Run 01 : Parliament Of Thieves (based on the mission written by John Dunn; updated 2013/07/16)
Denver never used to be such a fucked up place, or so John had been told. Large cities always seemed to have their problems with crime and such, but apparently things had gotten progressively worse over the last eighty years. That was about as much as John cared to think about how things were. This was largely because he could not remember anything from maybe a few weeks before this day.
Things were not easy for John right from the start. Practically no money, no knowledge of current events, or people, things had been very hard. It also did not help that he had no system identification number, or SIN for short, and no other records of him existed, which meant that there was no way to track down any family John might have.
But not all was lost. One of John's earliest memories was waking up and looking at the weirdest looking person he had ever seen. Understandable since she looked like a cross between a human and a cat.
Her name was Tabitha Morgan, though she preferred to be called Tabby. She was human, though also something called a changeling. Nothing like a changeling out of Star Trek, Dungeons and Dragons, or any other kind of outlandish fiction, but a more generic term used for anyone that expressed traits beyond the metahuman norm. Something to do with the passing of Halley's Comet back in 2061, or so John was told. Not that he would have remembered, having been roughly two years old at the time. Over nine years later changelings were still popping up, but at less than a fraction of what had appeared during the passing of Halley's Comet. At least, that was the official statistic.
Tabby had a coat of short fur covering her body reminiscent of a tabby cat's, and had the pointed ears to match. To find another changeling that bore a similar resemblance would be difficult to say the least.
What Tabby was, and recognizing a similar trait in John, was a benefit to him. John too was a changeling, though what gave him away was a much less obvious discoloration of the eyes. The sclera of John's eyes, or what is commonly called the white part of the eyes, was a brilliant blue in color, with a slightly but noticeably darker iris, and even a blue tinted pupil. The advantage to John was that he could claim he had bioware or cyberware eyes, where such designs were possible. John opted to conceal this entirely, wearing goggles or wraparound glasses at all times and using the excuse that he had a super sensitivity to light. As a side effect his eyes were just as good as those of any elf or dwarf in poor light, seeing as clearly as daylight when there was little light, and in shades of gray seeing heat when there was almost no light at all.
John's goggles were more than just to cover his eyes with blacked out lenses. Built to the outsides of the optics were the workings of a commlink, with trodes woven into the strap that went around his head. With a handful of hacking programs, among others, uploaded into it, it would make a convenient cover for if ever he would get caught hacking. Then there was the built in vision package that could cover for his enhanced vision with the lack of any augmentations.
Outside of the odd eye color, John's meter and a half height and blonde hair would have made him a perfect poster child for Aryan pride as the ideal child.
Tabby had helped out John in getting on his feet and on his own, but in such a capitalistic dystopia such help had not come for free, especially when megacorporations ran the nation's governments. At least he did not have to move in with anyone despite looking like he was about twelve years old.
John had a natural gift with computers and the matrix. To John, this was nothing unusual at all as he saw objects floating in the air like illusions and holograms almost all over the place. He had a way of making computers do things that he wanted them to do, and after the third or fourth time that he had accidentally made a vending machine crash because of his influences did he figure out that he was actually hacking them by the virtue of his will alone. The average citizen could not do this the same way John did, and those who had the right programs and equipment could do the same.
It was not long after Tabby had met John that she had figured that he was a technomancer, a person who could work the wireless world without any gear and by their mind alone. It was a rare gift to be a technomancer, but in a fashion a curse as well. To the general public, technomancers were to be feared as they could hack a person's brain as well as any wireless computer. To some of the megacorporations that manipulated the governments of the world, technomancers were a thing to experiment and possibly exploit.
Out of curiosity John had even tried a few times to hack a person's brain. Ultimately he knew he could hack commlinks, drones, vehicles, and more, but hacking a metahuman's brain was impossible. He always seemed to hit a barrier when he tried to cross through whatever direct neural interface a person had to actually slip into a person's brain. This had brought up the question of who the dumb fuck was that thought technomancers could hack peoples' brains.
With Tabby's help, John learned about what he needed to conceal his technomancer nature. After a few hacking jobs that blew Tabby's expectations away, John had gotten more than some gear, but also an out of the way place to crash.
There were several problems with where John lived, and had spent nearly a month's worth of what life he could remember there. First and foremost among them were that he lived near some forgotten subway tunnels, much like a bunch of mutant turtles did in sewers in a nearly forgotten series of comics. This meant that John had to deal with rats and other denizens underground, some of which were not very friendly to say the least, especially to lone kids.
A benefit of this was that he lived not too far from a smugglers' route between two sectors of Denver, between the part owned by the Confederation of American States, and another owned by the United Canadian and American States. Straight above him, John had figured, was UCAS territory just north of a bad stretch of Denver called the Aurora Warrens. It was a little difficult to tell as GPS did not quite work underground.
"Yo, kid!" John heard someone yell as he reached the heavy door to the place he called home, "Don't ya know it's dangerous to walk around here?" The voice was deep, trying to sound tough and menacing, and distinctly African. It was also the voice of someone John hated having to deal with.
John ignored the man, pressing his thumb to the maglock on the door of his house. At the same time he sent a signal to a second maglock on the inside, using his technomancer abilities to remotely unlock it as well.
A heavy hand slapped down on John's shoulder. "Yo, punk! I's talkin' to ya!"
"Fuck off, nigger." John bit back and shrugged off the hand, "We both know this ain't your turf."
