Shadow Run
The Beginning
Fenrir sighed as he stared at his poker hand, which consisted of absolute crap. The human he was playing against was staring intently at his hand, as if his life might be determined by the resolution of this game. Fenrir decided to save him the adrenaline spike, "I fold and quite. Good game." Not really, the only good games were the ones you win. His opponent looked up at him, a rather twitchy slot who looked like he enjoyed greasy foods a little to much. "I...I won?" He seemed to be unable to believe that anything resembling luck could, should, or would happen to him. Probably a BTL boy trying to make enough Nuyen for his next chip.
"Yeah sure, here's what I owe you", Fenrir tapped a few keys on his commlink lying on the table next to his beer and transferred the 30 Nuyen to the slots' account. He stood, tucked his commlink in his armored coat's pocket and picked up his beer with one fluid motion. "Cheers" a quick chug finished the cheap liquor, and Fenrir was on his way out the door before his gaming compatriot decided to push his luck for another round. Luck could be pushed, but Fenrir wasn't willing to push his any further tonight.
As he passed the bar he gave a quick wave to Grendel, the eight foot tall troll proprietor, and pushed through a group of trussed up corp kids looking for a little excitement. He exited the building to meet the light drizzle of Seattle, the lights of Touristville flashed their attractions in real and virtual light across his cybered eyes. He hiked up his armored coats collar, hoping tonights rain had a lower acidic content than usual, and began the walk back home. Home being a rather beat up three room apartment in the near vicinity, but at least it was dry and had a bed. That and Sweetie kept the place clean of pests, so he couldn't complain.
Along the way his commlink began to display an incoming message across his eyes, since he often kept his PAN keyed down it meant someone important. A few quick taps across his pocketed commlinks interface brought the IM flashing up across his eyes. Fenrir have a job for you, might want to bring Tech Support, you'll be leaving town. Meet tomorrow morning 7:00 AM. My office. -Hood As he walked home he considered the offer, then realized he didn't have anything else to do. That and he hadn't quite paid off his street doc for his last "adjustment." As he resumed his evening stroll he hit a few keys on his commlink, placing a call to Tech Support. A few moments later the red apple icon materialized on his eyes, wearing it's usual smiley face and looking ridiculous with a bite out of its head. "Hey Fenrir what's up?" he always found the apple face and heavy Ork voice to be a unusual combination but maybe that's what was supposed to make it funny.
"Hey Macintosh, I got a job offer which just might get you out of the virtual and into the meat."
The apples smile got even wider. "Sweet! It's official then! Partners Fenrir and Macintosh!"
"Let's just see what the job is first okay?"
"You mean you don't know what the job is?"
"Rule #1 about running the shadows kid, you Never ask questions. You just find answers. Cya tomorrow at this address, 7 AM."
Fenrir stood outside the Lone Star Police Department branch in downtown Seattle, the skyscrapers stretching away up into the overcast sky. Their shining crome exteriors tried vainly to find some amount of sun to reflect and give a shining facade to the cutthroat business done inside. LPD officers came and went, always sparing a glance at the Ork in a dark armored jacket leaning casually against a building corner across the street. But none of them bugged him, they were either to busy, or hoped he wasn't dumb enough to do something in front of a local law enforcement building.
"Hey Fenrir!" he glanced to his right to see Macintosh jogging up to his position. Unlike most Orks Macintosh, or Mac as Fenrir preferred to call him, was kind of short, only about 5 feet 8 inches. Despite this he had a decent body build, looking rather stocky almost, but at least he worked out unlike many others of his profession. His gray pink skin was at odds with his red almost bulbous nose, which made it look even more absurd. He was dressed in simple gray cargo pants with wires and other electronic bits protruding from some of the closed flaps, a yellow t-shirt with a very familiar red apple on it which looked like it could be an antique, and to try and show his Ork toughness a black leather vest with small spikes protruding from the shoulder. Surprisingly he kept himself clean shaven, but dark unkempt hair protruded from under the rim of a faded green baseball cap.
