It started a few days before Christmas, in Seattle. I was enjoying the smoke, synth-weed, and music of a jazz bar, the most expereinced runner of our group was staying at home watching trideo, and the other two were at the mall trying to gets some NERPS for family for Christmas.
They were waiting in line at the Arcology, I was getting stun damage breathing in the "magical" fumes of the club, and I decided to go out and grab something to eat. I wandered to the stuffer shack across the street, where the lone ork kid on duty was reading a magazine and looking bored. As I wandered in, for the first time in my life, a soy dog smelled really good. I mean, like good enough to eat. So I walked over to the kid and asked for one. I nearly drekked a kilo of plasteel when he told me that soy dogs were temporarily priced at 150Y a pop. I still had a little money from my trip up from Boise, so I shelled out the newyen for the dog and ate it.
While I was doing this, I noticed some people gathering outside the store and looking angry. I opted to move to the magazine stand and ignore them, in hope they'd rob the store and leave me alone. No such luck. As I started looking through the magazines, the kid behind the counter gave me some line about Stuffer Shack not being a library.
I shot back with "Yeah, cause if this was a library, I'd be able to take it home," and the kid left me alone. Probably had better things to do than getting yelled at by me. Judging by the crowd in front of the store, he had bigger problems. I wasn't really certain what they were there for, but the crowd had grown to about fifty people, and they were looking less and less happy. I decided to leave about the same time that three of them entered the store. I mean, I'm a black man and an elf, so I'm no stranger to a protest or even a good riot, but usually I'm on the crowd's side. These guys, one HUGE ork that looked like he was contesting for troll citizenship, and two decent-sized human chummers. None of them seemed to happy to be there, but they were yelling at the kid about soy prices and some such. I mean, I had just paid for the soydog, so I was right there with them, but when I tried to say something, they turned on me.
"Only rich fools can afford dem- like dis chummer!" the big ork said.
"What?" was the only response that I could seem to muster. It didn't make sense. So I did what I usually do in situations like that one. I ran. I crossed the store, vaulted a shelf, and pulled my gun from my belt and tried to scare some yokels out of my way. They didn't budge, so I swerved toward the glass front of the store and fired a couple shots into the plexiglass. It didn't shatter or go down like I had hoped, so I put my shoulder into it. At first, nothing happened, then the whole window pushed out, and fell over like a sheet of wood. It didn't even shatter when it fell. It was just one big plastic sheet- now with several angry protesters underneath it. I ignored them and tried to run up the sheet and jump past the crowd, but I didn't get a good foothold on my push-off, and landed somewhere in the middle. These fraggers started swinging with me in the middle of the crowd, so I used my third shot from my six-shooter to try and push a path out. I got one guy- he fell down, but it seemed like where ever I pushed, there were two anti-elf fraggers ready to take his place. But I kept pushing, and I started to make progress through the crowd.
Then things started to get ugly. I mean, even uglier. Some fraggers in the crowd had enough foresight to bring bats and brick to this shindig, so those started flying. They might've started in on the clerk too, but I wasn't worried about his hoop. I caught a baseball bat to the side of the head, so I unloaded the rest of my pistol pushing through the rest of the crowd. I pushed out the back, and when some of them tried to follow, I pointed my gun at them, hoping they hadn't been counting my shots. They hadn't because they looked at my empty gun as a threat and let me go.
I ran a couple blocks, then stopped and checked the growing knot on the side of my head. It was big, but hadn't broken the skin, so I was okay. No need for a hospital visit. I could just go home and put ice on it. So I looked around, stole a Ford Americar, drove it most of the way home, and then dumped it three blocks from my house.
Oh, I'm a car thief. Did I mention that? Yeah, black elf from Boise. I was raised on the elven side, so I've been subject to all sorts of racism. Anyways, I know my way around electronics, so I took up liberating cars as I finished tech school. Beats flipping burgers at McHughs, especially with a tech school education.
Anyways, I got home and had been there for about and hour when Mr. Fix It called. Now, if you don't know Mr. Fix It, please go back to school and give up dreams about shadowrunning. I've heard runners scoff when they hear that I use him, but they all know who he is, so I figure that's a good sign. Of course, he's one of two people I know in Seattle, so even if he wasn't any good, I'd still have to rely on him. As it was, that 150Y soy dog had put me in a pretty desperate financial strait, so I asked what the work was, and he told me to meet him and some other people at the Zero-G Club. It's in Bellevue, hidden among fifty thousand other trendy clubs. Its one distinguishing feature is that it's built like a parking garage, and once you get inside, it's all hollow. I mean, the entrance is halfway up the building, and is encased in a plasteel cage. But that's only because the entire floor of the club is a bunch of real steel cage balls with seats mounted everywhere inside. The electromagnets in the floor, ceiling, and walls pulls these cages around the places like a pinball machine. Only we're the pinballs. They put me in the waiting area with three other guys, one of them looking a little grim, and wearing all black... Clerick was the name he gave me, so I don't know him by anything else. I'm guessing he's a pretty experienced runner, and that's only based on the fact that he seemed to know what he was doing no matter what the frag was going on. One of them was dressed in old UCAS fatigues, and carried this weird bulging golf bag, which I've found out carries his sniper rifle. He seemed a little dopey, but he knew his tactics. I'll get to that later. The last guy was dressed up like he was about to go to a gothic ballroom dance. I mean, red velvet, black leather, white hair and everything. I think he even had cyber eyes, because they were this freaky red color that set my teeth on edge.
Anyways, these fraggers all climb into the same “meeting room” that I am, and we all face the old-fashioned flat screen that I’m assuming is going to be Mr. Fix It. Mr. Fix It is a weird guy. I don’t know what’s up with him, but his smile is like three times the size it should be. I mean, the guy had to have surgery to make his teeth that big. It’s kinda scary, because I thought it was just a matrix host until I met him in real life… nope, those huge teeth are real.
So Mr. Fix It comes up on screen, and the ball starts bouncing around. Now, I’ve been to a meeting in a strip club, I’ve even been to one in a bunracu parlour, but this was distraction on a level I’ve never before experienced. If you watched MFI on the screen, it made you motion sick, and if you watched the room to keep your bearings, it was hard to keep up with MFI’s proposal. I know, because I tried both. Next time I’ll just bring Dramamine and tough out watching the screen. As it was, he offered us a job, told us some details, and we accepted. Didn’t negotiate, didn’t haggle, didn’t ask for perks. By the time he got around to asking any questions, one of the guys had thrown up whatever he had eaten for lunch, and I wasn’t far behind.
We didn’t even get any up-front money. That was a damn shame. But at least we got out of that ball before I blew chunks.
