Shadows Of Seattle

by Cypher-SB

Seattle, the "Emerald City" and the legendary birthplace of the "shadowrun." It's the big leagues for those who work the shadows, making the good great and breaking those who can't stay in the shadows. But even here not all such shadow work is the stuff of legends. Material based on various published works, but the shadowrunners are of my own creation.

11. Run 01 : Hiding In The Dark

Run 01 : Hiding In The Dark (based on the mission written by Steven "Bull" Ratkovich; posted 2018/08/18)

Seattle had a long standing, and oft undeserved, reputation as a rainy, soggy city. Unfortunately the weather for the past week had been working plenty hard to prove it was deserved. So much so that the drizzle had prompted regular flood alerts as rainwater mixed in with the spring melt and runoff from further upstream. Even the close by Green River was due to threaten a historic flood crest, but at least the distance and terrain between the river and their home meant they had no risk of getting flooded out of their basement lodging.

That did not make the place feel any less dank and chilly, even with a little space heater running by their bed. So rather than sitting down there Cypher and Seraphina were upstairs in the family room where it was warmer. She seemed pretty engrossed in something she had found out in the matrix, and while Cypher had been watching a rerun of Karl Kombat Mage he had also been checking up on the underworld bounty boards. It had taken a bit of doing, and a few changes in his commlink's ID to cover his trail, but he had found the prices on their heads at thirty thousand nuyen. It seemed still low enough to keep most skilled bounty hunters off their tails, but still high enough to keep tempting the novices looking for their first score.

Just as he was about to return his attention to a programming project a new ARO appeared in his vision, blinking an unknown commcode with no name. Maybe it was a robocall, work, or something more nefarious, so regardless of which Cypher routed the call to the high end commlink in his skull, ready with some programs, before answering.

The ARO switched over to a vid screen showing the brutish face of a troll with massive steer-like horns. Because of the connection the troll would be seeing the face of Cypher's persona, a sci-fi styled full faced helmet of black armor and glowing red eyes. It would not have been quite as necessary as he recognized the face of Detective Theodore "Tosh" Athack.

"I got a job that might be up your ally," the troll's deep voice rumbled. "If you're interested in hearing more, meet me at Reno's on Battery and Fourth in an hour."

"Hey Cam, you up for dinner at Reno's again?" Cypher asked aloud.

"You're deciding now when dinner's being made?" asked Tanya. She did not really cook herself, but would program a Heimdrone named "Alfred" with what they were going to have for a meal. The humble humanoid drone had been dutifully working steadily for the last half hour already.

"Not just poppin' out, but possible work." Cypher called back over one shoulder.

"Since it's work, okay." Seraphina told him. She did not sound excited in the least.

Tanya said nothing. She did not have to as she knew the less she really knew the better. They had a refrigerator to store leftovers, and Cypher and Seraphina had not been one to complain about eating leftovers. Real food was too much of a premium to waste by throwing it into a trash can.

"We'll be there." Cypher silently told Tosh, his voice on the call a hive mind chorus of several people speaking as one.

"Right." Tosh said, ending the call.

---

Seraphina's eighteenth birthday had been just over four months ago, and Cypher had planned on celebrating the day with her with a dinner at Reno's followed by a combat biker match between the Seattle Timberwolves and the visiting New York Marauders. A dose of leál from some bounty hunters, an awakened drug frequently used as a date rape drug because of its sedative and memory erasing effects, had wiped a good portion of that night away. What they could remember was mostly a cold and tiring chase that ended with a showdown at an abandoned quarry in the middle of a rainstorm.

Cypher had been a little leery about even mentioning going to Reno's again, considering the less than favorable memories they had of what was supposed to be a special day for her. She had actually been tight lipped about it.

But she had accepted the job proposal anyway, and now was riding just to his right as they traveled north on the I-5 to Reno's. She was also more prepared this time, after a fashion, wearing the choker that was her power focus, and while maybe they were a little ritzy looking for a place like Reno's her ruby and silver earrings, one of which was also enchanted.

The rain occasionally changed from a light drizzle to a harsher downpour and back again, but at least their jackets were proof against the rain and would withstand even a little acid in precipitation. The weather service had not issued any warnings about acid rain, but every now and then Cypher thought he could smell it in the air.

Since getting their motorcycles, heavy machines made by Harley-Davidson, the two had worked on modifying them quite extensively. A pair of smart tires and a balance gyro helped overcome most of the road hazards made by the rain (short of a careless driver), and they had been covered in ruthenium polymers. Right now the motorcycles sported colors matching closer to their personal tastes, blending in by actually standing out a bit. His was a two-toned black and dark blue with some bright blue racing lines for decoration. Hers was a little more flamboyant with a design that made it look like her wheels were on fire. Even the helmets they wore now matched.

It was still relatively early for a Friday evening by the time they reached Reno's, the rain finally seeming to subside for a little while. The place was done in faux-adobe with some Aztech styling. The parking lot was mostly empty, a few vehicles were scattered about in marked parking spaces, with the most noticeable group being a bunch of people near the entrance taking up several spaces for their own motorcycles. The two parked their beefy Diablos in a single space, side by side. They left their helmets secured to their motorcycles before turning to head in. From what Cypher could hear of the group by the entrance he hoped they could simply get by without contact.

"Well looky what we got here." one of them said, pushing himself off his Suzuki Mirage to strut towards them. "Couple of kiddies playin' bikes." His voice made Cypher think of the football lineman that had taken more than a few too many blows to the head that even his thick curly auburn hair could not help absorb. Like the others he wore a colorful set of biker leathers, his being a bluish shade of purple with bright lemon yellow racing lines running down his arms and legs. His motorcycle was colored to match.

"Must be compensatin' fer somethin' already." added another man, the shocks of his own Mirage squeaking as he stood. Cypher glanced at the man and his bike, and felt a twinge of sympathy for the machine. Like the first guy he wore colorful biker leathers of a bright orange in color with twin white lines running down his own arms and legs. It was not only the choice of colors that made Cypher feel sorry for the motorcycle, but on top of that the man's body build was more rotund than anything, giving him the overall look of a traffic cone. He had squinty eyes and a mullet of greasy hair that was probably blond.

"Maybe you are." Seraphina bit back, giving the walking traffic cone a once over. "When's the last time you saw your dick?"

Purple's smirk vanished in an instant. "Just for that you both can gimme your keys, and maybe we'll let you in." he announced with a lot of bravado and confidence.

"C'mon Kevin," called a woman that was straddling a Mirage of her own, her bright pink biker leathers a striking contrast against her raven black hair.

"Yeah, c'mon Kevin." mimicked Cypher. "We're due to meet our parole officer here."

"And he'd squish you if he sat on you." Seraphina added. Quite possibly true considering that Tosh was taller than the both of them put together. Cypher could not quite hide the smirk as he imagined the very big and tall troll squishing Traffic Cone to some kind of orange goop as he sat on the man.

"Yeah. Keys. Now." Kevin demanded.

"Shit, he's really serious." Seraphina silently said.

"Get ready to draw." he told her. He stepped up closer to Kevin. The man was easily a full head taller than him, but Cypher knew better that size was not everything. "And if we don't?" he asked darkly, pitching his voice much lower to try and sound as menacing as possible. Not quite an easy thing to do when one looked like a twelve year old boy. Still, he knew he could really unsettle people when he tried.

"You ain't getting'…"

As Kevin spoke Cypher unzipped his jacket just a little, enough to get his cybernetic hand in to draw his Predator IV. Kevin was quick to shut up when he saw the heavy handgun, especially when Cypher had it casually aimed right at his chin. The smartgun system gave Cypher a clear view of where the barrel was pointed, the gun having linked it up to him as soon as his fingers were around the grip.

Seraphina had been a step slower, but she already had her own matching Predator IV drawn. She had taken an extra moment to take a target shooter's stance, feet spread and both hands on the gun as she aimed at Traffic Cone's center mass. It would be very hard for either of them to miss at this range.

"You ain't got…" Kevin started to say.

Click, click, went the hammers of both Predators. A simple squeeze of the trigger was all it would take, but then with their connection all either of them needed was a thought. Cypher hoped they noticed that the hammer of his Predator had cocked itself back.

And to help emphasize the point Cypher lowered his aim, his own solid blue eyes still locked on Kevin's, the barrel stopping when it was in line with the man's crotch.

"You will get out of our way," Cypher growled, "or I'll plug two rounds through your balls." He expected the others to miss the little detail of his index finger resting on the trigger.

Cypher watched him intently, watching Kevin's eyes jump between the two of them and their pistols, and the color draining from his face.

Kevin finally made the first move, taking a step back and putting his hands up. Cypher kept his aim steady on the man's crotch, though he glanced at Traffic Cone and saw the pear shaped man doing the same, taking his cue from Kevin.

With their path cleared they holstered their pistols and walked inside.

"I'm gonna have a water spirit watch our bikes, just in case." Seraphina silently told him. Cypher quietly nodded in agreement.

Reno's itself was much more than just a bar, club, and/or restaurant. It was a museum to all things combat biker. Numerous physical photographs lined the interior walls, many of them autographed and some paired with beaten and scuffed helmets. At the back, and in plain view from the entrance, was a BMW Blitzen on a raised platform. This was the last bike that the owner, Reno Pyatt, rode while he himself was a combat biker. It still bore the damage of the last season, scars worn in pride.

One thing that Cypher liked was the smells from the kitchen, the spiced foods and meats that had practically infused the whole place. At the bar were a few patrons in various biker leathers of their own, and a handful of tables were occupied with other patrons. In a booth towards the back was a very large and recognizable troll. Without waiting for a hostess to seat them they went straight to the booth.

They were not the first ones there, and Tosh was not the only troll to sit at the table, almost as tall looking but less imposing. He had short cut black hair that almost blended in with a pair of short horns that were smooth and black, like curving claws that were growing from his head. He wore a very dark gray jacket over a simple blue shirt.

Opposite of Tosh from the other troll was a human, male, and very unimposing looking. He also had short cut black hair (almost in the same style) that was in contrast to his chrome covered eyes. The hooded jacket he wore looked like it would offer no protection against anything but the rain.

With a thought Cypher activated a batch of his sensor programs as they approached, which automatically tied themselves into the Transys Eternal Memories simrig implanted in his skull. What he saw and heard would be monitored by the programs, potentially catching something his conscious mind might miss.

"I think you got the wrong table, kids." the human told them.

"You wanna give him the bad news, or should I?" Cypher asked Tosh as he climbed into the booth first.

"I did call them." Tosh told them.

Cypher did not need his empathy software to see how discontented the man was. He had seen it too much in the last few years since a quirk of fate and magic had given him the body of a twelve year old boy. It was a simple fact that those who didn't know him or Seraphina had justifiable reservations about working with them.

