Mean Streets

The city morgue had been very busy of late. Ever since President Knight's term had ended, things had taken a turn for the worse once again. The country had once again become divided, the corporations seemed to become ever more ruthless and cut-throat, and the man (or elf, or orc, or dwarf or troll for that matter) in the streets seemed to be worse off than ever before. The particularly hopeless and destitute had taken to pumping themselves with drugs, brainbenders and Better-Than-Lifes, and many had wasted away without even realising it. Conflicts between street gangs were fairly common, and finding someone dead in an alley was an almost everyday experience.

The streets of Seattle were a dangerous place in these times, particularly for those who ran in the shadows. One dark Thursday night, in the month of October in the year 2070, the morgue received yet another visitor. The two morticians, Mike and Trent, hauled the body in on a stretcher. They took their time about it, seeing no point in hurrying. It wasn't like this body had to be anywhere inparticular.

"Who was it you say found him?" Mike asked his elvish partner.

"Some smackhead," Trent replied, a slightly aloof tone in his voice. "Said he was hidin' behind some bins, and no I don't know what he was doin' there. Says he saw this guy," he jerked his head in the direction of the body, "runnin' into the alley and gettin' gunned down by a group of Humanis. It wasn't pretty, apparently."

Mike looked down at the body on the stretcher, as he and Trent placed it on the large slab. While Trent opened the door of one of the body lockers and pulled out the metal tray, Mike couldn't help looking at the man's face, which was the only part of him currently exposed. His eyes of course were closed, for that was nothing new, he'd seen that hundreds of times before with bodies. Yet the stiff's appearance unnerved him, moreso the rest of the body when they had stripped him and bunged his clothes and belongings in a box.

"What do ya reckon he is?" Mike asked Trent tentatively, as they hauled the body up again and placed him on the tray. "I mean, that arm… He definitely ain't human, that's a fact."

"Oh, stop fretting," Trent said, as he slid the body into the locker and shut the door. "Probably some changeling or something. I bet that's why the Humanis lot would want him dead; they go for anything that's not them." The elf casually walked towards the door leading into the office; he had been in this line of work for years, and it showed in his casual indifference to everything. "We'll find out for sure when we cut him open in the morning."

Mike followed, still looking uneasy. "It's so strange," he said, glancing back at the drawer containing their new arrival. "He doesn't look dead to me. He just looks like he's asleep or in a coma or something."

"Some stiffs are lucky like that," Trent shrugged, walking into the office. "Come on, let's sort out the last few papers so we can lock up and get out of here. Don't want ghouls to come sniffin' round here."

Shaking his head slightly, Mike followed him out to the office, switching the lights off as he left. The elf was right, there was nothing strange about this, they had done this a lot of times before. This time wasn't going to be any different.

If Mike had stayed around for a few seconds longer, he would have heard the banging noises coming from inside the locker. He would also have seen the locker door suddenly burst open, and see the metal tray slide out. The locker's occupant had just forced open the door and slid himself out. He toppled off the tray and onto the tiled floor, gasping for breath, and very much alive. He looked all around him, blinking his eyes and gradually taking in the sights of the body lockers, the large mortuary slab, and the shelves and counters piled high with equipment and various types of fluids. The morgue was very dimly lit by the light coming through the window of the office door, but that was no trouble for the man who had been almost buried alive.

"Not again..." he muttered, in a low voice, as he picked himself up, using the sheet he had been wrapped in to cover his naked body. As Mike had commented, his appearance was indeed unusual, now that he was no longer wearing clothes. His left arm was covered in hard grey reptile scales, with the hand twisted into a four-fingered, animalistic claw. The scales also covered much of the left side of his body, including the left leg, stretching all the way to the top of his neck, and almost entirely covering the chest, waist and back. His neck seemed slightly thicker than the average human neck, and had a number of hard ridges. His eyes continued the reptilian trend, for they were golden with thin slits for pupils. Perhaps the only thing that looked even remotely human about him was his hair, which was long, a brown colour and was usually tied back, only now it draped all over the place.

Slowly, he walked towards the office door, where the sounds of chattering from Mike and Trent could be heard. He reached out his right, human hand towards the door handle and tried it. Thankfully it wasn't locked, so he swung the door open and walked into the office, trying to make sure the sheet covered his extremities.

It only occurred to him at that point how strange it must seem to see a supposedly dead person walking out of a morgue, when he saw both Mike and Trent looking at him, terrified expressions on their faces. There was a moment of silence, then the two morticians screamed in abject terror, yelling "It's alive!" before running into the nearby storeroom.

