EPISODE 2 - To kill a fly with dynamite

Grey clouds covered the afternoon sky outside the London Quarantine zone. The street is full of taxi, buses, and personal vehicles. Older cars from the '60s mostly. The automated buses filled to capacity, and the jet black taxis, still modeled after the ones from the 1930's, all occupied. Average Joes and normal Nancys in low-end corporate attire as far as the eye can see. One man ashes a cigarette out of his auto's window, while another chats away on his Commlink. These are the middle-class of the industrious workforce that still inhabit the southern side of the river. They are corporate pawns, but in a different sense then the office drones in other urban metroplex. These are blue-collar folk; more true to life and less concerned about formalities and status. The factory work and industrial operations impart a certain type of mundane attitude and state of mind.

But that didn't make Eightball respect the Wageslaves any more.

In London, the shadow business was booming to the few able to perform it's duties. The amount of work available was far less then other up-and-coming corporate centers like Boston, Venizia, Constantinople, or the Twin Cities, but the shadow warrior community is so small, that even someone without a specialization or trade skill can find work weekly. That's what kept Eightball employed. Just being a Go-ganger turned shadow soldier was enough; running security, driving getaway cars, and sometimes icing a few private security goons. Eightball sat in the back of a taxi, wearing a black pleather jacket and urban camo BDU pants, his black side swept hair emphasises the only color on his body: gold studs on his lips, nose, and ears, with several gold chains dawned around his neck, and a black and blue striped shirt under his jacket. He cycleing through news stories on his comm, which had its bluetooth plugged directly into his datajack behind his left ear, for augmented reality. Several windows cycling through his vision, his own music playing, with some texts from several female avatars blinking in his peripheral. The taxi man was yelling through a commlink of his own. Neither of them saw him coming...

A man with a light blue 3-piece suit sharper then anyone else in this commute strides a crossed the sidewalk and into the parking lane, stepping through a shallow puddle left from the early summer shower. His ash-blonde hair well trimmed and kept in a short pony tail, accentuating the three glowing blue orbs in each of his pupils. His custom shoes clicking across the tarmac as he swiftly walks through the street-turned-rush-hour parking lot. He walks casually behind the Taxi carrying Eightball and approaches the rear passenger window. His right jacket sleeve is rolled up to the elbow, exposing a metallic prosthetic arm, a high grade augmentation too, as it has aesthetic curves and appears to be dense- perhaps even a bit heavy.

He raises his metal hand and gives the window three taps. Eightball's eyes widen, looking alarmed and highly irritated. The window rolls down.

"Excuse me, I've got a few questions for you." the suited man said with neutrality in his voice, his french accent very light.

"Get outta here, fraggin' salariman! I ain't splittin' no taxi cab with ya!" Eightball spit with a contrastingly thick English accent. The taxi driver stopped talking and looked over his shoulder at the exchange.

"Eightball, if you'll have your taxi pull over to the parking zone, please, it's rather important." the suit reiterated with a more cold tone.

Eightball's eyes widen and his face turned red with irritation. He opened his jacket enough to flash the handle and chamber of a Cavalier Deputy revolver fit snugly in a magnetic shoulder holster. Nodding to the Taxi's camera and snarling at the Suit before him he barked:

"This ain't the place for this type of work Johnson, and I don't know how you know me name, but you best GTFO before I decide your drek is worth one of these custom bullets, scan?" nodding back at his piece snugly nestled in his holster.

"Sorry about this, driver." The corporate chic took a step back and walked back around the taxi, disappearing from sight.

After a long moment the Taximan turned around to look at Eightball, "Work catching up to you, chummer?"

"I don't know what that smelly frenchfag was thinking! Just get me home, eh?" Eightball replied, still flustered.

The taxi only pulled forward one car space and they were parked again, when suddenly the dashboard display read: "GRIDLINK OFFLINE." A moment of question went through the drivers eyes when suddenly several successive, earth rumbling stomps roared up to the auto before a massive crash. The two inhabitants of the car yelled as they were flung to the side of the vehicle as it was carelessly shoved into the meter zone along the sidewalk. Looking out the window, the Ganger's sight was met with a massive being in a military-grade hard suit. Dim lights, tow hooks, and hazard signs filled the picture as the massive plate of armor took two steps and was again at the vehicle it just pushed to the curb. Still screaming, Eightball crawled to the opposite side of the vehicle, while the driver tried to open his door frantically, but it was no use, as the door was jammed from the damage. The door behind Eightball swung open, and before he could fall backwards out of the cab, the cold metal hand of the suited man grabbed his collar and tossed him to the street side of the auto with the tank-man looming outside. Eightball instinctively reached for his piece, but the corporate killer reached out and grabbed the chamber of the weapon with his metal hand before the gangster could align the barrel with any part of his assailant. The gun was raised to the roof of the cab, and then with both parties clinging on to it, the suit crushed the chamber, just as the ambushed shadowrunner squeezed the trigger. Three clicks with no gunshot before Eightball realized what had happened. with an arm holding onto the destroyed gun, Eightball's side remained exposed and the assaulting man exploited this opening by punching with his free hand into the gangsters ribs repeatedly before he could recoil.

"WHAT THE FUCK, YOU CORP SHIT?! STOP!" Eightball yelled frantically. He couldn't believe he was being assaulted by corporate hitmen in the middle of a crowded street in broad daylight.

"What do you want from me?" he continued.

"I 'ave questions, Eightball, and I'll start breaking ribs if you do not talk, NOW!" the suit obviously had the upper hand, and the look of a professional gazed at the shadow warrior through unemotional cybernetic eyes.