"That's where's you's wrong, kid." the African said. John heard the click of a switchblade. "This is our turf, and you gotta pay up."
"Predictable." John muttered, spinning to sidestep an expected stab. With a practiced twitch of his right arm, a Morrissey Élan holdout pistol in a spring loaded holster popped into his hand. As part of his sidestep, John turned to face the taller African, the holdout was aimed right at his face. He saw two others, all three of them being African human males.
Shaq in particular was looking a little brighter than the others, but it was not in intelligence. In the naturally poor light John was also seeing their body heat, and it looked like Shaq was sweating just a little. He was not quite sure why.
"C'mon Shaq," John said, "we both know T-Bar ain't gonna claim this turf. He does and he's got two other gangs and who knows how many coyotes gunnin' for his ass."
"He don't think it that way." Shaq countered. "And you gotta start coughin' up protection money."
It was a rare moment John wished he did not wear the goggles, and this one was so Shaq could watch John roll his eyes. T-Bar was a smalltime but overly ambitious gang leader with barely more members than a person has fingers, and maybe as many brain cells.
Still holding the holdout at Shaq's face, John squeezed the trigger. Before the other two African gangers could react he shot the one to his left and had the holdout leveled at the third. At least this one was smart enough to put his hands up. The only sound was the whizzing bullets when John shot.
Shaq was out cold, the gel round having hit him in the forehead harder than a heavyweight boxer's glove. The other ganger that had been shot was slowly regaining his feet. Not for the first time John wondered when Shaq would understand that John would shoot a person.
"Take Shaq and get the fuck out of here." John barked at the two gangers.
With a ganger at each side, Shaq was hefted and carried away into the tunnels. John hoped they were smart and went straight to their recognized turf.
The only reason the gangers obeyed was because of what John had done the first time they tried to extract protection money from him. That time had ended with John emptying the magazine of his Morrissey Élan into the gangers as well as kicking one in the crotch a few times and biting the hand of another that tried to hold him. That particular fight had been super lucky for John, and he knew it. It had also ended with the five gangers unconscious in a tunnel rumored to be stalked by ghouls.
Quickly stepping inside, the maglocks secured the door once John closed it behind him.
This was another aspect of John's life that he hated having to deal with. But then, being twelve years old and not being able to wait until he was older was still a common thing for kids.
The night itself was calm. John seriously did not expect Shaq to return for any harassment. He had even considered hacking the ganger's commlink for their nuyen to pay for the gel rounds he inevitably had to keep using. He had actually done that once, but only managed to scrape up enough to by three gel rounds between the four gangers that had pushed him. He doubted that Shaq had more than five nuyen to his name.
The next afternoon proved to be a little more interesting as John had gotten a message from Tabby about work. The hard part for John was that he had to cover about twenty-five kilometers to get to a place called Club Denim that was at the west side of Denver, in the Pueblo Corporate Council sector.
The first step in getting to Denim was John hitching a ride with a coyote on her run into the CAS sector. From there, John ended up walking across Denver. Not a very pleasant experience, either. On the way he did some research into the club itself. It was after he was done with his research, like where Denim was located, when he managed to hitch another ride with another coyote to get across the border to the PCC side of Denver. Well, hitched was a nice way of saying he hid in the back of the coyote's truck.
At a stop sign somewhere after surfacing in the PCC sector, John hopped out of the back of the pickup truck. From there he would walk to Denim.
Years ago Denim was in what was called the Ute sector of the Denver Font Range Free Zone, or FRFZ for short. About a kilometer and a half south was the old demarcation line (what was wrong with the word 'border'?) between the Ute and PCC Sectors, though appearance wise now there did not seem to be much difference between the two.
The neighborhood in this part of Edgewood was largely residential. The streets were relatively quiet of traffic or people. Denim itself stood out largely because of a large neon sign, so it would be relatively hard to miss if you were looking for it. The parking lot for the club was pretty much empty.
John hoped he looked calmer than his insides felt as he pulled the door open. Tribal rock music suddenly went from subtle vibrations to rather loud. That did nothing to settle the butterflies in his stomach.
The inside of Denim smelled of tobacco smoke and alcohol. At various places around there were trid screens showing different sports games, with a few showing local news programs. One of the news channels was doing an article about LuCom, a local computer company. There were a few wageslaves about, nursing their drinks. Behind the bar was a middle aged human woman dressed in traditional Hopi garb, her hair tied in twin braids that she had draped over her shoulders, with dark eyes that glared harshly at John.
"No kids." the bartender barked.
"Fine then." John returned, "But I got an appointment with a Mr. Johnson here. You tell 'im why I missed it."
The bartender did not look convinced.
"I'll watch the kid." came a woman's voice. John noticed a rather attractive blonde woman sitting in a booth. She smiled a little and waved him over. He slid himself onto the bench on the opposite side of the table.
The woman was pretty, looking to be in her early twenties at most, with wavy blonde hair down just past her shoulders tied into a loose ponytail, and deep blue eyes. She was athletic in build, with a slightly above average bust. Her clothing was casual looking with a soft brown leather jacket and not too tight blue jeans, and he noticed that her left hand was cybernetic. As close as he was he could hack into the hand and figure out just how much of her arm was cybernetic. That was, only if she had not turned off the wireless functions of the cybernetics.
"So you're also here to meet with Mr. Johnson?" she asked.
"'Bout all I know." John said. "Work of some kind."