"Hey, we can take it or leave it," Cypher said, "but you'll be hard pressed to find a pair as capable as us on super short notice." With another thought he launched his scanning program to start a search on all identifiable devices within very short range to him.

"Hey, sorry I'm late." a young lady said as she came up to the booth. "Got held up by a few jerks outside."

Cypher looked her over. She was an elf, tall and slender, with long black hair pulled back into a simple ponytail that left her long pointed ears well exposed. Her features were quite elfin, more so than Cypher's were before his transformation. She looked like she was fresh from the University of Washington campus in her jeans, white t-shirt, and weatherproofed hoodie. He also noticed the shiny chrome of her hands.

"We seriously working with a newbie here?" Cypher asked.

"Look who's talkin'." snipped the elf, "Where's your babysitter?" She glanced at Seraphina, apparently noticed her earrings, and added, "Or your butler and maid?"

"Well, if you three think you can do this job without any magic support, we'll go find one." Seraphina darkly said.

Tosh put up a hand. Cypher bit back a comment before it reached his lips. "Everyone starts somewhere." the larger troll said, "This is a job, so you'll need to learn how to act professional. Jerk around and I'll kick all your hoops to the curb." He paused as he eyed everyone equally. "Right, so if we're settled…" he grumbled. "Everyone make sure you ain't ghostin.'"

The security of Downtown Seattle pretty much required everyone to broadcast some info from their commlinks. Ghosting was keeping your commlinks invisible to even casually observant traffic and could get one a visit from a Knight Errant officer at the very least. In the case for Cypher and Seraphina the commlinks they had for their public use were pretty much set to the most private the area allowed for; a casual inspection from an authorized person (like an accepted friend or law enforcement) would give a name, address, and a mess of licenses for things like their pistols and driving their motorcycles. This let them keep their much more potent (and even much more illegal) implanted commlinks hidden anyway. This was common for many shadowrunners, and almost a given for any technomancer or hacker.

But that did not mean that they were limited to their simple commlinks for this. Cypher had shown Seraphina how to link the two so chat invites like this would be routed to their implanted commlinks, using their icons and everything. If one was not careful a casual scan would turn up the master device, but Cypher had shown her how to set things so it was their public commlinks that showed up. As far as he knew it would take someone with some serious skill to find the military grade hardware hiding behind an off-the-shelf commlink. Like hiding a Ferrari Appaloosa in the shell of a Nissan Jackrabbit.

When Tosh seemed satisfied with everyone present, he fiddled with his commlink, and Cypher received an invite to a group chat. He double checked his running software before mentally clicking the option to accept the invite.

Sitting at the end of the table, without a chair, was Assistant District Attorney Dana Oaks. Her reddish brown hair was pulled back in a bun that gave her the look of a pixie cut if you did not notice it, and she wore the same styled black suit with dark blue pinstripes that Cypher had seen her in before.

In the virtual chat, however, Oaks would not be seeing everyone present as they were, but however their icons were stylized in the matrix. Of course that meant that a person's icon could very well be stylized to look like their real selves, just as Oaks and Athack appeared in the virtual version of the chat.

As was typical for Cypher, his icon was that of a larger person clad in black armor that seemed to glister with a rich and dark green sheen at just the right angle, and that was from what could be seen from underneath the nearly white monk's robe worn over the armor, the lenses of his helmet glowing a bright red.

Seraphina's icon was also styled to look like a larger person than her real self, a more shapely and mature woman clad in a form fitting body suit of a very fine black mesh that had just a hint of metallic red to the texture, with her chest, arms and legs, and head covered in a ruby red armor made to look somewhere between mystical and futuristic at the same time, the helmet an open faced design to show most a face made to look like an equally mature version of herself.

The human's icon was a close approximation of his real self, save for a realistic bulldog's head covered in short black fur with a white splotch over the right eye, and wearing a tweed deerstalker. All that was missing was a calabash pipe.

The troll's icon almost followed a similar pattern, though online he appeared to be wearing black biker's leathers. His head was much larger and broader, like a Rottweiler, with a bit of an under bite and two large chrome canine teeth jutting up from the lower jaw.

The elf's icon looked like a harlequin, not to be confused with the old comic character Harley Quinn or the (in Cypher's opinion, insane) red haired elf that typically had one to three red diamonds painted on his face. Her skin tight bodysuit was chequered in multicolored diamonds that changed color at random every few seconds. She even had on a fool's hat, though the bells had been muted, and a mask was incorporated into the hat to cover the upper portion of her face.

"As some of you know, I dislike turning to those outside the law." Oaks finally said after giving everyone a once over. Already Cypher was running a trace to try and verify her location. "However, I find myself yet again needing the services of your kind. Crime in the Downtown district has risen considerably over the last six months. The so-called Tempo Wars that plagued our city shook up the crime syndicates, and a number of new players have risen into power. One of those has been brutally seizing as much power as possible. Prostitution rings and a massive increase in the number of drugs and dealers coming into Downtown are bad enough, but the violence between the various syndicates and gangs has skyrocketed in the last two months as a new player has attempted to wrest control from rivals. There have been at least twenty casualties so far, members of the Triad, the Yakuza, and the Seulpa Rings. Unfortunately, this violence hasn't been confined to the underworld. There have been more than double that number in innocent deaths.

"Last month, two members of Detective Athack's Special Crimes Task Force attempted to infiltrate the organization of a man known only as Junior. We found one of these men shot execution style two weeks later. The other has missed his last three scheduled check-ins, and we assume he's dead as well. Whoever this man is, he's smart and well connected. So we need to turn to someone outside the chain of command. Needless to say, none of us are happy about this move."

"From smuggler captain to crime boss, we're moving up in the world." Seraphina commented.

"Clearly this's gonna be a 'bring-him-in-alive' kinda job, so how much ya askin' for his hoop?" Cypher asked. His trace resolved showed she was communicating with them directly from her office. Now this data could also be faked, but already considering her and Tosh figured there would be no deception going on.

"Fourteen thousand nuyen." Oaks answered. "But there are to be no civilian casualties, and you only get half the pay if he's killed."

"Bigger fish, bigger price tag." Cypher said offhandedly.

"Pardon, but I've gotta ask this." the human said, "Are you really aware of who's really here?"

Cypher gritted his teeth.

"Yes, Mr. Carter, I am very well aware." Oaks replied. "And before you ask, yes, I know two of you present look like children."

"She knows?" Seraphina silently asked.

"Maybe."

"So I guess you're okay with that."

With a thought Cypher tagged Mr. Carter's icon in the chat and targeted his analytics program. The initial results showed him that the commlink was a basic Erika Elite running an Iris Orb operating system with minimal software, with the data shunted to a second commlink. That one turned out to be a more powerful Transys Avalon running a modified Novatech Navi operating system with a few more powerful programs already in standby.

"It should be self evident as they're there that I am." Oaks replied.

Cypher tagged the elf's icon next. Hers was a lower end Novatech Airware commlink that was also running Iris Orb with basic software.

Last was the troll's, whose commlink was a cheaper Sony Emperor with a simple Renraku Ichi operating system and also basic software.

"I would hope so, considering who has what for the tech." Cypher said.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Mr. Carter asked.

"It means I chose him for his skills in the matrix." Oaks answered. "His reputation is growing quite quickly here."

Cypher was actually glad of this. It meant that he would not have to prove himself for her or Tosh like he did for some past Johnsons. He might still have to prove himself to the others, though. He also reminded himself that Seraphina would be in a similar situation, though her forte would be much easier once she called up a spirit or turned an opponent to charcoal.

"And I suppose you've already got something for us so this'll all be nice and legal?" Cypher asked, his voice translating into a chorus of many people speaking as one in the chat. "I mean, you're hiring some criminals. That by itself isn't gonna hold well in court."

"As unorthodox as this may appear, for those of you who need it I have already made arrangements for you to be issued a temporary bounty hunters license, valid for one week." Oaks told them.

"So someone here is already a licensed bounty hunter." Cypher told Seraphina.

"Gotta be Mr. Carter." she replied.

"And also as long as you follow the law, too." Oaks cautioned. "The job's over and your licenses will be revoked once I learn you're responsible for any civilian injuries or deaths."

Cypher looked to Seraphina. She glanced back and gave a quick nod. "We're in." he said.

"To get another scumbag off the streets, we're already in." Mr. Carter said. He had a sour look when he glanced over to Cypher and Seraphina.

"Yeah, I… I guess. Me too." the elf nervously said.

"Good. I'll push through the paperwork while Tosh fills you in with the rest of the details." Oaks said before her icon disappeared. Tosh closed out the virtual chat, and everyone's icon disappeared.

"So, what kind of profile do we have on this Junior?" Mr. Carter asked.

"We know for certain he's not human, probably an ork." Tosh told them, "We think he's workin' out of a couple of bars, but we've had them on constant surveillance and we've never laid eyes on him. Best so you don't frag 'em up I've got a list of other places we haven't been able to have under survellence you can start with."

"No chance we can get those places?" Cypher asked. "More interested in avoiding 'em so we don't fuck up your operations."

Tosh snorted, but said nothing. He fiddled with his commlink, and Mr. Carter's commlink chimed. "There's a list of places we want you to check out. Best possible for leads.

"Looks like we've got some driving to do." Mr. Carter said. Just then his commlink chimed again, followed by the troll's, elf's, then Cypher's and Seraphina's.

With a thought Cypher brought up the message alert. It was sent from the office of David Beatty, Seattle's District Attorney, informing him that he had just been approved of a temporary bounty hunter license that would expire next Friday.

"Looks like you're all set." Tosh said, sliding off the bench before standing. Without another word he walked off.

Mr. Carter gestured to have the others lean in. Cypher was not too sure, but did so anyway.

"I don't know what they're thinking," Mr. Carter said, eyeing Cypher and Seraphina most intently, "but on this job you follow my lead. Keep your mouths shut and do what I tell you. This's real life, not like Harry Filth."

"I love that program." the elf said.

Cypher gave a sweet smile. He glanced to Seraphina and saw her putting on the cute look too. He looked back to Mr. Carter and said, "Just so you know, this ain't our first job. Not even our first bounty."

"Captain Jack Sparrow, smuggler, last November." Seraphina added.

"We know how to handle ourselves, and we've got the scars to prove it." Cypher finished.

"And we'll gladly leave the smooth talking to you. Just leave the magic and hacking to us." Seraphina added.

"That's what Oaks thinks she sees in you two? Magic and matrix talent?" scoffed Mr. Carter.

"Scan this," Seraphina told him, her expression and voice suddenly much darker, "I've cut my teeth on code and hardware a whole lot tougher than that Avalon you got planted next to your brain."

