Streets of Tomorrow

[Atrelegis]

Το έγραψα σε μια περίδο δημιουργικού οίστρου, πορωμένος με τα fanfics (διηγήματα θαυμαστών για παιχνίδια ή ταινίες) και είναι το πρώτο μεγάλο κείμενό μου στα αγγλικα! Κριτικάρετε με ανελέητα!

 

Streets Of tomorrow

A Shadowrun Fanfic

 

Eat Soy Smores! Now your favorite taste of s’mores wrapped in a crunchy soy coating! Droned the plasma screen five feet above his head, as he waited for Mr. Johnson, the typical middle man in his deals for runs.

He never liked Johnson. There was something about that guy that just didn’t ring…human no, not so much human, as alive. He had no reason to compare himself to humans. They didn’t like him for being a Troll and he didn’t like them for being racist, fearful and violent against him and his kind. But here he was, year after year putting his life on the line for the sake of a human or to thwart another human’s plans, who ran the two thirds of the Corporations that in turn ran the planet, from the solar-powered reactors in Genova to the soy factories in Europe and Middle East. Even the Soy Smores box he had unintentionally bought was manufactured by factories they owned.

So why did he do this job you’ll ask? Why not follow his father’s footsteps and become a pimp or take up his mother’s job and grow up selling guns, living in decent-looking houses, high on synthetic drugs and plugged on a Sony Beautiful Dreamer SimSense for a few decades before he finally blew his brains out?

Well, that was because Junior enjoyed giving the humans a hard time, helping them stab each other in the back. He wasn’t one of those neo-liberal freaks or any of the Greenpeace corps. Heck, those guys were scary! He was a freelancer of sorts, doing a job he loved. He could make a mess out of humans and get good money for it. Sure it cost him an eye and a leg once but those were losses completely expected.

He took a peek at the other side of the alley, at his four other colleagues. Those guys were by far the most disappointing team he could end up with, but still they could stick together when the chips were down and that was what mattered, wasn’t it? Sure Trabol and Mischif were two complete screw-ups, but the Dwarf was the best rigger he had seen and the Ork could use his deck like an extension of his arm. And that was all he had to know.

But as for Kaede…the Elf made him queasy. She had a strange glint in her eyes. Not what Mischif had when he made his way through a code Orange database, but that of a killer. He had seen raving dogs with less expressing eyes. She had lost half her face after the chopper carrying her last team had crashed to the ground, probably someone she cared for as well and that was when she snapped. Maybe she was once good looking, but now half her body was Cyberware, her eyes a pair of steel orbs that could see through walls, her hands a small layer of flesh hard pressed under her cyber-powered muscles, thick as a man’s head. She used her sword and that only, maybe as some sort of obedience to a weird code and fell upon armed men, cutting them to ribbons in seconds. She reveled in blood and that always turned his stomach. Maybe he’d have to kill her one day.

Or she’d just get herself killed whilst laughing like a hyena…

He wiped the dust of his ragged coat, a once expensive piece of clothing he had taken from a low-class criminal whom he silently removed, paying out a debt to an old buddy. Now that buddy was gone, killed by the Matrix and all he had to remember of him was this coat and a small bunch of memories that were quietly receding to the back of his brain, those dark little curves that he used to put away things that would distract him. It was essential that you were really and utterly focused when you called upon magic. Formulae were like autistic children. One mistake and they would panic, causing a far greater ruckus that even a psycho with a chain gun in a crowded bar wouldn’t do.

He had studied magic for six or so years, thanks to a small lawn he made from his father. About that time, he left Seattle behind to go to Spain, attending the Universidad De Philosophia Hermetica in Barcelona where he graded top amongst the other students. Unfortunately, his need for money brought him back home and to the clutches of a father who had never given admission to that loan…

Thus he became a runner. No SIN, no identity, no official name. Just a bunch o’ nicknames and the hope that Lone Star doesn’t bust you up and do you some really painful things before they donate your body to a corporation. There are terrible things that can befall those who do not exist…

“Mr. Seymous Junior, I presume?” spoke the slow and dry voice next to him, indicating Johnson’s arrival. He had grown to used to his regular option of showing up without prior warning, so he simply answered with a grunt where once that had been an expression of sheer surprise.