"First time?" she asked.
"Yeah." John answered, looking about. Everyone else seemed to be paying them no mind. Even the bartender had stopped focusing her attention on him. Maybe she now believed that he really was here to meet with a Mr. Johnson, and not try to score some booze?
"It shows a little too much." she told him. "Relax. Usually Johnson gives you some details about the job then a price. You always get a chance to back out and no one'll think less of you for it."
Having been wondering what kind of work it would be had been bugging John off and on. Hearing that he would have an opportunity to not even accept the job if he did not want to was good news. He was hoping it would not be something too disgusting as right now he did not have enough for the bribes for next month's rent.
"So, you got a name?" she asked him, and before John could answer she added, "A street name?"
John had thought about it off and on for a while, and had found in a hardcopy of some ancient science fiction a character that he had found interesting. His online persona even emulated the character's appearance to an extent.
"Cypher." John answered, absently reaching up and running two fingers of his right hand over his right ear.
"Call me Hunter." she replied. "I do bounty hunting for the Denver LEOs from time to time for legit work. But it's not enough to pay the bills sometimes.
"But I think it's time we went to the back room for the meeting." Hunter finished, standing up from the booth.
John followed her, and more than once was looking her up and down. They went to the back of the bar and down a flight of stairs. After going through a solid door the feeling of the place changed dramatically.
The basement room itself made John feel that he was in some kind of ancient Indian medicine lodge. A warm fire burned in the center of the room, venting up through a metal chimney, and was the only source of light. It also obscured John's vision a little, making things look a little fuzzy. There was also a smell to the air that John could only best describe as warm. Furs and Amerindian artifacts decorated the walls, though John could not tell if they were authentic or merely synthetic replicas. He could not feel any RFID tags in them, but that meant little in the way of telling a fake from authentic relic.
A single person was already in the room, sitting opposite of the door. John figured it was Mr. Johnson, as the person wore a gray business suit but also a raven styled mask that John thought was probably the only piece of real wood in the whole club.
Mr. Johnson said nothing, but gestured to John and Hunter to take a seat. They both sat at Mr. Johnson's right.
They all sat in silence for a few minutes, waiting for the others to arrive. To occupy himself, John had taken to feeling out the wireless signals. Both Hunter and Mr. Johnson had simple commlinks that were easy enough to find. While Mr. Johnson's commlink was nothing but a simple piece of electronics with little in the way of valuable info, Hunter's commlink was slaved to a higher end link that John had not noticed.
With nothing better to do, John had slipped his way into Hunter's second commlink. The interior sculpting looked like he had materialized inside the cockpit of a fighter jet or some kind of small space ship. Touching various icons that looked like controls or displays brought up various details about her cybernetics and more. He found that her left arm was fully cybernetic with the commlink itself in it, as well as a nanohive and a grapple hand system. Her lower right arm was also listed, a very well disguised synthetic limb with a light pistol concealed within it. A central icon showed heavily tricked out cybernetic eyes and an icon just below that held a list of skillsofts for a high quality skillwire system running throughout her body. He did not linger long when he noticed a roaming intrusion countermeasure program floating about the inside of the virtual fighter.
After having to wait a while, another person entered the room. Though he looked human enough his appearance unnerved John, sporting enough chrome to polish a car. He was barefoot though his feet were cybernetic, as were his hands. His head was clean shaven to allow free clearance of an eyeband to wrap around his head. He wore black leather pants and a matching coat that mostly covered a white shirt underneath, which gave John the impression the man was a biker of some kind. This did not mean the man was a ganger of any kind, but it was still a possibility.
With as much cyberware as that man was sporting, John felt it might be a stupid thing to not try probing for a commlink or some other device to hack. He barely hid his smile when he found one on the man's left forearm and a second implanted in his right arm. Ignoring the worn commlink with a soap bubble for a firewall, John went straight to poking the firmer firewall for weaknesses.
Just behind the cybernetic man was the largest woman John had ever seen. Not large as in corpulent, but very, very tall. She stood nearly a meter taller than John's one and a half meter body, with wavy blond hair past her shoulders, and brown eyes. He almost thought she was a troll because of the large curling ram horns growing from her head, but she lacked the disproportionately long arms, rough skin, and other typical troll physical features. Her skin looked rather smooth and soft, almost like that of a supermodel. She certainly had the hips and bust of a supermodel, and despite looking like she grew up well to do her clothing spoke volumes about knowing about life in the harder parts of town. John had to fix himself to sit more comfortably as she sat down, his jeans suddenly feeling rather tight.
By the time she sat down at her own spot John had broken through the firewall of the bald cyborg's better commlink, and was poking around with what he could find. And a lot of it was already pretty dumb. The sculpting inside looked like a biker bar drawn by a six-year-old, and various icons gave very simplified information on what they were about. He also could not find any kind of agent or IC program running to check for intruders.
"Now that we are all here," Mr. Johnson said as soon as the large woman had taken her seat, "let's get down to business." By the sound of his voice, John figured that Mr. Johnson was an elderly man who was probably in his mid to late sixties.
"Thank you all for coming. I'm Mr. Johnson, and the job at hand is rather straightforward, and hopefully simple."
"At least you're not saying it'll be easy." the large woman said. Even her voice sounded as attractive as her body looked. Now if only there wasn't the big mouthed, ugly looking, biker wanna-be with them.
"For your sake I hope it is." Mr. Johnson told her, "But I have no illusions that you'll have some trouble."