He was just one of those people you had to chuckle about every time you saw, Fenrir managed to hide it well behind a pretend smile of greeting. "Alright let's do this!" The Hacker was practically oozing excitement, although Fenrir couldn't blame him. He still remembered his first run, he still had the scars to prove it. "Just take it easy in here, we are two fine upstanding Ork's with perfectly legitimate business at an LPD station." Mac just stared at him before laughing. "Okay," Fenrir amended, "I admit it is hard to imagine but lets just pretend for everyone's benefit okay?" Mac just kept chuckling but fell into step next to Fenrir.
As they approached the front doors a security drone scanned them for their ID, the fact that it didn't start blaring an alarm or spitting bullets meant that their credentials passed basic scanning. Rather than wait for the automatic voice recognizer to greet him Fenrir spoke into the Mouthpiece, "Sven Timberlin, here for a 7:00 meeting with Detective Katherine Brown." The small machine began the customary greeting sequence then halfway through confirmed his time, switching the monotone "please give your SIN-" to an abrupt "-have a nice day."
Inside the two Orks moved through the halls, more than one LPD officer glancing up from their paperwork or following them with their eyes. As they stepped out of the stair well to the third floor a red haired storm blew by them, "In office, be there in a sec!" were barked at them like they were recruits in an army camp. Mac tried to stare after the typhoon of activity that was Captain Katherine Brown but Fenrir grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him towards the small office labeled Captain. "Is she always like that?" Mac asked, unable to keep slight tones of astonishment from his voice. Fenrir smiled "Yeah, ever since she made Captain she's just had an excuse to shout at more people."
The two Orks sat down in the synth wood chairs by the cluttered desk, before they even got settled the door slammed shut with tremendous force. Fenrir glanced back to see Brown holding a troll sized cup of coffee and a folder full of printer dispatches, apparently the virtual age hadn't completely banished paperwork. She moved around the table and plopped into her chair, which looked slightly more comfortable than the ones the Orks occupied but did nothing to ease the tension in her features.
Fenrir took a moment to giver her a once over, She still kept her bright red (completely natural) hair pulled back into a tight pony tail which never seemed to loosen despite her usually feverish work pace. He features weren't exactly soft after 10 years on the force, but it looked like she still had the potential to pull off a pretty smile, if she had something to smile about. Dark lines under her eyes showed the stress of being in a management position in the largest mercenary law enforcement agency in Seattle, and trying to do the right thing now and then.
She sighed as she set her armload onto the table and plopped into her chair, "Hey Fen, long time no see." He shrugged in response. "You've been busy, protect and serve and all that." Brown let out a bark of laughter filled with bitter undertones "yeah to those that can afford it anyway, which is actually why I've asked you here." she paused for a moment to pull on a pair of AR gloves and bring up her desks holo interface.
"We all know that there are few enough good cops on the streets, but a friend of mine, officer Connor was one of them. A few days ago he was arrested under charges of funding illicit operations in criminal activities." "Meaning Shadowrunners?" Mac asked. Brown shook her head.
"Some yes, some of it worse circles, no offense meant. Anyway he came to me and told me that he's been being blackmailed to pay for these operations. He gets the funds, he pays for the operation and the real scumbag gets to stay in the dark. I need you guys to find out more about this operation by tracking down some of the people on his payroll." "Wouldn't it be easier to just hack the accounts and find out who was footing the bill?" Fenrir had to give Mac points for knowing his stuff, but he expected Browns answer.
"All of these funds were done at secure drop sights with credit chits, so we have no way of tracking the funds before they got into Connors bank account, so we're hoping that the guys who were hired might give us more to go on than what we have now, which is nothing."
"I assume you have some info on these targets?" Fenrir asked.
Brown began bringing up three separate video feeds and let them play. All of them were from three days ago and seemed to focus on different clips of a shoot out in downtown. One image showed a slim elf with her dark hair done up in a horsetail behind the wheel of a GMC bulldog van driving down a side walk with a rather manacle grin on her face. The second showed a Troll, maybe nine feet judging by how much of the back doors of a familiar looking van he filled. He was letting lose with a Stoner-Ares M202 heavy machine gun which he held like a carbine. The third image showed a human wearing of all things a winter cap, complete with ear flaps, holding a gun leveled at an old Chinese man's head. The human with the gun squeezed the trigger and the back of the old man's head exploded in a shower of gore.