Mr. Johnson seemed disappointed at that.

“No need to reintroduce ourselves now, is there?” replied Junior, tossing away the bag. His tongue, ever so indiscreetly, picked the small traces of soy the smores left in his teeth, making Johnson scowl. He loved teasing the bastard.

“Of course not. I presume that your…agent has given you a debriefing on the matter?”

“Not much, but it helps. Rig a tortoise, you say?”

“I am talking about NuToyota’s off-line grid in New York”

That made Junior flinch. Brick hadn’t informed him that much on the run. NuToyota? An off-line server? That’d really push their luck and surely a bit more than they might expect…

“That’s not what I have been informed”

“That is quite obvious. However you can always drop the mission, if you would like to take the risk…”

Junior narrowed his eyes at the blonde-haired man. He knew he couldn’t back out. He had come a hair’s width from taking a mission against a corp that ran half of Earth’s automobile market and he had heard of the implications. If even one of them made a comment about the run, they’d end up with bullets in their caps before they could even finish their phrase.

“Nah, my chummers are gonna be up my ass if I gave up the reward, so I’ll take that!”

Johnson gave him another of those half-moon smiles that matched his expressionless, gray eyes. Junior tried to take a peek at his ears, packed behind his oily hair, glinting under the phosphorescent light. Johnson snapped, taking the envelope out of his inside pocket, handing it over to him.

“These are your parameters, as well as your plane tickets to New York, business class, arranged for May 5th. Failure to be on the flight will be considered backing down on the mission. In the envelope are also contained cyanide pills, standard issue in case of failure. A lady under the name Wicca will expect to pick you up at the airport” said monotonously, making him give up his original intentions. He was quite intended to keep his identity to himself.

“And what if I lose the pills?” he knew the answer, but he was always curious to hear it from his lips.

“You will be then terminated on the spot by a trained associate. Any other questions?”

“What’s the sum?”

“350,000 nuyen, deposited in your team’s account in the Bank of Vatican, under a personalized code that will be posted to you upon mission’s completion”

“Support?”

”Ms Wicca is a Summon Specialist and there is a contact in NuToyota under the codename Goldfish. They should provide you with anything that you may need to enter and leave the building with relative safety but are ordered not to risk their lives in case of failure”

“Understood”

“Good day to you”

Junior opened the envelope with a small Swiss army knife he kept in his belt, tearing open the synthetic paper of the envelope. When he raised his eyes, a second later, Johnson was nowhere to be found.

“Pleasure doing business with you” he rumbled. You sleek son of a soy harvester. “Oi! Gather round boys and girl! We got our papers!”

His team reached him, looking over his shoulder (or under his belt in Trabol’s case) at the envelope.

“What, he’s gone again?” said the decker, scratching his chin.

“Silent like a shadow, swift like a feline” said the mage, as he shuffled through the aluminum parchments that contained their mission details.

“So? What’s up?” spoke the Dwarf, struggling to take a peek at the mission details.

Junior straitened up and then began walking to the end of the alley, back to the sewer lid towards home.

“Hey, Junior! What’s wrong, man?” shouted Mischiff, as he unhitched the lid.

“Let’s just say that we should go through this debriefing once and for good”

 

“Code Orange-7!? What the heck is wrong with this grid? I mean, what do they got to hide anyway?” said Mischif, flipping through the security parameters.

“Apparently it’s something too damn big to keep quiet, so they simply shut it behind a really thick door, don’t they?” said Kaede, her voice carrying the familiar and cold metallic edge it always had.

“What makes me wonder is why they have us do the job. I mean, 350,000 nus for THIS? Do they have another team deployed or are they just too desperate and slick to think they can have a bunch of runners do it for them for nothing!” said Trabol, leaning on the table

“They need those that will keep quiet. A bunch of runners will be silenced more quickly and efficiently than a squad of delta-class infiltrators with big yappers and cost much less” spoke Junior in a matter-of-fact tone as he looked at the Astral Defense outline surrounding the building.

“What about security personnel?” asked Kaede, wiping the air around her with her blade, always finger’s width away from the training puppet.

