Fifteen percent, for the team, plus we take the vintage guns. Even if there¡¯s only a million in the account, that still sets you up in high class digs for life, with plenty of nucred left over. Hell, you invest right, and don¡¯t squander things, when Cody turns sixteen, you¡¯ll be able to give him the latest model sports car from the biggest makers, and not even sweat.¡± ¡°Ten percent, for the team, and the guns. And I¡¯ll tell you where he keeps the good booze, the fifty-year old Scotch kind of good, mind you.¡± Looked over at Berzerker, and she gave a small nod. Turned back to Brandeen, and grinned. ¡°Sounds like you got a deal, Brandeen. Now, let¡¯s start working.¡± Chapter 6: Getting a Crew First things first. Brandeen and Cody needed a place to stay, since they definitely couldn¡¯t go home until after Mel was dealt with. Since we weren¡¯t talking a ¡®couple of hours¡¯ kind of run, they needed something like a motel room, and we¡¯d probably need one next to her, to make sure no more surprises happened. Berzerker got to work on that, while I reached out to my contacts, to see if we couldn¡¯t get some extra hands. Fortunately, I knew just who to call. ¡°What ya want?¡± ¡°Hello, Pixie. It¡¯s Iceblade. Had a job fall in my lap, and could use some help.¡± ¡°Icy, you bastard! I told ya not to call me that! I¡¯m not the Trixie Pixie anymore.¡± Despite her protest, I could hear the smile in her voice. She¡¯d been in the game for a long time, so she knew how things worked in the shadows. There was a difference between having someone¡¯s respect, and having them be respectful, and Alisha Cooper demanded respect. A bit of banter kept things loose. People were less likely to start reaching for weapons if they were loose. Of course, nothing got things tighter than trying to skip out on a bill, which showed a fundamental lack of respect. ¡°Sure thing, Alisha. Like I said, I¡¯ve got a job that fell into my lap, and need some people. Have a steady gunhand on side already, but could use some extra hands. A codeslicer, catburgler, and maybe a rigger for starts.¡± ¡°See, that¡¯s what I like about you, Iceblade. You know what you¡¯re needing, and aren¡¯t ashamed to just come out and say it. So, what kind of budget are you looking at?¡± ¡°Undetermined. Our take is percentage based, plus some loot to fence. Not expecting big league opposition, but would rather be overprepared than hanging in the wind. Think you can work with that?¡± ¡°Hmm. You¡¯re not going to get the highest-quality with that kind of setup. You say there probably won¡¯t be high-level opposition?¡± ¡°Guy paid a hit squad that screwed up killing an unarmed woman and her six-month-old son because he was too cheap to go for better.¡± ¡°Ah, yes. I know the type well. And despite being cheapskates, they often have interesting toys and plenty of credits just lying around in a bank account. All right, I have a few possibles. Four in total. They¡¯ve all have done work for me, and I¡¯ll vouch for them to at least wait until the run¡¯s done to bring out knives.¡± ¡°Anything I should know about them?¡± ¡°Your job isn¡¯t targeting Yaks, is it?¡± ¡°No, target isn¡¯t connected like that, from what we know.¡± ¡°Right, so three of them have Yak connections. One the normal way, friend of a friend doing work and all that. The other two? Well, they are SINners, and got in some trouble back in the Crash. Went into debt to the Yaks, and had to pay it off as bunraku girls. Debt¡¯s clear thanks to the first job they did for me, but they¡¯ve been keeping the side hustle because, frankly, they can¡¯t go back to corporate life, now.¡± ¡°We all do what we gotta do. What do I owe ya, Alisha?¡± ¡°Normally, I¡¯d charge you five hundred a head for this. But these kids need a team. They¡¯ve got the talent, but they need a solid crew or they¡¯re going to be meat. If you promise me you¡¯ll give them a solid shake, I¡¯ll cut my rate to a thousand for the four names.¡± ¡°Bleeding heart as always, Pixie,¡± I chuckled as I transferred the credits from my account. ¡°You¡¯ve got a deal. Looks like I¡¯m starting a crew. Sending over the nucred now.¡± ¡°Shut it, you. Once it goes through, I¡¯ll send the info. Have a place to meet?¡± I looked over to Berzerker, who had been listening in, and she held up her commlink so I could see the screen. ¡°Yeah, temporary digs while we work this job. Motel Frank, in Puyallup.¡± ¡°Hiding the hit targets, I take it? Good news is that Motel Frank didn¡¯t skimp on the soundproofing. Right, I have your money. Sending over their contact info now. I¡¯ll have them meet you at the motel.¡±Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. ¡°Sounds like a plan. Thanks, Alisha.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t get geeked, Iceblade.¡± I smiled as I hung up the call, and looked back to Berzerker. ¡°All right, I got some people to fill out our team. How many rooms did you get at the motel?¡± ¡°Four. Figure if we have a team of six, that¡¯s two per room, plus one for Brandeen and Cody, here. Four rooms is gonna run us 280 a night. 300 if we want the ¡®extra quiet¡¯ option.¡± ¡°Sounds good. We¡¯ll plan on five nights, extra quiet. That gives us a night to get acquainted, a day to scout, a day to plan, and a day to execute, with an extra day, just in case something goes wrong, or we need to make more preparations.¡± Brandeen perked up at that. ¡°So, I just have to lay low for five days, and then get out of town?¡± I nodded. ¡°All goes well, by next week you¡¯ll be off, getting a new life together. But now we should get to the motel. The further you are away from your old car and your old life, the better. I¡¯ll swing by a different Stuff House for supplies. Give Berzerker, here, a list of the essentials while she drives, and I¡¯ll see what I can do.¡± We split up for the drive to Puyallup. Reason why I was doing the shopping? Because bringing the girl and kid into another Stuff House was just asking for trouble. On the other hand, ¡®annoyed boyfriend picking up shit for the baby mama and her kid¡¯ did not draw nearly as many questions. Even if I was as well-armed as I was. Fortunately, Brandeen was proving to be a better client than some might be. No dumbass requests for first-class accommodations or a list of eight thousand things she absolutely needed. No, my Shark recognized her as another predator. Getting her stuff didn¡¯t even add five minutes to my drive. As I drove, I looked through the dossiers Pixie sent me. Basic info: runner handle, skill set, face shot, one or two facts about them. Four Shadowmen who were new to the scene. They¡¯d done some milk runs for Pixie, to prove they weren¡¯t useless, but this was the first gig she was sending them on where they needed to be more than glorified couriers. From my experience in the beta, this was one of the ways that new players got introduced to the game. Given the demographics in the real world, and the company¡¯s advice not to switch sexes on your first character, the fact that all four of the new shadowmen were women suggested that these were, indeed, players. Should be fun. First up was Twilight. Human technomancer, meaning she was a living commlink, basically. Some called them the Magicians of the Matrix, and it wasn¡¯t too far off. I¡¯d seen a technomancer at work in the beta, and they made the security their bitch so fast the network admins didn¡¯t even have time to respond before she set their own Intrusion Countermeasures (or IC) on them, so I was hopeful she¡¯d be able to take care of business. She was also the one who¡¯d done some jobs for the Yaks. Next was Babydoll. Another human, but she was a former newscaster who had been thrown out of a job when her newsroom burned to the ground in the Crash. She¡¯d stacked some debts getting protection. Yakuza didn¡¯t need a newscaster with rigger skills, but a pretty woman who only needed a data filter to be a bunraku girl, who wouldn¡¯t remember anything that happened to her after? That they could use. She¡¯d made good, though, and at least had some weapons and drones she could use. What she didn¡¯t have, however, was any real armor. Probably need to fix that. Third up was Sexkitten. She was heavily augmented. Like, a half-step from having so much augmentation that there wasn¡¯t any more of ¡®her¡¯ there. Her parents had apparently wanted a catgirl for a daughter, because they¡¯d had her genemodded in the womb. She¡¯d only gotten more mods since. She was apparently pretty skilled in hand-to-hand, and with guns, but getting free of the Yaks had left her with nothing but some armor. Fortunately, we had some guns she could use, until we got better. Finally, there was Shadowgirl. An elf, like me. Only, she was an adept, instead of a magician. Basically, Adepts turned their magic inward, which let them do some real freaky shit. She was a breaking and entering kind of girl, but also could hang in combat, from what this said. Definitely someone we¡¯d need on this run. When I got to Motel Frank, I saw that the guest parking was underground. Mixed feelings about that. On the plus side, it meant fewer people would see our rides from the street. On the minus, well, it meant people only had to clock one exit to see who was going in and out, and access to our rides was going to be through either an elevator or a roundabout route outside. Either way was a vulnerability. Still, it was a motel, not a fortress. We were never going to get an actual proper safehouse, not without going through a lot more hoops, and a helluvalot more money. So, all told, this was probably best we could do. Checked the commlink again, as I parked next to Berzerker¡¯s van. Confirmations from all four women, agreeing to the job, and the meet at Motel Frank. Even Sexkitten, who apparently was taking an autocab. Now I just needed to know which room to send them to. ¡°Berzerker, where you at?¡± ¡°Floor 3, rooms 314-317. Right by the elevator. 314 is Ms. Johnson¡¯s room, ours is 315. The others can work out who is in the other two themselves.¡± I chuckled as I heard that. Opened a window to send the room number to the four girls who¡¯d be joining us later while I responded. ¡°Right, staking a claim already, hmm? The other four are all women. Might need to share me.¡± ¡°Hah! Well, I don¡¯t mind sharing. Hell, back IRL, most girls need to share, or bat for the other team. That¡¯s one of the things they teach girls early on, actually. Fairy tales of the old days are just that. Not enough guys for everyone to have their own Prince Charming for themselves. Sure, it happens sometimes, but usually? You end up with sister-wives.¡± ¡°Damn, thought that was just in porn. Anyways, on my way up. The girls should be coming around before too long. Everyone¡¯s arriving separately, obviously.¡± ¡°Sounds good.¡± I signed off as I got out of the elevator on the third floor. Like she¡¯d said, our rooms were right by the elevator. 314 and 315 were to my right, with 316 and 317 to the left. Not the normal way of numbering things, but it worked. I knocked on 315, and Berzerker opened it wearing a grin and a towel, wet hair showing she¡¯d just gotten out of the shower. I noticed that, whatever other augments she had, there were armor plates literally bonded to her skin. One of the reasons she could tank a pistol shot to the chest and not even feel it, obviously. As she closed the door behind me, I heard the towel drop to the floor, and she whispered, ¡°So, we have a bit of time before everyone gets here. Maybe we can fool around a bit?¡± I chuckled. Out in the real world, I had not exactly gotten a chance to acquire a wide array of experiences. I¡¯d only been 18 when the tank took my legs, after all, and was still only 20. Outside of some girls at school, I hadn¡¯t had a chance to see what was out there. In the game, though? I¡¯d had plenty of chances with NPCs and fellow players. I reached out with one hand to grab her hair, near the base, and pulled, gently but insistently, guiding her to her knees. ¡°We don¡¯t have time for much. So why don¡¯t you show me what a good girl you can be? And, if you¡¯re good enough, I¡¯ll be sure to return the favor later.¡± Turned out, she was a very good girl. Unpracticed, but enthusiastic. I was definitely going to reward her later. Chapter 7: Settling In The other four arrived over the next hour. Fortunately, Berzerker and I had cleaned up before the first of them, Twilight, made it to the door. Not that I was a prude or anything, but it set the wrong impression about what I was gathering a team for. The room was your standard motel room. Two twin beds, a flatscreen TV, and a chairs, one for sitting at the desk/table, and the other for kicking back. Better than a coffin hotel or hostel, but definitely not the lap of luxury. ¡°All right,¡± I said, once everyone was here. ¡°So that everyone¡¯s on the same page, my name is Iceblade, and this is Berzerker. We were minding our own business at a Stuff House in Tacoma, when some dumbasses tried to do a hit on a woman, and then proceeded to fail to kill an unarmed and unarmored civilian with a car bomb. They continued that failure by coming into the Stuff House, waving guns and saying shit. That went about as well for them as you might expect.¡± There were chuckles all around at that. ¡°We were ¡®liberating¡¯ their belongings when the woman they failed to kill came up to us, and offered us a job. From now on, we¡¯ll be calling her Ms. Johnson, especially on comms. Ms. Johnson was the mistress of a VP for Allegiant Designs named Mel Cozi. Only, Mel called it off once she got pregnant. Ms. Johnson decided that wasn¡¯t going to fly, so, after the kid was born, she had the DNA tests done to prove he¡¯s Mel¡¯s kid, and blackmailed him, threatening to let his wife know if he didn¡¯t keep the credits coming.¡± Sexkitten groaned. ¡°I swear I¡¯ve seen this movie before.¡± I grinned at her. ¡°Well, coming from the anime catgirl, that¡¯s saying something.¡± A round of laughs, like I wanted, and she flipped me off. ¡°But all jokes aside, Ms. Johnson decided she wasn¡¯t going to just run and hide. She¡¯s asked us to write Mel out of the story. For payment, she¡¯s offering ten percent of the slush funds Mel has access to, plus the collection of collector guns he¡¯s got in his home. Last time she was able to check the slush fund, it was two million. Not saying that it is still two mil, but that¡¯s what got us to take the job.¡± Babydoll leaned forward. ¡°Ten percent of two million, plus whatever we can get from collectible guns? Even split six ways, that¡¯s a big payday. What¡¯s the catch?¡± ¡°The catch is that we don¡¯t have any info on how big the fund is now, and any intel on his security arrangements or schedule is almost a year out of date. Which means we need to figure out his schedule, figure out the security on his house, make sure that the guns and funds are there, and get away clean after doing the job. That¡¯s more than two people can handle, which is why I put in a call to Alisha, who put me in touch with you all.¡± Twilight raised a hand, and I nodded to her. ¡°Not that I¡¯m trying to be ¡®that girl¡¯, but who put you in charge? You think that, because you¡¯re a guy, you can boss us around?¡± ¡°I¡¯m in charge because I¡¯m the one who put out the call, and got Alisha to give me your names. So, for this job, I¡¯m boss. If everything goes well, and we maybe decide to keep working together, then we can talk things out. However, each of us have our areas of expertise, with some overlap. So, Twilight, when we need someone to ravage the digital world for us, that¡¯s your time to shine. You know your business best. Same with the rest of you. Anyone have an issue with that?¡± Sexkitten shook her head. ¡°Not an issue with that, exactly. But I¡¯m in a bit of a state, thanks to some ¡®issues¡¯ I just worked out with some people. Could really use a weapon, if someone has a spare.¡± Babydoll grimaced. ¡°And I could probably use some better armor if we¡¯re going to be in a fight.¡± Berzerker grinned as she pulled out the take from the earlier fight. ¡°Well, fortunately, we have some weapons and armor that some idiots are no longer using. Can¡¯t promise that they¡¯re the best quality, but they¡¯re better than nothing.¡± Babydoll picked out the Armor Vest that the guy with the AK-97 Carbine had been wearing, and said, ¡°Well, the bloodstains don¡¯t exactly fill me with confidence, but it will do until we get our take from the job.¡± Sexkitten, on the other hand, picked up the AK-97 Carbine, and the ammo we had for it. ¡°I can work with this. Might not be the best weapon out there, but putting rounds downrange can be as useful as putting them in targets sometimes.¡± With that settled, I moved to the next item on my little agenda. ¡°Right, now, way I figured it, we¡¯re already at about dinner time. I figure we order some food, and go over what we can do.¡± Berzerker grinned. ¡°I got a list of takeout places that delivered here when I was checking in for the rooms. And I made sure to let Ms. J know to talk to us when she wants something, so we can get it without triggering her accounts or anything.¡±The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Ms. Johnson is in the motel with us?