"So what's the job?" Hunter asked.
"Delivery." Mr. Johnson told them, "You must deliver a package in the strictest of confidence to a friend in the UCAS sector by seven o'clock tonight."
"Two and a half hours, two borders, and rush hour." the woman rattled off. "It won't be easy."
"Compensation will be three thousand, five hundred nuyen," Mr. Johnson told them, "as long as you make the delivery on time."
"Three and a half to be a delivery boy?" the bald man asked. His voice sounded deep, gravelly, and like he might be a bit low in the brains department. For what might have been the first time John wished he really could hack into peoples' brains. Maybe if he could do that then maybe their IQ would be accessible like the speed of a commlink's collective processors?
Something snapped in John. Thirty-five hundred nuyen would cover his rent for a few months, with more than enough to spare for the ammo he kept spending on shooting Shaq and his lackeys every few days.
"Can't accept the promotion to delivery boy?" John asked.
"Like you can?" the bald man asked.
"Hell yeah!" John returned. "You can count me in. As long as I can get a ride."
"Got a truck outside." the woman said, "Got room for all and then some."
"Yeah, alright, I'm in." the cybernetic man added grudgingly.
"Got my own bike outside." Hunter told them, "I'll ride escort."
"Good." Mr. Johnson said, pulling out a large manila envelope that had CONFIDENTIAL in big red letters across one side and a tamper proof seal. Whatever was inside, it did not seem to be too solid as the envelope sagged a little in his hand.
"This's it?" the woman asked, picking up the envelope.
Mr. Johnson nodded. "You need to deliver this to 4923 Billings Street, in the Montbello District."
"Should be easy enough to get through customs." the bald man said.
"Uh, don't forget about rush hour." John told him.
"Who the fuck are you to…" the man snapped, stopping when his commlink beeped.
John, not having cut his connection to the cyborg's commlink, faked the incoming call and was already uploading a program of his own, an Augmented Reality Editor program called a Negator from the commlink in his goggles. By the time the man figured out there was no call, John had the program up and running under his control, hiding its small icon almost inside one of the childishly huge icons that decorated the inside of the biker's commlink.
"Piece of shit." the man cussed as he hit his commlink a few times. Looking up, he asked, "Where'd the fuck he go?"
"Who?" the large woman asked.
"The kid!"
Hunter looked over at John, who shrugged back to her, then back to the other woman. "I don't know what you're on, but he's still sitting right here."
Even the other woman was perplexed. "Yeah, he's still here."
"The hell he is!" the man cried out, standing as if he was going to jump over the fire to where he thought John was.
Mr. Johnson started laughing.
John brought a hand up to his goggles, closing the Negator program. John made sure the first thing he saw was the middle finger of his right hand as the AROs in te other man's vision cleared.
Mr. Johnson was still laughing, harder even when he noticed the expression on the man's face.
"I hacked your 'link when you came in." John told them, "I made you think you got a call, and hacked your eye. It's too easy. Especially the way you got everything strung up and all." And that did not include a lack of software to give him a chance at even finding John in the first place.
Mr. Johnson had finally gotten control of himself, his laughter ending. "And here I had asked for an okay cyber fighter." he cried, "And she comes through with the Michelangelo of the matrix! Wonderful!" He clapped his hands together happily.
"I still don't see why we need him." the man declared, sitting back down again.
John sighed, rolling his eyes behind the dark lenses of his goggles.
"I hope you have a comeback to that." Mr. Johnson told him.
John, still within the other man's commlink and cybernetics, strung various icons into a central icon of his own for control. He took over the move by wire system in the man's body and all of his implanted weapons, locking out their direct neural inputs. First the climbing claws extended from his toes, and the man's fingers were locked straight and wide. Next were the retracted spurs in his forearms, the three blades in each forearm popping out lightning fast.
Last was the move by wire system as John made it go haywire by forcing every muscle in his body to try and contract at the same time. The man's movements made John think of what an animal might look if it was being electrocuted.
With a thought, John let go of everything he had control of in the man's body, his own icon disappearing from existence.
The cybernetic man, panting, faced John. Without actually seeing any eyeballs it was hard for John to tell if he was being stared at. At least he now had an idea of how others felt when he was looking at them as his goggles blocked his eyes from the outside.
"At least you don't have full cyberlegs." John said, "Would've had you dance us a jig."
Again Mr. Johnson broke out into laughter. Even the large woman started laughing this time. John noticed the smirk on Hunter's face, and he smiled a little. Did she also wink at him?
John scrambled to his feet when it looked like the cybernetic man was going to lunge at him. Only after he had gained his footing and found his back pressed against the wall did he realize he had moved too slow. At least the large woman had been quicker, with an arm out blocking the cybernetic man's path.
And apparently the tall woman had figured something out, saying, "He'd be good in case someone hacks my truck to stop it."
"And maybe you should cut the WiFi to that internal link." John advised as he sat back down, "Or maybe slave your cheap 'link to it to hide it like she does." John pointed to Hunter.
"What?" Hunter asked. Her cheery expression was gone in an instant.
By the look on the man's face, this was also something that had never crossed his mind.
"Yes!" Mr. Johnson cried, "He can be taught!"
"How'd you…?" Hunter started to ask.
"Already hacked you, too." John told her. "Bugged out when I saw your ice."
"Hopefully we can stop wasting our time here." the larger woman told everyone as she stood, "We barely got two hours to make two borders, and then some."