The images paused and zoomed in for a facial of each individual, then separated the images from the videos to join a line up with three other images. The later three were just police sketches and showed two human youths and one dwarf with an impressive array of beads woven into his beard. "All of these suspects are wanted under multiple charges, most of which happened shortly before or after these videos were taken and all are on Connor's payroll. All of theses suspects were part of a high speed chase that left Seattle city limits and they are now believed to be at large in the Salish territory. I primarily want them for private interrogation concerning their connections with Connor, so you will deliver them to me and only me at a secure location once you have them. I can offer you 5,000 Nuyen for each of them, Alive Fenrir, they're no good if they can't testify."
"Fenrir shrugged "Accidents happen."
Brown spared a glare then got back to business "Assuming you agree I can provide you with ID's to get past the border if you don't already have them, a mode of transportation, and the info we have on these guys based of Connor's records."
Fenrir gave one last look at Mac, "You sure you're ready for this Omae?" Mac grinned "You're the one who called me, besides I've been waiting a long time to try this out." Fenrir shrugged "Well guess we're your Orks."
"Great," Brown hit a few more keys, beaming the info to both their commlinks "Now both of you get out of here, I've got work to do of a more legitimate source." Mac was the first one out the door, but Fenrir lingered a moment "Hey Katherine," She looked up at him for a moment actually focusing on one thing instead of five, "Nice to cya again." She gave a smile, looking like the woman he remembered, "You to Josh."
As Fenrir and Mac made their way down the front steps Mac remarked smugly, "Katherine and Josh huh? So I'm guessing there's a little more to this than just some casual shadows?" Fenrir let him finish his smug little announcement before slapping him upside the head hard enough to make the commlink lights installed in his skull flash like he'd won the high score on a trid game.
A few hours later and the two of them were in an old flat bed truck (with a solid cover of course to conceal their gear) driving toward the Salish Seattle border. Fenrir glanced over at Mac, who was fiddling with the hunters cap he'd gotten, "Alright, I got all the permits in order, you remember our cover?" Mac gave up trying to make the Cap look cool and let it slouch over his forehead "Yep, we're just a couple of Ork guys heading out to enjoy the wilderness and try our luck hunting. No sweat." "And you're sure that you found where they are?" "Where they MIGHT be, they have rooms paid up for a week at a coffin hotel south of Vancouver, they could be there or they might not, but it's a start."
As the two approached the border checkpoint their conversation ceased, replaced by a mutual sense of apprehension. When their vehicle hit the booth Fenrir swung his head out the drivers side window and flashed a smile at the border cop. "Hoi, how's it going chummer?" The Indian border cop, his long hair conflicting with his uniform shrugged as he used his AR gloves to bring up the vehicles registration, "Not to bad, how about you?" Fenrir shrugged "Not to bad." The cop took a moment to go through the passports and Licenses, "Planning on doing any hunting out here?" Fenrir bobbed his head in a typically Ork fashion "Yep." He had to admit stereotypes worked, show people what they expect to see and they won't look any further. "What happens to be in season where you're headed?" or most of the time anyway. Fenrir replied with a tusky grin "Anything that moves." The cop stared at him for a few moments, then laughed, "Ah you're one of Those hunters. Just make sure you're in one of the secure hunting zones. If you're really into it I hear they even pay some people to hunt wild Barghests, could get a nice price if you're bold enough to go after one of those." "Fenrir grinned wider "Hmm, sounds like fun." the cop collapsed the display and lifted the barrier, "Good hunting." As he waved Fenrir through it took a great deal of effort to keep from chuckling at the irony that last statement.
Once they were clear of the gate Mac looked at him with an astonished and slightly angry expression. "Are you crazy! You could have gotten us busted back there!" Fenrir just chuckled, "One thing hasn't changed about the tribes since they took back their territory, they're still looking for any way to make money of the white man. If that means letting a couple big hunters run rampant through their secure hunting ground every now and then for a few thousand Nuyen then no problem." Mac wasn't convinced, "But you're Sioux, how come the white man stuff worked?" Fenrir chuckled again, this one some bitter undertones, "I'm Ork first, Sioux second."