¡± Twilight asked. ¡°Room next to ours,¡± Berzerker nodded. ¡°The fact that you haven¡¯t heard the kid crying shows that they didn¡¯t cheap out on the soundproofing.¡± ¡°So, speaking of rooms, Berzerker and I will be sharing this one. Rooms 316 and 317 are ours, too, so you four can sort that out amongst yourselves. Physical keycards, because they don¡¯t trust the network that much here.¡± ¡°Smart,¡± Twilight nodded. ¡°I could still get through the locks, as could any hacker, but if someone is taking the time to hack our rooms here, instead of just breaking down the door, we got bigger problems. I¡¯ll check to see what kind of camera coverage we have, here.¡± ¡°And I can set up one of my spy drones to cover the gaps, if needed. They¡¯re little things, about the size of a housefly, but that¡¯ll be enough to keep eyes on the elevator, and Ms. Johnson¡¯s room, if they aren¡¯t already covered.¡± ¡°Do it anyways,¡± I said. ¡°Hacking the existing cameras is good, but any talented crew coming after us is going to hack the cameras as well, so having the spy drones is a good backup. I would rather be overprepared than caught by surprise.¡± Shadowgirl spoke up for the first time. The adept liked to listen more than speak, from the looks of it. ¡°Hence you putting a call out for a full team, instead of just getting a hacker, right?¡± ¡°Exactly,¡± I nodded. ¡°So, before we get too far along, I¡¯m guessing the four of you are players?¡± That surprised them. Babydoll was the first to speak. ¡°Wait, what? I mean, yeah, I am, but what would you have done if any of us weren¡¯t?¡± ¡°Something we found out during the beta. The AI will filter talk of RL stuff, either muting it, or rephrasing it for NPCs. So, if any of you were NPCs, they would have heard some nonsense question, or just ignored the fact that I was speaking.¡± ¡°Hold up,¡± Sexkitten said. ¡°You were in the beta? Are you the mysterious Seattle guy that people were talking about on the forums? No one could figure out who you were, some of them even tried clocking your login-logout times, but there were some crazy rumors there that you were spoofing the readings somehow, since you were online way too much for a pod.¡± ¡°Yes, I was the ¡®mysterious Seattle guy¡¯. And no, I wasn¡¯t spoofing my login times. Truth is, I was a product tester for MetaTech, on a new long-term medical version of the pods everyone uses. Basically, for people with traumatic injuries, who wouldn¡¯t be able to live a normal life otherwise. Beta testing the game was a very nice bonus.¡± I held up a hand to quell more questions. ¡°Point is, I¡¯ve learned a few things about the game system, and how things work. Wasn¡¯t able to carry over any of my characters from the beta, but the bonuses from being a Beta tester and pre-ordering allowed me to make a pretty good combat mage. I¡¯m focused primarily on blades and pistols for normal attacks, and I have a good variety of spells on tap, but I also can dabble as the face of the party if need be.¡± ¡°Ooh, what were the bonuses for being a Beta tester?¡± Babydoll asked. ¡°My characters start as ¡®Prime Runners¡¯. Basically, I get 500 BP to start with, instead of 400, but the normal restrictions on how much you can spend on what are still in play. So, I have an edge, but not as much of one as you might think. I¡¯m definitely not some god-tier character.¡± ¡°All right,¡± Shadowgirl said. ¡°Well, I¡¯m an adept. Decided to go for the whole ninja thing. I¡¯m good at getting places I shouldn¡¯t be, and I¡¯m primarily a blades girl, but I also have a pistol because I don¡¯t have the insane strength needed to make throwing weapons or archery worth it.¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯m Berzerker. Can call me a heavy, because my cyberware definitely adds a few pounds, but also because I¡¯m your heavy weapons girl. I have some lighter weapons like battle rifles and SMGs, but my baby is a light machine gun, or the grenade launcher. But, if someone really wants to get me in melee, I have a couple things for them, too. Oh, and I have this infusion thing that means I don¡¯t register pain, which is where the name comes in.¡± ¡°Fine,¡± Twilight sighed. ¡°I¡¯m a technomancer. Means I can manipulate the Matrix with my mind, no commlinks or hardware required. I do have a normal commlink, as a dummy, and for external storage, but I don¡¯t hack with it. And, well, my big weakness is that I put all my focus into my Matrix work, so I am not really that great at meat-world combat.¡± ¡°Good thing I¡¯m here, then,¡± Babydoll grinned. ¡°I¡¯m pretty good with weapons in the meat and through drones. So, if we both do our out of body stuff in my van, we¡¯ll at least be fairly well protected.¡± ¡°Guess that leaves me,¡± Sexkitten said. ¡°I¡¯m pretty heavily augmented, as you can see. I can back Shadow up on infiltrating, and I¡¯m good with automatics. And I can shred with blades, including my claws, or hand razors as they are supposed to be called. Oh, and I have these tailored pheromones, so I can chat people up pretty well? Not saying anything about our fearless leader, but there are a lot more guys here, than in RL, so some of them might take a woman¡¯s touch.¡± ¡°None taken,¡± I grinned. ¡°Ideally, we¡¯d have someone for every role, and someone who could cover for them in a pinch. That isn¡¯t always possible, of course, but it is a good goal. Speaking of covering for people, how is everyone situated on transport? I¡¯ve got a racing bike, which can color change if needed.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve got a Bulldog,¡± Berzerker said. ¡°No color-changing. Couldn¡¯t afford it. But there¡¯s plenty of room for people and gear. That¡¯s where I keep most of my guns when on the job.¡± ¡°I also have a Bulldog,¡± added Babydoll. ¡°I do have the color changing option, but I had to sacrifice most of the seating to add in drone racks so I could launch some of my babies while on the move. Got a VTOL drone for long-term overwatch, and Steel Cougar for combat, loaded with an LMG to bring the hurt.¡± ¡°I have the Tsarina you probably saw as you were coming up from the lot,¡± Twilight said. ¡°Subcompact, with a passenger in front of the driver kind of cockpit vibe. Up-armored it a bit, the concealed kind. Didn¡¯t have money for further mods, though.¡± ¡°I came by cab,¡± Sexkitten sighed. ¡°Something else I¡¯ll have to fix with my share of the take, for sure.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve got a racing bike, like Iceblade,¡± Shadowgirl said. ¡°Nothing too special about it. Certainly no weapons or anything like that.¡± ¡°Right. So, tomorrow, I want us to split up. We¡¯ll need to check out Cozi, figure out the security on his house, and his schedule. Someone will need to stay here to cover and make sure that our paycheck doesn¡¯t get herself into trouble. Ideas?¡± Babydoll raised a hand. ¡°Are you going to be doing the out of body thing that mages can do? Scout around as a ghost, or whatever?¡± ¡°Yeah. At the very least, I¡¯ll be able to tell if there are any wards we need to worry about. Twilight, I expect you¡¯ll be deep diving the Matrix? You want to do that here, or someplace mobile?¡± ¡°Mobile. Preferably someone else¡¯s car, so I don¡¯t have to drive while shaking off dumpshock if something tags me. Babydoll, have seats for two in your van?¡± ¡°Yeah, I can fit up to three passengers. Any more than that, and we¡¯d need a second ride.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll come with you then,¡± said Shadowgirl. ¡°I¡¯ll check things out, find the best place to infiltrate, if we need to.¡± ¡°Berzerker and I hold down the fort, then?¡± Sexkitten asked, before looking over to the heavy gunner. ¡°Sounds good to me. Ms. J already knows me, and we¡¯ll introduce you to her, as well. And, with the firepower we have, we should be able to keep them safe from anything short of a full-on elite corpsec strike team.¡± ¡°Perfect,¡± I grinned. ¡°Now, let¡¯s order up some grub.¡± Chapter 8: Scouting ¡°So, did Berzerker live up to her name in bed?¡± I chuckled as I looked over to Twilight. It was the next morning, and we were in Babydoll¡¯s van, driving towards Bellevue, where Mel Cozi had his home. Babydoll was driving, of course, and Shadowgirl was in the passenger seat, with Twilight and me in the second (and only) row bench seat. Twilight had done some digital scouting the night before. Nothing major, just enough to get the address. ¡°Now, now, Twilight, if I didn¡¯t know better, I¡¯d say you were jealous.¡± The technomancer sputtered, but I didn¡¯t give her a chance to respond. ¡°But she does give off that impression, what with the name and her love of heavy weapons, doesn¡¯t she?¡± Babydoll grinned. ¡°So, what, was she making a play for Sexkitten¡¯s name instead? Or mine?¡± Then she blinked, in that way people did when they were reading a message in an AR window. ¡°Oh, wow. Apparently, she¡¯s gushing to Sexkitten. Something about you making her your sub? You got that far in one fucking day?¡± ¡°Without confirming nor denying, I¡¯ll just say that she¡¯s a bit starved for a strong male presence in her life, out in RL. Despite everything that¡¯s happened, some girls like the old stories of the big, strong man to come in and take charge, make them feel safe and secure. Plus, since she¡¯s the ¡®tank¡¯ of the group, who can wade through fire and resist most of it, while not feeling the rest? Letting herself go, in a safe environment, is self-care.¡± Shadowgirl turned to look at me. ¡°You a therapist in real life, Iceblade? Because that was some grade A psych drek.¡± I shrugged in reply. ¡°Not a therapist. Gone to more than a few, though, both in real life and in game, during the Beta.¡± ¡°In game?¡± Shadowgirl asked. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t the RL filters catch that? Make going to them worthless?¡± ¡°Most of the therapists? Yes. But there¡¯s a dedicated section where RL counselors load in. They don¡¯t advertise it directly, because mental health issues still get everyone touchy, but if your biometrics go too far out of line, or someone already in the program recommends you, then the admins will send you a message, telling you where to look to schedule an appointment, without logging out.¡± ¡°Huh,¡± Babydoll said. ¡°Wonder why they did it that way.¡± ¡°Liability issues. Shadowmen isn¡¯t like those other games where you just go around murdering the other faction, or the like. When you¡¯re doing professional criminal things, chances are you¡¯re going to run into some nasty drek, and maybe have nasty drek done to you. And when you already have the risk of virtual addictions and phobias from negative qualities? Company wants to catch any bleedthrough between reality and the game (either way, but especially from the game to reality) early on, so they don¡¯t get hit with lawsuits. So, therapists in the game world, who can talk to people who might not feel comfortable enough to actually go to a therapist¡¯s office in the real world.¡± Twilight seemed to have recovered from my shameless not-quite-acknowledgement of sleeping with Berzerker. ¡°Mind me asking what you were seeing a therapist for? If you¡¯re ok talking about it, that is.¡± ¡°Eh, not exactly hiding it, though I don¡¯t go spreading it around, for obvious reasons. And I don¡¯t mind you sharing with the other two, Babydoll, but not outside the team, yeah?¡± She nodded, so I continued, ¡°I told you all I was a product tester for the long-term immersion medical pods, right? It is basically the same as the normal pod, but beefed-up life support functions to prevent muscle atrophy and other such things. Well, the reason I was picked as a product tester is because I was in an accident, about two years ago, now.¡± Twilight frowned. ¡°What kind of accident?¡± ¡°Car accident. If you count a tank rolling over your car as an accident.¡± ¡°Wait!¡± Babydoll gasped. ¡°Two years ago? There was a big story then! It was all over the news! Some girl got pissed, stole a tank from the National Guard, and took it on a joyride through the city! There were something like fifty people injured, and three dead! But the stories only mentioned three men in the whole thing. One bystander who lost his fianc¨¦, one of the injuries, and one of the dead.¡±If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°That would be it,¡± I nodded. ¡°One of the three dead was some poor girl who got run over when a car swerved to get out of the way of a tank. Can¡¯t blame the driver, either. I¡¯d have done the same. The other two were my parents. We were celebrating my eighteenth birthday. Some celebration, eh? Dead parents, and my legs gone just above the knee.¡± I took a breath, going through one of the exercises the therapists had given me. ¡°I was a mess, obviously. The lawyers handled most of the estate stuff, and the settlement. I was the poor pitiful man who lost his parents and was going to be in a chair the rest of his life. Few months after the accident, MetaTech approached me. They already had the pod everyone uses, but were developing a long-term one, for people with conditions like mine, or worse. I heard that I would get to walk again, and signed on. Going to therapy was part of the deal. Can¡¯t have their tests being thrown off by a bad baseline, yeah?¡± That kind of soured the conversation. It always did, but the therapist said that, if I was comfortable talking about it, actually talking about it, not just inflicting the information on someone, then I ought to do it. Shadowgirl, the quiet one, was the one to break the silence. ¡°So, you must have thrown yourself into the Beta, yeah? Any tips and tricks for us?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± I nodded, glad to have a change of conversation. ¡°You should all have at least one point of the Edge stat. Save that shit, don¡¯t spend it blindly. You really screw something up, I¡¯m talking crit glitch while holding the bomb and it goes boom, would spread you all over the street? You can spend a point of edge to downgrade that to a regular glitch. You¡¯ll still screw up whatever you were doing, but maybe not in a way that¡¯ll kill you. Also, if you get dead, I mean dead-dead, you can burn a point of Edge, losing it permanently, and live. Probably still be messed up like hell, but you won¡¯t be going for a reroll.¡± Babydoll nodded. ¡°Something to keep in mind, then. All right, everyone, we¡¯re passing by Cozi¡¯s place on the left. Right now, we¡¯re projecting like we¡¯re a canvasing crew campaigning for the Governor for the upcoming election, so people won¡¯t look too close. Anyone that does start looking, I¡¯m sending them copies of the Governor¡¯s actual campaign bulletins. Twilight, Iceblade? You need me to stay still?¡± I shook my head. ¡°No, I¡¯ll be able to zip back easily enough, so long as you don¡¯t suddenly go off to Vancouver. I¡¯m just going to go out of body and scout the area.¡± ¡°Same,¡± Twilight nodded. ¡°I just needed to be close enough to confirm that the node I checked out last night was the one I need to hit. I¡¯m going to go slow on this one, don¡¯t want to spook the security.¡± ¡°Right,¡± Babydoll nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll launch my spy drone. SG and I¡¯ll look at the feed, see if anything about the situation sticks out to us.¡± I nodded, and leaned back, getting comfortable. ¡°If you need me back in a hurry, poke my hand or something with a knife. Just enough to draw blood. Otherwise, I won¡¯t be able to hear you unless I¡¯m hovering nearby.¡± I disconnected from my body, and transferred my consciousness to the astral plane. Only spirits, Magicians, and some dual-natured creatures could see this world. It was like looking at the negative of an old film picture. Anything solid and unliving was a shadow that didn¡¯t truly exist in this world. Of course, existing or not, a pane of glass was the same as a brick wall when you were trying to cast spells that relied on the astral to hit people. You couldn¡¯t ¡®see¡¯ the target, so you couldn¡¯t hit them. Everything living, however, lit up. Some more, some less. It was based off your life force, or essence, and how much of it you had, as well as what kind of magic you were slinging. Rat was dimmer than a healthy adult, naturally, but they might shine brighter than someone so augmented that there was barely any human to them. Anyone that was really ¡®present¡¯ on this plane, like spirits or, gods forbid, a dragon, stuck out like a spotlight, unless they were powerful enough to control how much they stuck out. The big thing about astral projection, which is what I was doing right now, is that only a few kinds of security could even detect me, and fewer could keep me from looking around, if I wanted to, and all of them were either rare, expensive, or blatantly obvious. Those same kinds of security would be problematic if we walked up to the house not expecting them, however, which is why I was doing this bit of surveillance. Better to confirm things than be surprised. No wards. Those would have been like a big, translucent forcefield in my vision, clearly visible, unless he had the kind of clout to hire a heavyweight to do his wards, and was willing to spend the creds on it. Given the quality of his hit squad, I doubted that.