“Goons. Red Horse mercs with typical training. Nothing we can’t handle”

“Nothing I can’t handle”

“That’s right, love. But there is a reference here to a codenamed guard under the name Musashi”

“What, like, the swordsman?” grinned Trabol

“Sounds like a pretty flashy name to me, even for a street samurai or a paid assassin…”

“His name won’t matter once he is hacked to pieces by my blade’s caress!”

“Have I ever told you how creepy you are when you get all poetical and stuff?” mumbled Mischif and was immediately silenced by her glance.

“Now, now, let’s settle down like grown-ups team! No use taking the mission if one of use misses a limb. Memorize the info and make sure you rest. Tomorrow night, we go through the plans one last time before we pack. Make sure your destroy the papers once you’re sure you got it all, understood?”

The team nodded and then each began taking track of their plans. By midnight, they were already halfway through them and at three in the morning, they were fed to a gas fire.

 

The trip made Trabol queasy, unaccustomed as he was to travels by plane and Kaede drew some unwanted attention on her during flight. A cloak and a wig is far less than what takes to cover up half a ton of cyberware in a body and that made the security personnel and some nearby passengers uneasy. Junior spent his time indulging in their SimSense feature video, a remake of a 20th century film concerning a bunch of unlucky fellas trying to rob a casino, ending up dead due to their inability to put down an old lady. It seemed somehow racist to him that the good old lady was a human and the big, mindless lump was a Troll, but he was kind of happy that he was right most of the time, even though he ended up blowing his own brains out involuntarily.

As for Mischif, no one saw him till the end of the flight, since he went to the bathroom. Two hours later, half the plane’s personnel was trying to jam him out of the men’s room, stuck during an air pocket.

New York’s airport was the same gutter as always, full of trigger happy security goons and prospective terrorists in the first level, while A class passengers savored the delights of the reconstructed and cozy New York airport, an exact replica of its 20th century counterpart.

A car waited for them outside, a deluxe Ford bearing the silver glow of enforced plating, typical features for a Big Apple business vehicle. Next to the door, an elf girl, dressed in new-age hippy clothes, pink cloak decorated with sigils and an attire that seemed ripped from a Starsky & Hutch rerun. Her long hair reached to her shoulders, their red spirals circling her childish face. Though Junior couldn’t quite make that out, there was something about her that gave him the impression something moved next to her, silent and invisible. He walked towards her, trying to at least startle whatever that thing was into showing itself. She spread a long-nailed hand to his chest, stopping him. A faked French accent gave her words an uneasy edge.

“Monsieur Seymous Junior?”

“Si” he replied, hoping that he could at least feign ignorance if she tried French on her invisible ally.

“Et les monsieurs and...madame ? With you, as well ?”

“Yes, they are my chummers. You Ms Wicca?”

“Yes. I am to lead you to Blue Pearl, your current residence, where you will receive your complete instructions”

“Complete?” complained Trabol, but was silenced by a wave of Junior’s hand.

“I thought Mr. Johnson pretty much told us all there was to know on the matter…”

“I am afraid you are wrong. Now, if you don’t mind, step into the car where we can continue this discussion. It is not safe to refer to Mr. Johnson in such a place”

The team entered the Ford, which slightly sighed, as Kaede’s weight fell on it. Junior took the front seat and fumbled in his inside pocket, feeling for his Ares Predator. If he bumped in the creature, he could at least attempt to blow her brains out in case it proved to be dangerous.

“Tell me then, about the mission our middle man is so reluctant to inform us about!”

“NuToyota” she paused as the Ford bleeped into function, its panels waking up, doused with blue light that then switched to the classing green, indicating the system’s proper function. The radio picked up the signal from a nearby station, playing a remix of ‘Bob the Builder’ a current hit in high-class cities, the blast beats singing in chorus with the purring of the car’s engine. “has far more aces in its hole and more eyes and ears than one may think. Part of the info you received were false, as to ensure the mission’s safety if you backed down. The proper debriefing will take place in your current residence, in a safe room”

“And when exactly where you planning to fill us in on the details, huh?” shouted Trabol, trying to rise at his feet.