Cypher kept his face deadpan, but deep down he was impressed with her right then. While he had neglected reading their auras while checking their commlinks, Seraphina had apparently done an astral check on them along with a matrix scan. Or at least she had done both on Mr. Carter, he was not completely sure just yet.

And judging by Mr. Carter's reaction she had really hit home. "Right, let's get this over with." he said.

The night outside had gotten a little darker, more golden to the west as the sun was able to cut through thinner clouds. The rain was still holding back, but the air still carried that smell of wet and concrete with just a hint of a metallic tang.

"Where are we going first?" Cypher asked.

"First is…" Mr. Carter started to say.

"Hey! Frag off!" the elf cried.

Cypher turned to look and was able to step aside just in time to let a drunken business man stumble by. He stank of alcohol and looked like he had been hitting the shots pretty hard. Then his drunken stupor cleared substantially, his posture straightened and he turned to face Cypher and the others. Almost immediately his facial recognition software brought up an ARO with the name Joe Martin, a news anchor for NewsNET Seattle.

"Excuse me, I just need a moment of your time." Joe said, his voice rich and deep that belied his drunken appearance, "You probably recognize me."

"Joe Martin, NewsNET." interrupted Cypher.

Grinning, Joe said, "I'll be happy to sign autographs later if you like. For now, I have a business proposition for you. Unless I was mistaken, and I rarely am, that was Detective Theodore 'Tosh' Athack, head of the Knight Errant Special Crimes Task Force that you were meeting with." Joe said that with a million nuyen smile that was most likely biosculpted to look perfectly beautiful.

"Really?" Seraphina asked, "I thought he was our parole officer."

"Cute. Anyway," Joe continued, far from dissuaded by Seraphina's remark, "according to my sources you were probably also meeting with our newest and brightest A.D.A., Miss Dana Oaks." He held up a hand to silence Cypher from saying something, continuing on, "No, no, that's okay, don't bother denying it. Just hear me out."

"Wasn't gonna deny it." Cypher did say. "A good sniffer program and you could've been listening to our whole conversation." He noticed the surprised look from Mr. Carter, and decided now might be a good time to curtail the smart remarks.

"Well, I'm the face of news here in Seattle," Joe told them, "My news reports are seen by over two million viewers locally, and by a hundred times that number across the globe. My job is to get the news to the people. I know Oaks has been recruiting deniable assets, as the corps like to call individuals in your line of work, to collect these so-called bounties she's setting on members of the organized crime rings. I've been following this as close as I can, but since you seem to be on the inside now, I'd like to propose a partnership. I'm looking for confidential sources to provide me details of what's going on. I'll keep your names and faces out of it, but if you can provide me with as much information as possible, names, dates, locations, video, whatever you can, I can return the favor. I have a lot of contacts and keep my ear to the ground for juicy information. Or, maybe I can find other ways to repay you."

"As long as you're not asking to tag along." Mr. Carter said.

Joe whipped out a card, an actual physical business card, and handed it to Mr. Carter. "Think it over. Here's my number, call me if you want to do business." As soon as Mr. Carter accepted the card he turned and walked off towards the parking lot.

"Well that's a first." remarked Seraphina as everyone started walking into the parking lot as well.

"Reminded me of that journalist we met a few years back." Cypher said.

"Oh yeah!" Seraphina said, her eyes lighting up. "Something Waldo, right?"

"Much as I remember."

"Alright you two, let's…" Mr. Carter started to say, stopping when everyone's commlink started chiming with an incoming call.

Cypher and Seraphina groaned together. Even Mr. Carter did not look too happy.

"This's almost as bad as New York." commented Seraphina.

"Might as well see who it is." Mr. Carter said.

Cypher rolled his eyes before mentally hitting the [Accept] icon.

Rather than a more standard ARO that was two dimensional, a full three dimensional rendering of an old fashioned microphone on a stand, with a beehive of auburn hair and very pointed cat's eyes glassed with red lenses appeared in their midst.

"Greetings." the microphone said with a woman's voice, "Right now, I'm sure that Joe Martin has given you a pretty little speech about how he's the number one news anchor, and how he's the 'face of the people' and all that. Blah blah blah. He's a blowhard who's only interested in increasing his ratings. His sales pitch is as fake as his tan." The icon twitched about as if it were actually a real thing that could talk, moving in that exaggerated and animated way that has been done since the birth of animation. It also turned to face each of them in turn as if it were a real thing standing before them.

"However, he has one thing right." it continued, "This business with A.D.A. Oaks is news. It's nice to know that someone in the government is taking initiative. My offer is the same as Joe's certainly was. One thousand nuyen to act as a source and provide me with as much information as possible. In return, I'm a good friend to have, with eyes and ears everywhere."

Cypher and Seraphina turned to look each other in the eye. He could easily see it in her expression, and he made no effort to hide his feelings on this from her. Already too fresh memories of a past Johnson who did a teleconference kind of meet were coming back, along with the subsequent job. Cypher was loading up his tracking program, targeting her icon for analysis and a trace.

"Who am I? I'm sorry, where are my manners. My name is Athena. Athena Tatopoulos. I'm the Editor-In-Chief at KSAF. When you're done with this business, if you decide to work with me…"

"Forget it." interrupted Cypher and Seraphina, speaking in unison.

"Excuse me?" Athena asked. Her icon spun to face the two of them.

"Maybe you should be quiet and let the grownups talk." Mr. Carter said.

"And maybe you should stop making assumptions about things you know nothing about." Cypher countered.

"I'd be very interested in why you seem so adamantly against offering me any information." Athena said. "I'm sure that we can come to some kind of arrangement."

Cypher glanced at the data his analysis program was giving him. Now while he had no idea just how skilled Athena was, he could see that what she had running was a complete custom job and very high end. It was almost on par with what he and Seraphina had implanted in their heads in both hardware and software.

And again he and Seraphina looked at each other. "Maybe a name drop." he suggested, "Might give us a clue."

Seraphina gave a short nod.

"Yeah, sure." Cypher said, turning to face the anthropomorphic microphone. "Last August we did a job where Johnson showed up as a hologram at the meet. Turned out he had a really good reason to."

"Yeah, Roger Willis was pretty keen to keep the fact that he was a wasp under wraps." Seraphina added. Already she was starting to sound a little stressed.

"So a Johnson teleconferenced…" Mr. Carter started to say.

"Did you say… wasp?" the elf asked, "Like…" In a very hushed tone she said, "a bug spirit?"

Cypher glanced over to Seraphina. Her eyes were unfocused, her hands clenched in tight fists, and she rigidly stood still. Carefully he put a hand on her shoulder, giving her a gentle squeeze. Figuring she was not going to freak out he turned to regard the others, saying, "Exactly that."

"I thought that story of his was a little weird." Athena said. "Too bad he's dead now."

"Yeah. That KE-IV's works wonders." Cypher told them, his voice dripping with malice.

"So, your answer is still a 'no'?" Athena asked.

"Unless you wanna really meet, face to face." Cypher told her, noticing where his trace had ended. Not surprising that it came from KSAF's network node, but it was not the point of origin. If he wanted to dig deeper, find the source point of the signal he was going to have to hack into KSAF's network right now and run a new trace, and even that was no guarantee that Athena was not hiding behind another proxy server. "I got a scan on you, and I'm sure you scanned us. I doubt you'll wanna waste our time dancing with proxies."

"Wait, hold on." interrupted Mr. Carter. "We just had a virtual chat with Oaks, and you didn't even balk at that."

"I've seen… her." Seraphina answered, speaking slowly to try and keep her composure. "I've read her aura."

"So you'll accept her, but not Athena?"

"Yeah. What's the difference?" the elf asked.

"Besides knowing Oaks's aura?" Seraphina asked.

"Past rep, hers and Athack's," Cypher added, "and that Oaks wasn't running a quality stealth program to try and hide that she was behind at least one proxy server." He turned to Athena's icon and said, "Gimme the time and I'll really be able to track you down, but already I expect you're gonna have a bunch of contingencies for just such an occasion."

"My, my, my." Athena said, turning suddenly cloy and seductive, the microphone moving like it was a woman slumping a shoulder to better show off her cleavage. "You are a smart one. Looks like you might be the Real McCoy after all." She turned to everyone in general, "Alright, Joe can have this one, this time." Quickly she spun back to Cypher, "But scan this, you should know I don't give up so easily. Chip truth I will get you next time." She gave him a wink, and without anything fancy her icon simply vanished.

"What did she mean by 'Real McCoy'?" Mr. Carter asked.

"I think it means she's heard of me in the matrix." Cypher answered.

"And what about her?" the elf asked.

Seraphina grunted. "I'm not known for any hacking." she said.

"Yet." amended Cypher.

"So, um, are we taking our own vehicles or car pooling or what?" the elf asked.

"I ain't leavin' my cycle here." Seraphina declared.

"I'm sure we've got room in the back of my van." Mr. Carter told them.

"Seriously?" Seraphina shot back.

"Just call it." Cypher silently suggested. Already he was linking up to his motorcycle, waking it up to give it the order to come meet them at the door.

"Yeah, we got a big van." Mr. Carter said, "We'll just open up the back doors and…" He stopped as two heavy motorcycles drove themselves up.

"You were saying?" Cypher asked as he collected his helmet.

Mr. Carter sighed.

"Holy drek! Diablos?!" exclaimed the elf.

"So, where're we going?" Cypher asked.

---

When you mention Downtown Seattle to any tourist it invokes images of the Aztechnology Teochali, the former Renraku Archology, the Space Needle, and the bright lights and rich clubs like Dante's Inferno, The Gravity Bar, and Club Penumbra. It is the glitz, the glamour, the never ending nightlife, and parties that last until dawn.

Mentioning Downtown never invokes some of the realities of the city the same way mentioning Redmond does. Only those that have actually travelled the backstreets and dark alleys know that not all of Downtown is sparkle and polish, that there are places where the shadows hang and the refuse collects in corners forever uncleaned.

Their destination was a hole-in-the-wall place called Mike's Deli that was not too far away from Bitter Lake, an artificial puddle of a real lake. Even despite the traffic of the heart of Downtown the area around Bitter Lake did not smell too good. Cypher figured it might have to do with the recent acid rain and the lack of proper drainage.

Mr. Tony Carter had insisted on hosting a wireless chat so they could communicate while he led the way in his medium gray Dodge Ram. The old and battered van was far from winning any speed awards, especially when compared to the motorcycles Cypher, Seraphina, and the other elf were riding. What it did have was anonymity in being able to head down the streets and not draw attention like the three on their motorcycles could.