Iceblade¡¯s Assensing check: 4d6 = 2 Hits, 1 Miss. (Success) Iceblade¡¯s Assensing check: 4d6 = 1 Hits, 0 Miss. (Success)
The home was what some people called a McMansion, generic ¡°I have money¡± two-story building, plenty of rooms to show off wealth and entertain guests. I started on the second floor, because I figured that was where important people would be. And I hit paydata. Two people. Both mundane humans, male and female. It looked like someone was having an early ¡®lunch¡¯. Guy was healthy, but cybered in the eyes and ears. Normal otherwise, except for the fact that he looked to be faking his enthusiasm for the nooner. Oh, not that he wasn¡¯t enjoying getting laid, but this was more business for him than anything. An escort, maybe? Or a bodyguard doing a special job of guarding his principle¡¯s body? Either way, the woman was also healthy, though intoxicated somehow, couldn¡¯t tell if it was drugs or alcohol, though. Either way, she was deeply in lust, and full of satisfaction at her ¡®conquest¡¯. Possibly the wife, deciding that if Mel could step around, so could she?
Iceblade¡¯s Assensing check: 4d6 = 3 Hits, 0 Miss. (Success) Iceblade¡¯s Assensing check: 4d6 = 2 Hits, 0 Miss. (Success) Iceblade¡¯s Assensing check: 4d6 = 2 Hits, 0 Miss. (Success)
Downstairs, I found three more people. All human. One man, in the kitchen, unaugmented, nonmagical. Probably the cook, or a live-in servant? Not an issue. Two others, though? Humans, mundane, augmented, like the one upstairs. More guards, probably, given how one was patrolling the ground floor, while the other was sitting, maybe watching security footage? Either way, that looked like an office. I didn¡¯t see any other auras. No spirits on guard, or anything like that. Given the quality of the guards, he probably wasn¡¯t expecting a major assault on his mansion. This was just to keep random thieves out, and give his ego some security. We could work with this. Chapter 9: Shots in the Dark I spent an hour going over the site, making sure I didn¡¯t miss any hidden surprises. Twilight was still at things for another two hours after I returned to my body, but when she finally came back to her body, we learned that not only had she gotten into Cozi¡¯s home system, but she now had administrator access, and was in the process of going through everything on his home node. When it came time to make our play, she would be able to make sure the security never saw us, and no alerts went out from the house to the Red Knights, or any other security company. While I¡¯d been out of body, Babydoll and Shadowgirl had gone over the area with her spy drone, and came up with a rough map of the site. Their main concerns were the security fence and the gate, but with Twilight owning the systems, we could just open the gate and roll straight in. Combined with the floor plan the hacker had snagged, we had enough to plan our raid. First, the gun collection was confirmed. There was a whole folder on the home node with the authentication papers, as well as the frequency codes for the RFID tags on each gun. Twenty guns total, with the two oldest being a Thompson SMG, like our Ms. Johnson had told us, and a Colt 1911. Valuation on the paperwork put the entire collection at just over two hundred and fifty thousand nucred. So, even if the slush fund was empty, we had a pretty good payday coming, once we moved the guns. The slush fund was not mentioned on the home node at all. Not surprising. Last thing someone like Mel would want to do is leave evidence of a spare bank account where the wife he was cheating on could find it. Well, the fact that he only had a biometric lock on his commlink while with his mistress was pretty stupid, but putting things on the home node was extra stupid. That was just begging for trouble. The big thing was that there were only four guards on site at night. Not the same crowd as the day group, but they looked similar in build, and the pictures Twilight pulled off the security system suggested they had the same type of augments as the ones I¡¯d spotted. Humans, moving at human speeds. The guards were from the company, not a private contractor, which meant that Cozi didn¡¯t have to foot the bill, which was great for a cheapskate like him, but it meant that the guards were just nicely dressed corpsec, instead of elite guards or worse, which was good for us. On the way back, Twilight had us swing through a bank in Puyallup. A whisper to the ATM, and we now had a stack of 40 certified credsticks, each of them blank, but capable of holding up to 100k nucred. Meaning that, if we filled them all, we¡¯d be sitting on four million nucred. That ought to be more than enough to store whatever was in the slush fund, and break the datatrail so we didn¡¯t have angry corpsec at our doors looking to collect. Thinking along the same lines, I picked up a disposable commlink, so that Ms. Johnson could call us without using her commlink. Suffice to say, Ms. Johnson was thrilled to hear that the gig was a go, and there was a good chance she¡¯d be getting paid. She¡¯d been good, and not shown her face or ordered anything, with her commlink off the whole time. The prospect of having even the shitty disposable commlink to help her pass the time buoyed her spirits, too. Obviously, she couldn¡¯t go accessing her old accounts just yet, but at least she¡¯d be able to do more than watch whatever was on the flatscreen trid bolted to the wall. By this point, it was just after four PM. Sure, we¡¯d paid for a few days at this motel, thinking that we¡¯d maybe have to do some heavy planning to make it work. The fact that Twilight owned their security system and cameras, and there were no magical protections in place meant that this should go smoothly. Idea was that we would attack tonight, after dinner. We took the two vans. Babydoll and Twilight in her van, with the drones, and the rest of us in Berzerker¡¯s van. It was just after 10PM when we hit Cozi¡¯s neighborhood, and Babydoll launched her spy drone, to make sure that we had eyes in the sky. Good thing, too, because one of the guards was walking the perimeter.
Shadowgirl¡¯s Gymnastics test: 8d6 = 5 Hits, 2 Misses Shadowgirl¡¯s Infiltration test: 10d6 = 6 Hits, 3 Misses Shadowgirl¡¯s Attack Roll (Guard): 13d6 = 3 Hits, 4 Misses Guard¡¯s Defense: 4d6 = 0 Hits, 2 Misses (3 Net Hits) Semi-Auto: 9P, -2 AP Guard¡¯s Damage Resistance: 7d6 = 2 Hits, 0 Misses (7P) Guard: 7/10 Physical Monitor Shadowgirl¡¯s Attack Roll (Guard): 13d6 = 3 Hits, 1 Misses Guard¡¯s Defense: 4d6 = 1 Hits, 1 Misses (2 Net Hits) Semi-Auto: 8P, -2 AP Guard¡¯s Damage Resistance: 7d6 = 4 Hits, 1 Misses (4P) Guard: 11/10 Physical Monitor (Dying)
Shadowgirl slipped out of the van when we stopped at a stop sign, and put her Chameleon Suit to work, the optical camouflage helping to make her even harder to see than normal. The only reason we could track her was because her commlink was in the team channel. The guard didn¡¯t have a prayer of seeing her as she silently parkoured over the security fence, and landed inside the perimeter. Two shots from her suppressed pistol, and he was down. I smiled as she announced her success by subvocalizing into the team channel.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Shadowgirl: Clear. No sign of alarm from the house. Twilight: Security is blind. Looping cameras and sensors. All calls from the home node routed through me. Gate will open as we approach. Babydoll: No sign of other interference. Pulling in now, lights off as we make the turn. Berzerker: Following you in. Silently, we pulled up to the front door of the house, with the lights off. At least a few alarms should have been tripped by now, but Twilight was on top of them. As quietly as possible, the four of us going in broke into two groups. Shadowgirl and I went around to the back, moving as quickly and quietly as we could, while Berzerker and Sexkitten made their way to the front. A minimap showed up in our AR view, showing the house, with five dots, which were quickly tagged with IDs. Twilight: Five total in residence. Two upstairs. Cozi in study, wife in bed. Three guards downstairs. Two in foyer, full view of front door. Third by rear door in living room, near the stairs. Doors unlocked, alarms down. Iceblade: Back door in position. Berzerker: Front door in position. Babydoll: No signs of other vehicles or security. Iceblade: Twilight, give us a three count. Drop the lights on one. Twilight: Got it. Wait one. Cozi leaving study. Ok, looks like he¡¯s going to the upstairs toilet. I watched as one of the dots moved from the upstairs study, and then went to a bathroom, right next to the stairs. Guy probably didn¡¯t want to wake up the wife with whatever ¡®business¡¯ he was doing. Iceblade: Give him a sec to sit down, then start us off. Twilight: All right. Three. Two. One. Go, go, go! As I asked, the lights went out on one. Didn¡¯t matter to us, since we were already prepped with different kinds of senses to let us see in the dark, or mostly dark. I opened the door, and rushed in quietly, katana in hand.
Initiative Iceblade¡¯s Initiative: 9d6 = 3 Hits, 2 Misses (Init 12, 3 passes) Berzerker¡¯s Initiative: 9d6 = 3 Hits, 1 Miss (Init 12, 3 Passes) Sexkitten¡¯s Initiative: 9d6 = 2 Hits, 0 Miss (Init 11, 3 Passes) Shadowgirl¡¯s Initiative: 9d6 = 4 Hits, 1 Miss (Init 13, 3 Passes) Guard 1¡¯s Initiative: 7d6 = 2 Hits, 1 Miss (Init 9, 1 Pass) Guard 2¡¯s Initiative: 7d6 = 3 Hits, 1 Miss (Init 10, 1 Pass) Guard 3¡¯s Initiative: 7d6 = 3 Hits, 1 Miss (Init 10, 1 Pass) Mel¡¯s Initiative: 8d6 = 4 Hits, 2 Miss (Init 12, 1 Pass)
Shadowgirl¡¯s Attack Roll (Guard 3): 13d6 = 2 Hits, 4 Misses Guard 3¡¯s Defense: 4d6 = 0 Hits, 1 Misses (2 Net Hits) Semi-Auto: 8P, -2 AP Guard 3¡¯s Damage Resistance: 7d6 = 1 Hits, 3 Misses (7P) Guard 3: 7/10 Physical Monitor Shadowgirl¡¯s Attack Roll (Guard 3): 13d6 = 6 Hits, 4 Misses Guard 3¡¯s Defense: 4d6 = 2 Hits, 0 Misses (4 Net Hits) Semi-Auto: 10P, -2 AP Guard 3¡¯s Damage Resistance: 7d6 = 3 Hits, 1 Misses (7P) Guard 3: 14/10 Physical Monitor (Dead)
Shadowgirl moved just that little bit quicker than the rest of us. Gun in hand, she put two shots into the guard, and he went down, just like the other. No chance to even respond. Shadowgirl: Guard 3 down. I didn¡¯t respond with words. I just moved past the guard, and up the stairs. Right next to the bathroom door. Ready and waiting for Mel to come out.
Berzerker¡¯s Attack Roll (Guard 1): 10d6 = 3 Hits, 1 Miss Guard 1¡¯s Defense: 4d6 = 1 Hits, 1 Miss (2 Net Hits) Burst Fire (Short, Narrow): 8P, -1 AP Guard 1¡¯s Damage Resistance: 8d6 = 2 Hits, 1 Miss (6P) Guard 1: 6/10 Physical Monitor Berzerker¡¯s Attack Roll (Guard 1): 10d6 = 2 Hits, 3 Misses Guard 1¡¯s Defense: 4d6: 1 Hits, 0 Miss (1 Net Hits) Burst Fire (Short, Narrow): 7P, -1 AP Guard 1¡¯s Damage Resistance: 8d6 = 1 Hits, 0 Miss (6P) Guard 1: 12/10 Physical Monitor (Dying)
I heard two quick bursts from Berzerker¡¯s SMG. The tight quarters were too much for a machine gun, after all. Still, I knew just how precise she could be with that weapon, so I wasn¡¯t surprised to hear her in the chat. Berzerker: Guard 1 down.
Iceblade¡¯s attack roll (Mel): 13d6 = 6 Hits, 2 Miss Mel¡¯s Defense: 3d6 = 0 Hits, 0 Miss (6 Net Hits) Winter¡¯s Breath: 11P, -1 AP Mel¡¯s Damage Resistance: 3d6 = 1 Hit, 1 Miss (10P) Mel: 10/10 Physical Monitor (Unconscious)
Cozi opened the bathroom door, pants still around his ankles, and a Predator IV in his hand, pointing to the stairs. He couldn¡¯t see me in the semi-darkness, but I could see him just fine. One cut from my blade, and he was on the ground, bleeding bad. Iceblade: Cozi¡¯s down. Not dead yet.
Sexkitten¡¯s Suppressive Fire: 9d6 = 2 Hits, 2 Miss Guard 2¡¯s Defense: 6d6 = 0 Hits, 3 Miss (2 Net Hits) (Critical Glitch) Suppressive Fire: 5P Guard 2¡¯s Damage Resistance: 3d6 = 0 Hits, 1 Miss (5P) Guard 2: 5/10 Physical Monitor
There was a long, loud rumble of fire from downstairs. The classic sound of spray and pray, which, to be honest, was about what you could expect out of Sexkitten¡¯s borrowed gun, anyways, especially with only regular ammo loaded. Still, it sounded like she made the best of it. Sexkitten: Guard 2 took one in in the groin from spray and pray. Down but not out. Berzerker: Looks like Guard 2 is too busy holding his wounded gun to think about using his other one. HA!