"I do have some associates who can help." Mr. Johnson told them.
"I think it'd be a good idea." Hunter said.
The bald cyborg made a 'pfft' noise. "We don't need help."
No one else said anything. John thought it would be a good idea to skip under the borders.
Mr. Johnson passed two labeled notes over to Hunter. "Commcodes and notes to give to the two. Stalker can get you into CAS, Peaches into UCAS."
"Thanks." Hunter told him, nodding.
John stood to leave, as did the others. He was the last one up the stairs.
"First run, kid?" the cybernetic man asked as they walked towards the front door.
"Yeah." John answered halfheartedly.
"Hope you're good for something besides hacking." the cybernetic man replied. Was he strutting as he headed towards the door? John was already starting to dislike this guy, and he was starting to smell something he had not before.
John heard something or someone behind him. What was said was a little hard to tell, like trying to understand what a falling-down drunk man is trying to say when he's screaming at the top of his lungs. The loud tribal rock music playing did not help either.
A heavy hand slapped down hard on John's left shoulder. "Fookin' dwarf." he heard a man say, and could smell the alcohol as if he had fallen into a vat of beer. "I'z talkin'…"
Shrugging off the shoulder, John tried to just ignore the drunken wageslave and walk off.
"Hey!" the wageslave yelled, slapping his hand back on John's shoulder again.
Again John shrugged the man off, adding, "Fuck off." He noticed the cybernetic man turning to face them, though it did not look like John was going to get any help.
"Naw, fook yuz!" the drunken wageslave yelled, grabbing John's shoulder again and forcing him around.
John twitched his right hand, catching the holdout. As he looked up at drunken man he shot him in the gut, the suppressed gel round was impossible to hear over the loud music. John managed to step back as the drunk toppled over in pain as if he had been punched in the gut by a troll. The holdout slid back up his sleeve.
Kneeling down, John yelled into the drunk's ear at point blank, "I'm not a fuckin' dwarf!" He stood and turned to leave, and had to step around the cybernetic man.
No one stopped him as he left the bar.
"Over here!" the woman called out when she noticed John, waving. She stood next to a dark green Toyota Gopher pickup truck that had been modified for a large metahuman to drive. "Where's Billy?" she asked.
"Who?" John asked back.
"The cyclops guy."
"Yo." the cybernetic man said, stepping up.
"Hey, Cypher!" Hunter called as she rode up, "Think you can network us together so we can talk on the road?" She was riding an electric blue Contrail Thundercloud that rumbled with more power than it looked she could handle. She was also wearing a matching electric blue helmet.
"Sure." John told them, and took a moment to grab everyone's commlink signals and mentally pulled them to the commlink built into his goggles. It accepted the data streams into a network with him as a server. He was not quite sure how it worked, but all he really cared about was that it worked. "We're linked up." he told everyone, holding the door for Billy.
"You take the middle." Billy said with no subtlety of malice in his voice.
"You get carsick?" John asked.
"No."
"Well I might." John told him. "If I do it's in your lap." As far as John knew, he had never ridden in the cab of a truck at all.
"Alright." Billy relented.
"So where do we go off to first?" the woman asked.
"Sloan Lake Park." Hunter answered, securing her helmet. "We'll meet Stalker there. Traffic reports're saying there's long lines at the border checkpoints."
It was about fifteen minutes from Denim to Sloan Lake. Along the way they got to introductions, and John learned that the large woman called herself Valkyrie.
Valkyrie was not exactly a troll, John found out, but a metavariant of troll called fomori that was native to the British Isles. As they rode, John did an extensive search on fomori in general, learning a lot about the differences between them and trolls. He also found that, despite not having the protective dermal deposits trolls have, fomori were supposed to be as good, if not better, at taking hits as trolls. He even learned about their innate resistance to magic, and John figured she would be good for taking down mages.
Stalker was already waiting for them at the park when they arrived. He was human, looking to be about in his forty's, with fading red hair. He stood a good hundred and ninety centimeters and probably weighed more than twice what John did. Looking at his gear, John would have guessed him for a street samurai, a runner who specialized in up close and personal combat on jobs like what John was on now.
"Which one of you's Hunter?" Stalker asked gruffly.
"Here." Hunter answered, walking up to Stalker and handing him a note.
Stalker grumbled as he looked over the note. "Alright." he growled, pocketing the note, "Follow me, and bring your rigs."
They were led to a concealed tunnel in the park. From there, Stalker hopped up on the back of Valkyrie's truck, and with him added to their little network gave directions through the tunnels.
Though the others soon grew bored of Stalker, especially with being called kids all of the time. Though being called a kid himself did make him feel a little insulted, he could hardly blame Stalker for it. John was, after all, easily young enough to really be Stalker's own kid. He was also honestly interested in the coyote's stories.
The thought had actually crossed John's mind. Problem was that he had no feelings like he should know Stalker or not, and decided he should just forget it. It did help too that John had blonde hair, closer in shade to what Hunter and Valkyrie had.
But both women also felt like complete strangers.
Then there were the stories, which after a while gave John the impression that the red haired man might not have had time for sex.
About twenty minutes later, and at least one stop somewhere in the tunnels for no reason John could figure, they surfaced somewhere in the middle of Cheesman Park. There Stalker left them. John was glad at this point, having grown weary of Stalker's "In my day" stories.