Introductions were also made while on the road. Tony and his little brother, James, were professional bounty hunters who usually worked through the District Attorney's office as well as Knight Errant and other bail bondsmen in collecting skippers, people who were out on bail for various crimes and failed to show up for their appointed court date.

James was one of those rare examples of goblinization, the event that had struck the planet on the thirtieth of April, 2021. Approximately one in every ten children, either in utero or just after hitting puberty, spontaneously transformed into an ork or a troll, and there was no apparent rhyme or reason. Among others, Cypher wondered how things would have played out in Tehran if Ayatollah Hamidullah had waited nine months before declaring his jihad against all things magical and non-human. Intellectually speaking James had suffered from his transformation, as had many who goblinized, and his older brother had taken it upon himself to help and prepare him for the world, in particular how to use his strengths to his greatest advantage. For a troll that was almost three meters tall it was his literal strength. So far it seemed that he was following his older brother's lead.

The elf, Jerilyn Dyon or "J.J.", was about as new to the shadows as one could be. Even though she was actually more than a year older than Seraphina she pretty much lacked any knowledge of the streets and the shadows that everyone else already had. She did have her own vehicle, a Shuriken by Shiawase Motors, a lightweight motorcycle that could out accelerate and outrun the Suzuki Mirage or even the powerful Blitzen or Diablo. The only real advantage a Diablo had was that it could more easily take a beating and come back kicking. Seraphina had also more discretely told Cypher that her cybernetic hands were fake, though she did have bioware in her muscles and along her nervous system.

As for Cypher and Seraphina, since the others were using their real names, gave the names of Jason Griffith and Ashley Stepp, the fake identities they were currently using. These were one of two that Seraphina had that had a driver's license associated with it, and also that they figured the Neo-Anarchists did not know about.

The neighborhood itself was completely low income. Low income housing, low income businesses, low income everything. The buildings and homes themselves might have been nice once, decades ago, but now there appeared to be barely enough money flowing in to keep people living here, let alone make things nice again. They found a close by spot to park their vehicles, managing to take up only two full parking spaces for the van and motorcycles combined.

An old fashioned bell on a coil spring jingled when Tony pushed the door open. Built well before goblinization, James had to duck as he entered. Inside the ceiling was just barely high enough to let him stand without scraping his horns.

True to the name the place was a deli. Behind the counter was an elf with black, long, and stringy hair. He was working a meat slicer to cut pieces for a little old lady who was waiting patiently. Cypher figured it was not real meat, being some kind of lump of soy with plenty of artificial colorings, flavors, and a random colorization matrix applied to make it at least appear like real ham. When the elf behind the counter noticed them he grinned, paused his work just long enough to jab his head towards a door just around the counter and towards the back of the deli.

"We just go in?" J.J. softly asked.

Tony answered by walking on up to the door like he had done this many times before.

Cypher noticed a smirk on the elf's face as they walked past.

The door opened almost immediately to a staircase that went down and around to the building's basement. The lighting was rather poor, but to the unaided eyes for most everyone it would not matter. Only Tony would have had difficulty seeing, though Cypher figured the goggles he had put on would let him see normally.

The smell of the place also changed quite quickly as they reached the basement floor. Outside had the tang of acid on steel and asphalt, inside of stale air and stale meats, and downstairs the musk of body odor, overwhelming perfumes, and sex.

Walls had been put up around the load bearing members that held up the building, breaking things up into a hallway with rooms set off to the sides. Doors were nothing more than simple curtains, and those that were open were to show various girls in various states of undress and dishevelment; those that were closed did little to muffle the grunts and groans of sexual acts. Each doorway had an ARO tag with details about the girl inside and a list of programmable personalities a patron could choose from, running the gambit from timid housewife to schoolgirl to dominatrix.

"Maybe you two should head back." Tony suggested.

"And you think this is our first time in a bunraku parlor?" Cypher asked back.

"Not place for kids." James added.

"This's gotta be the worst brothel, ever." Seraphina said. "Even the Jade Crane was nicer than this place, even if it were in the Warrens."

"Don't you mean the Barrens?" J.J. asked.

"The Aurora Warrens. Denver." Cypher amended.

"About as bad." Seraphina added.

Tony sighed.

Cypher counted a total of twenty rooms, ten to either side of the hallway, and that did not count what looked like a steel door at the far end. As they got closer he thought he heard someone scream. His running empathy program heavily favored pain and terror with the sound.

"Mother fucker." Seraphina muttered, pushing her way to the front. Cypher was quick to follow.

"Hang on you two…" Tony started to say.

Cypher could feel it when Seraphina began gathering power for a spell. She drew in more than enough for it to bleed into her aura, into reality, expressing as a nimbus of flames that danced about her body. To be on the safe side Cypher stepped up to her side, drawing his Predator.

Flames appeared around the door, and at first Cypher thought she was trying to burn it down. Then the door shook against its joints and lock, twisting like mad to wrench itself free. It flew aside to reveal the room behind. Wasting no time Seraphina rushed in with Cypher just about at her side.

Inside was a young looking girl with curly black hair strapped down to a table, stripped naked with her back splayed open like a side of beef. An Asian looking man was looming over her, wearing surgical gloves and mask of a nauseating blue color. With him were two larger men wearing cheap, off the rack suits that were ill fitting on their bulky bodies.

Last year, practically to the day, the two had been picked up by New York's Child Protective Services on a random tip that they were being abused. Ironically they had been dumped into a foster home where the kids there actually were being abused. Last they had checked things had been changed for the better for those kids, but partly after they had returned with a vengeance. And Cypher shot the ork that had been pimping the kids out.

And this time it was Seraphina's turn to act. Flames danced about her body just before they appeared around the two larger men. They were lifted up off of their feet and flung into the wall behind them. She gestured as if throwing something over her shoulders, and the two went flying into the opposite wall.

As if the two larger men were not there, Cypher stepped up to the table, holding his Predator on the man in the surgical garb. "Be good, set the tools aside, and step away from her." he ordered.

"Awe, drek." cussed Tony.

"If I don't finish she'll die!" he excitedly said.

"Then let him finish!" cried J.J.

With his thumb Cypher set the hammer back on his pistol. "Step away or I will shoot you." Cypher told him.

Tony sighed. "Do as the kid says." he told the doctor. "James, I think these two are ready for a ride. And Jason, I hope you know what you're doing."

"Ash, check her out." Cypher said. He kept his gaze, and aim, on the surgeon as he stepped away empty handed, and could only imagine the surprised looks on the faces of the others as Seraphina stepped up to the operating table. Deep down he hoped she knew enough to help the girl.

"What's going on?" asked a gruff man's voice.

Keeping his Predator aimed on the surgeon, Cypher turned to look at who spoke. He saw a sweaty looking and highly disheveled man standing by the door, still pulling up his pants.

"You'd best get going." Tony told the man. "Unless you want to talk to the Knight when they get here."

That seemed to motivate the man well enough to leave.

Through his Predator, Cypher saw the surgeon twitch as if to make a run for it. He did not even squeeze the trigger, firing the pistol with a thought. The man spun when he got shot, slamming into a wall and slumping to the floor. It had been a grazing hit, but he pulled his mask off before putting his left hand to where he was hit in the arm.

"Awe, did that hurt?" Cypher asked in a condescending tone.

"You… You shot him?" J.J. asked.

"He'll live." Cypher told her.

Again Tony groaned. "At least we'll get to question him."

Switching his Predator to his right hand, Cypher kept it aimed at the surgeon as he turned to face Seraphina. He slipped a pic of the man and started a search using his face.

"I can undo this, I think." Seraphina told them, pulling a clean pair of gloves and a face mask from two nearby boxes.

"And if you don't do anything?" Tony asked. James had stepped up to his older brother, handing the man a pair of Ares Predator IVs and a bunch of spare magazines. Cypher figured they had belonged to the two goons guarding the doctor.

"She bleeds out."

The girl started crying more.

"Do it." Cypher said, looking sideways to Tony. He looked quite concerned, but he could not tell if it was also from doubt of Seraphina's skill or not.

"Can't you, you know, knock her out or something?" J.J. asked.

"There's no anesthetic other than some local stuff she's already on," Seraphina answered, picking up the tools that Tojiro had set down, "and I can't give her more 'cause I don't know how much she's already been given. Too much'll kill her."

"You sure you know what you're doing?" Tony asked. About then Cypher got a hit on the face, Christopher Tojiro from the University Of Washington School Of Medicine. He loaded up a few hacking programs as he started analyzing the university's matrix defenses.

Seraphina did not answer while she worked, focused wholly on the girl's open back as she removed a tiny staple like object from her spine. Meanwhile Cypher had finished his scan and started looking for a breach in the university's firewall. The first level defenses were decent, and probably could give Seraphina a challenge if she tried it by herself.

"Kinda looks like she knows what she's doing." J.J. commented. Clink went another staple.

"She was pre-med, before the shadows." Cypher said for Seraphina, his custom exploit program finding a vulnerability as he spoke, and was already pushing through for security level access. "I honestly don't know how far that means, but she was in high school then." Once inside he did a search on the name, looking to bring up Tojiro's academic transcript.

"High school?" Tony asked, "You're saying she's some kind of child genius?" Clink went a staple.

"No, I'm not." Cypher answered, stepping aside as James walked up to Tojiro. The troll was not too gentle when he hefted the man up to his feet, prying his hand away to cuff them behind his back. He holstered his pistol once Tojiro's hands were secured.

"They never offered classes like that when I was, what, ten?" J.J. said.

"Guess kids these days get it easy." muttered James.

"Get it easy?" Cypher growled, "You think we've got it easy?" He practically stomped up to James, continuing, "People at a meet look at me and see a snot nosed little brat that needs a hand to hold and a diaper to change! I gotta work my ass off to prove I'm just as capable as any hacker! Better even! People look at you and they see a big strong troll, and you ain't gotta prove shit to anyone you ain't, you…"

"Cypher!" Seraphina yelled.

He stopped his ranting, finally taking stock that he was literally staring down a troll that was twice his size. Then he felt it, the pull of energy for a spell. He had apparently cast a levitation spell on himself, lifting himself up a meter and a half so he was eye level to James. Carefully he floated himself away and back down before releasing the pent up energy for the spell. The look on James's face told him that his little tirade had actually scared the much larger troll.

"Right, so if you've got something to help prove yourself…" Tony said, letting his words trail off.

Cypher glanced back to his connection in the University node. The search had brought up a file on Christopher Tojiro, and the transcript he saw did not surprise him. He copied the file to his implanted commlink and logged off. With a thought he accessed the few linguasoft programs he had loaded on his implanted commlink, launching one for Japanese and setting it to a real time translation. In near perfect Japanese he said, "«You failed to become a doctor in school, Tojiro-kun, so now you butcher little girls?»"