Shadowgirl¡¯s Defense: 7d6 = 2 Hits, 2 Miss (0 Net Hits) Shadowgirl¡¯s Attack Roll (Guard 2): 13d6 = 2 Hits, 4 Misses Guard 2¡¯s Defense: 3d6 = 1 Hits, 0 Misses (1 Net Hits) Semi-Auto: 7P, -2 AP Guard 2¡¯s Damage Resistance: 7d6 = 0 Hits, 1 Misses (6P) Guard 2: 11/10 Physical Monitor (Dying)
Glancing back downstairs, I saw Shadowgirl dart into the cone of suppressive fire Sexkitten laid down, but she wasn¡¯t even touched by the bullets. Another shot from her pistol, and it was done. Shadowgirl: Guard 2 down. Status of wife? Twilight: Cowering in master bathroom. Bedroom door and bathroom door are locked, with mechanical locks. Iceblade: She have a commlink with her? Twilight: No, she panicked, and left it on the nightstand. Iceblade: Then leave her. Come on in, so we can get the slush funds. I¡¯ll keep watch on the master bedroom. Babydoll, take over watching the security cameras, and also keep watch on the surrounding houses. This was loud, so someone might get curious. Assume they¡¯ve called the Knights, and keep watch. Everyone else, start loading the guns, like we¡¯re on a timer. And don¡¯t forget to use a tag eraser on them! Babydoll: Will do. Shadowgirl: Got it, boss. Twilight: On my way. Chapter 10: Team Moving the guns was easy for the girls, since Twilight had already turned off and unlocked the displays when she took down the security. I wasn¡¯t worried about getting those out of here. The main concern was making sure the wife didn¡¯t do anything stupid, and Twilight getting the money from the slush account. I nodded wordlessly to Twilight as she got to the top of the stairs, and knelt by Cozi¡¯s side. Pulling a commlink from his pants pocket, she pressed his finger to the biometric reader, and a dim glow appeared as the screen turned on. Looks like he hadn¡¯t updated his security. Twilight: I¡¯m in. Looking for the funds now. Berzerker: Halfway done with the guns. Babydoll: No movement outside. Security camera in the bedroom doesn¡¯t show any movement. Twilight: I have it. Just where Ms. Johnson said it would be. Current value is 2.4 million nucred. Slightly more than we expected, less than we prepped for. Iceblade: Drain the account. Six credsticks for our share, and put the rest on the ones we¡¯ll be giving to Ms. Johnson. Twilight: Proceeding. Sexkitten: Guns loaded. Tags erased. Going to grab the 50 year old Scotch Ms. J mentioned? Iceblade: Should be in the desk in the study. I¡¯ll grab it. Moving quietly through the half-lit house, I found my way to the study where Cozi had been sitting before his ill-fated bathroom break. According to Brandeen, the left door of the desk held Mel¡¯s private stash. Opening it, I was pleased to find two bottles. Fortunately, I had two deep pockets on my lined coat. Twilight: Done. Iceblade: Have the treats for after-job party. How we looking, Babydoll? Babydoll: One of the neighbors is looking at the house from his balcony. Opposite side of the house from our vans. Iceblade: All right, exfil, front door. Everyone started moving back to the vans. I took a moment to finish Cozi, since no one wanted him waking back up later. Killing the unconscious man was simplicity itself, but I didn¡¯t take any pleasure in it. It was just business. Nothing I hadn¡¯t done more than a few times during the beta. I was the last one into Berzerker¡¯s van. I¡¯d just gotten into the passenger seat up front when the van started, and both vehicles turned around and drove back to the gate. Right on cue, the gate opened for us, and we drove out. Iceblade: Right. Job¡¯s done, now we just have to get away with it. Babydoll: Drone retrieved. Only evidence left is shell casings and dead bodies. Iceblade: You out of the system, Twilight? Twilight: System rebooted, deleted my access logs, and all data from the last hour. They¡¯ll know someone was in the system, but no traces. Iceblade: Excellent. The drive back to our motel in Puyallup was quiet, for the most part. No one was willing to start celebrating until we were well and truly clear. The Red Knights were a concern, yes, but there were always gangs and other problems that could cause trouble for you when driving through the sprawl. And trouble brought the Knights, one way or the other, which we didn¡¯t need right now. Still, we were lucky. No problems on the way back. No signs that we were being tailed, or that the heat was on. We¡¯d gotten away with it. Brandeen was more than happy to get the stack of certified credsticks that would let her start a new life. If she went to New Angeles like she intended, there¡¯d be plenty of places for her to disappear into. Especially if she got a new face to go with a new SIN and other necessities. Fortunately, if there was one thing New Angeles had plenty of, it was biomodders and plastic surgeons. That done, I returned to my room, where the rest of the team was gathered. There was a cheer as I entered, and Sexkitten handed me a cup with amber liquid in it. Sure, drinking scotch from a plastic cup was not exactly proper, but, well, we made do. I raised my cup, and said, ¡°Well, ladies, here¡¯s to a great first run.¡± Another cheer, and everyone drained their cups. I had never had more than a glass of wine in the real world. It wasn¡¯t until I¡¯d gotten into the game that I came to understand the joy of alcohol. Especially good alcohol. Where the taste was smooth, and smoky. While reloading everyone¡¯s cups, Babydoll grinned. ¡°So, first run? Thinking about making this group something more permanent than just a pick-up team?¡± I shrugged. ¡°If you¡¯re all willing, I see no reason not to. You¡¯ve all got skills, and we work together well. And if success in the game means I have to hang around beautiful women all the time, that¡¯s just a sacrifice I¡¯m going to have to make.¡± My cocky grin set off a ripple of laughter in the group, and Berzerker bumped her hip against mine, hard enough that I needed to take a half step to keep from stumbling. ¡°Don¡¯t think I¡¯ll be letting you, or that weapon of yours get away from me, Icy. Not after you gave me a taste last night!¡± Stolen story; please report. ¡°Hey,¡± complained Sexkitten. ¡°No hogging the manmeat to yourself! Even if it is just virtual manmeat, instead of out in the real world.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Kitty, I¡¯m willing to share. Especially with an anime catgirl. Rowr!¡± Twilight was one of the few that didn¡¯t start at least giggling from that exchange. Looking at me over her cup, she said, ¡°I don¡¯t mind being on a team, but don¡¯t think I¡¯m just going to be bending over and spreading my legs for you, just because you¡¯re a guy.¡± This wasn¡¯t the first time she¡¯d said something like that to me. Sounded like she¡¯d had some bad experiences in the real world. Probably some guy who let the situation in the world get to his head. ¡°No sweat, Twilight. I¡¯m not going to say that I¡¯m a one woman man or anything like that. I won¡¯t turn down any of you, but it isn¡¯t some prerequisite for joining the team or anything like that. That¡¯s a recipe for disaster.¡± ¡°Whatcha mean, Iceblade?¡± Babydoll said, her voice slightly slurring, as she turned to look at me. How many drinks had she had? Eh, not my problem. The hangover would do her good. ¡°This game is different than some others you may have played. Yes, the VR makes everything feel real, and yes, the sex feels real, too, as Berzerker can attest. However, that also means that everything around it feels different than just watching your avatar go down on someone. You try and force stuff in that environment, and it is just as toxic as doing it in real life.¡± ¡°More than that,¡± Twilight nodded, grudgingly. ¡°There¡¯s less blowback here if someone decides to clear the air at muzzle velocity. Yeah, anyone who dies gets sent for a respawn, but it isn¡¯t like they¡¯re dead in real life, and you¡¯re going to jail. So, not as big consequences, but you still lose a lot when you go for respawn, supposedly. And you can¡¯t just immediately hook back up with your old team, either.¡± ¡°Exactly,¡± I nodded. ¡°There were some people in the beta that got a little too involved with things, and started fighting over a couple NPCs. They went through three or four rerolls, each, before no one would touch them, and they were stuck doing shit work in game, and even NPCs looked down on them. There were some people trying to get the game moderators to force them to go to different cities so that they wouldn¡¯t be able to ruin things for everyone else.¡± Twilight took a breath, and nodded. ¡°All right. I¡¯m game for this being a permanent team, if you are. I just needed to get that out in the open first.¡± I sipped my drink and grinned. ¡°Best time to do it, honestly. We¡¯re fresh off a big win, so we could all go our own ways without needing to rush and find another job right fucking now or the landlord¡¯s going to come by with legbreakers. So, there¡¯s no pressure, and everyone¡¯s in a good mood.¡± I looked around at the girls, and raised my cup. ¡°So, to the team?¡± The girls all answered enthusiastically with another toast. ¡°To the team!¡± ¡°Oh, Icy?¡± Berzerker said in a husky voice, as she pressed up against me. ¡°I did a bit of shopping online while everyone was out earlier, and got those things we talked about last night. Since we¡¯re doing this as a permanent team, I thought maybe they could watch?¡± I raised an eyebrow at her. ¡°I don¡¯t mind either way. I made a choice, after I lost my legs, that I was going to own everything I did from then on, no regrets. I either own it openly, or don¡¯t do it. But it is up to you whether you want to make everything out in the open. This is going to be your choice, without any pressure from me, one way or another.¡± ¡°Ooh, are we gonna get a show?¡± Sexkitten asked, breathily. ¡°After hearing about how you made her such a ¡®good girl¡¯, I¡¯d love to get some pointers. Or, if you want to go deeper than that, I know where you can get some personafix programs for that.¡± That actually got Berzerker to blink and look away from me. ¡°Wait, what is a personafix?¡± ¡°Oh, they are basically programs that you run on your commlink, and they give you a new personality. So, for instance, I have ones for ¡®Innocent Schoolgirl¡¯, ¡®Naughty Cheerleader¡¯, ¡®Sexy Librarian¡¯, and ¡®Dominatrix¡¯. Between that and the Data Filter, it is easy to separate the work in the bunraku parlor from ¡®me¡¯. I¡¯m not acting like me, and I don¡¯t remember anything, so it isn¡¯t actually me.¡± ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s one way of looking at it,¡± Babydoll nodded. ¡°I don¡¯t like it, but it keeps a roof over my head. People just think I look like someone who used to be famous.¡± Shadowgirl¡¯s eyes went wide. ¡°Oh, wow. Wait, have you actually, y¡¯know, done any of that in game?¡± ¡°Not exactly,¡± Babydoll said. ¡°It is like how you have the knowledge and ¡®memories¡¯ of the training and everything you needed to do to get your skills and abilities. So, I ¡®remember¡¯ things I haven¡¯t actually done. Kind of like how qualities like an Addiction to Novacoke makes you actually want the drug, even though you¡¯ve never had it before the game.¡± ¡°So, yeah,¡± Sexkitten nodded. ¡°Personafixes are one way to spice things up a bit. They could be addicting, like any sensory stuff, but they¡¯re pretty fun. Some of the more expensive ones even come with skillsofts, but you need special cyberware if you want to make use of the skills. But the systems are really intense on the Essence requirements, expensive as hell, and also goes into availability ratings that are way above the limit of 12 at character creation.¡± I cleared my throat. ¡°Two things. First, the Restricted Gear quality will allow you to get one piece of gear over the normal availability rating at character creation, so something to think about, if you¡¯re sent for reroll. Second, if you save up enough money, you can swap out augmentations. You don¡¯t lose any more Essence unless the new totals from your ware is higher than it was, but you don¡¯t gain any Essence back, either. You just have a ¡®hole¡¯ you can fill with more ware. That¡¯s something to consider when you¡¯ve saved up enough for higher grades of augmentations. They cost more nucred, but less Essence, so that opens up more options.¡± ¡°Um, yeah,¡± Berzerker said. ¡°I actually got some Alphaware to drop the Essence cost of my ware. But enough about that!¡± The heavy gunner took a breath, biting her lip as she pulled a package out of her pocket. ¡°I don¡¯t mind doing this in front of everyone. I¡¯m not going to be ashamed of getting what I want. What I need.¡± She offered the package to me. ¡°Please?¡± I knew what would be in the package, even before I opened it. We¡¯d talked about it last night, while we were definitely not sleeping. She was enthusiastic, and I had no problems stepping into the role. If that was how she wanted it, then I certainly wouldn¡¯t complain. ¡°Oh, my!¡± Twilight gasped, blushing, as I opened the package to reveal a silver-colored metal collar with a ring on the front, a chain leash to attach to it, and a butt plug with an icy blue gem on the end. ¡°One last chance to back out, Berzerker.¡± ¡°Not gonna.¡± ¡°Then kneel.¡± ¡°Yes, Master,¡± she said, as she sank down to her knees in front of me. I closed the collar around her neck, the nanites in it sealing the collar shut. It would only open with a command from my commlink. Well, unless someone hacked it. But, other than that, it didn¡¯t have any functions beyond just being a collar. Adding in a hackable weakness was just stupid, after all. ¡°Now put the plug in her!¡± Sexkitten whistled, looking on with the rest of the girls. I chuckled as I stroked Berzerker¡¯s head. ¡°Now, now, Sexkitten. Enjoying ourselves is one thing, but doing it at the expense of our teammates is something else. I believe Twilight would be most uncomfortable if we did all of that right now.¡± Twilight looked like a deer caught in the headlights for a moment, before she gathered herself. ¡°I, um, come from a more conservative background than some of you, obviously. But, well, um, give me time? I promise not to try and ruin other people¡¯s ¡®fun¡¯.¡± She took another breath, and then said, ¡°Also, when we¡¯re not working, call me Ricki. That¡¯s my name, in game. Calling me Twilight all the time will get weird.¡± I nodded. ¡°Then I¡¯m Mirikon, at least in game.¡± ¡°Call me Sally,¡± Sexkitten said. ¡°Sally Ride.¡± Babydoll sighed. ¡°Mary Green. And yes, I was the news girl for Seattle Daily before the Crash, according to my backstory.¡± ¡°Selina,¡± Shadowgirl muttered. ¡°And, um, I guess I should mention that I have a restriction on my magic. I need to have sex each day to keep at full power.¡± ¡°Oh!¡± Sexkitten grinned. ¡°That¡¯s why you were so eager to share that single bed last night!¡± I coughed, and said, ¡°I¡¯m sure we¡¯ll all be happy to help you out as needed, Selina.¡± Berzerker, still on her knees, grinned up at Selina. ¡°Oh, you¡¯ll love it. Master¡¯s very good.¡± There was a pause as everyone looked at her, and she blushed. ¡°Um, anyways, I¡¯m Sonya.¡± I stroked her head, causing her to press against my hand. ¡°Very good, pet.¡± ¡°Well,¡± Mary said, ¡°at least this won¡¯t get boring.¡± Book 1 Epilogue - Elsewhere

Epilogue: Elsewhere