The recently-revived being simply strolled up to the door and knocked on it. He had things he needed from out of there; like clothes, for starters.

"Nothing in here but us mice!" Mike shouted through the door.

"Shut up, you fucking idiot!" Trent replied in a loud, angry whisper.

"Look, mate," the dead-man-walking said calmly. He spoke in an English accent, with a slight Yorkshire sound that he clearly tried to hide.

"All I want," he continued, "is my gear and my clothes, and I reckon you have them in there. Just pass them out here and there'll be no trouble, or do I have to come in there to get them? Either way suits me fine."

He heard frantic whispers from the other side of the door, but he could hear what was being said perfectly:

"Look, let's just give him his things and maybe he won't haunt us!" Mike was saying. "I don't wanna get in trouble with the spirits!"

"Oh, for Dunkelzahn's sake…" Trent was saying. "A ghost? He's too damn solid to be a ghost! Still… I don't wanna end up on the wrong side of that claw! Who knows what else he can do, if he can survive a shooting like that?!"

"Now who's panicking?!" Mike said, his sarcasm drowned out by his panic.

At last, the door unlocked, and Mike slid out several boxes, labelled with today's date and the nametag "John Masters", all of which the stranger took. Well, it looked like one of his fake SINS was useless now; he'd have to discard that. His real name was Alan Tyler, and he had been alive for over 100 years. Right now he was thanking his lucky stars that he hadn't been shot in the head, or it would definitely have been the end of him. He tore open the boxes and began pulling out his clothes and equipment. He couldn't go outside naked or unarmed, after all, not in this day and age.

As for Mike and Trent… Well, they didn't dare to venture out of the storage room until sometime the next morning.

***

Alan stepped out of the morgue, now fully dressed and armed, tying his hair back just the way he liked it. He had not changed his attire much in all of this time, still preferring the jeans/dark T-shirt/trenchcoat combo. The only visible differences to his appearance were his commlink, strapped to his left arm like an oversized watch, and his mutations. He gazed out around the square where the morgue was located, taking a moment to take in the sight of the fountain in the centre. It had to be the only source of beauty in this otherwise filth-strewn part of Seattle. Doubtless drunks had seen fit to defecate in it a number of times, when they couldn't be bothered to find a public toilet.

He stepped away from the morgue and back into the hustle and bustle of Seattle. The night was still young, so around him the nightlife was in full swing. Drunkards of many kinds staggered through the streets, either trying to make their way home or to another place they could drown their sorrows. Painted ladies of the night (mostly elves) offered their services for princely amounts of credits. Every so often Alan would catch sight of one of the particularly hopeless inhabitants of the slums, hooked on a BTL, their eyes glazed and a strange smile on their lips as they experienced sights that simply were not there.

This was the state of affairs in the immense sprawl of Seattle 2070; a nowhere land, full of deadbeats, down-and-outs and gang warfare. As far as Alan was concerned, it was the asshole of the universe. He had been around long enough, however, to not complain, for it suited his needs perfectly. Someone with his rather unique conditions couldn't exactly find mainstream acceptance, least of all with the Megacorps, none of which Alan could trust as far as he could throw them. After he had been made redundant in his previous 'career', shadowrunning had proven highly lucrative for him. A little espionage here, a little smuggling there... He had earned enough to pay the rent, at any rate.

As he headed down the streets littered with neon, he walked past a surly-looking troll, swinging a bottle from his gnarled fist like it was some kind of tennis racquet. Unlike much of the rest of the world, Alan had not been overly surprised when people and animals started turning into elves and orcs and vampires and just about every other fantasy creature Alan could think of. He had had advanced warning that it would happen, and so had prepared himself mentally for the changes the world was about to go through. He had been keeping himself busy in those turbulent times of the Awakening, which had helped him get used to the changed state of affairs in the world. Even less surprising had been when the dragons had started to arrive. Alan knew all too well about dragons, and that only one had ever earned his trust. That particular dragon had coined the phrase "Never deal with a dragon", ironically enough.

As the first signs of rain began to fall, Alan stepped over a group of chipheads to reach the place he had been heading to. A flashing neon sign just next to the door told anyone that noticed it that this place was called the 'Wild at Heart'. The sign also had a portrayal of a wolf howling at a bright moon. Alan had always liked that image, especially considering that much of the world outside the cities was all but uninhabitable for a variety of reasons. It reminded him of times gone by, before the madness had started.