Tojiro's more lackluster gaze suddenly sharpened to bitter hatred as he now glared at Cypher. Cypher's response was utter indifference.

"What'd he say?" asked J.J.

"My Japanese is a bit rusty," Tony said, "but I think he just called our guy here Tojiro, with an insult. Something about… flunking medical school?"

"Got his transcript from the University Of Washington." Cypher told them.

"«Bastard! I am a doctor!»" yelled Tojiro. Cypher responded by flipping Tojiro off.

"So… how…?" J.J. tried to ask.

"He used an honorific for a little boy when saying Tojiro's name, that much I'm sure of." Tony answered.

Cypher took the transcript file and sent a copy request to Tony's commlink. He accepted the file. Tony's eyes were soon bouncing back and forth, scanning an ARO that only he could see.

After a minute or two, with nothing to fill the silence except for the occasional clink of another implant being removed, Tony finally spoke. "Not sure what her grades were like but it looks like his grades were really bad. So, let's get to the brass tacks." He looked at Tojiro and asked, "Tojiro, what do you know about a person that goes by the name 'Junior'?"

Tojiro kept his mouth shut, looking away to nothing in particular, though Cypher noticed it was decisively away from Seraphina. Cypher's runnining linguasoft also pegged a note about the lack of an honorific in using Tojiro's name, to be either taken as someone familiar with the person or as an insult. Seemed clear what the intent was.

"Well Tojiro-kun," Cypher said with a sigh, "if you're not gonna talk, then you're no use to anyone and we might as well kill ya." He pulled out his Predator again.

Tojiro's attention quickly turned to Cypher. "Alright! Alright!" he cried, "I'll tell you!"

Cypher holstered the Predator.

"I never met him," Tojiro told them, "but someone representing Junior came months ago, offered to 'invest' in my business in exchange for a cut. I only had two girls, but I got more thanks to his cred. He never comes, just sends his mooks to come once a month for their share."

"And that's it?" Tony asked.

"That's it, honto."

The lie detection software Cypher had running, tied to the simrig in his skull, noted no indicators for falsehood. Tojiro also seemed too scared, and spoke too quickly, to have come up with something like this on the spot, so Cypher figured the greasy excuse of a street doctor was probably telling the truth.

"Well, you know you're out of business now, right?" Tony asked.

"Couldn't cut the grades, so you just go fuckin' 'round with puppet chips?" Seraphina asked, "I should just ash ya right now."

"He ain't worth it." Cypher told her. He looked over to Tony, and could see his mind working. Not just about what to do with Tojiro, which was easy, but about the two of them right now. To Cypher it looked like the man was still trying to process and accept that they were not kids, or at least not normal kids anyway.

"So… what're we gonna do?" J.J. asked.

"I sent a message to Tosh about this place," Tony answered, "so we wait here for Knight and EMS to get here."

"I should be done by the time they get here." Seraphina said, tossing aside the tools she had been using. She picked up a needle and a spool of what Cypher figured was suture thread. To the girl she said softly, "You'll probably feel some tugging and tightness, but it'll be alright." The girl simply whimpered.

"What about the others?" Cypher asked.

"I saw a bunch of men leaving after that first guy came in here." J.J. said.

"And the elf at the front's probably long gone by now." Tony added. "We won't bother chasing them down. Not worth the effort."

By the time Knight and the EMTs arrived Seraphina had finished closing up the girl's back and had worked a healing spell as well. Still they took no chances as they prepped a gurney for her, wrapping her up in clean sheets and securing her on her stomach before hauling her out. Cypher was glad that no one asked who had done the surgery, figuring they would not have believed it at all that a ten year old girl had done it.

Tosh had also apparently given the Knight officers a heads up about them, too, as aside from a few basic questions about what was happening there was no pressing for details or scanning of IDs. Tony did most of the talking, and then they were back outside and on their own.

"Great, a dead end." muttered Seraphina as everyone walked to their vehicles.

"We do have a few more places to check out." Tony told them. "Not like we were going to score a jackpot on the first place we visited."

"And if they're Junior's, we bust up enough he'll notice." James added.

Part of Cypher was glad that James was more than keen enough to understand this tactic. The troll may have been a little slow, but he had a sharp cunning to him.

"Which means, what?" the more uneducated J.J. asked.

"Junior's first and foremost going to be a business man." Tony told her, "When the money stops coming in he's going to start asking around who's doing it."

"And either he'll send some leg breakers out to try and kill us," Cypher added, "or he'll send us an invite to try and lure us in and kill us."

J.J. looked like she was either going to vomit or faint.

"Yes, sometimes it's really like the trids out here." Tony said.

"Let's just get to the next place, okay?" asked Seraphina.

---

The second place was not too far from Mike's Deli, though the quality of the neighborhood had gone down. It was like a little piece of Redmond got dumped in Downtown. The address belonged to an ancient, decrepit looking apartment building that appeared to have survived World Wars one, two, and three. The windows lacked any glass but several were boarded over. Other buildings on the block were looking the same. The street lights did not work and the shadows were growing longer as the sun continued to descend in the west.

There was little sign of any modern tech, just a few RFID tags that prompted AROs of "Keep Out" and "Condemned" as they approached the building.

And it was not just one building, either. Several buildings shared the same rotted look. But despite the caution signs Cypher was still able to notice an occasional face peeking out between the boards that tried to cover up the windows.

"Been to a lot of parties where I felt underdressed." Cypher said as he pulled his helmet off, "First time I felt overdressed for an occasion."

No one had made any effort to try and hide themselves. There was no real point to it. Depending on the people in the vicinity, all it would have taken was for one person to notice them and in minutes everyone would have known about a bunch of cleaner city folk trying to sneak about the place.

James walked up to the door first, pushing relatively gently on it, easing it open as it barely hung on one hinge. Tony was right beside him, and Cypher noticed the Ares Light Fire 70 that now hung at his hip.

Slowly everyone walked in, not only careful because of the condemned warnings but also for any potential ambush. In a pinch Cypher or Seraphina could have a pair of custom made laser pistols in their hands, provided neither of them jumped to their combat spells first. The first room looked like the lobby of an apartment building or maybe a hotel, Cypher was not quite sure. The air smelled musty but not stale, and thankfully lacked any odor of alcohol, piss, or shit.

"Anyone here?" Tony finally called out very loudly, "We're just here to talk!"

From around a hall corner shambled a man, human, wearing off-the-rack clothing that looked beyond well worn and was probably last cleaned when Dunkelzahn had been campaigning for president. Among his attire was a green stocking cap that he had pulled down over his ears. He moved slowly and carefully, not to avoid tripping on anything but to make sure that his presence was well known to be nonthreatening so hopefully no one would shoot him.

"Y… Y… You're makin' p… p… people nervous." he stuttered.

"We're looking for someone." Tony said, "Someone called… Junior."

Cypher could see the other man had a really bad poker face. Recognition lit up in his eyes like a cop car spotlight. "I… I… I might know s… s… somethin'. B… B… But not for n… n… nothin'." He made sure his lie detector program was running, bringing its ARO around to see.

"How much ya want?"

"T… T… Twenty nuyen."

Tony seemed to believe him, pulling out his commlink to openly fiddle with the controls. Cypher could see the other man's eyes light up just before he pulled out a battered little Sony commlink, noting that his hand was much steadier than his tongue.

"L… L… Lots o' chipheads c… c… crashed here. D… D… Dealers came by lots, a… a… all the time. N… N… Never touch that drek m… m… m'self. F… F… Fries the brain, a… a… an' lets Deus getcha! D… D… Deus got one! Th… Th… They fought, a… a… an' someone got sh… sh… shot. D… D… Dealers left last w… w… week."

The problem with figuring out a falsehood relies on whether or not the person is knowingly telling a falsehood. If someone is just a touch crazy and honestly believes slotting BTL chips will let a long dead artificial super intelligence into your brain, then that statement is going to come off as true, no matter how crazy or impossible everyone else knows it to be.

"And the chip heads? They left after that?" Cypher asked.

"Y… Y… Yeah." the man said.

"And what happened to the one that got shot?" Tony asked.

"G… G… Ghouls. S… S… Space ghouls! B… B… But I found s… s… somethin', somethin' sh… sh… shiny! I might s… s… sell it, but not ch… ch… cheap!"

"So how much do you want?" Tony asked him.

"A… A… A thousand!"

Tony whistled.

"That's… a lot." remarked James.

"Too much." Cypher added.

"O… O… Okay. N… N… Nine hundred."

"Don't suppose we can see it before we buy?" Tony asked.

The man shook his head. "E… E… Eight hundred?"

"Bet it's small." Cypher said, "If it's really that valuable to ya you wouldn't leave it lyin' 'round somewhere it could be found."

"F… F… Five hundred?"

Tony shook his head. "How 'bout eighty?" he asked, "Makes what I gave you already an even hundred."

"Deal!"

Tony fiddled with his commlink again, and once the money was transferred the other man carefully walked up to them, slowly reaching into his pocket to pull something out. It was not a gun, and in really bad light it could almost be mistaken for a grenade by the shape and size of it. Tony accepted it anyway, and held it up to look at it in a better light.

It was the badge of a Knight Errant officer.

"Here," Tony said, turning to Cypher and tossing the badge to him, "check it out. Work your magic."

Cypher snatched the badge out of the air with his left hand, juggling it with his fingers to flip it over to better look at it. His running sensor software received all the details about the badge through his eyes and implanted Transys Eternal Memories simrig, and with a thought he opened up an ARO to Knight Errant's public network to search for the owner of the badge number.

It did not take long for him to get a result. "It's the missing officer's badge." he announced, looking up to Tony. He tossed it back, and Tony caught it just as easily. "It's legit."

Tony turned back to the squatter. "Okay, so what's this got to do with Junior?" he asked him.

"W… W… Who?"

"You very well know who," Cypher growled.

"And you'd better tell us the chip truth or the very least of your worries is that you'll lose that hundred we've paid you." Tony added, "See those two kids over there?" He paused long enough for the guy to lean over a bit to look at Cypher and Seraphina. When he nodded Tony continued, "Junior was backing a guy responsible for the kidnapping of a friend of theirs. We found her, barely in time, her back sliced open like a side of beef. They didn't take it too well, and the guy that Junior was backing is on his way to a hospital with a few gunshot wounds and third degree burns over most of his body."

He leaned back over to look around me at the Cypher and Seraphina again, but he looked a little confused.

"They're magic." Tony told him, "The redhead's got a real fiery temper. Literally. She just looked at the guy and he burst into flames." When he didn't look convinced Tony added, "Maybe a de…?"