Several hours passed, most of it spent enjoying the scenery, or in Mac's case scanning the matrix channels for anything interesting. It was lost on Fenrir how he could spend so much time in the Matrix and then be able to ignore the undeveloped woodland country around them. Just as he completed his though Mac jerked upright, "Hey Fen I think I've got something!" Mac didn't wait for an answer and blinked at the dashboard, using his built in commlink to access the cars control interface and bring up a live news broadcast on the dashboards Trid player. Images of a high speed chase flashed by, A slim Indian woman in a trim suit was describing the scene "... dwarf and several humans hijacked a vehicle after a shootout at a local bar. They are currently traveling northbound and are engaged in a high priority police pursuit. All vehicles along this route are..." It wasn't the news broadcast that got Fen's attention, but when Mac blinked a few more times and the image on screen switched to a close up of a dwarf in the vehicle, who had many small beads woven into his beard, that got his attention.
"I think this is our guy Fenrir! We've barley been here a few hours and he's already given himself away! Sweet I can link in and find a way to get us there-" "No." Fenrir's simple statement took the rush out of Mac. "Well why not? I mean we have a link to them right here! And they're out in the open! Shouldn't we go chase them down?" "Not in the middle of a police pursuit, besides that location is almost six hours ahead of us, by the time we get there who knows what the outcome will be. And I don't feel like getting in a shoot out with the guys we're after AND the tribal police. Instead I say we head on to the hotel where they have the rooms paid up. If they escape they might go back there or the others might be there as well. Either way it's a fixed location to start from, if we don't find them there then we move on." To Fenrir's surprise instead of arguing with him Mac paused, thought things over, and then slowly nodded his head in agreement. "Yeah that makes sense. Well then on to the Grand Vista Lodge!"
There wasn't anything much grand about the Grand Vista Lodge, a simple square building built of plaster that looked like it could use a touch up job. All the splits in the paint made the building look like it had a bad case of skin rash and was peeling all over. However it wasn't the architecture that attracted its customers, but the offer of premium priced coffin lodgings to it's guests. Coffin hotels being the dehumanizing process of renting a single room with a bed, and only a bed, crammed into a dark little enclosed corner of the hotel. Many of the rooms were about as roomy as a morgue freezer, with much lower sanitary standards. But they were above all cheap, with no questions asked, and excellent for a traveler to catch a few hours of hard solid sleep. Perfect for the kind of characters they were tracking.
As Fenrir pulled the car into the parking lot Mac was slumped over in the passenger seat, the only thing keeping him upright his seatbelt. The small lights exposed at the base of his neck and skull flashed in seemingly random sequences as he jetted through the Matrix in hot sim mode, infiltrating the Vista's local Matrix interface. As the van pulled to a stop Mac jerked upright in his seat with a gasp like someone inhaling after coming up from underwater. "Did you get the numbers?"Fenrir asked. Mac noded, "Yep they paid for their rooms two days ago, a week long stay, three rooms reserved. 2 meta sized rooms and one troll. But according to the security feeds no one's been back since yesterday morning." "Alright, you wait here I'm going to go in and check out the rooms just in case they have their own electronic skills. Be sure to loop the footage to, the last thing we need here is the Tribal Police." Mac noded, and then slumped forward into his seat once more, to anyone passing by he'd look like just another exhausted motorist waiting for his buddy to grab a room. As Fenrir exited the car and made his way to the sliding glass doors he made a note of the three trucks that looked similar to the one shown in the police footage. Unfortunately none had the telltale sign of bullet holes.