He stepped through the door to get out of the drizzle that was rapidly becoming a downpour. The Wild at Heart was a moderate-sized bar, not a fancy joint by any means, but had a rustic, down-to-earth charm that Alan found appealing. It was not especially full, but certainly not what Alan would call 'empty'. It was quiet enough to suit Alan's ends, at any rate. What attracted Alan to this place, however, was the choice of music. It was one of the few places that played vintage rock music, music which he had essentially grown up with, but was almost completely unfamiliar to many of the bar's patrons. Currently a vintage number by Pearl Jam was blasting out of the speakers.

Alan didn't get any reaction from the patrons as he walked in. Most of them were clearly too drunk to care, and Alan in return didn't care either. He immediately crossed over to the bar, sitting himself on a stool and leaning on the graphite bar. As he counted the bottles stood on the shelves filled with brews both real and synthetic, he was rather surprised by a small robotic dragon, which suddenly flew in front of him and hovered before him, its wings threatening to knock the bottles off the bar with each flap. It gave a tinny little roar before shooting projection lasers out of its eyes, which formed into a holographic menu for Alan to read. Even the shadowrunner had to admit to being a little startled by this, considering he was used to giving his order to the owner of the bar.

"Ya like it, Ryuu?" a rough voice with a Scottish accent spoke up, chuckling. Alan looked around and his eyes soon met with those belonging to Sparks, the dwarven owner of the Wild at Heart. Sparks was a member of the small team Alan had set up for shadowruns – no sane runner worked on their own if they could avoid it – and one of the best riggers Alan had ever met. This dwarf wasn't just an expert at fixing and operating drones and vehicles, he actually became those drones and vehicles given enough quiet time. Sparks wasn't his real name; he had been christened Jerry. However, they generally referred to each other by their call-signs rather than their real names. You never knew who was watching these days.

"Looking for a replacement?" Alan asked, as the robot dragon flapped onto the bar and stood there, occasionally making motions like it was cleaning its wings, like some kind of bird. "I must say I prefer a more human face, or near enough as damnit, when ordering a brew."

Sparks chuckled, and hopped up onto the stool next to Alan. He had as much hair on the top of his head as he did on his face, which was to say a lot. He looked like a brown bush.

"'E's got a lot tae learn," he said, stroking his mechanical pet. "I'm tryin' ter teach 'im tae carry trays, take orders, kick out troublemakers an' such, so's I can keep runnin' and will-nay have tae hire part-timers who'd sooner pinch me money tae feed their chip habit. He's a bit dopey righ' now, though, I 'ave tae dive into his pea-brain tae get 'im tae do any work. I'll crack the AI code one o' these days though, believe you-me!"

"Let me guess," Alan said, pointing at the mechanical creature's mane, which looked like tiny silver tentacles. "Bio-syntech?"

"Aye," Sparks nodded, proudly. "Cost me a ton o' credits, but I reckon it were worth it. Nowt finer, for him nor me."

He tapped his left arm, flexing it a little. Alan knew that was a bio-syntech arm; the dwarf had lost his real arm in an explosion a couple of years back, the result of an accident during a bungled extraction. They'd barely been able to complete that mission and save face. Saeder-Krupp hadn't been too happy with the miscalculation of judgement that had caused that explosion, but at least the job had been completed, so they'd been spared from Lofwyr's lunch menu that time. The corporation had never called Alan's team again though, but Alan didn't care; he wanted to keep taking the advice of someone much wiser than him and avoid dealing with dragons. He knew someone who'd be pretty interested in Sparks' creation, but he doubted he'd be able to speak to him without dealing with armies of security these days. Not that it mattered anyway; he avoided making contact with that person as often as he could, even if he was 'family'.

"You seen the others anywhere?" Alan asked, referring to the rest of his little four-man squad.

"Aye," Sparks said, jerking his thumb behind him to a large troll keeping to himself in a corner booth. "Oba ain't bin here long. Came bargin' in tae tell me it'd 'appened again, that you'd got yerself shot up. Have any trouble gettin' out the morgue?"

"None whatsoever," Alan said. "It wasn't like in LA. The guys there are bloody chicken, for their line of work."

All of Alan's team members knew about his peculiar ability to heal himself from seemingly-fatal wounds, but they all assumed it was an Awakened ability of some kind, and were none the wiser as to the real reason. Similarly, they paid no attention to his strange physical appearance, for it was no stranger than seeing an orc, troll or minotaur roaming the streets.

"What about Zapper?" Alan continued.

"The bloody long-ears?" Sparks said, a tone of disgust in his voice. "Ach, he wain't be showin' his face here no more, more than likely. He's all inter one of them virtual bars; stuck-up longshanks probably reckons he's too good fer us mere mortals."