Cheesman Park was in the northern part of what was formerly the Aztlan Sector of Denver. From what research John had done about Denver's history, Aztechnology's presence in the city had all been wiped out the year Ghostwalker came and claimed the FRFZ as his own. With Aztechnology gone, the sector had been taken over by CAS military. Much of the old Aztlan influence still could be seen, particularly around the park, and partially going east until you crossed Colorado Boulevard, which had marked the old Aztlan-CAS demarcation.
John watched out the window as Valkyrie tried her best to get to the next border crossing to get into the UCAS sector. Absently he rubbed his fingers over the curve of his right ear.
Ultimately they hit a snarl and wound up stuck in a traffic jam about half way to the border.
"Fuck an A." cussed Billy.
With nothing better to do, John dove into the GridGuide to see what the local road reports had to say. The public camera feeds showed a tangled mess between two sedans at an intersection that was in their path.
"Wonder if that'll make World's Dumbest." commented John, forwarding the camera feeds to the others. "Looks like someone was trying to drive their car before they knew how."
"Like you could do better." countered Billy.
"Yeah, I could." John returned. "I'd let the car do all the driving."
"Check six, guys." Hunter called out. "Four Yaks footin' it up."
"And four Triads from the side." added Valkyrie.
John half stood to turn around and look back. It was easy enough to spot what he thought were the Yaks, as Hunter called them. He saw four Japanese humans walking towards them, wearing the stereotypical black suits and black sunglasses. If there were any extraterrestrials about John would have thought they were the Men In Black.
Getting a bad vibe from the others was making him nervous. "Not good, eh?" he asked.
"Nope." Valkyrie answered. "The Triads got a mage with them, too."
"The troll?" Hunter asked.
"Yep." Valkyrie answered.
John thought he would try to do something first and let his mind sink a little more into the web work of data signals. The area was a mess of WiFi and nodes, and trying to sniff out nodes of specific cars and trucks was proving to be a little difficult. Especially when it seemed that almost everyone used the factory defaults for their cars.
At least he was able to find one of the car nodes he wanted, quickly forcing his virtual hand through its firewall. Not only did the car he hacked into not respond, a jet black Nightsky limousine behind them started blaring its horn rather loudly and flashing all of its lights. This apparently startled the Yakuza as their attention turned to the limo behind them.
"You doing this, Cypher?" Hunter asked.
"Tried to run the Triads over. Guess I got the wrong car." John answered, still trying to figure out the nodes to the cars. It was not too easy trying to pick out the right one as how he felt the presence of the cars through the matrix did not precisely coincide with their physical locations.
Before John could decide on the next car to try and hack, he heard what sounded like popcorn exploding behind him.
"What the fuck's happening?" Valkyrie asked, turning back to better see what was going on.
"Shootout!" Hunter called back, having driven up onto the sidewalk and was now beside them.
Glancing around he also saw more people diving for cover.
A crashing sound ahead of them drew John's attention to the street ahead. Despite the congested traffic, people were apparently trying to drive away from the gunfight. It did look like a path might be available.
"Go! Go! Go!" John yelled at Valkyrie.
"What?" Valkyrie asked, and in turning around to face John noticed the moving traffic.
The truck seemed to leap into motion, and Valkyrie followed two other cars onto the sidewalk. After half a block she was able to turn to a side street that was less congested. A few blocks further, Valkyrie turned again and the street was clear. John then pulled his mind from web of data and back to the real world.
"I could've taken 'em." muttered Billy.
"Sure." Valkyrie said flatly. It sounded like to John that she did not believe Billy. He sure did not.
They traveled on in silence for several more minutes.
"Got a howl." Hunter told them over the network, "Head for Havana and Sixth."
At the intersection of Havana and Sixth Avenue was a dilapidated parking garage, among the other buildings. Standing nearby was an ork woman with fiery bright orange hair pulled in a curly jumbled ponytail. She wore a chameleon suit, making it difficult to see what else she wore or happened to be carrying. Once she saw them she waved them inside, opening a rusted chain link gate for them.
Hunter drove in first, and after exchanging a few words handed her a note.
Like Stalker, Peaches ended up hopping up into the bed of Valkyrie's truck to ride behind the cab. John also added her commlink to their network.
They were well into the tunnels when Billy asked, "Been wondering something. Just how'd you do all that? It didn't look like you went to VR, and you weren't gesturing around with AROs."
John tapped the straps to his goggles. "Trodes." he said. "Makes a direct link to my 'link, so all I gotta do is think it."
"What's that noise?" Hunter asked, butting into the conversation.
John could not hear it right away, but after a bit he could hear country western music. To John it was a lot of noise made by sour singing and tin strung guitars.
"That's Five By Five." Peaches told them. "Smuggler bar in an old fallout shelter from the mid twentieth."
"There's shit that old down here?" Billy asked.
"Well, that's the rumor." Peaches confessed. "Supposedly there's a whole tunnel system and bunches of nuke shelters that were built deep underground over a century ago."
John did not say it but he now suspected his own place was one of those fallout shelters. It made sense, especially when part of the tunnel they were traveling down now he also used to walk between his place and a ladder he sometimes used to reach the surface.
Further on, and well past Five By Five or the tunnel to John's place were more tunnels that John was not familiar with. Here and there were homeless people either sitting along the walls or shuffling along.
Then John saw something he had hoped he would never see. Several ghouls had cornered a few vagrants, while many others were now running off. It was a sad fact in the modern world.
