Musings Part 5
Chapter 5
Seattle in the autumn is dreary and rainy, current events had added smog, ash and acid rain to the mix, Mt Ranier was still spewing ash on a somewhat regular basis, anyone with breathing difficulties was usually encouraged to wear a mask with a filter in some areas of Seattle when the air quality plummeted. The word on the street is that the only benefit of the autumn and winter rains is that they kept the ash levels in the air down. True to her word Belle’s contacts called her back and confirmed they had transportation from Seattle to the Rig in our timeframe within hours of that call myself, Tangent and Belle grabbed a flight from Boston to Seattle.
Nobody had bothered to pack anything more than clothing and a few odds and ends. We didn’t have time to forge any sort of credentials to allow us to bring aboard the gear we needed to take on a dragon on a standard commercial flight, so we would pick up most of what we needed in Seattle. It would be simple, we had contacts…or to be more specific Belle and Tangent had contacts in Seattle with the connections to any equipment we needed and I had the funds as necessary. I handled securing us a few rooms at a low tier hotel while Belle went off to find our ride and Tangent did the shopping. Both had worked for some time in the Seattle Shadows and kept in touch with many old team mates and contacts even when they moved to the East Coast. Any Shadowrunner worth his or her salt kept open lines of communication in the Seattle Shadows, it’s wild west atmosphere and it’s isolation from the rest of the UCAS made it a perfect haven for Runners, the constant battling from governments and corps gave them more than enough income, if something big happened in Seattle it’s effects were usually felt far and wide. Being the only West Coast Port for the UCAS where materials…legal and illegal flowed through frequently and in large amounts insured that anything you needed was available…for a price
Once the rooms were secure I headed over to a local dive of a bar on the docks to wait for either Belle or Tangent to meet back up with me and finish the scoping our ride, she had already told me that the boat ride from Seattle to the Rig would take at least a week if not longer depending on the weather, but that would work in our favor since with autumn and winter fast approaching it would make it harder for Chaos Bringer to move the crystals to another location. What little Belle had gotten on her, she wasn’t the type to hand them off to anyone to move to another location.
Translation I had a bit more breathing room than I originally thought. So I allowed myself to relax a bit, calm down and quit worrying. I had just finished a call to Mariko, all the information on Belle’s would be kidnappers had lead to dead ends. Fixers and contract help were used with nobody knowing who was supplying the nuyen. All were low-tier enough to not ask too many questions with the amount of cash offered and did no checks to see the why behind the kidnapping. All the earmarks of the ‘Replacements’ but no hard proof I could use to quietly inform Lowfyr about their interference. I decided to get a drink while waiting for Belle and Tangent to meet up with me in the Dock Side Bar we picked as a neutral meeting place.
I was about to take a sip of my drink, when a hiss in my ear sent my newly acquired calm out the window. I glanced at the door just in time to see a petite Asian woman enter the bar, she was dressed in battered leather with her short cropped hair dyed at least 3 different colors, her jacket barely concealed the many knives and blades she carried on her person. I was willing to bet that was only a fraction of the weapons she actually had, despite her size she radiated an aura of pure predator that set off almost every thug in this bar. If she noticed the looks of distrust and dislike that she was receiving she didn’t show a reaction to it. I inwardly groaned just what I didn’t need.
Miko was one of the ‘Replacements’ born on the streets in the slums of Hong Kong, heaven only knew what she had to do to survive. Having magical talent and eventually expressing into a Drake helped her chances significantly. She was a fighter, loved knives and her magical talent leaned to those of a physical adept. She was exceptionally fond of wet work, assassinations and such, and very fond of getting close to her prey before the kill. I highly doubted she was crazy enough to try to kill me here in a public place, so the likely reasons were to either antagonize me or recruit me. Since they failed to stop Belle from joining me they knew the clock was running out on attempting to stop me.
I attempted to remain as inconspicuous as possible, maybe she had no idea I was here maybe she was here to recruit more disposable thugs for the next ham fisted plot she had against me. I appeared to remain focused on my drink and my comlink as subtlety watched her strut to the bar order a drink and as soon as she picked it up she turned toward me with cruel grin and started heading in my direction. I inwardly winced and wondered what the hell she wanted, she was less than 5 feet away from my table when a voice rang out from the door.
“Hey! Does anybody here own a sweet ass black and gold BMW bike?” The girl at the door looked to be in her mid-twenties, elf with red hair in a shade that wasn’t found anywhere in nature tied up into pigtails of all things wearing a t-shirt jacket and jeans baggy enough to hide more than a weapon or two. The patrons of the bar looked mildly confused. Miko on the other hand blinked and looked toward the woman at the door.