“When you reached the airport. Now that you have, you will receive the proper info”

“Why all this façade? We weren’t planning to back down anyway, considering the fact that we’d end up dead if we didn’t keep quiet!”

“Mr. Johnson is a careful man. Unlike you, he has much to lose if this operation is hindered or botched. There are more than what you think in stake in this mission”

“How about our lives, sweetheart?”

“We are sorry for the inconvenience” she said, but it rang as comforting as the sound of recorded safety precautions looping inside a crashed aircraft.

The rest of the conversation consisted of angry glares and an almost tangible silence that hung in the car’s artificially scented air, as it led them through the streets of a city that once was awake even at the darkest ghettos and now lay silent, the reminder of its former life, drowned in the shadow of great beasts of concrete and steel that stretched their talons into the gray-colored atmosphere, thick with the refuse of cars and aircraft, 2040’s proof of the Awakened Man’s evolution and existence.

In the distance, a mirage of blue distorted in gray, the great holographic apparitions of the Twin Towers loomed, the reminder of their former selves, a constant searing pike driving itself in the city’s mind. He found this astounding monument to masochism a true proof of the irrational life and understanding of humans. Why was it, in an age where one could even record the memories of a person, where technology could completely make up for a handicapped person’s inability, that people chose to make monuments to pain and destruction than to something new and refreshing, something to drive them to better themselves, to know new levels, drowning in memories that the dead found means to preserve, even after their Earth was so many years away?

The Ford slid through the brothels of Homer Simpson street, a line of dazzling colors and luscious women and men, promising pleasure to all the races, the only true haven of equality in the post-Awakened New York. To the right, unfolded the Elvis Presley Avenue, the three lane road coiling around the great skyscrapers that dwarfed everything else underneath them, clad in the buzzing garland of passing aircraft and plasma advertisements. Somewhere in the distance, a sweet and expressionless voice ordered the consumption of Soy Smores. Junior felt his mouth go dry, his mind fueling the urge for the carpet-like texture and bland taste of the product.

They parked in a hotel that seemed relatively safe compared to the rest of the city, a building made of glass and steel, where they were greeted by a digital voice and a scanning machine. Ms Wicca ensured that they kept their weapons and her short orders in Japanese made the staff back down to her, like a frightened child at the sight of a frenzied bulldog.

The cylindrical elevator with the marble floors took them to the 23rd floor, the room that was their operation center. The door required a retinal scan, to their surprise.

“Psst, boss, check it out” whispered Mischiff, pointing at the small light bleeping next to the lock. “Tazer dude, the guys are serious!”

“This is no tazer. It’s a high voltage security system. We cannot risk any tough brutes endangering the mission” spoke Ms Wicca. The door clanged open, revealing the high-security lock.

The team, followed by the Sorceress, entered the room, a small apartment, hardly bigger than their original base, but big enough to let them move freely. The red-haired elf walked to the glass, pointing at it the way a model would present a miracle kitchen tool.

“Double enforced bulletproof glasses, Class 3” she drew a handgun, which made everyone else reach for their weapons. She armed it and shot five times at the glass, which remained unscathed “can withstand a blow from a powered military sniper rifle, no sound less than that of a firing anti-tank rifle can penetrate it”

She turned her hands pointing at the ceiling, walls and doors.

“The place is rigged with explosives and the walls are lined with interference devices. Your own should be also hindered, unless you reboot them to the devices’ frequency. The door is titanium-laced and locks immediately in case of attempted force entry”

With grace, she pointed at the beds, shooting a hole through the mattress. The bed snapped, revealing a pair of shotguns that pointed immediately to her. With a wave of her hand, they receded.

“The beds can be programmed to simulate your body weight, image and height, armed with proper equipment so that in case of attack, the assassins don’t go far away”

“You don’t expect us to sleep in these do you?”

“No. You will sleep inside the bunkers at the other side of this wall. Now, as for the bathroom…”

“Lemme guess. Armed with C4. Anyone heavier than us tries to take a crap there, gets killed? Or are there shotguns in the shower?” speculated the Ork

“We did not consider adding safety measures to the bathroom, though we did take the liberty to store it with whatever you might consider necessary. That is, weapons, explosives and rations as well as Decker software”

“Charming little ivory tower, Ms Wicca. Now, what about the debriefing?” spoke Junior

“Yes” a clap of her hands lowered the lights and she removed a small disc from her cloak, which she inserted in a drive under the mirror. Blueprints of NuToyota’s building appeared on the surface.