"We gotta help them." Valkyrie told them.
"Say what?" Billy asked.
John noticed that some of the ghouls had actually turned to face them. He figured they heard the vehicles coming, but figured that Valkyrie could just drive over them.
Hunter did not say anything. John watched as she pulled out a gun and shot at a ghoul. "Shit, they're all feral!" she cussed when the others started rushing towards them.
Valkyrie stopped her truck short, and John was quick to bail out. Though he was more than willing to help, he also wanted to make sure that Billy did not just shove him to the ground.
"Yes!" Billy half yelled, half growled as he very nearly did plow John over in leaping out of the truck.
Faster of foot than John, Billy was the next to reach the ghouls. His forearm blades snapped out just before he proceeded to slice one ghoul after another. John was quite content to stay back and out of the reach of the ghouls.
Billy turned out good for something after all. Saying the cyborg was skilled depended on whether he was trying to punch, kick, or slash at a ghoul. There were a few overly zealous "kiyas" and other martial artists' noises, but only when Billy actually tried to slash a ghoul with the spurs in his arms did it look like he knew what he was doing.
John shivered when he saw Billy completely gut a ghoul by stabbing and tearing his spurs out at the sides did John figure it might have been a bit of a bad idea to make Billy twitch like a dead frog on electrodes.
At least Billy proved to be a good distraction and at least a threat to the ghouls as they turned on him. "Go! Go! Go!" John yelled at the homeless people, waving them to run towards Valkyrie's truck.
John heard a girl scream. He saw a ghoul that was not distracted by Billy and had managed to grab someone, and was now towering over his fallen prey. With both holdouts in hand, John unloaded the magazines of both into the ghoul. At least one shot looked like it hit, knocking the ghoul back onto its buttocks.
Not knowing if the ghoul was dead or just knocked out, John rushed up to the girl, letting the holdouts slide back into their holsters. As soon as he was at her side he grabbed the girl and pulled her away. They managed to get clear, and the girl ran for her mother's arms. John stopped close by, bending over as he tried to catch his breath.
There was some more gunfire, and even what sounded like an explosion. Then silence.
"Everyone alright?" Hunter called out.
John turned to look back at the fight. There were easily half a dozen dead ghouls, some of them now burning and spewing a greasy black smoke. It looked like the others were alright.
"No." Billy said. "Too fuckin' fast."
John figured Billy was alright.
"I'll be fine. Pushed that spell a little hard." Valkyrie panted.
"I'm fine." John told them, walking back over to Valkyrie's truck. He saw Peaches still standing in the back of the truck with a Colt America L36 in hand, the pistol's barrel glowing warm to his thermographic vision.
Billy climbed into the truck before John, and John was able to check in the side mirror to see the homeless people heading off in the opposite direction.
"They should be okay." Peaches told them, "But we shouldn't hang around here. More ghouls will probably show up."
"Why's that?" Billy asked.
"If a ghoul's desperate enough, it'll eat the flesh of a dead ghoul." Peaches told them.
John shivered at the thought.
Valkyrie started up her truck and they continued on. John took the opportunity to change out the empty holdout magazines for loaded ones. Once that was done, John sent a message to a fence he knew by the name of Merlin to see about getting some more ammo. He never kept much in the way of ammunition, and if he ended up emptying these magazines he would be completely out.
The rest of the trip was rather uneventful, though John did learn that Valkyrie was indeed a magician. From Billy's complaining about wanting a better fight, John figured he was just a whiny bitch.
Once at the surface in the UCAS sector Peaches left them.
They rode on in silence for about half an hour when Billy said what might have been the dumbest thing possible.
"Looks like it'll be easy after all."
"Please tell me you're joking." Hunter said with all dead seriousness.
"I mean it." Billy said.
That was when Valkyrie's truck decided to just up and die. Valkyrie was able to steer the Gopher into a parking space.
"Now you've done it." Hunter said, parking her motorcycle in front of the truck.
All at once their commlinks beeped with an incoming message, and right away an ARO appeared. It read, "Come on over for a quick drink. We need to talk." Along with it was a man's face. He was Caucasian, with short brown hair, blue eyes, and a half smile on his face John could not figure out.
"I don't like this." Hunter said softly. "Cypher, check the café."
Looking off to the right, John saw they were parked next to a wine bar called Cava De Vin. He guessed it was Italian, but had no idea what the name meant. But what he also saw was the owner of the face in the ARO.
"I'll go talk to him." Hunter said, with a click he heard her mute her connection.
"So we just sit here?" whined Billy.
"You can go lie down in the back if you want." Valkyrie answered.
John said nothing as he reached out with his mind, feeling for the WiFi signals again. Compared to the pressure and congestion of the traffic jam earlier, this neighborhood felt barren of nodes and more. By the time Hunter had reached the man John had identified a single signal from him and was already applying a virtual hand to the commlink's firewall. He was through in a few seconds without incident. First thing he did was hijack the commlink's microphone.
"It really isn't any of your business at all." he heard Hunter say.
"True, but it's not like I'm asking you to open it and show me." the man said.
John noticed an icon inside the man's commlink that was showing a complete readout of Valkyrie's truck. "I think I can get us going again." he said, hoping Hunter could still hear him.
"What're you talking about?" Billy asked.
John just waved him off, focusing more to how things were inside the man's commlink. It did not look like there were any other subscriptions.
"Maybe, but I think we'll be going instead." Hunter said. Maybe she did hear him.