The red head continued. “Well who ever owns it better get out there…I think it’s being repo’ed or stolen or heck…both!” Suddenly Miko lunged toward the door and blazed past the elf, the red head followed and I heard allot of yelling and swearing. While that racket was going on Belle entered the bar ordered a drink then moved to my table to take a seat.
“So.” I tried to be casual. “How’s it looking out there?”
“She’s mad to put it mildly, a bike that nice…in this neighborhood was just asking to be lifted…” Mused Belle. “Really sucks to be her.” Belle had one eye on the door and the red-headed elf came back in exasperated.
“You try to do a good deed and you get a knife pulled on you! What is the world coming to…” She headed for the bar. “I need a cold one, five minutes ago!” As the bar keep popped the cap off a bottle the red-head turned toward our table. “And you are so picking up the tab Belle.”
Belle snerked. “No problem Tiff, and thanks for the favor. You did get it right?”
In response the red head walked to our table, pulled out a chair to sit in it backwards before fishing out her comlink from her pocket and slid it across the table toward Belle. “Yes I got it…did exactly what you told me to do, and who was that chick anyway? Aside from having lifetime subscriptions to “Psychos Unlimited Monthly?”
“A SK Drake.” I muttered under my breath, the Red-head, Tiff seemed to finally take note of my presence gave me a look over that told her everything about me…and it wasn’t anything she appeared to like before snorting and turning back to Belle with a more definite edge to her voice.
“Evidently the Big Guy is slumming it these days. You know Belle the smart thing to do when he comes calling is to slam the door in his face.” Tiff’s tone and pointed glare in my direction left little doubt who the ‘he’ was, to my credit I did wince. Tiff had to be part of the old crew in Seattle Belle used to run with before she was ‘recruited’ to SK, many of her old team took her disappearance hard and logically blamed Lowfyr for it.
“If it makes you feel any better I had no intention if asking Belle for help on this, unfortunately Miss Psycho and her partner forced my hand.” I replied, that didn’t seem to lessen the venom filled glare from Tiff before Bell spoke up again.
“It’s personal Tiff. That little twit and her partner almost killed Mariko, like hell I’m letting them profit from that.” Belle’s eyes didn’t leave the two comlinks in her hand. “Besides without Scale here, I wouldn’t still be walking and neither would Anima…remember?” She finally finished whatever she was doing and slid Tiff’s comlink back to her.
“Ah…so this has nothing to with lining the lizards’s pockets with more cash and everything to do with good old-fashioned revenge and payback.” Tiff slid her comlink back into pocket before draining her bottle and singling for another one, she gave me another look “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you without the tusks there Byrn.”
My voice was deadpan as I replied “It happens. So what did you two do exactly to Miko back there?”
Both woman grinned but Tiff spoke first. “As a concerned bystander I made sure to take down the information of the truck used to boost her bike, so I offered to transfer the photo and info to her link.”
I then turned to Belle, who was idly messing with her link and trying not to snicker too loudly. “What did you do before that…and how will it help us?”
“Better question should be…what didn’t I do?” Belle snarked. “Key logger, tracker, override control, the classic big brother protocols wrapped up to look like SK overwatch, started installing the second Tiff transferred the information.”
“Uh huh…and how exactly did the stars align to allow you to be in the right place at the right time to witness the theft of her bike?” I raised an eyebrow in Tiff’s direction.
“How much do you think that bike is worth once parted out?” She mused out loud. As if I needed any more evidence on why I should never ever EVER anger Belle…or any of her friends for that matter.
“Well as entertaining of a distraction that was, we are on time table, where is Tangent?” I finished my drink and put all three of our tabs on my credstick.
“At the docks I got the message he found our ride and is loading up our gear, evidently we are heading out tonight. I was coming to get you when we found Miko…no sign of her partner yet.” Belle finished her drink and got up from the table. As the three of us headed out of the bar we all loaded up into what I assumed was Tiff’s SUV. “Have fun dealing with Tangent Tiff, he’s going to be a bit of a wreck while I’m gone.”
“Eh, it’s not a problem, I’ll keep him busy I got enough local jobs that I haven’t been able to take because we needed a good mage. I hate trying to hire temps for runs and haven’t found a good permanent one that can tolerate our crew for more than one run since you two relocated to Boston.” As she drove she glanced over toward me. “Say if you ever find yourself on the outs from SK again…lemme know okay?” I just rolled my eyes as Tiff continued to drive toward the docks.