“You will hack into the private rig of the building to gain access to the corporation’s top secret files. The archives that we are interested in are heavily guarded by IC s, but our contact is working his way through them. You will only have to go up against the best trained of them, the breaching of which from the inside could now jeopardize the mission. The building has three possible entrances. The front door, which is the most heavily guarded one, the garage entrance, crowded from 15:00 to 23:00 and then kept at watch by surveillance cameras, short break for 5 minutes at 23:30 manned by security personnel of 3 and the heliport, but that will take severe risk to the mission. The building s divided in 45 floors. The Rig is in the 36th, while the private chambers of Tomoyo Odachi, NuToyota’s current president are in the 42nd to 45th.

Security consists mostly of voice identification and DNA scans. Our contact can reach as far as the 25th floor. Thereafter, you can attempt entry either through the service elevator or by the emergency stairs. If an alarm is triggered, then both stairs and elevator are locked and security arrive to arrest the trespassers. You have no option to fail at this point.

The stairs end at the 37th, but the exit to the 36th has been recently blocked. The Rig is situated in a vault, behind thirteen inches of steel. It is unreachable by any other than authorized personnel. So far, only two have been identified as authorized users”

The screen flipped in the photo of an aged Dwarf, with distinctive Asian features. “Tony Wong, a designer for NuToyota, with 12 years of service to the Shogunate army and the Russian Government in the years 2032-2039”

“Wasn’t that the time when there was that ruckus with the Space war?” spoke Trabol

“You mean the Love Beast legend? You actually believe that rubbish?” replied Mischif.

“It ain’t no rubbish, crap-for-brains! The whole world heard it!”

“No, that was just your grandmother! And your grandmother was OD’d with X-tasy, so there’s your legend’s proof!”

“You lousy son of a-”

“Gentlemen!” snapped both ladies, forcing the brutes to silence. Wicca went on. The next photo was that of a withered old human, white, at his seventies, with eyes that reflected despair

“Andy Seto, Vietnamese. He is new to NuToyota and is a highly acclaimed engineer, once working with former NASA, before the division of the United States. In 2029, he took part in the Comet Project, which we believe is the linking evidence between the project’s abrupt end and also his immediate recruitment to the corporation”

“So, how do we get there? Chop their heads off and have the computer run a test on their blood?”

“No. The computer is programmed to detect their body temperatures. If lowered or raised, as in the case of death or presence of too many subjects in the room, the alarm triggers off and then comes Musashi”

“You mean the swordsman guy is for real?” gasped Kaede with a hint of anticipation that sent a chill across everyone’s spine.

“Not a swordsman, but a street samurai, a professional at the service to Lady Odachi and protector of the Rig. Anything goes wrong, he comes with a mono whip and rips you apart!”

“C’mon, how good can he be?”

“Yakuza’s top hitman, graduated from the Shanji-Ryu Dojo, having murdered his master, Win Lei. The Yakuza promoted him to Odachi, probably because she served certain interests…now, as for entering the Rig’s space…”

 

“Don’t you think the whole gig is too damn peculiar?”

“As much as I understand you are right, Trabol, I’d hate to have you know we can’t back down now. We’ve gone in too far to give in to the urge of fleeing”

“The whole thing is a trap!”

“No, the whole thing is hopeless! Its is made to create a trap! They want the archives copied and the rig destroyed. Whoever Johnson’s working for, they want NuToyota hindered and badly. If this secret is so coveted to add Orange-7 clearance to a private rig in a vault, then hey want the corporation to suffer a big enough blow to hinder them from standing up a long time!”

“What do we do then, boss?” spoke Mischif, curdled in his mattress, his voice bouncing inside the gray and unwelcoming safe room.

“We follow the plan. 350,000 nus is a good price and we can bargain for more easily! It’s a long shot, but they won’t risk losing their hard-earned feed for the sake of a few greedy runners now, will they?”

“Too happy fairy sounding to me…” said the Dwarf, as he tucked into bed.