With a virtual hand on the icon John sent a pulse of corruptive data at it. It shattered like glass as the program crashed.
"You really think that'll be possible?" the man asked.
"Try it now." John said.
Valkyrie's engine roared to life.
"I think so." Hunter replied, turning to walk back to her motorcycle.
"Hey, c'mon!" the man cried.
Hunter stopped, drawing a large pistol and leveling it straight at his head.
"I see you're in a hurry, we'll talk more next time!" he quickly said as rushed off. John cut his connection to the man's commlink.
Shaking her head, Hunter walked back to her motorcycle. "Let's get going." she said.
They traveled mostly north now, though had to switch back and around a few times because of the layout of the streets. If it were not for maps and GPS John felt they would have been completely lost.
It was just after 18.30 when they reached their destination.
The address was behind a wrought iron gate and an extended driveway, and Hunter drove up to an intercom.
"I feel way underdressed just being here." John muttered. The whole neighborhood was looking so upper class that visions of people walking around with their noses up in the air filled his imagination.
The gate buzzed as it opened. "Follow me in, slow." Hunter told them over their network as she drove through the gate. The driveway was not straight, but wound back and forth through a grove of trees.
John could feel the suppression of WiFi from the property's security as signals crisscrossed all over the place. He even spotted a few security cameras mounted in the trees, and sensed the signals of many more as they traveled back and forth to a security node somewhere on the property.
That was about when John received a text message from Hunter. It said: "Do be on your best behavior and don't hack into anything here." He figured it would be a good idea to follow her advice.
It was not just a house that they pulled up to, but a full blown mansion. There were four Hispanic men at the front steps to greet them. Each was dressed in a poorly tailored, off the rack suits. One of them approached Hunter while John and the others got out of the truck.
"I'm Michael." he said, introducing himself. "Sottocapo Omar Chavez is expecting you, but currently involved with a meeting downstairs. He'll appreciate it if you join him there. If you'll follow me?"
Following their lead, John said nothing as Hunter merely nodded and fell in step behind Michael. John noticed the other three men following along with.
The mansion itself was luxurious to say the least, though John did not quite get as good a look from the foyer that he would have hoped.
Just before they reached a grand staircase, Michael led them through a doorway off to the right. John figured it was a sitting room of some kind, but in following Michael and the others was soon walking through another doorway and down a set of stairs.
"Some things to be aware of." Michael told them as they walked down a hallway. "First, speak only when spoken to, and wait for sottocapo Chavez to address you first."
The next door led into a shooting range, with two people already inside. One was an elderly man that looked so skinny and frail that he needed the cane he was leaning against to keep from falling over with the Ruger Super Warhawk he wore in his shoulder holster.
The other person was a skinny elf male, his white shirt soaked with sweat and ripped badly in several places.
Omar Chavez handed the elf a target. "Take it down there and hang it." he told the elf.
John watched as the elf seemed to sweat even more as he walked down the range. Omar pulled his Warhawk and took a bead on the elf's back. John felt he was ignoring them intentionally. Looking at the others, he saw none of them making any move to stop Omar, or to even say anything about it. Probably most disturbing to him was Billy's grin as he mimicked Omar, making his left hand look like a pistol as he too took aim at the elf's head.
The elf made it to the end of the range, hung the target, and stepped aside. Then the sottocapo fired at the target. John shuddered with each retort of the powerful Warhawk.
After the sixth shot, Omar placed his revolver on the counter and turned to face John and the others. "Now," he said gruffly, "I understand you have a package for me?"
"Yes, we do." Valkyrie said, pulling out the manila envelope and handing it to him.
Omar took the envelope and looked it over. Apparently satisfied that everything was okay, he said, "Everything is in order."
John heard his commlink beep. When he looked at it, he noticed thirty-five hundred nuyen had just been transferred to his account.
"Michael will see you to the door." Omar said.
Michael merely gestured for John and the others. The walk back to the front door was just as quiet.
"So what do we do now?" John asked as soon as they were outside.
"We pretty much go our separate ways." Valkyrie said.
"I could use a ride if you're goin' to Goodfriends." he heard Billy say.
"You can get a cab." Valkyrie told him.
John figured now was a good time to cut off the network. Mentally he took the data lines from his commlink and cast them off.
Once that was set, John brought up a GridGuide map to figure a way home. It looked like it was going to be quite a walk for him. Without a word, John started walking down the driveway. Valkyrie passed him on the way, long before he reached the gate.
The evening was starting to grow cold when John reached the street. Following the GridGuide map, John turned to his right and started walking down the street.
Hunter showed up a few minutes later and started pacing him on the street. "You need a ride, kiddo?" she asked.
John said nothing.
"I doubt you live anywhere near here." Hunter told him, "Hop on. I'll give you a lift to wherever you need."
John stopped, pausing for a moment before turning to look at Hunter. "Why're you doing this?" he asked, "You want something?"
"I don't want anything." Hunter told him, "And I kinda got a soft spot for kids."
John grimaced.
"No, no!" Hunter cried, "Not what you're thinking. It's just that… I kinda feel sorry for kids down on their luck. I just wanna help you out, a little."
Looking down at his feet, John thought about Hunter's offer, absently rubbing his right ear.
"Yeah, sure." John said, "But if you try anything I'll fuck your cybernetics."
Hunter chuckled, but said nothing as John climbed onto her motorcycle behind her.
"So, where to?" she asked.