Zapper was an elf, and the professional hacker on the team. There wasn't a code he couldn't crack and a system he couldn't dive in and out of almost at leisure. However, he certainly had an out-of-control ego, and seemed to look down on his non-elvish team-mates. Still, as far as hacking into the Matrix went, Alan had only met one other person better than Zapper, and that was over 60 years ago.

"Ach, never mind him," Sparks shrugged. "What'll it be?"

"Anything that doesn't taste like soy," Alan replied. "Well, I wouldn't worry about Zapper. Doubtless he's chatting up some middle-aged orc guy who masquerades as a blonde schoolgirl online."

Sparks let out a loud laugh, before reaching for a brown bottle behind the bar. There was a click as the lid was wrenched off, and Sparks handed the bottle to Alan. He took a swig of the drink, relieved to find that it wasn't that awful synthahol stuff they were making these days. Real beer was hard to come by now, but Sparks had gotten a supply through some shady deal or another that he saved for his best customers.

"Oi, Oba!" Sparks called over to the lone troll, still sat in his corner booth. "Fancy a pint?"

The troll's full name was Obatala, and he was a second-generation troll, born several years after Goblinisation had broken out across the globe. As with any other troll he was of an immense size, over 7ft. tall and with muscles seemingly bursting out of every fibre of his being. His horns were long and prominent, curling down towards his shoulders like a ram's horns, while his light brown hair and sideburns looked as wild and unkempt at the rest of him. He dressed very simply, wearing a dark green vest, grey trousers and large black boots. He raised his head and simply shook it, declining Sparks' offer.

"Ach," the dwarf sighed, turning back to Alan. "Who spat in his soy this mornin'?"

"He's just quiet," Alan said. "Don't let it bother you. He's not used to people treating him like something other than shit, and he's finding it hard to adjust."

"Ah well," Sparks said. "So here's tae yet another new life for ya," he finished, clinking his own bottle with Alan's. "I suppose yer'll be wantin' a place to crash while yer get everythin' sorted with yer new SIN?"

"Yeah," Alan said. "Your floor still comfortable?"

Sparks chuckled. "Ah've no' cleaned it since last time," he said. "That'll be a new experience for yer."

Alan simply shrugged. He had squatted before, so this would not be a new experience for him, after all. Hopefully it would only take a few days before he received everything via his new identity; in his will, John Masters had left everything he owned to his new identity. Alan was surprised the authorities hadn't cottoned on to the fact that he was basically SINless, like so many others after the second Matrix Crash, but he had paid good money for the best fake SINs possible.

The door to the bar opened again, but Alan didn't turn around to see who had walked in. If he had, he would have seen three humans, all of them wearing identical loose shirts which exposed their bare chests. Each had an Ingram strapped to their sides, and all of them had thuggish looks on their faces. Nobody batted an eyelid when they walked inside and walked up to the bar. Sparks didn't pay much attention to them until one of them kept his gaze fixed on Alan, a puzzled look on his face. When he saw the thug's eyes widen and turn to his closest companion, the dwarf knew there was going to be trouble. He ducked down behind the bar and began to concentrate. Over in the corner, Obatala also kept an eye on the scene; he could feel hostile auras coming from them and knew trouble was afoot.

"Kano..." the thug who had taken an interest in Alan said, in a low tone, to his companion. "Look... Isn't that the guy...?"

Kano turned to look where his friend was looking. As he saw Alan, quietly drinking his beer like nothing strange was happening, he turned a deep shade of scarlet. He sidled over to Alan.

"You..." he snarled, his eyes narrowed. "How the fuck did you survive?!"

Alan finally decided to pay the trio some attention, turning to look at them, his face completely calm. He recognised the three instantly; goons from the Humanis Policlub, who had been in the process of beating up a dwarf family and wrecking their home when Alan had arrived on the scene. There had only been one of them there; Alan had not seen the other two until they had started firing shots, forcing him to retreat into that alley, where they had unloaded their Ingram clips into him. Luckily, they had not shot him in the head.

"Just lucky, I guess," Alan said, in a completely conversational tone. Now that they were in front of him, he knew he could handle them all. He also had backup this time, which he knew was a bonus.

Kano roared, pulling out his Ingram and aiming it at Alan's forehead.

"I'll get you this time, you freak!!" he bellowed. At this, the other patrons dived for cover under their tables, sensing a fight was about to break out.