(MetaTech Virtual Headquarters, Shadowmen Control Room) Demi Turner¡¯s brow furrowed as she looked at the data, going back and forth from the raw numbers to the aggregated feed. This was important. Shadowmen was the biggest release for MetaTech since the initial production of the Full Immersion Virtual Reality (FIVR) pods. The amount of manhours and resources poured into this game meant that it would be a disaster if it didn¡¯t perform well, and as Game Director for Shadowmen, that would fall on her. ¡°How¡¯s it going, Demi?¡± The voice broke her concentration, causing her to blink twice as she remembered where she was. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Lilia Chandler, the head of the marketing section devoted to Shadowmen. ¡°Ah, Lilia. Well, so far, everything looks to be going all right. As you know, there¡¯s a two-to-one time dilation in game to real life, so we¡¯re getting results quicker than we normally would. Like we expected, there was something of a high turnover in new characters with those who were just starting. About like what we saw with the beta participants. Most people only take one or two tries to understand that they shouldn¡¯t try and play this like your normal game.¡± ¡°Hmm. Can I convince you to do a couple interviews? Not the trad media outfits. More going on stream with one of the more popular gaming influencers. Someone who has credibility in the RPG space, more than the MMO space, I think.¡± She considered that. Interviews were part of the job, obviously, but who did the interview mattered. A straight to the gamers kind of approach would probably get more attention from people actually playing the game. Plus, they tended to be grateful for you bringing clout to their channel, rather than expecting you to come to them, like some outlets did. ¡°Talking with gamers, rather than reporters? Yeah, I¡¯d be willing to do that, if only to put one over on those pricks.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not still mad about what they wrote about the game when the alpha footage got leaked, are you?¡± ¡°Mad, no. But that doesn¡¯t mean I¡¯m not going to make them regret ever doing it. My momma didn¡¯t raise me to just let shit go.¡± Lilia sighed. ¡°Well, I guess that¡¯s as good as I¡¯ll get. How are the numbers, besides the people running into bullets? Things going well?¡± ¡°Yeah, pretty much. Mental engagement is good, across the board. When seeding new players throughout the game world, we used random generation for location, but with beta players being slightly weighted towards areas where there was a high chance of events leading to jobs happening. This is just for the initial release. Afterwards, it will go back to fully random.¡± ¡°I think I get it, but why the weighting?¡± ¡°Because the beta players that made it through to the end have learned to recognize opportunities when they come upon them. They also have been in enough scrapes that they aren¡¯t likely to chase those opportunities on their own. They¡¯re going to reach out to contacts, and those contacts will reach out to other players, connecting them, and bringing them into the fold. And word should spread from there.¡± This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. ¡°Excellent. We have any demographic information yet?¡± ¡°Because of content, we¡¯ve restricted it to 18 and up, obviously.¡± ¡°Thank you for that, I really didn¡¯t want to have to deal with the ¡®think about the children¡¯ crowd.¡± ¡°Hah. Yeah, so, 35% in the 18 to 29 bracket, 48% in the 30 to 49 bracket, and the final 17% in the 50-plus bracket.¡± ¡°Can I get that data split up in different brackets?¡± ¡°Talk to Cheryl, and she¡¯ll send you reports with the breakdowns you want.¡± Demi looked back at the numbers. ¡°Race breaks down pretty much in line with racial demographics of gamers as a whole, so you can say that it is something for everyone in that kind of way. Oh, there is one interesting statistic.¡± ¡°Really? What?¡± ¡°Player base is twenty-percent male.¡± Lilia just stared at her. ¡°What, really?¡± Demi just grinned. ¡°Yeah, twenty percent overall, but in the 18 to 29 bracket it is almost thirty percent.¡± ¡°Tell me there aren¡¯t any problems brewing, like we had in the Beta. Two of the testers were thinking about suing us for enabling their harassment.¡± ¡°Actually, no. Most of the men are ¡®going to ground¡¯, in some ways. They¡¯re joining in with in-game groups, especially the gangs and syndicates. Biggest reason can basically be summed up as male bonding, and letting men be men.¡± Lilia frowned. ¡°I thought I was supposed to be the PR person spewing bullshit marketing buzzwords.¡± ¡°No, this actually comes from some of the therapists who were dealing with concerns in the beta. Of the four men who were testing, three of them said that being able to actually be in an environment where they weren¡¯t one in ten was like taking a breath of fresh air that they didn¡¯t know they needed. Sure, there¡¯s some horny women out there wanting a virtual husbando, but out of all the men playing, only forty percent have actually joined a party with female players.¡± ¡°You said three of the four beta testers. What about the fourth?¡± ¡°Ah, he was one of the ones doing the medical testing initiative, for long-term immersion. From what the therapists could tell me without breaching confidentiality, being able to walk was the biggest thing for him.¡± ¡°Oh. Oh! OH! No. No, I can¡¯t use that. It might get a quick bump, but if it turned bad, and it could easily turn bad, then it would definitely wipe out any boost we got, and then some.¡± Demi sighed, and materialized a virtual spray bottle, and turned it on Lilia. ¡°No! Bad Marketer! Bad!¡± ¡°Ack! Stop it! I said I wouldn¡¯t do it already!¡± ¡°You still immediately thought of how to use that man¡¯s tragedy to sell more games!¡± ¡°Fine. Fine. I promise I won¡¯t do anything like that.¡± ¡°All right, then,¡± Demi nodded, as she put away the spray bottle. As she did so, a notice flashed in front of her. Expanding the window, she said, ¡°Well, that¡¯s interesting.¡± ¡°What? Interesting good, or interesting bad?¡± ¡°Good, for the most part. One of the gigs that spawned was a rare evolution of a standard scenario. Attempted killing for hire happens in front of some shadowmen, and they either break it up, or don¡¯t. If they do, there¡¯s a good chance they can get a job out of it. Looks like this group managed to spin one of the rarest branches of the tree, with a high potential payout. They got one of the best outcomes, with the lowest chance of reprisals. Pretty impressive.¡± ¡°Was one of the beta players involved?¡± ¡°Actually, yes. One of the four men from the beta, the same one we were just talking about. And he is one of the few to link up with an all-female party. But then, this guy already had something of a following back in the beta.¡± ¡°What, really?¡± ¡°Yeah, he was the ¡®mysterious Seattle man¡¯, the only one of the male testers that didn¡¯t get identified in real life. The Seattle testers were starting to make him into a bit of an urban legend, especially with some of the ones who managed to run with him. ESPECIALLY after they learned that in-game pregnancy was possible, the hard way.¡± ¡°Oh, god,¡± Lilia buried her face in her hands. ¡°Tell me that there wasn¡¯t any foolishness of people saying that getting knocked up in the game would cause you to get pregnant in real life?¡± ¡°Like a horny version of those old urban legends from the early VR systems, where if you died in the game, you died for real? Yeah, no. But they did discover that the game simulated morning sickness quite well.¡± ¡°Well, I guess that¡¯s fine. Adds to the realism. Though we¡¯ll want to make sure people don¡¯t start ignoring real life to be with their virtual children.¡± ¡°Oh, you didn¡¯t hear it from me, but a little birdie said that, since getting busy in the game causes men to get a release in real life, they managed to work it so the medical pod collects it, with his approval, naturally, and sells it through MetaTech¡¯s SeedPlanter service.¡± ¡°I wonder if he will let us do an interview, as a testimonial, or something like that.¡± ¡°It¡¯ll need to be in game. He¡¯s not slated to log out for a year.¡± ¡°I can work with that.¡± Book 2 Prologue - Trade Chat (Shadowmen In-Game OOC Forum, Seattle Section) Reminder: This forum is for Out of Character (OOC) discussion only. Please direct in-character discussions (including business dealings and the like) to the appropriate in-world forums. GreenGirl, Yolo, Scholar, RedFox, Rerun, ThirsT, SliceNDice, GrimDarkKawaii, NoNoNo, YesYesYes, FoldingChair, Squeaker, Anonymous2, Anonymous5, Anonymous8, KittyKat, HurtMeMommy, DaddyIssues, Inquisitor, BattleSister, Wolfgirl, Spirit, Chill, and HoldMyBeer are in the chat. Wolfgirl: Well, this is probably the weirdest MMO I¡¯ve ever played. Like, yeah, it is an MMO, since there¡¯s people from all over, but it seems like everything is more focused on roleplay and all the RPG elements, rather than the kinds of things you¡¯d find in an MMO. Squeaker: Tell me about it. I tried to go and kill some mobs for XP, and found out quick that killing people doesn¡¯t give XP. Also, bullets are real deadly, so those gangers killed me quick. Yolo: Yeah, that came as a big shock for me, too. Also, for the record, fall damage is a thing in this game, and it sucks. Spirit: Did none of you actually read the info MetaTech put out in advance of the game launch? Wolfgirl: Yeah, but there¡¯s a difference between reading something and really knowing it, you know? Every new MMO says that it is an immersive world where choices matter, but most of them are you murdering your way across the world, with the only choices that really matter being your faction, class, and build. Anonymous2: In the Beta, people decided on the term VRMMUSH, instead of VRMMORPG. Stands for Virtual Reality Massively Multi-User Shared Hallucination. Yolo: Where¡¯d they come up with that name? Anonymous2: One of the gals in the New York part of the beta was a game history nerd. Back in the old times of the internet, before even the simplest MMORPGs, there were text-based games online. According to her, the Multi-User Dungeons, or MUDs, became what we know as MMORPGs, once they were able to do online games with graphics. But there was a different part of the community that focused more on roleplay than killing shit, and their games were called MUSHes. So, toss on VR and an extra M for the size of the player base, and there you go. DaddyIssues: Yeah, that¡¯s great and all, but can we talk about how wonderful it is to be in a world so full of men? All types, for every kind of preference! Glorious! ThirsT: You know it, sister! I actually got a sideline at one of the brothels. Getting paid to get laid? Even if they suck at it, it is still more action than I was getting in real life. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Scholar: I expect the shine will wear off, in time. But it is interesting seeing how women adapt to a world where we aren¡¯t 90% of the population, and power dynamics have reverted to pre-Plague tropes. NoNoNo: Especially since a large portion of the player base is too young to know the world before the plague. Wolfgirl: Really? I mean, it was thirty years ago, but the game is age-restricted, so there shouldn¡¯t be kids playing it. Scholar: According to the stats MetaTech put out, 83% of players are under 50, which means they¡¯d have been 19 at the oldest when the Plague hit. 35% of players are under 30, meaning that they literally weren¡¯t born yet. They only heard about it from older folks. RedFox: Hey, speaking about the numbers, did you see that bit about how almost a third of the under 30 players are men? BattleSister: Wait, really? I haven¡¯t seen any male players! Where are they hiding? Chill: Hiding is the operative word. Three of the four men in the beta had stalkers after them, thinking that¡¯d be a great way to get a husband. From what I¡¯ve heard, most of the guys in game are sticking together, and since most of the organizations in-world are male-centric¡­ RedFox: Hiding in plain sight, then? Chill: Yep. Anonymous2: Wait, I recognize that handle! ¡®Chill¡¯ was the name of the Mysterious Seattle Man in the beta! No one could figure out who he was, or find him in real life! Chill: I¡¯m allergic to stalkers, what can I say. RedFox: So, any words of wisdom for us? Chill: Sure. Obviously, look for opportunities. There are no quest markers or areas to grind XP. Treat this as a real world, and LIVE it. Chill: If you are going into a combat situation, and you see one guy who clearly doesn¡¯t have armor or any obvious weapons, they die first. Because they probably have either magic, or something scarier on hand to waste you with. Chill: Most importantly though? Watch your back, shoot straight, conserve ammo, and never, ever cut a deal with a dragon. Inquisitor: There are actual dragons in the game world? I thought they were just made up for part of the lore. Scholar: Players in Denver and Warsaw would very much like to inform you that you are wrong. Dragons rule those cities directly. Rerun: I heard that some of the big corporate types are dragons, too. GrimDarkKawaii: Huh, speaking of magical weirdness, the ork hacker who hired me for a bit of work in the Underground was muttering something about ¡®immortal elves¡¯. Scholar: That has never been proven, as far as I¡¯ve been able to find. SliceNDice: I mean, elves definitely don¡¯t age like normal people, though. So, maybe? Scholar: Current theory is that their lifespan is about 500 years. Not immortal. YesYesYes: That¡¯s great, and all, but what about the game itself? Anyone found good ways to level up? Chill: There are no levels. You get Karma and nucred from doing jobs. You can upgrade your gear either by buying it, or ¡®acquiring¡¯ it out in the world. You upgrade yourself by spending karma. But the costs aren¡¯t cheap, especially when you get up in ranks. Scholar: Yeah, I looked at the karma rules. Cost to bump up an Active Skill is the new rating x 2 karma. So going from 4 to 5 is 10 karma. Going from 4 to 5 in a skill group, though, costs 50! Chill: Yeah, after character creation, most people will break up skill groups. Rerun: You can do that? Chill: Yeah, buy a specialization for one of the skills, or buy a rank in one of the skills, and you break up the group. Of course, you can¡¯t improve the whole group after that, but there ya go. Rerun: Good to know. But man, the Karma requirements are gonna get nasty in time. Chill: What, you didn¡¯t think this was going to be one of those games where you could max everything out in a week, did you? Chapter 11: Downtime It had been a couple weeks since our first gig, assaulting Mel Cozi¡¯s house, raiding his slush fund and stealing his antique gun collection. His widow was set to inherit everything else, so she was happy-ish, and I¡¯d seen her on the trid telling an embellished tale of the horrors of what happened, as if she hadn¡¯t been hiding in the bathroom the whole time. Didn¡¯t matter to me, so long as no one started really searching for the people who did the hit. Berzerker managed to get in touch with a Mercenary contact of hers who knew a guy that collected antique guns. While the whole collection was supposed to be worth 250k nucred, obviously, the guy wasn¡¯t going to pay that much, especially not when the goods were less than legally obtained. Still, Berzerker¡¯s contact managed to get a final fee of 200k. Once his 10% ¡®finder¡¯s fee¡¯ was taken out, and split six ways, we were up an extra 30k for the run. All told, we made out for just over 70k each. Not bad for a couple days¡¯ work. I saved up most of my money. The kinds of things that would be big upgrades for me cost a lot of nucred, and also would require more karma than I currently had in order to use them. However, it wasn¡¯t like I did nothing to work on my kit. I¡¯d picked up two light pistols at character creation. Hadn¡¯t needed them so far, but that didn¡¯t mean I should just leave things be. So, I went to an armorer, and got each of them fitted with internal sound suppressors. Cost 600 nucred each, but it was worth it, since it would slap a -6 dice modifier on anyone trying to track me by the sound of my guns. Useful, if I needed to shoot someone. Of course, I¡¯d kept up with the rest of the team. Bezerker (Sonya, when we weren¡¯t talking business) spent most of her days at my place. Her cravings were to the point where she didn¡¯t have to get nookie every day, but if she didn¡¯t get it, her will wasn¡¯t strong enough to resist if someone offered it to her. Like, literally. She suffered a -4 dice modifier to resist temptation if she hadn¡¯t sated her craving recently (like, in the last day or so), and the test to resist was based off her WIL, which she only had a 2 in. Fortunately, feeding her craving was no hardship on my part, and she was getting used to being my little sub. However, since her going off on her own was probably a recipe for disaster, we decided to combine our living arrangements, with her sharing the costs of my two lifestyles. The per-month cost went up by 10% for each, but cutting the cost in half more than offset that. I found out that Ricki (the technomancer Twilight when she was on the job) actually had a fairly large following as the virtual streamer, BlackDove. Basically, she played games, reacted to videos, and stuff like that, while wearing an avatar for people to fawn over her, and they ate it up. I¡¯m sure the ¡®provocative¡¯ nature of her avatar¡¯s outfit and dimensions had something to do with it. It ate up about twenty hours a week, but that was something we could work around. She wasn¡¯t the only one with a day job, of course. Mary (Babydoll) and Sally (Sexkitten) both did twenty hours a week in the White Petals Spa. It wasn¡¯t actually a spa, but that was a convenient lie for tax purposes. It was actually a bunraku parlor, a brothel where the women (and sometimes men) on offer typically had data filters to keep them from remembering anything. Some had their girls altered to resemble celebrities, sometimes even going so far as to get personafix programs to make them act like the real thing. Unlike most of the girls, they were, technically, not trapped there by debts or other things. However, if they quit, they¡¯d either need to find a new day job, cough up the twenty karma needed to pay off the quality, or replace it with something else. That was something that we might need to work on together. Preferably, they could find another day job, but that might not be possible, depending on how things shook out. However, there were some relatively harmless qualities that they might be able to switch for, without needing the karma investment. Selina, the last member of the team, and better known to me as Shadowgirl, had made some improvements to her ride. The bike she¡¯d been riding was now sporting an assault rifle built into the body, which she had gotten concealed. To go with that, she¡¯d also picked up the ¡®Gunnery¡¯ skill, which allowed her to use vehicle-mounted weapons. A decent skill to have, if you were looking for something to branch out into. Everyone had taken my advice and spent a few days just living their lives in game. You only got the best results when you actually lived in the world, rather than treating everyone around you as bags of loot and maybe XP. However, a shadowman couldn¡¯t just let things lie for too long. Skills would get rusty, and bills would still need to be paid. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Fortunately, though, Twilight¡¯s connection to the Yakuza was working to our favor. She¡¯d been approached by one of her contacts, the wakagashira of the Kenran-kai, one of the Yakuza clans working in Seattle. Wakagashira was basically the second-in-command of the clan, so this meant that whatever was happening was important. Of course, the Yakuza used shadowmen, just like anyone else. However, that didn¡¯t mean they liked or respected them. We were basically tools to be used for actions they could not take without causing trouble. If shadowmen killed a mafia boss, then that was (arguably) not a cause for war between the yakuza and mafia, even if everyone knew who paid for the hit. Just as an example. Still, a job was a job. We talked it through, and decided that the best course would be to go to the meet in the two vans. That way, we¡¯d be basically ready to roll, if we needed to, with enough transport for everyone, and their gear, but without needing to convoy with six different vehicles. With that in mind, Babydoll was picking up Sexkitten and Twilight, and I¡¯d be riding with Berzerker as we went and picked up Shadowgirl. But the meet wasn¡¯t for another three hours. So, why were we pulling up in front of Shadowgirl¡¯s place? Well, that had something to do with the restrictions of Shadowgirl¡¯s powers as an adept. One of the negative qualities any magic type could pick up at character creation (or later) in order to get more points to spend was called Geas. Basically, it imposed a restriction on your magic if you didn¡¯t do something, effectively reducing your Magic attribute by 1 until you satisfied it. The old tropes of arcane gestures or spell incantations were both a form of Geas. I had a ¡®condition¡¯ Geas, where my Magic was reduced if I wasn¡¯t holding a blade. Hers, on the other hand, was more of a ¡®ritual¡¯ type, where she needed to have sex sometime in the last twenty-four hours to satisfy the Geas. Now, fortunately that change didn¡¯t hurt her too badly, usually, because she was an Adept. Her Magic attribute wasn¡¯t used for many tests, since she didn¡¯t cast spells or do anything like that. However, she did lose some of her powers. She wouldn¡¯t be as nimble or dexterous without them, which was not terrible for day-to-day life. However, when she was working as the ninja/thief for a team of shadowmen, that was more problematic. So, being a team player, I was at her door an hour before we really needed to leave. When she opened it wearing nothing but an embarrassed smile, I knew immediately that I made the right choice in teammates. ¡°Uh, hi. And thanks for this, Mirikon.¡± ¡°Oh, believe me, it is my pleasure, Selina,¡± I said as I closed the door behind me. ¡°Now, how would you like it? Bending you over the couch? A quickie up against the wall? Or maybe in bed?¡± ¡°Well, at least you aren¡¯t making this awkward,¡± she sighed as she turned to walk to the living room of her small apartment. ¡°And here I was, worried how this would affect our teamwork.¡± ¡°I mean, Sonya already moved in with me, since she¡¯s got an addiction, thanks to her qualities. You¡¯re pretty much in the same boat, with that Geas. There were others in the beta who took stuff like that. Mostly as an excuse to slut it up, if I¡¯m being honest, but they quickly realized that addictions or qualities like that have a life of their own.¡± ¡°Yes, it feels as though I am¡­ incomplete, somehow, if I haven¡¯t satisfied the conditions. Not enough to make me incompetent, but enough that I know it, and feel it keenly.¡± ¡°I know the feeling. My own geas means I am ¡®incomplete¡¯ as you call it whenever I don¡¯t have a blade in hand. So long as I have a blade or two on my person, things are manageable, but I can only be out of arm¡¯s reach of a blade if I¡¯m in a place I know is completely safe.¡± Selina nodded, and bent over the arm of the sofa, giving me a perfect view of her pussy lips, and the bit of wetness there. ¡°Well, that makes me feel a little bit better about the fact that my first time with a guy is in a video game, of all places.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t feel bad about that,¡± I said, moving up behind her. I slid two fingers along her lips, causing the Latina woman to shudder slightly, while I unzipped, and began stroking my ¡®friend¡¯ to life with my other hand. ¡°Most girls rarely see any men that aren¡¯t their father, or maybe a brother. Being in a position where you meet a guy who you actually want to get with, and they¡¯re not already attached? That¡¯s rarer still. Why do you think sixty percent of pregnancies happen through sperm banks, rather than the ¡®old way¡¯?¡± Selina moaned as she arched her back to rub against my hand. ¡°Mmmh. What about you, Mirikon? You said you were in an accident, but with that kind of attitude, and the way you just took control of Sonya? You had to have lots of experience.¡± ¡°Well, I wouldn¡¯t say I was a playboy, but I wasn¡¯t chaste, by any means. Still, my ¡®body count¡¯ in game from the beta is easily double what it was in real life.¡± I was ready, now. Didn¡¯t take long with a view like this. Selina gasped as I brushed her lips with my tip. ¡°Is that? OHHH!¡± She found out exactly what it was as I thrust forward, taking her to the hilt in one go. ¡°Oh, fuck me, Mirikon!¡± ¡°Oh, I intend to, Selina.¡± With a grin, I pulled back, almost all the way out, before slamming back in, and establishing my rhythm for a good, hard fuck. We didn¡¯t really have time for ¡®lovemaking¡¯, and weren¡¯t really in that kind of relationship. And while Selina might not be experienced, I was able to keep it from being a recreation of my first time, back behind the bleachers in high school. A smirk crossed my face as I thought of that time. As one of only four guys in my senior class, I¡¯d certainly had options available. We all had, even Gary, the fat, nerdy guy. With that kind of ratio, a guy would have had to be either gay or a truly toxic asshole to not at least get some action before graduation. Of course, the other three had already been married by graduation. The girls¡¯ parents had rather insisted that the father of their daughters¡¯ children be in their lives. Which is why I made a point of finishing in the girls¡¯ mouth. At least until I was in the game, and the consequences weren¡¯t exactly something I needed to deal with. I felt Selina shudder as a pulse ran through her. That was enough to send me over the edge, as well, and it seemed a shame to pull out of such a lovely pussy. And she never mentioned it, anyways. So, I just did what came naturally, and enjoyed every second of it. Chapter 12: Meet ¡°Good, you¡¯re here,¡± Twilight said as we pulled up to the Silver Pavillion, the restaurant where we were having the meet. Meeting the Yakuza in a Japanese restaurant was a bit on the nose, like meeting the Mafia at an Italian place, but if it worked, it worked. At the moment, Twilight and the others were standing next to Babydoll¡¯s van. Looked like the van had had some upgrades. A third drone launcher, maybe? I¡¯d need to ask Babydoll about it later. ¡°Well, we wouldn¡¯t miss a chance for our first job as a fully-formed team,¡± I grinned, before looking towards the door. ¡°Shall we?¡± No objections. Everyone kept a couple weapons, for show, but nothing heavier than a pistol or sword. If we needed something more in the middle of a meet, then we had royally fucked up somehow. Stowing excess weapons in the vans, for safekeeping, we entered the restaurant, Twilight leading the way. Glancing around at the staff (and most of the clientele), it was obvious how much we stuck out. Two elves, one pale-skinned and one Hispanic, a brunette catgirl, and one black-haired and one blonde human? The only one that looked remotely in place in the sea of Asian faces was Twilight, our half-Japanese, half-Latina technomancer. Oh, such distinctions were bullshit when it came to actually carrying out a job, and most people were smart enough to know it, but the ethnic syndicates and gangs could be prickly about who they worked with. Stemmed from the ¡®us against them¡¯ vibe that unified most of them. While I scanned the restaurant for potential threats, Twilight spoke with the hostess by the door, telling her we were here to see Mr. Tanaka. Japanese equivalent of Mr. Johnson. Nice, intentionally unidentifiable name. Even if you knew the person, it put one more step (officially) between you and them, which could be useful for all kinds of reasons. When you were on a familiar basis with your Johnson, that meant you were either a ¡®company man¡¯ in all but name, or you were close enough that they may decide you are a liability, and try to do some ¡®risk management¡¯ on you. The hostess just smiled, and led us towards a private room. A flick of the eye as we walked, and I made sure that the Empathy Software program was running on my commlink. Rating 3, which was the best that my link could run. However, it discretely monitored things like body language and inflection, adding its rating to my social skills while active. Every little edge helped, after all. The room we were brought to looked like one of those rooms you would have a karaoke party in. From the way the door killed the sound of the restaurant outside, it probably actually served as such, when not in use for other reasons. Play some music, and you could have a meeting in plain sight, and it would look perfectly harmless, while being all but impossible to bug, even if someone had a wire on them. I could appreciate an elegant, low-tech solution like that, even in a high-tech world. There were three men waiting for us here, all three Japanese. Two were obviously bodyguards, one standing by the door, and the other standing next to a couch where the third man was sitting. The guards were dressed simply, with lined coats that didn¡¯t look out of place anywhere on the street, and blacked-out shades and stony expressions, while the guy in charge was dressed in a tailored suit with an air of quiet authority about it. Two other couches filled out the room, forming a horseshoe around a table suitable for putting drinks or snacks on in the middle, and a simple stage at the far end for whoever was singing at the moment. Typical for this kind of place. The man I assumed was Mr. Tanaka was sitting on the right-hand couch as we entered, allowing him to not have his back to the door. Following Twilight¡¯s lead, Berzerker and I joined her on the left-hand couch, facing our contact for this job, while Babydoll and the others sat on the middle one. Mr. Tanaka motioned with his finger, and music began playing, some synth-punk tune that was popular ten years ago. Only then did he speak. His words were curt, and clipped, mostly disguising a distinct accent. ¡°You are ten minutes early for the agreed upon time. This is good. You may call me Mr. Tanaka. I know your working names already. You are here because there is a job that needs to be done, but must be done by outsiders, to avoid complications. Which of you speaks for this team?¡±
Iceblade¡¯s Etiquette test: 11d6 = 5 hits, 2 Miss Mr. Tanaka¡¯s Perception+CHA: 7d6 = 1 hit, 1 Mis (4 Net Hits)
Fortunately, we¡¯d already discussed this at length before we got to the meet, which is why I spoke, now. I met his gaze, and held it. ¡°With respect, Mr. Tanaka, I speak for the team in negotiations. The others have talents in other areas, and in those areas, they speak.¡± Tanaka nodded curtly, though it looked as though his attitude improved slightly. ¡°Very well. The job that you are being considered for is a data tampering job. The entertainment company, Creative Horizons, is currently in post-production for their new simsense trid experience, starring Makino Kawa, lead singer for the group Shadow Genesis. Certain parties wish for a file to be inserted into the movie before it is released to the public.¡± If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Twilight: Shadow Genesis is popular with teens/kids. Ask about the nature of the file. Whether it is likely to harm/kill. I managed to keep any reaction off my face at the message that popped up before my eyes. Good call on Twilight¡¯s part. I nodded slowly to Tanaka, and said, ¡°Before we continue, may I ask about the nature of the file? Specifically, given that the fan demographic for groups like Shadow Genesis is typically young children or teens, anything too harmful to young minds would draw extra heat upon discovery. Collateral is one thing, but I¡¯m sure you understand that no team wishes to earn a reputation for specifically targeting children.¡± ¡°Hmph. The file contains some altered simsense effects, which should not be directly harmful to most individuals. Obviously, I make no promises of edge cases like flashing lights causing someone to experience issues. But if you were hinting at something like Black IC attacking anyone who views the movie, then no, nothing of the sort.¡±
Iceblade¡¯s Negotiation (Sense Motive): 14d6 = 4 hits, 1 miss (Success)
I got the feeling that he was telling the truth. Or, at the very least, he wasn¡¯t trying to hide anything about whether the file would try to kill all the kids lining up to watch their pop idol. That still left loopholes for targeted strikes, but that was an easier pill to swallow. ¡°Which facility is editing the movie? What time frame would we be working with? And what kind of parameters for the job as a whole?¡± Tanaka leaned forward. ¡°The information that was provided says that post-production work is being done in their Silver Lake facility, in Everett. For this run, it has been requested that a light touch be used. Getting in and out without being seen is optimal, but not required. However, it is imperative that the company not know that the trid was altered, so if you are discovered then it is expected that you take appropriate measures to avoid the alterations being discovered. Also, as paying out death benefits to employees will draw more attention from those in power, it is preferred that there be as few fatalities as possible.¡± I nodded. ¡°We have less-lethal options available. What about the timeframe? A rush job is going to be more problematic, of course.¡± ¡°Production on the film is expected to take the next two months. However, the earlier the job is done, the better. Within the week is preferred, but up to two weeks from today is acceptable.¡± ¡°Understood. Now, about the compensation package?¡± ¡°We are prepared to offer twelve thousand for the group for successfully completing the primary objective. Half up front, and the rest upon completion. Additionally, if you are able to complete the secondary objectives of not alerting the company to the primary objective, maintaining a zero body count, and completing the job within a week¡¯s time, then you will receive additional compensation equal to two thousand per objective, along with the second portion of your base pay.¡± Total of 18k for a job, split six ways? That was only three thousand nucred per person. But then, negotiations were part of the process. The initial offer was always low, to see if a group was desperate (or foolish) enough to take it. But useful idiots usually got eliminated the moment their idiocy stopped being useful. Of course, you had to avoid insulting the other side when you made your counter, or you risked them deciding that a double-cross was cheaper than paying out.