"You salariman, Johnson, corporate pawn shit, what is it?" Eightball was dazed and furious.

"Diea and Stinger, you were working with them on a job recently," a moment of pause and Eightball involuntary flinched at the beginning of his next sentence, "I've not been able to locate them since, and all their contacts can't find them. WHY?"

The taxi driver composed himself during the seconds that the conversation took and started dialing his commlink, "You criminals get out of my taxi, now! I am calling Centurion!-" He was cut off, however by a crash as the driver side window was shattered by a armored hand reaching in and grabbing him by the arm, pulled out of the windows husk the driver was meet with a gun-metal colored orb of a helmet with three red glowing eyes. This third assailant looked like what one could only describe as a super street samurai. He's human in size and shape, that is to say, significantly smaller then the being in the hard-suit that initially accosted the cab.

"You're not calling anyone, I disabled your vehicle's uplink and your commlink wont find a node to connect to until we're finished," a Italian playboys' rich voice sang through the helmet. The voice was anything but disarming, however, as the helmet carried the words through a microphone, giving them a robotic and inhuman sound.

"So ka," the words barely escaped the drivers lips.

"Aw shit, who are you guys?" Eightball realized six times over that he was amongst people with deep connections and even deeper pockets.

A light slap on the face from the french suit and Eightball made eye contact again, "Concentrate, Omae." he told the ganger.

"Ok! I killed 'em both! I don't know why neither!" the shadowrunner looked weary, as he knew his options were limited, "it was all so fragged up, okay?!"

"ou?" the french accent butchering the word, "how."

"I-I nuked Diea while she was jacked in, and I g-g-geeked Stinger hard and dumped the lot of 'em in the the stream!" The hardened killer looked almost scared, either from realizing the whole situation, or the immediate threat of the unknown team of killers.

"Are you going into details, Mr. Eightball? Or should I start working on the ribs on your other side?"

Stuttering he spit out: "M-my fixer, Stephan, got me the gig, I'm s-sure you already met him.. I met t-those two as planned, and the decker stayed in the car with me w-while I dropped off Stinger at the address. I never knew anything other then to open this personal secretary the Johnson had for the job. Steph told me to open it at 3 am. He said it looked like it had a programmed attack virus to erase file that we was there. Shortly after I open'd the file though, Diea got hit with what I thought was some corporate black hammer and she flat-lined," He looked around in a quick panic before continuing,

"I panicked and called Stinger on me comm, but I got a call right then from Stephan! He told me Stinger botched the job and that's why Diea bit it. And to cover his tracks Stinger was gonna geek me if I didn't catch him first. But Stinger got in right as we finished the call. We got an alarm raised, so I sped off to the docks down off a Cotten Row Wharf. We got out to dump Diea's meat, an Stinger said he had somthin' to tell me that was super important I figured it was cuz' he was gonna ice me, so I blasted him in the chest! He just stood there tho, askin' 'why!' I told him I didn't know! An he died there. And I haven't seen Steph since! I was set the frag up, I says..."

Eightball trailed off, looking sincerely confused. The suit nodded and crawled out of the rear seat, backing up to the sidewalk and lighting up a cigarette. The other two backed off of the battered taxi as well. Stepping around to the sidewalk to meet his boss, the street samurai's helmet lifted in segments, revealing a well groomed and somewhat tall Italian man. He was decked out in a full body suit with a high-end military spec-ops combat vest with hard points on his joints, and a large armored collar. He wore a straight, jet black sword on his back and a obvious flip sword attached to the armor on his forearm. A rather large pistol also hung from a holster on the right breast of his armor. They exchanged words for a moment and looked at the cab a couple times. The gangster started looking for a opportunity to escape. He waved his hands to passing vehicles and tried to open the window, but the massive bipedal creature in the hard suit bent over and shoved its armored pod of a body into the view. Perhaps it was looking at him. Without a distinctive head or sensor it was hard to tell.

"Well, Adrian, I think it's clear now, that run I was scoping was one of these glitched missions. But without finding any of these fixers we're still dead in the water." he looked off, in a somewhat deep thought.

"Oui, I think that Stinger was going to tell Eightball that the mission was a scratch. No doubt that he was probably also told to kill his partner. Too bad he figured this all out for himself too late. Ah! Je ne comprends pas..." Adrian trailed off and looked back at the ganger, transfixed by the Ogre in the hard-suit. "Sergi, what do you want to do with him?"

Both of their gaze turned to Eightball. The taxi driver was crawling out of the front passenger side window. Several onlookers were nearby, taking photos and perhaps calling the security company. Sergio activated his battlebuddy comm and ordered: "Sonya, our contact may need future questioning, if you would '24' him, please?"

"done." the single word came through the teams comm from an unknown source.

A moment later and Eightball's bluetooth in his neck fried and his commlink on his belt shot an electric arc out, his eyes rolling back into his head as he fell limp, drooling slightly. The Ogre in the power armor broke off the door and snatched up their victim, several gasps and screams came from the collection of onlookers, but the mass of armor payed no mind to them, as he cradled Eightball and accompanied Sergio on the sidewalk. Adrian approached the taxi cab driver as he fell out of his window.

"My apologize again, sir." he said as he casually tossed the man a Certified Cred stick.

Fumbling to catch the small chip the shocked cab driver dove to secure his grasp and upon sitting up he pressed the "BAL" button, displaying a total of 2400 Nuyen. He cabbie looked up, only to see the onlookers peering around the corner into a adjacent alleyway. The whole group was gone.

~until next time, chummer.