Same here, friend, same here…

 

The building’s rear garage entrance led to he array of lanes that housed now only two or three cars, belonging to the late-working drones of the corporation, people who were unlucky enough to do their superior’s work for them daily.

Kaede, Mischif and Junior ran through the place, fast-paced and silent. The cameras seemed to doze off, their green lights an inaudible snoring. The two security guards were hacked quickly and silently apart, their bodies chugged under the cars, as they made it for the elevator. It groaned with the excess weight of the samurai, but rose to the 10th. A dwarf with a tired expression, strapped in a wheelchair waited for them there.

“’Bout time you showed up…”

“And who might you be?”

“I’m Goldfish. I take it that you are Junior, correct? And the wired brute next to you is Mischif?”

“Yes”

“And the charming lady in steel?”

“Kaede” she replied coldly, the rough equivalent of slamming a door in the dwarf’s face.

“Good. I am Fijkem, your contact. We must move”

“Fijkem? Dude, were you in the Aztlan Attack?” spoke the Decker with excitement

“Maybe, what do you want to know?” grumbled the old man, pushing himself ever so forward.

“I’m 1nt3l! From the Breach Forum! Dude, I’m your biggest fan!”

“Hah! So washed-out rebels get to have fans, eh?”

“Man, you were totally cool when you blew up the IC and slid through security! I mean, you led the attack-” the dwarf’s glare stopped him in his tracks, drowning his enthusiasm in a pair of white-hot eyes.

“I was the only one in the attack! I lost my chummers that day, they all got their brains fried, for what? Cheaper farmland? I am paralyzed from the waist down for the sake of the Hunt, I led the attack that killed 300 people in the Matrix due to its backlash that almost caused a war! I’d rather all you admirers go to hell, instead of worshipping my own errors! Now follow me!”

Silently, they went on, reaching with almost typical procedure the 25th floor.

“The stairs start from here. I am leaving now. Make sure you don’t screw up before I’m away”

Trapped in anxiety and grief for the old man, they entered the service elevator. Mischif plugged his neuro cord in its panel and jammed the system, rendering the cameras inoperable for enough time for them to reach the 37th floor.

As they moved out, they found themselves before the bunkers of the engineers and most devoted designers of the corporation. With calculated steps, Kaede reached a bunker, while Junior began casting a spell that would shield their presence from visibility. She cranked open the bunker door and her sword slashed the air inside it, sending a gout of blood on its walls and the floor. She emerged, holding the old man’s head and removed the eye with razor-sharp precision, putting it inside the small cryotube that was to preserve it. The bunker was closed behind them and would remain thus till morning. The samurai’s bloodied face and her grin made Junior’s stomach turn upside down.

 

Andy Seto’s eye opened the way to the chamber, a reinforced door that led to the sterilized room where the rig awaited, a black box that shone with red and green. The Decker slid vertically, held by wired rope over it. He plugged his cyberdeck and launched himself in the Matrix…

 

His new form was that of 1nt3l, the trigger-happy little gunslinger in the forums, armed with his trusted revolver, a replica of the old westerns, changed to resemble both in size and power an assault rifle.

He let himself fall through the air ducts and navigate into the cold and lonely hallways of NuToyota’s rig, cleared thanks to the Dwarf’s intervention. He ran to the barred door on the other side of the hall and his hands fumbled in his pockets, reaching out for keys, each a command that would lead him closer to his goal.

The door opened, charmed by his nimble virtual fingers and he delved into a huge metropolis of data, where the mainframe was a strange depiction of New York and the lesser programs the people who jostled around it. And above it, the Comet.

Warily, he flew towards it and reached it, unveiling the corporation’s secrets, the confidential that awed him, as he discovered the meaning behind this mission. Though stunned, he began to download it, unaware of the Tar Pit Black IC that crept behind him in the form of a huge spider, folding her long claws around him.

Red-8 he thought, moments before it sruck.

 

The Decker coughed blood, his body trapped in a twitching and silent agony. His partners took him up, as he moved frantically, racked by the pain caused to him by the spider’s bite. His veins had taken a green hue, as his brain started to turn in on the organism, the computer virus working its way to his immune system, turning it against his organs.