Inside a young human sat behind the desk, obviously of Indian heritage and trying very poorly to look like one of the big super teen sluts of the UCAS or other white trash nation. She seemed more interested in her music, bobbing her head to some tune playing through her datajack, but she was kind enough to beam Fenrir his room access code when he shot her the running rate for the night. All as a pretext to tour the facilities of course. His initial pass revealed four side doors, two to either side of the building, and of course the main exit at the front of the building. Restrooms were in the middle of the establishment, and the hallways curved around the edge of the building with the coffin compartments lining either side. At each one of the rooms under Connors payroll Fenrir paused to glance through the window slit, all of the rooms were of course locked and closed, but a quick swipe from a maglock passkey worked wonders on the outdated security system. Each room was confirmed empty. With no discernible trace of anyone having slept in them before.
As he returned to the parking lot he could see Mac still slumped over, so he made a quick pass around the parking lot, peering into the truck windows. One had nothing but packaging boxes in it, another revealed some sheet wrestling going on behind a badly closed curtain, but the third had blacked out windows and a curtain hung over the back. Deciding that it couldn't hurt to take a look Fenrir moved around to the swinging doors in the back and pulled out his lockpick set. A few second later and the slight click of the lock heralded the sound of his access. He replaced the lock picks in his jacket pocket, then drew his Yamaha Pulsar tazer from it's holster. He gripped the door and yanked it open, switching his vision to thermal to make sure anything living would show up in the darkened interior.
As the door opened there was a small cry of fright, accompanied by the smell of fear and unwashed bodies. Curled in the far corner of the van only one thing glowed with the heat of a living being. The small shape, shuddering and sobbing whispered in a small voice laced with fear, "please, I don't want anymore candy." Fenrir switched his eyes to night vision, to see in much clearer detail a small human girl, covered in grime and in old clothes, the smell of fear and urine emanating from her and clinging to the rest of the van. Unbidden memories swelled up from his mind, images of kids hiding in corners while Ork gangers burst in, killing anything living in the home.
Fenrir shook his head trying to clear the memories, but the smell remained. He forced himself to sweep the rest of the van with his eyes, nothing in there but a dirty mattress and discarded fast food bins. He took one last look at the girl then closed the door.
He immediately pulled out his commlink and began to dial up the tribal police, audio only of course. The formal voice came over crisp and clear through his ears, "911 please state your emergency." Fenrir did the best he could to distort his voice, which wasn't very hard considering his tempter "I have a lead in a possible kidnapping case. I saw a Caucasian human girl, maybe 8-10 years old, blond hair, brown eyes, locked in the back of a GMC-Bulldog Van in the parking lot of the Grand Vista Lodge. Transponder code 273904, you better get here quick." With that he hung up, to hear Mac's voice shouting over their secure commlink line "What the FUCK man! What do you think you're doing!" He felt like shouting back at Mac but managed to find some restraint, "I found a girl locked in some guys trunk, and the people we want aren't here, so we might as well be moving along anyway" Fenrir stormed over to the van, jerked the door open and threw himself into the drivers seat. Mac was quite as they drove away from the lodge. After a few minutes he asked "But why didn't you do anything?" Fenrir glared at him, almost shouting this time but settling for raising his voice a few octaves "What do you think we could have done? returned the girl to mommy and daddy ourselves? We'd probably be arrested on the spot." Mac still didn't look like he understood. "Look. Odds are it was a Goblin who took her just from the crimes rate, so statistically they'd be inclined to view us suspiciously. On top of that we have a job to do." Mac finally settled back, but still appeared to be brooding. Fenrir sighed, it was going to just be one of those nights.
The Sky Motel was slightly better than the Grand Vista Lodge, at least they actually had rooms. And the best part was the beautiful view, that showed the Grand Vista Lodge just a few kilometers away on the other side of town. Mac was busy jacked into some virtual online games while monitoring the cameras and phone lines of the Lodge, Fenrir sat in a chair pulled up to the window, scanning the parking lot with his enhanced cyber eyes, which were just as good if not better than a pair of binoculars.
It had been a few hours since the Tribal Police had showed up, at least they got the girl and the owner of the vehicle, who'd been half brain dead from drugs crashed in one of the coffin compartments. The story had even made the midnight news, which spent about 10 minutes talking about the girl and another 50 discussing the morals of the mysterious "good samaritan" that had called in to the police but had left the scene before authorities arrived. And the breeders wondered why the world was so fucked up.