Seattle in the autumn is dreary and rainy, current events had added smog, ash and acid rain to the mix, Mt Ranier was still spewing ash on a somewhat regular basis, anyone with breathing difficulties was usually encouraged to wear a mask with a filter in some areas of Seattle when the air quality plummeted. The word on the street is that the only benefit of the autumn and winter rains is that they kept the ash levels in the air down. True to her word Belle’s contacts called her back and confirmed they had transportation from Seattle to the Rig in our timeframe within hours of that call myself, Tangent and Belle grabbed a flight from Boston to Seattle.
Nobody had bothered to pack anything more than clothing and a few odds and ends. We didn’t have time to forge any sort of credentials to allow us to bring aboard the gear we needed to take on a dragon on a standard commercial flight, so we would pick up most of what we needed in Seattle. It would be simple, we had contacts…or to be more specific Belle and Tangent had contacts in Seattle with the connections to any equipment we needed and I had the funds as necessary. I handled securing us a few rooms at a low tier hotel while Belle went off to find our ride and Tangent did the shopping. Both had worked for some time in the Seattle Shadows and kept in touch with many old team mates and contacts even when they moved to the East Coast. Any Shadowrunner worth his or her salt kept open lines of communication in the Seattle Shadows, it’s wild west atmosphere and it’s isolation from the rest of the UCAS made it a perfect haven for Runners, the constant battling from governments and corps gave them more than enough income, if something big happened in Seattle it’s effects were usually felt far and wide. Being the only West Coast Port for the UCAS where materials…legal and illegal flowed through frequently and in large amounts insured that anything you needed was available…for a price
Once the rooms were secure I headed over to a local dive of a bar on the docks to wait for either Belle or Tangent to meet back up with me and finish the scoping our ride, she had already told me that the boat ride from Seattle to the Rig would take at least a week if not longer depending on the weather, but that would work in our favor since with autumn and winter fast approaching it would make it harder for Chaos Bringer to move the crystals to another location. What little Belle had gotten on her, she wasn’t the type to hand them off to anyone to move to another location.
Translation I had a bit more breathing room than I originally thought. So I allowed myself to relax a bit, calm down and quit worrying. I had just finished a call to Mariko, all the information on Belle’s would be kidnappers had lead to dead ends. Fixers and contract help were used with nobody knowing who was supplying the nuyen. All were low-tier enough to not ask too many questions with the amount of cash offered and did no checks to see the why behind the kidnapping. All the earmarks of the ‘Replacements’ but no hard proof I could use to quietly inform Lowfyr about their interference. I decided to get a drink while waiting for Belle and Tangent to meet up with me in the Dock Side Bar we picked as a neutral meeting place.
I was about to take a sip of my drink, when a hiss in my ear sent my newly acquired calm out the window. I glanced at the door just in time to see a petite Asian woman enter the bar, she was dressed in battered leather with her short cropped hair dyed at least 3 different colors, her jacket barely concealed the many knives and blades she carried on her person. I was willing to bet that was only a fraction of the weapons she actually had, despite her size she radiated an aura of pure predator that set off almost every thug in this bar. If she noticed the looks of distrust and dislike that she was receiving she didn’t show a reaction to it. I inwardly groaned just what I didn’t need.
Miko was one of the ‘Replacements’ born on the streets in the slums of Hong Kong, heaven only knew what she had to do to survive. Having magical talent and eventually expressing into a Drake helped her chances significantly. She was a fighter, loved knives and her magical talent leaned to those of a physical adept. She was exceptionally fond of wet work, assassinations and such, and very fond of getting close to her prey before the kill. I highly doubted she was crazy enough to try to kill me here in a public place, so the likely reasons were to either antagonize me or recruit me. Since they failed to stop Belle from joining me they knew the clock was running out on attempting to stop me.
I attempted to remain as inconspicuous as possible, maybe she had no idea I was here maybe she was here to recruit more disposable thugs for the next ham fisted plot she had against me. I appeared to remain focused on my drink and my comlink as subtlety watched her strut to the bar order a drink and as soon as she picked it up she turned toward me with cruel grin and started heading in my direction. I inwardly winced and wondered what the hell she wanted, she was less than 5 feet away from my table when a voice rang out from the door.
“Hey! Does anybody here own a sweet ass black and gold BMW bike?” The girl at the door looked to be in her mid-twenties, elf with red hair in a shade that wasn’t found anywhere in nature tied up into pigtails of all things wearing a t-shirt jacket and jeans baggy enough to hide more than a weapon or two. The patrons of the bar looked mildly confused. Miko on the other hand blinked and looked toward the woman at the door.