Seraphina had already lifted a hand, and a torrent of flame rushed past Tony and the other man, scorching the wall down the hallway the squatter had just come from. Cypher could feel it, the power in that spell, and could tell she had cast it more for show than anything.

But it worked. The man spun about to look down the hallway, breathing hard as if he had just sprinted a hundred meters for his life. Tony slapped a hand on his shoulder and he just about jumped out of his own skin.

"So, Junior?" Tony asked him.

"Th… Th… The one D… D… Deus got, he was l… l… lookin' fer Junior."

"And the other dealers?" Tony sternly asked him.

He suddenly looked afraid for his life. "I… I… I d… d… don't n… n… know!" he cried.

Cypher simply growled his displeasure. "He doesn't know anything more."

"So, no Junior?"

Tony stared the squatter down, scrutinizing what he had said. Then he turned his attention to Cypher and Seraphina.

"Looks like all we got was that badge." Cypher said.

"So another dead end." Seraphina added, "Let's go."

"Guess it's your lucky day." Tony told the squatter, turning to head for the entrance.

"You're taking orders from them now?" J.J. asked.

"No." Tony answered, waving a hand to signal everyone else to follow him. "But so far they're not seeming to be so green as I thought."

Cypher let the briefest of smiles turn up the corners of his lips.

"Something's different." Seraphina silently told Cypher. "I can see it in his aura. Especially when he last looked at us."

"He's got headware, and I've not been listening outta courtesy. Could've asked someone about us."

When they reached their vehicles Tony turned to them and said, "So… Cypher and Seraphina. Any idea on when you two were gonna come clean to us about who you really were?"

"Who?" J.J. asked.

"Prob'ly never if he hadn't lost his temper at the deli." Seraphina flatly answered.

Tony casually leaned against the side of his van. "These two really aren't some novice child runners." he said. "In fact they're known as the Fallen Angels and they've got quite the bounty on their heads. Neo-A's're willin' to pay a lot of money for these two. Can't get that far if you're bumbling around in the dark."

"Thirty thousand nuyen for either of us. Alive." Cypher told them.

"And a fifteen thousand bonus if we're together." added Seraphina, frowning.

"Whoa, holy drek!" cussed J.J. "I could buy two more bikes for that!"

Cypher's eyes narrowed as he looked at Tony and James. He was not worried what J.J. might try and do. The more real threat was from Tony and James.

"Naw, I wouldn't." Tony said quite casually. "From what I was told it's not worth it."

Cypher did not relax. Seraphina said nothing but he was willing to bet that she was already planning on what spell or spirit to call upon if things went from bad to worse.

"But there's something you really oughtta ask." Cypher said, more over his shoulder towards J.J.

"Why're Anarchists willin' to pay so much for us?" Seraphina said, "Insulting as that bounty still is."

Tony grinned a little. "Was also told you'd feel that way." he said.

"I'd be scared drekless if someone was gonna pay that much for me." J.J. said.

"Meh, you get used to it." Cypher told her.

"So… why?" J.J. asked.

"Seems these two helped grease a Neo-A cell leader last year." Tony answered, "And they're mad as hell about it. And so far almost every bounty hunter that's gone after them's ended up dead."

"Almost?" Cypher asked.

"There was that guy in the mall last month." Seraphina said, "Tried to grab me, so I stunned him. He got the message."

"Oh, yeah, right."

"There's actually a few more than one." Tony told them, "Well, your rep in those circles's growing about being hard to capture. Problem's gonna be when someone gets really serious."

"Dead or alive." James added.

Cypher could not help but grin and snort before chuckling.

"Somethin' funny?" James asked.

"Just that we've had that before, too." Cypher told him. "We've got the scars to prove it."

"Then there's the four men who tried back in January." Seraphina said, "Awakened, the lot of them. At least two of them magicians."

"Actually caught us, but we escaped." Cypher added.

"Chased us across Tacoma through the night, never letting us get any real rest."

"Making sure the prey can't go to ground." Tony said.

Cypher nodded. "One of the guys was called 'Wolf.' I bashed his brains in during the last fight."

"Wolf." Tony said thoughtfully. "All awakened? Worked with a couple other guys? Guys that went by Gator and Bear?"

Cypher looked to Seraphina, who was already looking at him. She shrugged. He went back to his facial recognition program, which was set to automatically update pics of people with names whenever he happened to hear them. There was a massive list of "Unknown" names, but when he found a "Wolf" there was an associated "Gator" and "Bear" with it.

"Yeah, looks like it." Cypher told him. "Caught their names at some point."

"They died a few months ago." James said.

"Yeah. Too bad Gator didn't know when to quit. Usually caught his target, though." Tony added.

"What happened to him?" J.J. asked, sounding a bit nervous.

"I was too hot for him to handle." Seraphina answered with a little bit of sass and a lot of menace in her voice.

"Well, you won't have to worry about that with us." Tony said. "We're not crazy enough to try and turn you in for your bounty with the Neo-A's. So, ready for the next place on the list?"

---

"You trust him?" Seraphina silently asked as they followed Tony's van to the next address. Despite the chat program Tony hosted for the five of them, they still used a private and heavily encrypted connection between the two of them.

"He seemed sincere enough, but no, not completely." Cypher told her. "He might change his mind if our bounty gets high enough."

"At least he seems to believe we're not, how'd you put it, 'snot nosed little brats in need of a diaper change'?"

"So far the only one here that seems to need a hand to hold is J.J. Not really sure she's cut out for this kind of work."

---

The third destination was back south and closer to the heart of Downtown, though a bit north of Salmon Bay. It was just close enough to the docks by the Ballard Locks for some prosperity, but also just in the right spot for a neighborhood just on the edge between prosperity and desperation. Cypher could even smell it in the air, still heavy with moisture but with the extra tang of metal, oil, and diesel exhaust mixed in with a bit of salt.

Tony parked his van a block down the street from a brownstone. They got a good look at it first as they drove past. The first floor windows were all boarded up, as were most of the second and third floors. Two trolls wearing the brown and gold colors of the Spikes lounged outside on the front steps, with a row of three Harley-Davidson Scorpions and two Honda Vikings (all troll sized) parked in a relatively neat row. The three parked their motorcycles behind the van.

"Open carry?" Seraphina asked aloud as she and Cypher dismounted their motorcycles.

Cypher took a quick look around. "Verily." he answered. Once his helmet was secured he popped his seat up to open the storage compartment beneath it, pulling out a black leather belt with a heavy revolver in a left handed quick draw holster, a Sheriff by Cavalier Arms. Its weight felt a little comforting, similar to the Warhawk he used to wear at his right hip before it was lost in New York City's East River last year.

Seraphina had also gotten something a few weeks ago, pulling out a dark crimson belt with a right handed quickdraw holster. In it was a heavy autoloader, a Violator made by Onotari Arms. Of course it was not the only handgun that she now owned, but it was the first that she had she would openly carry. Unlike the high powered revolver Cypher had put on, her Violator was loaded with ex-explosive rounds.

"Um, why the guns?" asked J.J.

"You saw the trolls back there?" Cypher asked.

"Kinda hard to miss."

"They're members of the Spikes." Seraphina said.

"They're not wrong." Tony added as he walked over to them. Cypher noticed that he still wore the Ares Light Fire 70 at his hip. A light pistol by itself would most likely make a troll laugh, but then depending on what it was loaded with could make a large difference. He guessed Tony would have some kind of potent sedative or non-lethal rounds loaded, like stick-n-shock or some kind of knockout drug laced with dimethyl sulfoxide, something that could still bring down a troll in one or two shots.

"You think we'll… need those?" J.J. asked.

"Hopefully not." Tony told her, "But when there are Spikes involved it's a good idea to at least look like you could be a threat."

James held out a hand towards J.J., a brown leather strap slipping out from between his fingers. She took it, and Cypher saw that it was a belt with a pistol holster to it.

"Put it on." Tony told her. "Without it they'll see you as something they can break like a twig. With it, well, maybe…"

"Maybe they'll take a second to think about breaking you like a twig." Cypher finished.

"Can make a difference if you're trying to run." Seraphina added.

"If we're lucky you won't even have to pull it." Tony told J.J. as she hesitantly put the belt on. The holster was set for a right handed person, and it looked to Cypher that the elf was at least right handed as well. She seemed rather uncomfortable with the weight.

"Draw it." Tony told her.

J.J. looked like she was going to be sick, but did pull the pistol. One of the running programs Cypher had tied to his senses held a database of many types of different weapons. With a thought he tagged the pistol J.J. was holding, and almost right away an ARO popped up into existence labeling it as a Morrissey Alta, giving him the general statistics for an unmodified version of the handgun.

"Just watch for that little red dot." Tony told J.J. as she held the Alta. "That's where the bullet will go when you shoot."

"That's it?" J.J. asked, looking down at the holster as she put the Alta back.

"No time to train." James said.

"And these two?" she asked, indicating to Cypher and Seraphina.

Without looking Cypher grabbed his Sheriff, drew it, and aimed it straight at J.J. He gave her a second to look, noting her eyes darting at Seraphina for a moment before jumping back to him. He then holstered his heavy revolver, again without looking to his hip.

"I'd say they know how to handle a pistol." Tony commented.

As the others started heading toward the brownstone, Seraphina silently told Cypher, "Hang back just a sec, and call up a spirit now. Just in case."

It took more than just a second for Cypher to calm his mind, focusing his thoughts towards the realm of spirits. It did not seem too much different to him than when he reached out to compile a sprite with his technomancer abilities, but his magic was relatively weaker, his skill with spirits nothing like it was with sprites, and it took his second try to get a spirit of earth to respond.

I hear your call, summoner, Cypher heard in his mind.

It was less words or thought, but more impression that Cypher sent to the spirit, to hang close and be ready. He and Seraphina had to trot up quickly to catch up to the others as they reached the trolls at the doorstop.

Of the two trolls that were lounging, one was standing, leaning against the wall. He pushed himself off with his shoulders and cleared the steps in one stride to greet them. "What you want here?" he gruffly asked.

"We'd like to have a friendly talk with your boss." Tony told him.

Cypher noticed that neither troll was looking too pleased at the idea, and one of them kept eyeing J.J. pretty harshly. The previous leader of the Spikes, Lord Torgo, hated elves with a passion that was almost on par with the hatred Alamos 20K had for all things not human, and this had led to many fights between the Spikes and the Ancients, with that hatred running so deep as to also show in the logo for the Spikes as a severed elf's head on a spike.

But as time went on things changed, and Lord Torgo had been replaced as the Spikes leader by a minotaur with an indigo dye job who went by the initials BTO. The minotaur was much more moderate, and things had cooled off a little between the two gangs. Probably why neither troll jumped to pound J.J. into the sidewalk right there on the spot. Cypher wondered how any of the Spikes would feel if they learned that he and Seraphina were honorary members of the Ancients, or actually elves.