Fenrir glanced at the clock, 1:30 AM, thanks to his sleepware his body could run without sleep and no side effects for almost 48 hours, and even then he only needed 3 to get the full effects of a good eight hours. Mac apparently had something smiler as he played through levels of his virtual fantasies. Fenrir was about to propose that one of them sleep in case they needed to move later when he picked up movement in the Grand Vista's parking lot. A black GMC-Bulldog slid into a parking space, and it had blacked out windows. He sat upright and zoomed in closer, waiting to see if he could get a confirmed ID. Sure enough as the van slid into a parking spot close to the double glass front doors a troll with slightly curved bull like horns standing about 7 feet tall squeezed out of the passenger side. A moment later the elf jumped out of the driver side with a little more grace and elbow room. They paused by the doors, it looked like they were talking, maybe to someone still in the van. A minute later the elf shrugged and she and the troll headed into the lodge. Fenrir grinned and switched his eyes back to normal, he looked back over to Mac, who had paused his game and was watching his video footage intently. "Positive ID on the troll and elf, they're the ones were looking for Fen." Time to go hunting.
A half an hour later the two Ork's crouched outside some trees trees behind the Grand Vista Lodge. As Mac infiltrated the system once more Fenrir rechecked his gear. Knife on belt, stun baton in thigh sheath, Yamaha Pulsar taser in holster behind back, Ruger Super Warhawk in shoulder holster, and Ruger 100 hunting rifle with gel rounds cradled in his arms. He checked the magazine one more time as Mac gasped and came back to his meat. "Okay Fen here's the deal, looks like both the troll and elf are in their apartments, but the door for the 3rd room hasn't been tripped yet, could just be a decoy..." "Or he could still be in the truck." Fenrir finished for him. "Exactly. So what's the plan?" Fenrir scanned the parking lot, at 3:07 AM not much was moving except the small night creatures that inhabited the brush and trees with them. "Okay I'm gonna go in and scope out the van first, see if you can't hack the system so I don't have to waste time with the lock, from there we'll move inside. As we take them out we'll draw them back to their van, good a place as any to hold them for now. Hopefully we can do this nice, quite, quick, and easy," he slung his Ruger over his shoulder and tightened the strap so it wouldn't move around then drew his taser, "ready when you are Mac." Mac gave a thumbs up and leaned back against the tree before heading back into Hot Sim.
As Fenrir dashed across the small clearing to the parking lot a few windows popped up in his field of vision showing the camera's tracing across the parking lot, for a second it was disorienting to see both from his eyes and the camera's perspective, but he kept upright and moving. "Hey Mac these cameras are set to loop right?" "Mac's voice came back to him, and Fenrir couldn't help but wonder how he could speak while in Hot Sim "Yep, we got visual but all those camera's are seeing and recording is an empty parking lot. Out of 10 camera's they've only got 5 even working, 2 inside and 3 outside. They're so old I had to actually look up some tech archives to find out about their OS. I'm working on the van now and let me tell you she's got some pretty sweet systems, definitely black mar...Oh Frag." Fenrir had reached the van now and was waiting by the double back doors. "Oh Frag What?" That's when both camera's viewpoints cut off from Fenrir.
Fenrir swore and ducked behind the van, hiding himself from where he thought he remembered the cameras view covered. "Mac! Talk to me chummer?" he whispered in a voice as loud as he dared. "Ooouch. That's gonna be a nasty headache." "What the Frag happened?" "The vans got a Minotaur guard program on it, I wasn't expecting such high security and the thing booted me back to the meat before I could whip out some attack software." "Are the camera's still good?" "Yeah they should still be looping, just give me a moment to get back into the Matrix." Fenrir sighed, he hated false scares, but he might as well get started on the lock while he waited. He stood and pulled out his autopicker, inserted the key into the lock and began to adjust the settings when Mac's voice came back "Ummmm Fenrir? We have a problem." Fenrir did not like the trepidation present in Mac's voice. "How big a problem?" "About 7 feet of wide awake troll problem."