Iceblade¡¯s Negotiation (Bargaining) test: 12d6 = 5 hits, 4 miss Mr. Tanaka¡¯s Negotiation (Bargaining) test: 8d6 = 1 hit, 3 miss (4 net hits)
¡°Mr. Tanaka, I think we both know that the offer you are making is not commensurate with the job you¡¯re asking. That is a ¡®fast and loud professional¡¯ price. Subtlety and a light touch requires more preparation, and more expense. Twenty-four thousand for the base job, half up front, plus four thousand per secondary task is much more reasonable amount, don¡¯t you think?¡± Mr. Tanaka frowned for a moment and then said, ¡°That is too much. My funds are not unlimited, after all. However, I am willing to offer eighteen thousand, half up front, with an additional three thousand per additional objective. I cannot do more than that.¡± Iceblade: Sound off, yes or no? Twilight: Yes. Sexkitten: Yes. Shadowgirl: Yes. Babydoll: Yes. Berzerker: Yes. The replies in the group chat came in immediately. I looked Tanaka in the eye, and nodded. ¡°Very well, Mr. Tanaka. We will take care of this task.¡± ¡°Excellent.¡± He motioned with one hand, and the guard closest to him removed a briefcase that had been hidden behind the sofa, and placed it on the table. Mr. Tanaka opened it, facing away from us, withdrew a credstick and plugged it into his commlink. After a moment, he replaced the credsitck in the case, and turned it around, to face me. ¡°In this case are a certified credstick containing your initial payment, a datachip containing the file to be inserted into the film, and another with some basic intelligence on the Silver Lake facility. Also included is a burner commlink to contact me with when the job has been completed.¡± He stood, and Twilight and I echoed the motion, causing everyone else to follow suit. We offered a slight bow, enough to show respect, but not subservience, which Tanaka responded to with a nod. ¡°This room is reserved for the next hour. You may take the case with you when you leave.¡± We waited until the door closed before sitting down. Sexkitten was the first to break the silence. ¡°Whew! I didn¡¯t know what you were thinking, suddenly doubling the price like that, Icy!¡± I chuckled. ¡°Word to the wise. First offer is always low, and a bit of haggling is expected. Haggle badly, though, and they may reduce the payout, or decide you¡¯re a problem to solve later, rather than paying the rest of the money.¡± ¡°So,¡± Babydoll said, ¡°soft touch, huh? I don¡¯t have ¡®soft touch¡¯ weapons in my drones.¡± ¡°What are your drones armed with?¡± ¡°I have two armed drones, both Steel Cougars. Picked up another one with some of the money from the last job. First one is still sporting a light machinegun, with Ex-Ex ammo. Good for hitting most personnel or vehicles. With the second I managed to score a Lynx XXL assault cannon to put on it. That beauty I even managed to get rigged with a silencer, so it won¡¯t blow out eardrums just from firing. But nothing about it is nonlethal.¡± ¡°All right,¡± I nodded. ¡°Your primary work will be external overwatch, then, with the flying drone you used last time. Try to limit your targets with the others to any pursuit we might get, and so on. Definitely keep them around, though, because having some heavy weapons on backup is a great way of telling sudden problems to fuck off.¡± ¡°Explosions tend to do that, yeah,¡± Shadowgirl snickered. Chapter 13: Plans The Silver Lake facility was a simple building within line of sight of Silver Lake, not too surprisingly. Standard corporate building, all told. Parking lot, guards, blah-blah-blah. Biggest issue, from what I could see, is that they kept their ¡®work computers¡¯ as a stand-alone hardwired network, completely air-gapped from the wider Matrix. The outward-facing network had business emails the accounting stuff, and other things like that. Anything to deal with the movies was on the isolated network. That was going to be problematic. Basically, the only way to hack in and get to the important things was to break in, and either get a hacker to a terminal where they could work their magic, or plug a commlink into a port so that there was now access to the wider Matrix. Which meant that the slower, safer method of hacking (by probing a node¡¯s defenses, and eventually getting yourself access over the course of a few hours) was out. Well, most likely. There were ways to make it work, but they still needed someone to go on site, and just hope that the vulnerability didn¡¯t get noticed for a while. ¡°Looks like a team of ten guards at night, if this is correct,¡± Sexkitten said. ¡°Though they also have a pair of ¡®spiders¡¯ on site. What are spiders?¡± ¡°Twilight¡¯s nemesis,¡± I said, automatically. ¡°Basically, think of the network as a nice little web. The spiders go prowling about, along with any IC there might be, looking for juicy little hackers to wrap up for their masters while the corpsec deals with everyone else.¡± ¡°Hmm,¡± the Technomancer frowned. ¡°Looks like one dedicated defender for the external network, and one for the internal one. Even though they¡¯re in the same physical room, they have to physically connect to the other device to switch networks. No cross-loading, or anything like that. Full jack out and then jack in.¡± ¡°Yeah, it is the lowest of low-tech security measures without going full luddite and going to hard copy, but it makes our job way more difficult.¡± ¡°Another problem,¡± Babydoll chimed in. ¡°While there look to be only ten guards and two ¡®spiders¡¯ on site, there will likely be other workers there, too. Any one of them gets a call for help out, and there¡¯s a Red Knight precinct ten minutes away. Corporate call for help will probably have them there in fifteen minutes. Less, if there¡¯s talk of bodies.¡± ¡°Which means we need to decide which way we¡¯re going to play this. Do we try and do the ghost routine, try and take everyone out quietly? Or do we infiltrate somehow, plant a link and just¡­ hope it doesn¡¯t get noticed?¡± I looked around. ¡°Open to other options, as well, obviously.¡± ¡°Twilight, what do you think?¡± Shadowgirl asked. ¡°Matrix is your domain, so you have the best idea of what we need.¡± Twilight took a breath, and said, ¡°My preference would be to have someone infiltrate, and get a commlink in place. That would give me the time to do the job right. To really be effective, though, you¡¯d need to get the device plugged into one of the main processors, not just a desk terminal. And that means getting through all the physical security.¡± ¡°Well,¡± I said, ¡°it looks like their on-site security is on the external network, probably so that they can call for help from corporate, or interface with the Red Knights, if needed. Could you get control of the external network, and hide the evidence of someone breaking into the server room?¡± ¡°Sure, I could manipulate the cameras and such, but that won¡¯t stop the physical guards, and the like.¡± ¡°Shadowgirl,¡± I turned to the thief adept, ¡°if we gave you a distraction, how confident are you that you could slip in and out unnoticed, planting the device where it needs to go?¡± ¡°If Twilight gets the doors for me, and my magic is full up? Yeah, I could do that. Twilight would need to let me know where to go, and where to plug the device, but if she was already on overwatch? I could be her hands.¡± ¡°Whatcha thinking, Icy?¡± Sexkitten grinned. ¡°We stage a ¡®botched¡¯ raid, draw the guards¡¯ attention while Shadowgirl sneaks in and Twilight makes sure no one sees her, and then run like hell before the Knights show up?¡± Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Maybe not a ¡®botched¡¯ raid, but definitely a distraction. For instance, we attack the accounting office, have someone pretend to hack the system, Twilight transfers a bunch of nucred onto the blank certified credsticks we have left over from the last run, and then run when things either get too hot, or Shadowgirl reports she¡¯s clear.¡± ¡°In other words, getting paid for our distraction?¡± Berzerker laughed. ¡°I love it, boss! Only question, who¡¯s going to be our ¡®hacker¡¯? Because sounds like you¡¯re wanting Twilight on overwatch for the two parts of the run, and if we¡¯re going to be leaving in a hurry, then Babydoll will need to be with the vans.¡± I turned to the cybered-up catgirl. ¡°Sexkitten, that¡¯ll be your job. People who watch me at work are going to figure me for a mage. Berzerker is obviously a gunner. Neither of us make for convincing hackers. You, though? They¡¯d be willing to believe that.¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t have to do the actual hacking, though, right? Because while I can use a commlink, that doesn¡¯t mean I have any of the skills to actually do tech-wizardry.¡± Twilight shook her head. ¡°I can handle that. I¡¯ll even make the system think you¡¯re attacking from wherever you plug in from. But if we¡¯re going to go that route, then we¡¯re going to need some kind of smokescreen until we actually get Sexkitten in place. I can make it so that, when she gets to the actual terminal you¡¯ll use for the distraction, it looks like she accessed a hacked account with all the right permissions. That¡¯ll send corpsec chasing tails for a bit. But we need something to keep the security off guard, and keep them from just calling in a digital air strike.¡± ¡°What if we hired some help?¡± Babydoll asked. ¡°I know a gang that works the Matrix, and pretty much just the Matrix. Call themselves the Reality Hackers. We could get them to do a DDOS attack on the servers, timed for while we make our approach, and then have them back off when Sexkitten starts her ¡®work¡¯.¡± ¡°I can work with that,¡± Twilight nodded. ¡°If we can get them to do a concerted attack for, say, an hour? That would do just fine. Might even be able to get a couple hits of my own in while the spider is distracted.¡± ¡°Will the attack affect your ability to access the node remotely?¡± ¡°Hmm. Some, yes. Perhaps, instead of a DDOS attack, they do a straight up smash and grab? Break in, tag the place, steal what data they can get their hands on, and get out. If a spider gets got in the middle of that, then someone will just say it was a lucky shot.¡± ¡°Good idea. So, we have a distraction and a false flag. Shadowgirl will get the device somewhere hidden, and that¡¯ll be that. What do we do if someone discovers the commlink?¡± ¡°Reason most teams would do something like this is to steal data, not add to data,¡± Twilight said. ¡°There¡¯s probably files for other movies on the servers. Or other data we could steal, and maybe sell for a profit. Once they see what they expect to see¡­¡± ¡°They¡¯ll probably stop looking at the files that haven¡¯t been taken or moved. I like it.¡± Babydoll grinned. ¡°Then I guess we ought to go talk to the hacker gang. They like to use a virtual message board for people wanting to meet. Just so you know, the meet will also likely be in the Matrix. They¡¯ll be wanting to meet on their home turf, so to speak.¡± Twilight nodded. ¡°That way, they can bug out easier if it looks like a trap, or have a better chance of beating anyone who turns hostile than they would in the meat. Most hackers aren¡¯t wired up to fight like some of you guys are, and they know it. So, they won¡¯t put themselves at a disadvantage like that.¡± ¡°All right. Babydoll, set up the meet, and then I¡¯d like you, Shadowgirl, and Twilight to head out to the Silver Lake area, and get some fresh intel. Same as we did with Cozi. Use the drone to get a good look at the outside, so Shadowgirl can plan her approach, and Twilight takes her time getting in and owning the system. Twilight, once you¡¯ve got access to the outer network, I¡¯d like you to do a scan of the file, just to double check that we aren¡¯t going to be brain-frying children. Didn¡¯t seem like Mr. Tanaka was lying, but that doesn¡¯t mean he wasn¡¯t misinformed.¡± ¡°Got it,¡± Twilight nodded. I looked over to the remaining two girls, and said, ¡°As for the rest of us, we¡¯re going to go over weapon loadouts, and see if there¡¯s anything we should get so our nonlethal raid is appropriately nonlethal, but not so bad that we¡¯re hamstringing ourselves. It will still be ten on three, after all. No reason to give the other side more chances to mess us up than we have to.¡± ¡°Should be fine,¡± Berzerker said. ¡°I¡¯ve got clips of Stick-n-Shock ammo for my SMG and battle rifle, so I can use those, and switch to the pistol or grenade launcher for more lethal firepower. Also have flash-bangs and smoke grenades to toss around. Probably best to toss in a room and shut the door on the flash-bangs, since I haven¡¯t practiced lobbing them.¡± ¡°Might be something to practice between now and our next job,¡± Sexkitten said. ¡°Actually, now that you mention it, I should probably get some flash-bangs and the like. Add to my options a bit. I did remember to get SnS ammo for my guns, though. So, should be covered on nonlethal action.¡± ¡°Good,¡± I nodded. ¡°We¡¯ll still double-check, but it sounds like we¡¯re going to be golden for our part of the performance. Anyone have any questions or concerns?¡± ¡°Yeah, small one,¡± said Shadowgirl. ¡°We got recommended for this job by Twilight¡¯s Yak contact, right? Why would the Yakuza drop this much money on interfering with a movie¡¯s production, but want to keep things quiet? Like, it would make sense if they were trying to do a protection racket, but this?¡± Twilight frowned. ¡°We might have a better guess once I get a chance to look at the file in depth. Could be anything, though. Perhaps they¡¯re trying to tank the reviews or sales, either as punishment for something, or to promote an alternative product. Or, when the changes are finally found, it might push back the movie launch, costing the studio a lot of money, and giving another product more time to shine. Or it could be a smear campaign against the star. There are just too many different possibilities to say for certain.¡± I sighed, and said, ¡°There¡¯s also the possibility that the Yakuza are just middlemen. Which would also explain why they aren¡¯t using their own people to do this. A little bit of deniability goes a long way, especially when you¡¯re being made into a cutout. In fact, that¡¯s probably what we¡¯re looking at, here.¡± Babydoll nodded. ¡°Yeah, but so long as the money is good and we¡¯re not putting kids in the firing line, the rest isn¡¯t really our problem, right? We just need to do the job, get away clean, and get paid. Everything else is someone else¡¯s problem.¡± ¡°True enough,¡± I grinned. ¡°Now, let¡¯s get to work.¡± Chapter 14: Stimulating Conversation Shadowmen joined teams because there was no way that one person could cover every angle. However, sometimes a job needed more hands than even a full team could provide. In those situations, it was not uncommon for a team to subcontract for work. The three most common reasons someone would subcontract on a run were because they needed specialized help, they needed to hit multiple points at once, or for someone to run a distraction. Specialized help was obvious. If there was a magical threat, like spirits or something that needed checking on the astral plane, no one else on the team could back me up, so I might need to contract out and get some help. Same with Twilight in the Matrix. No one else on the team had the tech or skills to really back her up in the digital world. Sometimes, a job would require you to hit multiple sites at once. One example from the Beta was when we needed to coordinate a strike on a corporate headquarters with another hit on an obscure research facility. We needed to take out the executive behind the research, and destroy the research itself, but if we took too long between the hits, then either the executive would get behind a small army of guards, or the research would be moved to a more secure facility, where we wouldn¡¯t be able to get to it. So, two teams, for two jobs. And then, there were situations like this one. We needed a distraction, someone who could cause a big headache for the online security while we got into place, preferably setting up the on-site spider for an easy hit from Twilight. She couldn¡¯t do the job herself, because she would be busy on overwatch, guiding Shadowgirl through the facility, to plant the commlink on our real target, allowing her to access the inner network at her leisure. We¡¯d just finished a run to AmmuNation, one of the Mars Industries subsidiaries that could be counted on to sell you any (legal) weapons and ammo, so long as you had something that vaguely looked like a proper permit. Basically, if you had even the weakest Rating 1 fake SIN and Rating 1 fake weapons permit? You were golden, for any weapons or ammo that was ¡®Restricted¡¯ or less, though finding the rarer stuff (with higher Availability ratings) was sometimes tricky. Getting a few flashbangs and thermal smoke grenades for the group? No problem. Anyways, we had just finished picking up the party favors when Babydoll called, giving us the time and ¡®place¡¯ of the meet with the Reality Hackers. The time was simple enough: two hours from now. As for the place? Well, like Babydoll predicted, it was in a matrix club. A quick discussion, and we agreed that Sexkitten would join me in the club, while Berzerker watched over our bodies, and the rest of the team continued their scouting work. Matrix clubs were basically the same as their real-life counterparts. You had all sorts, including nightclubs, dance clubs, comedy clubs, and more. However, you also had a bunch of clubs where, quite frankly, the hijinks that went on in the node were things that could only happen in the Matrix, since, even with magic, the physics of reality just couldn¡¯t support that level of craziness. One of the best examples of that was the famous Waterlily Lounge, Seattle¡¯s premier Matrix club. Each ¡®room¡¯ of the club was a pool, or pond, and everyone¡¯s avatars were wearing swimwear by default. Going from room to room involved waterfalls. Only the water sometimes ¡®fell¡¯ towards the sky, taking you through a portal to the other room. The unique (proprietary) views, along with seeing all the avatars in skimpy beach wear was one of the reasons the club had survived the years after the Crash mostly unscathed. Fun in tropical sun with good drinks and plenty of flesh on display were always a hit with the public. We were not meeting there. Instead, we were going to a place no less well-known, but a lot less well-respected. Rule #34 was a Matrix club that brought the horny side of the Matrix to life. A strictly ¡®clothing optional¡¯ kind of Matrix club, they also had no restrictions on what your avatar could be, or look like, and they didn¡¯t need to be the same as your ¡®real-life¡¯ body at all. It was always a gamble if you were talking to a man, woman, both, or neither when chatting someone up in Rule #34, but the kind of crowd that went there didn¡¯t care about such things. Of course, Rule #34 wasn¡¯t just a digital sex club. It certainly was that, but that wasn¡¯t all it was. It was actually one of the more popular meeting spots for those who could stomach the array of fetishes on full display, which ranged from the vanilla to things that would be capital crimes in most any real-world country, including things like snuff and vore. However, if you could stomach the perversion on display, then you had a place where, even if someone managed to record a conversation, there was so much going on that would have to be edited out that any final product would be completely inadmissible as evidence, as there would be no way to prove it wasn¡¯t tampered with. That meant some criminals, who didn¡¯t care if people called them freaks, used it as a place to do their meets. That perversion was on full display as Sexkitten and I loaded into the club. The act on the ¡®main stage¡¯ was a fascinating recreation of some comic from before the Matrix had VR, back when it was called the ¡®internet¡¯. Three people were on the stage, a man and two women, all naked. The blonde woman was on top of the black-haired one, and they were nicely eating each other out while the man was hilt deep in the blonde¡¯s backside. The thing is, he was oiling the blonde up with what looked like cooking oil. Which made the eight-foot metal pole with a sharp spike at the end resting on the table next to them a somewhat ominous sight. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. ¡°Mmm, tempting as that scene looks, I¡¯m afraid we aren¡¯t here for that,¡± Sexkitten said, with a hint of regret. ¡°That the kind of thing you¡¯re into?¡± ¡°Well, not in real life, no. But in a virtual world inside a game world? You can try out all the crazy things you¡¯d never do in real life, with no consequences! Don¡¯t tell me you never went to any of the clubs like this during the beta!¡¯ ¡°Not really my scene, honestly. Plus, it isn¡¯t like I had trouble finding companionship of all kinds, when I wanted it.¡± ¡°Ah, yes. Being the only male player in the whole of the Seattle server during the beta would have given you plenty of choices. So, how many people in our team have you done it with?¡± ¡°Just Berzerker and Shadowgirl. Why, don¡¯t tell me you¡¯re jealous, or going to give me some crap about choosing a side?¡± ¡°Oh, hell no. Well, not about choosing a side. Am a bit jealous those two have gotten to go for a ride, and I haven¡¯t though. But I know you know what it is like out there, in real life. Those ideas of one woman and one man settling down and raising kids died pretty hard with the Plague. I don¡¯t know how it has hit guys like you, but us girls had to come to terms with the idea of either sharing a guy, or going to a sperm bank.¡± I¡¯ll admit that I hadn¡¯t thought about things from the other side of the fence. I¡¯d always been more concerned with my own situation, after all, and that was before the accident. Seeing that I was about to go down a rabbit hole of thought, Sexkitten chuckled, and grabbed my hand, distracting me, as she led the way to the bar. ¡°You know, you play your cards right, and you might get the whole team as your devoted harem of sex slaves, just like you did with Berzerker.¡± I grinned at her. ¡°Well, don¡¯t know about that. Berzerker was just the kind of girl who naturally fell into that role. Probably went quicker than things would have in real life, since we don¡¯t have the same scale of consequences here, but that¡¯s the kind of thing she needed. Not sure about you or the others, yet. Of course, maybe I¡¯ll make you my pet housecat, instead.¡± ¡°Mmmh. Promises, promises,¡± Sexkitten said breathily, before turning her attention to the virtual bar and the werewolf in a speedo who was mixing drinks. When the werewolf looked her way, she said, ¡°Two whiskeys, on the rocks, and a Wicked Sister in a Bush.¡± The werewolf nodded once, and two drinks appeared in front of us, along with a card with a table number. Sexkitten picked up her drink, and the card, and turned away from the bar. Grabbing my own drink, I followed after her as we made our way to Booth 23, which was what was on the card. Sliding into the booth next to her, I grinned. ¡°I¡¯m guessing that the Wicked Sister is the phrase to signal you¡¯re here for a meet?¡± ¡°Yeah, at least that¡¯s what my contact said,¡± Sexkitten nodded. A moment later, an ork guy with four octopus tentacles sprouting from his back walked up to the table. He was wearing the colors and symbols of the Reality Hackers, and he immediately sat down across from us, which meant he was likely who we were here to meet. He nodded once, and said, ¡°All right, you two are new. We ain¡¯t done business before, which means we don¡¯t trust you much. So, here is how it works. You tell us about the job you want done, and we decide whether it is worth our time. Leave some big info out, and we¡¯re gonna have problems later, got it?¡±
Iceblade¡¯s Etiquette check: 8d6 = 5 hits, 1 miss Slitsplitter¡¯s resistance: 6d6 = 1 hit, 3 miss (4 Net Hits)
¡°Chill, man. We¡¯re not looking to burn bridges we ain¡¯t even built yet.¡± My words looked like they put the ganger at ease, so I said, ¡°Name¡¯s Iceblade, and this is Sexkitten. We¡¯ve got some work upcoming, and need to arrange a distraction for a spider so that they don¡¯t know what¡¯s hitting them until it is too late.¡± The virtual ganger nodded, and said, ¡°Call me Slitsplitter. Now, a distraction can be right up our alley, but I¡¯ll be needing more before I can set the boys on it.¡± ¡°Know the Creative Horizons facility down by Silver Lake?¡± ¡°Yeah, seen it in the ¡®trix once or twice. What of it?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t need to tell you that they got an inner and outer network. Need to get a person in place, physically, to get access to the inner network. That means we need someone to keep pesky spiders occupied and not looking at cameras or calling for help while we do it.¡± ¡°You¡¯re starting to catch my interest, but what we talking about for payment? Boys don¡¯t wreck code for free, you know.¡±
Iceblade¡¯s Negotiation test: 9d6 = 1 hit, 2 misses Slitsplitter¡¯s Negotiation test: 2d6 = 0 hits, 0 misses (1 net hit)
¡°Two thousand for an easy night¡¯s work. Nothing fancy required, just go into their outer network, wreck anything you can find, steal anything that isn¡¯t bolted down, smack a spider around if you find one. You get the 2k upfront, and whatever paydata you grab off the network is yours. Only rule is no black ice attacks.¡± ¡°Going soft on the corpies?¡± ¡°Nah, but corporations don¡¯t go looking to make examples of Shadowmen as much when they don¡¯t have corpsec bodies piled up, and all those death benefits that they gotta pay out. That starts making things personal, y¡¯know? So, we do this without catching bodies, and it is easy credits.¡± The virtual ganger considered for a moment, and then nodded. ¡°Gimme the creds, and I¡¯ll get the boys lined up. When you want this distraction to go down? I flicked a credit transfer his way. ¡°Two nights from now, 20:00. We¡¯ll be staging the team to go in at that time, so that¡¯s when we need the distraction.¡± Slitsplitter nodded as he accepted the transfer. ¡°You¡¯ll get your distraction, all right. Don¡¯t expect there to be much of their outer network when we¡¯re done, though. Guys I¡¯m bringing on to do this don¡¯t have a subtle bone in their bodies, but they wreck shit good.¡± ¡°That¡¯s just fine. Amazing how many goodies can get ¡®lost in the fire¡¯, even when it is a virtual one, right?¡± ¡°Heh, I like the way you think, Iceblade. Here¡¯s the commcode to use when it is time to party. We¡¯ll be waiting, two nights from now.¡± Chapter 15: Final Prep Later that night, we met up at a warehouse that Babydoll managed to rent out in Redmond. The neighborhood was shitty, and there were signs of recent fighting on full display. According to Babydoll, one of the local gangs was running a ¡®protection¡¯ racket, looking to take tolls from some of the people passing through. One of their prospective ¡®protectees¡¯ had a grenade launcher, and no qualms about using it. There were pieces of the gangers splattered all over, they said. Of course, the dumb slot who went around using that artillery found out that bikes don¡¯t protect you against guns all that well, and are even worse at stopping people from throwing grenades back at you. Babydoll didn¡¯t outright say that the idiot involved was a player, but we all knew that was definitely a ¡®player¡¯ kind of play. Some people needed more help than others adjusting to the fact that this game wasn¡¯t going to let you just roll around killing all the mobs you could see as you went grinding for XP. Shadowmen¡¯s developers straight up laughed at those people and told them to enjoy rerolling. Anyways, that¡¯s why rent on this warehouse we were in was only a couple hundred a month. Not a bad deal, all told. And plenty of room for all the rides, too, which was a big plus. I¡¯m pretty sure that Babydoll was already thinking about what she could do to add a couple drones to the place to add to the security, even when she wasn¡¯t present. A main base we could all meet at was probably a good idea. Something to think about in the future. For now, we would just move from place to place as was convenient. ¡°How did it go?¡± I asked as I walked up to the table where Babydoll, Twilight, and Shadowgirl were looking over the data from their initial reconnaissance. Sexkitten and Berzerker trailed behind me, offering a cheerful nod to the women as they gathered around the table. ¡°Ah, Icy. Good timing,¡± Babydoll said. ¡°Been looking over the drone footage. Like we expected, nothing fancy about the facility on the outside. Security fence is chain link, with razorwire and sensors. Not exactly high security, but it¡¯ll keep out random thieves. Gate is kept shut at night. Chain and padlock. Nothing too crazy, but we¡¯d need bolt cutters to get through it, unless someone wants to play locksmith.¡± ¡°Would it stand up to one of the vans?¡± ¡°Hehe. You mean just crash through, and to hell with it? Yeah, that¡¯d work. Berzerker¡¯s van would be best for that, since she¡¯s got that thing armored to hell, but unless there¡¯s something about that gate that I¡¯m not seeing from the footage, then even my van could do it, no problem. Like, the vehicle would need to resist maybe four or five damage, and mine would be rolling twenty-six dice to deal with it. Berzerker¡¯s would be going for thirty-six. So long as Twilight and I can watch the Matrix, then I¡¯ll start worrying about those vans when people bring out anti-vehicle ammo or the rocket-propelled grenades, and not before.¡± ¡°Works for me. Then we¡¯ll crash Berzerker¡¯s van right after the gangers start their part of the show. Berzerker, Sexkitten, and I go in through the front, guns hot, shooting the shock ammo.¡± ¡°About that,¡± Twilight cut in. ¡°How did the meet with the gangers go?¡± ¡°Well enough,¡± I nodded. ¡°Sexkitten and I made contact with one of the Reality Hackers, going by the charming name of Slitsplitter.¡± There derisive snorts from the other women, and I had to grin. ¡°Yeah, but that¡¯s gangers for ya. Especially the kind that meet at a virtual sex club where they were about to spit and roast a girl on stage. Not exactly a high society type.¡± ¡°As if any of us could count as high society,¡± snickered Babydoll. I cleared my throat, causing her to look my way. She blinked, and then said, ¡°No way! Really?¡± ¡°When you get to checking on the in-game history, the elven country of Ola Serin, in what used to be Oregon, went through a bit of a revolution during the Crash. Some nobles found it distinctly unhealthy to remain in the country, and so made their way out of the country, trying not to make waves until some of the vengeful peasants forgot about their grudges.¡± ¡°So, you¡¯re telling us that not only are you one of the few men from the Beta, but you¡¯re freaking elf nobility?¡± Twilight¡¯s voice was incredulous, but then, it wasn¡¯t hard to see where she was coming from. ¡°I¡¯m not slated to log out for about eleven and a half months, unless some emergency causes shit. So, sue me if I decided to enjoy myself.¡± This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. ¡°Anyways, the Reality Hackers are set up to smash and grab?¡± Babydoll was quick to keep the conversation on track, and I had no objections. Nodding, I said, ¡°Yeah, two nights from now, we give them a call, and they¡¯ll storm the outer network, tag, loot, pillage, all that fun stuff. Got them to promise no black ice attacks, so we shouldn¡¯t lose the bonus.¡± Twilight got her head back in the game, and said, ¡°I¡¯ve already slipped into the outer network. They didn¡¯t notice me as I slipped in, so no problem, there. I¡¯ve already set up a hacked account for Sexkitten to access. It will log into the accounting node directly, since that is where it last was. There¡¯s a slush fund there, to be used for extra marketing campaigns, reshoots, or any of that other stuff. There¡¯s 1.2 million nucred in it. Chump change, for movie budgets, but split six ways, that ain¡¯t bad at all for some extra pay.¡± I caught the catgirl¡¯s eye. ¡°You¡¯ll need to transfer to the certified credsticks one at a time. Shouldn¡¯t take too long. Basically plug and play, but you¡¯re not going to be shooting during that time.¡± ¡°Sure, I can do that. We try and take out all the guards, first?¡± Twilight frowned. ¡°Well, there¡¯s limits to what I can do, but I can probably rig a few ¡®malfunctions¡¯ and ¡®accidents¡¯ to happen when the distraction starts. Fry a maglock or two to lock people in the rooms they¡¯re in. It¡¯ll get blamed on the hackers actively wrecking shit on the network.¡± ¡°Good call, Twilight.¡± I took a breath, and said, ¡°So, you¡¯re set up for the outer network, the slush fund is ready to drain, and we have an account ready to log into. We can probably fry a couple doors to make things hard on the corpsec and keep any late workers in place. What about the infiltration? How will that affect you and Shadowgirl¡¯s part in this?¡± Shadowgirl spoke up. ¡°I¡¯ve been looking over the plans for the site. There is a building coming up close to the property line. Bit of a gap between the wall and the fence, but I¡¯m pretty sure I can clear the distance if I jump from the roof of the other building. That¡¯s a fall of eight or nine meters, and I¡¯d need to get three meters out to miss the fence. Rough, but doable, especially if Twilight loops the sensors.¡± ¡°You¡¯ll be fine with a drop from that height?¡± ¡°One of my adept abilities lets me drop eight meters without even feeling it. So long as you give me some help beforehand, I¡¯ll be good.¡± ¡°Good to know,¡± I nodded. ¡°What about on the inside? Have you and Twilight gone over the building plans?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Twilight said, bringing up three-dimensional image on the table display. ¡°As you can see, the building is a three-story affair, plus two basement levels. First floor is where accounting and other business offices is. Both basement levels are full AR environments, where the workers do their thing. Fortunately, these floors are almost completely disconnected from the outer network, and they have strict controls on external devices, so any of the artists and editors still working will not be getting messages from the outside, unless someone comes on the intercom for them. Should be able to disable the elevator and the maglocks on the stairs.¡± ¡°Third floor is executive territory, obviously. Where the big guys who get the big money make all the big decisions. Blah, blah, blah. Second floor is where the real action is, for us. Security office, server space, tech office, and more. Basically, all the people who make the place work, and the tech they need to actually make it work.¡± ¡°So, our going to Accounting will draw any guards who aren¡¯t trapped elsewhere away from the server room?¡± ¡°Yeah, that looks like it will work out fine.¡± ¡°Question,¡± Berzerker cut in. ¡°Why are the servers on the second floor? I understand not putting them up with the executives, but why not on the first floor, or underground?¡± ¡°That¡¯s actually mentioned in the building plans, since the facility was built post-Crash. Actually ties into why all the people doing the work are in the basement, and accounting is on the first floor.¡± ¡°Let me guess. Corporate impact study said it would be cheaper?¡± Twilight actually smiled as she pointed at me. ¡°Got it in one. You can¡¯t use just your handheld commlink for the kind of work needed for editing, digital effects, and all the other stuff that goes into a movie. Not nearly enough power. So, you need a nexus, which is a fancy way of saying a server farm. Way more processing power, and usually much nastier IC than you¡¯ll see on any home node. The outer network is running on a bog-standard corporate net. Technically a nexus, but not all that powerful. The inner network? Its big sister, and she¡¯s a beast, if I¡¯m reading the specs right.¡± A spec sheet came up on the display, for something called a Ritsuhama Sentinel (Custom). ¡°What am I looking at, Twilight?¡± ¡°This is the spec sheet for the Nexus. To drop it into game terms, Matrix attributes are 4 across the board out of 6 for civvie stuff, except for the Firewall, which is a 5. Can host up to thirty people in the node at the same time, not break a sweat, running up to fifty programs at once. Some of those are guaranteed to be IC. I¡¯ll need to go slow, and probably going to need a sprite or two to help cover my back when I go in.¡± ¡°All right. Do you need to be nearby for that?¡± ¡°No. Probably better if I¡¯m not, actually. If they manage a backtrace, it¡¯ll still give us time to split before they can get to me.¡± ¡°Right. We¡¯ll find a nice parking garage to park the vans at, and let you do the final intrusion from there, then.¡± ¡°Both vans?¡± Berzerker asked. ¡°What for?¡± ¡°Because if the corpsec or Knights come calling, we¡¯ll have two different targets for them to chase, both of which will have ways of making them rethink their life choices. Or are you saying you wouldn¡¯t like an excuse to fire your machine gun out the back door at some cop cars?¡± ¡°Aw, shucks. You know just how to get a girl¡¯s heart racing, Sir.¡± I just grinned back at her, before looking at the group. ¡°So, two nights from now, we make our ¡®distraction¡¯ strike, and maybe get some creds while we¡¯re at it. Shadowgirl should be able to get in the building with Twilight¡¯s help, no problem. Once that is done, everyone splits, and in the morning Twilight starts working on the main run.¡± ¡°I can start probing right after the distraction run. Don¡¯t need to wait.¡± ¡°If the system is as tough as you say, then you¡¯re going to want a sprite with you, which is going to hit you like a brick. Means you¡¯ll want to rest up a bit and remove some of that damage. And even if you get the sprite, no problems, I want you going into that node fresh, meaning at least eight hours sleep, and preferably a full meal between when we finish the distraction and when you start working.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not my dad!¡± She immediately blushed a bright red when she realized what she said. I smirked back at her. ¡°You can call me Daddy if you want, but you¡¯re right, I¡¯m not your father, I¡¯m your teammate, and I¡¯m looking out for what is best for the team. Which means making sure our Matrix maven is bringing her A game.¡± ¡°Hmph. Fine!¡± She said, trying to cover her embarrassment.