Then Cypher noticed the standing troll looking at him, or more accurately at the Sheriff at his hip. The revolver was by no means a small weapon, and made to look all the bigger due to his boyish size.

"Friendly?" the standing troll asked.

"It's a dangerous place out here." Cypher said. Then he patted the revolver, "I'm not keen on anyone trying to shove their dick up my ass."

There were a few tense seconds where no one said anything. Cypher was just starting to feel like he would have to draw on the trolls when the standing one broke out into a deep belly laugh. A grin crept up on his face, made bigger by the added laughter from the troll's buddy. He even laughed a little himself.

The standing troll finally calmed down his laughter, keeping a friendlier grin on his face. "Fifty nuyen each. Cover charge." he said.

Tony turned back to look at everyone else. He nodded.

With a thought Cypher pegged the troll's commlink and forwarded fifty nuyen to it. Once he had received a payment from everyone he stepped aside and pushed open the door for them.

The inside almost reminded Cypher of the brownstone they lived in while in Queens. The entire first floor was almost all open space, save for some furniture and a set of stairs along the left wall that ran upstairs. The furniture itself was close to troll sized, old and beaten.

Sprawled out on a couch was a troll, his legs hanging over one side, his head resting in the lap of a female troll. In oversized and overburdened chairs were two more trolls. All of them were smoking hand rolled cigarettes of something that stank to Cypher's senses.

But it was not just trolls that were living here. In a large chair himself was a dwarf, smoking a similar cigarette of his own. The chair itself looked like it could almost accommodate a troll, like the rest of the furniture, making the dark haired Caucasian dwarf look all the smaller. Like the trolls he also wore a brown jacket.

The dwarf's eyes were slightly glazed but they still focused on each of them as he looked over his new guests. "Whatchoo want? You don't look like our usual clientele." he said.

"We're looking for Little Bill." Tony said. Cypher had no idea where the name had come from, but guessed that the dwarf would be this Little Bill, and this particular dwarf looked like he would be below the one hundred and ten centimeter average height of a dwarf.

"Aye, I'm Little Bill." the dwarf told them, pushing himself to better sit upright. The trolls in the room started pushing themselves up a bit too. Whatever it was they were smoking apparently did not impair them all that much.

"My name's Tony." Tony said, holding out a hand.

"Right, Tony, whatdaya want?" Little Bill asked, looking up at the man but not taking the offered hand.

"We're looking for a person by the name of Junior." Tony told him, letting his hand fall back to his side.

"Aye, I know the name." Little Bill said, pulling his legs up beneath him to stand up on the chair.

"There's four more trolls upstairs, and one's awakened." Seraphina silently told Cypher. He figured she had a spirit check out the upper floors.

"We'd like to meet Junior." Tony said, "I'm sure we can cut a deal."

"Now I'm not sure that we can." Little Bill replied, crossing his arms over his chest. Cypher noticed the dwarf taking a wider stance as he stood on the chair, and quickly glanced at the other trolls as they moved more upright. His emotive software flashed a warning icon, something that just reaffirmed to him that things were about to get messy.

"I think we got trouble." he silently told Seraphina.

"We're ready."

"There's always a deal we can make." Tony told Little Bill, "All we want is to talk with Junior."

Little Bill's expression soured quicker than milk in a cat's stomach. "No deal, no Junior." he declared, "Get them outta my sight!"

The trolls practically leaped on them, a scary prospect considering how much larger and massive a single troll is to a human or an elf, multiplied all the more compared to Cypher or Seraphina. J.J. shrieked as she tried to get away.

To me, Cypher told his spirit, reaching a hand out to where the spirit was. It was like liquid electricity flowing up his arm and into his body, the earth spirit merging with his body, enhancing it while they became one, his vision awash with new colors as the spirit opened up his senses to the astral world.

One of the trolls came at him with a baseball bat in one hand. Cypher was just a little slow to avoid the swing, taking the blow solidly to his chest. Even with his spirit enhanced body he had to give way to physics, the force of the blow not only knocking him off of his feet but slamming him into the wall by the door. He used the momentum of the blow to bounce off the wall, leading with his right hand to land a solid blow to the troll's stomach. Again physics reared its ugly head, his small mass not making the troll do anything more than flinch.

The troll's backswing came close, but Cypher ducked an attack that was already a bit too high. Being a bit short was an advantage at times, especially when he brought his left hand up in a hard backhand blow right up between the troll's legs. The troll howled in pain as he dropped to his knees.

Cypher wasted no time dashing off to the left side of the brownstone and the stairs. Already two trolls were thundering their way down. They paused when they saw him, the lead troll pulling a revolver. He launched himself up the stairs, turning his shoulder into the body slam against the troll's legs. It was hardly enough to knock the troll of his feet but more than enough to foul the shot. He followed up the slam with a hard blow to the knee. That was enough to get the troll to slip on the stairs.

And clear the way for his buddy above him to shoot Cypher. He almost got clear, the slug plowing into his left shoulder as he tried to jump off the stairs. It felt like he got punched by a tiny fist, making him twist and fall to land on the floor on his back.

Cypher vaguely heard a snap and hiss just before the entire room began filling with gray smoke. This was just a little less important than rolling away from the troll on the stairs that kept trying to shoot him. But his earth spirit was with him, providing him with a sudden burst of speed. He pushed himself back to the corner and practically leaped off the wall to nearly fly up the stairs, over the downed troll to bodily tackle his partner a few steps above him. This time it was the troll's turn to give way to physics as Cypher's forty kilo mass, multiplied by his enhanced speed, applied more than enough force to knock the troll back against the stairs. His momentum carried him past the Spike and up onto the brownstone's second floor. He ultimately slammed against a bedroom door, and quickly turning around he saw two more very shocked trolls. One of them, a female, he noticed had an iron gray pendant made to resemble a wolf's head. It was glowing brightly, white laced with red. As much as he knew it was a focus holding a health spell.

Her magic is greater than yours, but not by much. The bottled spell increases her speed.

And speed she had, lifting a hand and applying her magic and her will against him. Cypher brought his arms up in a gesture of defense and defiance, but her skill was much greater than his and he managed to push aside only a portion of her spell. Power pushed through his mind, addling his thoughts and clouding his vision. Still he kept his feet, and judging by her reaction that was a surprise to the female troll.

Cypher responded in kind, though his selection of spells was much more limited and his skill still lacking some. And like Seraphina he drew as much power as he could before unleashing a blast of thunder and lightning at the two trolls. Both of them were thrown back from the concussive blast, the wall to Cypher's left was crumbled in as if something massive had crashed into it, and the railings for the stairs to his right were smashed to splinters.

Putting that much magical power into his spell had its cost. Cypher knew how to channel the mana, how to guide it away from his mind and body more effectively, but he had called up too much power too quickly and too much of it had slipped from his control. He fell to his hands and knees, his whole body feeling like he was being bathed in magma as the excess energy dissipated.

Through blurry eyes Cypher saw the troll he had bowled over on the stairs. Their gazes locked, and while Cypher was feeling too sore and tired to do much more than just pant like a dog in the summer heat, the troll was sweating profusely.

"Cypher!" Seraphina yelled. She grunted as she scrambled around the trolls as they still lay in the stairwell. The top troll stayed where he was, content to pretend to be a rug as he watched the young girl rush to his side. She helped him to his feet, putting his right arm over her shoulders.

The Spike at the top of the stairs quickly scrambled to his feet, climbing the rest of the way up to get out of their way. The one that Cypher had kneecapped had help to stand back up and hobbled his way into the living room.

"I don't know what you did up there," Tony said as they came down the stairs, "but it really changed their tune down here."

"Had to bring out… the big gun." Cypher said, smelling the tang of a smoke grenade, his head starting to spin. He would have tasted the carpet if not for Seraphina at his side.

He also saw an earth spirit of rock and rubies standing watch over the two trolls that had been on the couch while James held a third in an arm lock. J.J. was breathing hard as she held her gifted pistol with both hands, aiming it straight at Little Bill. The dwarf was doing a good impression of a statue of Atlas, holding his hands high in the air.

Then he saw the reason why he could smell a bit of smoke but not see any of it. Through the astral its presence was much more noticeable, the glowing and swirling mass of an air spirit. He figured it had helped blow the smoke out of the room.

"Boss! Harry 'n Cindy're out cold up here!" a troll bellowed from the stairwell.

Little Bill stared at Cypher, who only managed half a shrug back.

"Just stay up there!" Little Bill yelled back.

"Right then," Tony said, looking to Little Bill, "care to tell us what you know about Junior?"

Only Little Bill said nothing, his eyes moving to Tony, then the barrel of J.J.'s gun, and back to Tony.

"I think you can relax, kid." Tony told her. "Besides, word has it this redhead here has more mojo than her boyfriend. If he plastered two trolls in one spell she'll probably be able to level the place by herself." Cypher grinned in amusement. Tony was actually not far from wrong.

J.J. eased her stance, but still held the pistol in both hands, letting her aim drop to the floor. Once he was no longer in danger of being accidentally shot, Little Bill also relaxed, letting his hands down.

"Junior contacted us 'bout three months ago." the dwarf told them, "Made us an offer: he supplies the drugs, the Spikes sell 'em and get a generous cut."

"You ever see him?"

"Never. Sometimes one of his men delivers, sometimes I go pick it up. When I've gone I'm sure he's been there, but I've only dealt with his men."

"And where've you gone for these pickups?"

"The Gravity Bar or Murphy's Law."

"And probably no way to get in touch with Junior otherwise." Cypher said.

Little Bill shook his head.

"Burner 'links and text messages?" Seraphina asked.

"Aye."

"Well then, I guess we'll be going." Tony announced.

J.J. was extra careful putting her handgun back in the holster, not moving a millimeter before making sure it was secured. James released his prisoner slowly, making sure the other troll did not just simply crumple to the floor. Seraphina's earth spirit simply faded from the material.

Tony was the first one back outside, with Seraphina and Cypher right behind him. Suddenly he felt really weak in the knees, almost falling over and taking Seraphina with him. He could feel the spirit draining out of him, the colors of the astral world fading away to nothing as the spirit left for whatever metaplane he had called it from.

"You okay?" J.J. asked, rushing up behind them to help him back to his feet. "What happened to you?"

"Just the one service?" Seraphina asked.

"Yeah." Cypher answered.

"Never saw a cat shaman channel spirits before." commented Tony.

"That's why he looked…" J.J. started to say.

"I ain't a cat shaman." Cypher interrupted. He turned to sit on the seat of his motorcycle, deciding to wait for the world to stop spinning around a bit before straddling the machine.