The video popped back up into Fenrir's vision, and he could see the same troll, dressed in his armored jacket and with a foot and a ½ knife drawn, Combat axe and heavy machine gun strapped crosswise across his back, dancing down the hall of the regular sized meta rooms. Yes, Dancing. He was flapping his arms like a chicken and sliding one foot in front of the other down the hall, Fenrir didn't know whether to find this amusing or very terrifying. If a troll with a knife was a bad thing what would a dancing troll with a knife be? "Sooo now what?" Mac's voice jerked Fenrir back to the task at hand.
He put the autopicker back in one of his many pockets and dashed across the way to a side door entrance to the Lodge, "Alright the troll has to pass by here on his way to wake up his teammates-" "You think he's going to wake up his teammates!" "-it's a possibility, now just shut up, so when he comes by I'm gonna try and get the drop on him, a troll may be big but I doubt he can stand 4 taser darts up the ass." "Okay sounds good." "Be ready to slot and run if this goes south though, no way am I standing up to a troll with a heavy machine gun." Mac actually laughed, a nervous laugh but a laugh. " I hear ya... Okay wait for it wait, right about...Uh Fenrir" Now Fenrir almost did shout, even he could see the troll had just moved into the optimal position on the feed Mac was giving him. "What!?" "You might want to relocate, look behind you." Fenrir turned to look just as the camera feed changed and zoomed in on four black sedans moving in convoy style down the road. If Fenrir stayed put they'd see him standing fully armed under the emergency exit sign.
He was up and around the corner in a matter of second, dashing to the far corner of the building at the other side of the parking lot, all 60 meters, in only a few seconds. "Wow I had no idea you could move that fast." "Jam it Chummer." Fenrir peeked around the corner, to see all four cars pull into the driveway and take up formation around their targets van, two in front, two in back. "I don't think we're the only ones that have business with these guys." Fenrir muttered. "No kidding."
Out of the rear car closer to the Lodge the passenger door opened and a suit stepped out, she was definitely of Asian heritage, maybe Chinese judging by the slant of her features, with dark hair, short and slicked back away from her face. For being oriental she had a very pale countenance. She took a moment to adjust her tie as eleven more suits got out of the cars, all except for the rear left one. "Mac can you get data on them or hack-" "Done and in progress." A data file appeared across his eyes displaying a news article on the opening of the Thieves Casino, in the image it showed a Chinese suit with the same woman hanging off his arm, but looking like she was there more as a business obligation than a hot date. He scanned the file quickly, new casino, Chinese operate, proprietor believed to have criminal contacts with the Triad. And judging by the suit goons that got out of the car, all of them Chinese, the news article seemed fairly accurate.
"Damn that's quite some muscle." "Mac don't say anything unless you have something important to say." "Alright well get this I'm hacking one of the guys, but the chic has no tech signal," "Nothing?" "Not even some nightshades, which all these guys have by the way." "Don't do anything yet, for all we know they could have legitimate business with out targets." "Do you remember when you last used those words? Outside the LPD office to describe our little meeting with the detective that had us sent here?" "Point taken, but I don't want to be the first one that starts shooting here, still, be ready." With that Fenrir holstered his taser, which didn't have the range to get across the parking lot anyway, and Drew his Warhawk from its under arm holster, suddenly wishing his rifle had REAL bullets instead of Gel rounds.
The Female suit, definitely the one in charge, began issuing orders. Fenrir dialed up his hearing, but could only catch the occasional word, which was definitely not in English. "Any idea what they're saying?" Mac sighed, "not unless I get some linguasofts up and I don't have time for the preliminary software right now. Sounds like Cantonese though, and it's 'something something them something something somethingbad'." "Have you ever considered going into translation software?" "Jam it Chummer."
The suits spread out, five of them taking up positions in front of the van, five behind, all drew a variety of pistols and sub-automatics from under their jackets. "Oh the frag's about to hit the fan" Fenrir mumbled. "Uh Fen, I think one of the guys noticed I'm in his eyes." Fenrir scanned the crowd and noticed that one of the men, standing behind their leader holding a control deck. The man was smacking his head and rapidly pushing buttons on his commlink. One snarl from the leader got him to shut up and work in silence.