Just as Kano was about to squeeze the trigger, Sparks' robot dragon suddenly launched itself at the goon, grabbing his gun neatly out of his hand. It took off towards the door, wings flapping like crazy, the gun held tightly in its small claws. Kano chased after the dragon, but it suddenly spun around and opened its mouth. Instead of a tinny roar, now a blast like a thunderbolt shot out of its mouth. This electro-blast was powerful enough to bring Kano to his knees, seething with pain. To add insult to injury, the dragon jerked its claws, neatly snapping Kano's beloved Ingram in two.

While that was happening, Kano's flunkies tried to draw their own pistols, but Alan suddenly lashed out with his left, claw-like hand, slashing the closest goon across his face. His face was instantly cut open. Half-blinded and agonised, the goon stumbled onto the floor, hands clutching his face as blood began to pour down it. He knocked his companion backwards as he fell hard on the floor, crying out in agony.

Even as he landed, however, he suddenly felt a tightening sensation around his arms, a sensation which rapidly spread to his chest, and eventually his entire body. He pulled his hands away from his face, only to find them suddenly pinned to his sides by plant roots, which had suddenly grown out of the floor and bound him securely from head to toe. He looked around, panic-stricken, to find Obatala stood over him, his hands pulsing with a green light, and his eyes glowing a green colour. He had a look of utmost fury on his brutish face. The goon tried to scream for help, but his mouth was suddenly bound shut by another root. As he was slowly pulled helplessly under the floor, he found he was having difficulty breathing.

Meanwhile, the third goon had regained his composure, had seen his friend in trouble, and was about to raise his Ingram at Obatala. However, there was a loud snap and something wound tightly round his arm, so tightly it was actually cutting into his wrist. The sudden pain in his arm caused him to drop his gun, and he cried out, looking at his wrist to find it bound in nanowire. It was the tip of a monofilament whip, the other end of which was held by Alan. The goon tried to struggle with the tightly-bound whip, but Alan gave a particularly sharp tug, and as the whip was unwound, it ripped the goon's wrist open. The unfortunate Humanis screamed with blinding agony, as blood poured everywhere out of the slashed wound. He looked around sharply, desperately trying to stop the blood flow. It must have finally occurred to him that he was now outnumbered and outclassed, for he turned and half-ran, half-stumbled out of the bar and into the sprawl.

Alan sighed, retracting his whip back into the haft of the weapon. He heard a zap and a loud thud as Kano fell to the floor, having being shocked by Sparks' pet at least a dozen times. The last goon's grave was marked with a large gap in the floorboards, covered up with plant roots. Looking behind the bar, Alan could see Sparks himself, his eyes open but glazed over, not looking at anything at all. Noticing Sparks' wireless implant on the side of his head, Alan knew the dwarf was seeing through other eyes now. Almost as if on cue, Sparks' pet flapped over and landed on Alan's shoulder. They both looked back towards Kano's still-smoking body.

"I think I overdid it somewhat," Sparks' voice could be heard saying. The dragon's mouth was open, and Sparks' voice could be heard coming from it. It was a neat trick, Alan thought, but it was a pity the mouth didn't properly synch with his words. "I'm no' pickin' up any life signs from the bastard. Got what he deserved, though." The robotic head turned to look at Obatala, who now looked much more like the 'gentle giant' Alan was most familiar with. The troll was a shaman, a gifted healer and deeply attuned to the workings of the natural world. It was small wonder he had been able to call on aid from the planet itself.

"Tha' were a bit 'arsh, Oba," Sparks said to the troll, though with a trace of amusement in his tone.

"I am truly sorry about the floor," Obatala said in a deep, resonant voice. Given Obatala's fearsome appearance, and the fact that trolls had a reputation for being illiterate or stupid, it amazed Alan at just how well-spoken his troll friend was. "I shall pay the costs of the repairs of the floor."

"Ye'd better," Sparks chuckled, "or I'm takin' it outta yer share of the loot on t'next run."

He turned to look at Alan. "Do you know who they were anyway?"

"Yeah," Alan nodded. "Humanis. They were the reason I had to climb out of a body locker earlier."

"Ach..." Sparks moaned, shaking the robotic head. "I'll have ter shift tha' body; cannae have a bloody Humanis buried under me bar. Could be bad luck, for all I know."

The trio of Shadowrunners looked around at the sorry state of the bar, the various patrons now emerging from their hiding places, staring at them with wide eyes. All three of them; Alan, Obatala, and Sparks, looked completely nonplussed.

"What?" Sparks asked, peering at the customers through the eyes of his newest creation. "Can a man no' protect his business these days?"