Mischif screamed a hardly audible scream, but it was the insane arc of his body that terrified Junior and Kaede.

“My god, it’s eating into me! It’s eating into me” sobbed the Decker, unable to breathe properly.

“What happened? Who did this to you?”

“It was Red-8! My god, we should have seen through it! I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die...“ he was crying now, blood mixed with tears from his only natural eye. “They lied to us. They had Tar Pits! Black ones! It kills me now! They’re protecting the Comet…”

“The what?”

“It’s…it’s all in my head…I keep it there…but it’s gonna get them! Kill me!”

“What!?”

“Cut my head off, or the run is over! You have to get out of here! Don’t give them the data! What they’re planning-hurry up, it’s almost there!”

Junior hardly had time to speak, before Misschif’s blood covered his face, accompanied by the low thud and the morbid rolling sound of a dead man’s head inside a steel corridor.

“That is what he wished” she said “destroy the terminal”

Junior took out his focus, a small mirror, decorated with runes and called the mana in the air to form a sphere of pure energy, that blasted it to bits. The mirror was crushed, but that was the focus’ purpose. They ran out, while the alarm notified their presence in the entire building, setting a whole personnel into motion.

Kaede sliced her way through them and Junior’s predator opened holes in their heads, as he tried to break them a way with his spells. The astral barriers blocked them, leaving them trapped. He could run through them, but that would mean he would have to leave her…

The samurai was swimming in the blood of those unfortunate enough to go near her. The bullets bounced off her cyberware limbs and she screamed as she bore through their ranks. A single man stood out, one dressed not for battle, but with the eyes of a man ready to take on an army.

“Musashi” she hissed and in response he released the long, red tongue of his monofilament whip.

“Junior!” she shouted “Leave this place! I’ll keep him distracted! Carry on the mission!”

“But…”

“Go!” she screamed, as she fell upon him with renewed rage. The mage jumped through real space and forced his will on the barrier blocking him, rending a hole through it and entered the world on the other side, feeling the shock of materializing and landing on a flight of stairs. With his chummer’s head in his arms, he ran to the roof, where the buzzing of the chopper’s wings beat above the city.

 

The rooftop was lined with dead guards, killed by the chopper’s minigun, without a doubt. He ran to his means of escape, where Trabol and Ms Wicca expected him. He paused long enough to recall that Wicca wasn’t supposed to be in the chopper. What was she doing there?

Her handgun pointed at him decisively.

“The head, Mr Seymous”

He glared at the Dwarf, who avoided his eyes and then back at the sorceress.

“Why? You planned for this to happen, didn’t you?”

“I’m afraid that is so. Mr. Johnson considers you a…severe hindrance to his interests you see”

“So he builds this whole charade to trap us?”

“No, he truly wishes to harm NuToyota. But we expected that you would attempt to salvage the data. How much did your unfortunate Decker reveal before he died?”

“Enough to know that this thing will never be yours, bitch! I’m going to toss the head from the rooftop and you’ll lose the data forever!”

“That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

“What!?”

“The Comet Project, NuToyota’s attempt to cultivate and reproduce new power sources based on the alien technology of the Comet! It opens them ways to not only that, but also on new protoype weapons, deadly enough to make little Tomoyo able to take down the East Coast! And you hold the blueprints! We can’t have that kind of monstrosities loose in the world!”

“So you are now a defender of justice and peace?”

“No, I am simply an assassin. I am here to take down your team, so as to ensure the silencing of the project”

“You wouldn’t dare jeopardize this chance! It is madness-”

The bullet blew a hole through Mischif’s skull and into the mage’s chest, close enough to the heart to kill him, but remotely enough to do so slowly...

“No, it is my job”

As Junior’s eyesight faded to black, the world turning the color of the perfect sunset, he watched the chopper fly to oblivion, holding on to his friend’s severed head, his memory slowly slipping away to nothing…

[Sabrathan]

*Bump* Θα φάει και αυτό μια όμορφη κριτική σύντομα.

Edited September 14, 2005 by Sabrathan

[Atrelegis]

Τι!; Επιτέλους κάποιος θα γράωει κριτική; YYAAAYYY!