Quite calmly the leader walked up to the van and began tapping on its side, almost like she was knocking. After a minute or two of this and no obvious reaction from the van she stooped down and gripped the underside of the van. She started to heave, but only barely rocked the van. "What is she-?" Mac's question was cut off as with a mighty heave the slight Chinese woman flipped the van up onto it's side. "...Whoa." Fenrir had to agree with Mac. He watched the camera feed on his eyes, stunned, as the suit dusted off her hands, then leaped ten feet straight up to land by the passenger side door of the vehicle. She then calmly reached down and tore the door off it's hinges. At this point Fenrir decided that her business with his targets might change their status from alive to flatlined. And he would only get paid if they were alive.
Fenrir rounded the corner, using the wall as cover and crouching to maintain minimum visibility and zoomed in with his eyes to his target. The sixty meters seemed to close to only five, bringing him an easy shot at his targets exposed side. He cocked the primer on his Warhawk, bringing the grinning wold head up into his line of sight. The click sounded like the gates of Hades opening as the first round moved into position. Fenrir took a breath, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger.
The grinning wolfs head fell like the death toll, the explosion of the gun sounding like a thunder bolt and kicking like one to. The Chinese super girl had bent down to stick her head through the door, and the bullet caught her right in the ribs. Fenrir couldn't tell if she rolled with the shot or was just blown of the top of the van, since the Warhawk could punch through riot plate he hoped for the second. The Chinese cronies immediately dropped, rolled, dived and generally took cover while frantically trying to pinpoint where the shot had come from. A triumphant cry from Mac heralded the shutdown of their night vision glasses. "Try seeing now you-oh no bad!bad!bad!" "What now!?" Fenrir asked sighting in on another target peering over the top of a van. Once more Fenrir's feed disappeared, and the Chinese suit who'd been fiddling with his eyeballs began shouting and pointing almost exactly at Fenrir.
Bullets began to bounce off the plaster by his head and Fenrir ducked back around the corner, not only that but a wail like a banshee out of hell split the night air, raising every hair on his body in a skin crawling sensation. To top it all off he still didn't have camera feed. "Mac What the Fuck happened!?" He peeked around the corner and could see all five Triad goons dashing across the parking lot to his position, occasionally pulling of a shot to keep him pinned. Behind them a green vapor cloud about a meter in diameter crawled over the van and began whisking across the parking lot much faster than any gas not caught in a gale should be able to move. Mac sounded kind of scrambled as he responded, "Sorry! The guy was trying to get me out of his system and bumped into the camera feed, it got cut from you and rewired to him, I'm dealing with it now." The guy who had called out Fenrir's location started running confusingly after his friends, then did a 90 degree turn and ran straight into the wall. "Guess it's harder to see with camera angles for eyes." Mac mused.
Fenrir didn't pay it anymore attention as he swung out around the corner again, the goons were almost on top of him, maybe only five meters. Meaning point blank range. Once more the grinning wolf head rose and fell. His shot tore through the lead runner's kevlar business suit as if it was paper. The shot struck the center of his rib cage and ripped through shirt, skin, bone, and shirt as it burst out the other side, spraying a crimson mist behind him and putting a six inch hole in his midsection. The man flew backwards like he'd been sucker punched by a troll, crashing into his companions and causing one royal cluster fuck.
Fenrir didn't bother to see the results of his handiwork, he was up from his crouching position and around through the Vista's side entrance as soon as he sorted out the Warhawk's recoil. As he burst through the door into the lodge he spun around and slammed it shut firmly behind him. He began to slowly back away, the Warhawk poised to ruin the charming disposition of the first guy to stick his head through the door.
As he backed a few meters down the hall he realized no one was coming through, and gunfire had erupted from the front parking lot. It also sounded like someone was firing from the front entrance of the building, just down the hall behind him. As he spun around to look he came face to face with that green smog, and in its shifting form a face had solidified. The same face of the slick haired Chinese super girl, with one difference. The face was smiling at him, and it had Fangs.