The red head continued. “Well who ever owns it better get out there…I think it’s being repo’ed or stolen or heck…both!” Suddenly Miko lunged toward the door and blazed past the elf, the red head followed and I heard allot of yelling and swearing. While that racket was going on Belle entered the bar ordered a drink then moved to my table to take a seat.
“So.” I tried to be casual. “How’s it looking out there?”
“She’s mad to put it mildly, a bike that nice…in this neighborhood was just asking to be lifted…” Mused Belle. “Really sucks to be her.” Belle had one eye on the door and the red-headed elf came back in exasperated.
“You try to do a good deed and you get a knife pulled on you! What is the world coming to…” She headed for the bar. “I need a cold one, five minutes ago!” As the bar keep popped the cap off a bottle the red-head turned toward our table. “And you are so picking up the tab Belle.”
Belle snerked. “No problem Tiff, and thanks for the favor. You did get it right?”
In response the red head walked to our table, pulled out a chair to sit in it backwards before fishing out her comlink from her pocket and slid it across the table toward Belle. “Yes I got it…did exactly what you told me to do, and who was that chick anyway? Aside from having lifetime subscriptions to “Psychos Unlimited Monthly?”
“A SK Drake.” I muttered under my breath, the Red-head, Tiff seemed to finally take note of my presence gave me a look over that told her everything about me…and it wasn’t anything she appeared to like before snorting and turning back to Belle with a more definite edge to her voice.
“Evidently the Big Guy is slumming it these days. You know Belle the smart thing to do when he comes calling is to slam the door in his face.” Tiff’s tone and pointed glare in my direction left little doubt who the ‘he’ was, to my credit I did wince. Tiff had to be part of the old crew in Seattle Belle used to run with before she was ‘recruited’ to SK, many of her old team took her disappearance hard and logically blamed Lowfyr for it.
“If it makes you feel any better I had no intention if asking Belle for help on this, unfortunately Miss Psycho and her partner forced my hand.” I replied, that didn’t seem to lessen the venom filled glare from Tiff before Bell spoke up again.
“It’s personal Tiff. That little twit and her partner almost killed Mariko, like hell I’m letting them profit from that.” Belle’s eyes didn’t leave the two comlinks in her hand. “Besides without Scale here, I wouldn’t still be walking and neither would Anima…remember?” She finally finished whatever she was doing and slid Tiff’s comlink back to her.
“Ah…so this has nothing to with lining the lizards’s pockets with more cash and everything to do with good old-fashioned revenge and payback.” Tiff slid her comlink back into pocket before draining her bottle and singling for another one, she gave me another look “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you without the tusks there Byrn.”
My voice was deadpan as I replied “It happens. So what did you two do exactly to Miko back there?”
Both woman grinned but Tiff spoke first. “As a concerned bystander I made sure to take down the information of the truck used to boost her bike, so I offered to transfer the photo and info to her link.”
I then turned to Belle, who was idly messing with her link and trying not to snicker too loudly. “What did you do before that…and how will it help us?”
“Better question should be…what didn’t I do?” Belle snarked. “Key logger, tracker, override control, the classic big brother protocols wrapped up to look like SK overwatch, started installing the second Tiff transferred the information.”
“Uh huh…and how exactly did the stars align to allow you to be in the right place at the right time to witness the theft of her bike?” I raised an eyebrow in Tiff’s direction.
“How much do you think that bike is worth once parted out?” She mused out loud. As if I needed any more evidence on why I should never ever EVER anger Belle…or any of her friends for that matter.
“Well as entertaining of a distraction that was, we are on time table, where is Tangent?” I finished my drink and put all three of our tabs on my credstick.
“At the docks I got the message he found our ride and is loading up our gear, evidently we are heading out tonight. I was coming to get you when we found Miko…no sign of her partner yet.” Belle finished her drink and got up from the table. As the three of us headed out of the bar we all loaded up into what I assumed was Tiff’s SUV. “Have fun dealing with Tangent Tiff, he’s going to be a bit of a wreck while I’m gone.”
“Eh, it’s not a problem, I’ll keep him busy I got enough local jobs that I haven’t been able to take because we needed a good mage. I hate trying to hire temps for runs and haven’t found a good permanent one that can tolerate our crew for more than one run since you two relocated to Boston.” As she drove she glanced over toward me. “Say if you ever find yourself on the outs from SK again…lemme know okay?” I just rolled my eyes as Tiff continued to drive toward the docks.