"Well you were possessed by a spirit, and I've seen witches and houngan at work with their spirits." Tony said, "But neither of them showed a cat totemic mask."

"My spirit guide ain't some pampered house pet." Cypher growled, glaring at Tony.

"Magic is power," Seraphina added, "not some hippy, tree hugger love juice."

"So… you're not shamans?" J.J. asked. "I didn't think wizards got spirit guides."

"They can, but not always." Tony told her. "But these two aren't quite the hermetic type, either."

"There's more?"

"Many more."

"Look, to us magic isn't just some code to be defined." Cypher said, "Trying to make some Unified Magical Theory is bullshit."

"Chip true, no matter your view on magic, that spell kicked your hoop." Tony said.

Cypher sighed, and nodded.

James stepped around from the van, handing Cypher a small bottle of water and a little paper pouch. "Pain killers." he said.

Cypher accepted them both. The pouch had the label "BAYER" on it and held two little pills.

"How do you know all this?" J.J. asked.

"We've worked with a lot of mages in the past." Tony told her as Cypher popped the pills, "Mostly hermetics, few shamans, and sometimes something different. Also gotten a feel for when they pull too heavily on the magic."

"Best anti-magic's usually another magician." Seraphina added.

"Usually. So, feeling well enough to ride?" Tony asked.

Cypher asked, "Where to?"

---

About the time the pain killers had taken effect was when they got to their next destination, a bar towards the western edge of the Downtown scene called Murphy's Law. Along the way Seraphina had told Cypher that his skin had taken on a gray metallic sheen, like it had been infused with iron or steel.

Murphy's Law was one of those places in Downtown that had been around for many, many years. So many years that it still had a real neon sign proclaiming the name of the place. It was a bar that most people patroned for quality pizza and beer above the seedy atmosphere of the place. The place also had a reputation for secret rooms in the basement for high-stakes card games. Over time the quality of the food and drink had not wavered, though the haze of smoke and stench of stale beer continued to slowly seep deeper and deeper into the place. Still the place continued to draw steady business, and being within easy walking distance of the Gates Undersound Hotel helped to draw some of the tourist crowd.

But tonight was different. They had to circle around the block once to find a place to park as Knight Errant had blocked off the intersection of Cedar Street and Western Avenue, flashing red and blue lights washing out the glow of the bar's neon sign. And not just from half a dozen police cars but several ambulances too. The pulsing blue light helped to highlight the blood that stained the road while the red seemed to help cover it up, but neither could do anything for the dead and wounded that littered the street.

It also prompted everyone to stow their obvious handguns with their vehicles. Legal or not, most people did not openly wear weapons while Downtown.

Cypher started to feel a little sick to his stomach, and it was not the pain killers wearing off already. Less the flashing lights this looked to him like a scene from a war documentary, only with the smell of spent gunpowder and blood added in to enhance the realism.

"Athack's here." James told them. He led the way up to an ARO police line.

Noticing them Tosh walked straight over to them. "What're you doing here?" he demanded.

"Following up on a lead." Tony answered.

"What… happened?" J.J. asked. Cypher glanced over to her, and noticed she was looking a little green.

"Mob war." grumbled Tosh. "We're just getting the pieces 'n surveillance." Scowling he motioned for them to follow him into the marked off scene. He led them over to a pair of gurneys next to a DocWagon ambulance, and Cypher noticed there was a small form underneath the bloodstained sheet of one of them. He was careful enough to grab the sheet where it was not stained, and pulled it back to reveal the bashed in face of an elf girl that was probably not any older than seven.

"She and her mother were coming home from a shopping trip." Tosh told them, "Mom took a stray bullet to the side of the head, and the girl hit the side of the car." He pointed to a dark green GMC Commodore where it had crashed at the far side of the street.

Cypher felt Seraphina press tightly to his side, and he put an arm around her to try and comfort her. His eyes locked back to the girl's body, noting she wore a sky blue coat and had straight raven black hair, both now stained with her own blood.

"I think… I'm gonna…" J.J. went before rushing off.

"God damn it!" bellowed Tosh. He spun and punched the side of the ambulance. An EMT noticed this, looked Tosh over once, and clearly decided to say nothing about the dent Tosh had made in its side.

Tosh turned on them, still pissed and looking much more feral. "I want this guy!" he barked, "You've got your job!"

"How many…" Cypher started to ask.

Tosh growled before speaking. "Thirty-two dead, including eight from the Finnegan family and nine from the Shotozumi-Gumi. Even more wounded."

Cypher looked down at the troll's feet, gritting his teeth as he felt a growl rising up in his throat. Seraphina tightened her grip on him.

"What about security footage?" Tony asked.

"Over here." Tosh grunted.

Seraphina did not leave his side as Tosh led them over to a Knight Errant marked van. Tosh rapped much more gently on the back door. After a brief pause it opened from the inside by a scrawny looking kid, half of his head shaved bald and the other half dyed in a crazy array of colors. He had numerous piercings in his nose, ear, and lips as well as tribal styled tattoo markings around his neck. The rest of his clothing could be best described as an attempt at punk, though the fluorescent purple/pink of an anarchy symbol on the left sleeve of his blue synthleather jacket did not help.

"Tagger," Tosh said, "you get the surveillance yet?"

"Uh, yeah, but it's not much." the half bald kid said, sounding even younger than Cypher would have first guessed.

"Just keep your head out of Atlantis, you ain't bein' paid to play games." growled Tosh. "Give the kid here a copy of all the surveillance, 'n make sure you set the record straight."

"Uh, yeah boss." Tagger replied, giving Cypher an unsure eye.

"Maybe be easier if I jacked in?" Cypher asked.

"Uh, yeah, yeah." Tagger answered.

Cypher slipped from Seraphina's side and climbed up into the van. Like the crime trids it was decked out with a lot of electronics along the driver's side of the interior.

"Any one of those ports." Tagger told him, indicating to a collection of data jacks next to a physical keyboard. Cypher pulled the plug from its housing in the back of his skull, along with plenty of lead line, and jacked into one a random port.

"Alright, just give me a sec…" Tagger started to say, turning his attention to his own equipment.

The first thing Cypher noticed was the typical ping of data as his commlink and the surveillance computer began to communicate. It was immediately followed by a quick handshake, then a scan of his equipment.

"Whoa." muttered Tagger, "That's some serious…"

"Just give me the footage before I backhack you for it." Cypher told him.

"Um, yeah, okay."

Once the upload was completed Cypher pulled his connection to the van, letting the fiber optic cable reel itself back into his skull. It took only a thought to open up the file, creating multiple small AROs for each camera recording contained in it. Everything was already synchronized for playback, and as he hopped back down to the street he noticed there was a whole lot of nothing useful. He and Seraphina walked back together to the others. J.J. was back with Tony and James, still looking a little green as she held onto James to keep standing. No one bothered them as they left the scene.

Once they were well out of earshot, Tony asked, "Find anything useful?"

"Nothing more than someone did a decent job wiping a lot of trideo." Cypher answered. "Got bits and pieces of what happened, but I doubt there's anything to tag Junior in it."

"Junior's smart. He won't be here." James said.

"After a mob-yak shootout, of course not. The big players'll be gone and the thugs that can afford to go to jail'll be left behind for the roundup." Cypher said.

"So we hit the next place and hope that nothing's happened to drive our target to ground." Tony said.

---

The Gravity Bar was much closer to the heart of the Downtown club scene, and at the right time during a winter day would be in the morning shadow of the A.C.H.E. They had to park a few blocks down from the bar.

For a Friday night it was strange to Cypher that there was no line to get in. There were a few people standing about outside, all dressed quite nicely and fashionably.

Also at the door was a large ork in a suit and mirrored sunglasses. Cypher figured he was the club's bouncer.

"Hey, um, I can't go in there." J.J. announced. Everyone else stopped and turned to look at her.

"Any reason why not?" Tony asked.

"Well, um, see, I'm only nineteen. I, uh, I mean I… I'll be twenty next month."

"That's all?" Tony asked.

J.J. looked shocked at the question. "That's all?" she asked back.

"He can't stop you from going in." Tony told her, "And it's also not some private club so they can't legally discriminate against you for any reason."

"But that's a bar!"

"Just don't order anything with booze." Cypher told J.J.

"Seattle law does say you have to be twenty-one to drink, and they can legally refuse to serve you anything with alcohol," Tony added, "but you can drink water or any sodas, even at a bar."

"You're sure?" J.J. asked.

"Shit, this ain't the first bar we've been in." Seraphina said, "My third job took us to that really shitty hole in the ground south of the Warrens. Remember?"

"Oh, yeah, the one that ended up being a casino data steal." Cypher said.

"When was this?" Tony asked.

"'Bout two years ago." Cypher answered.

"We're way older than we look." Seraphina added.

"I'll bet." Tony replied, looking like he was not sure whether to believe them or not. "Anyway, point is you've been in bars before, even if you don't look legal to drink."

"Relax." Cypher told J.J. "The bad guys can smell fear."

J.J. nodded and fell in behind them as they walked up to the Gravity Bar's front door. The ork pulled out a MAD scanner wand from a deep pocket and gave it a wave over each of them. Cypher forced himself to be calm, not having had the time to try and hack the scanner to give a false report. It gave a tone on Tony at about where he would be wearing a concealed shoulder rig, and again for Cypher and Seraphina where they wore a Predator and an Ares Redline inside their jackets, but stayed quiet for James and J.J.

"Place's cool. Just keep the heat away." the ork told them.

No one said anything as they walked inside.

The interior was quite different than most clubs and bars that Cypher had been to. The lighting was low and synthjazz played softly from speakers concealed all over the place. The interior was two floors, with deep green carpeting covering most of the first floor. Most of the western side of the bar was dominated by the bar made of dark mahogany. At the far side, past thirteen tables and an open dance area was a set of stairs leading to the second level, a mezzanine with numerous couches and chairs with plush cushions of a rich wine red color. For staff Cypher counted three bartenders and half a dozen waitresses moving about, and about forty patrons in total. The air inside smelled clean, that dry filtered smell of air conditioning.

Still, there was something that sent a cool chill down Cypher's spine, something that just seemed to rub him the wrong way, though he could not quite figure out what or why.

"This way." Tony said, taking the lead as he walked deeper into the bar, making his way between the tables and the restrooms that were at the opposite side to the bar. The dance area had only a few couples, holding themselves close and barely moving to the slow music. He chose the stairway to their left, likely for no particular reason, and they all went up to the mezzanine. There they found a few couches and chairs grouped together that were empty. He took a chair for himself.

"So, how're we gonna do this?" Cypher asked as he and Seraphina both dropped onto a loveseat.

Tony's gaze swept down at the bar and across the mezzanine. "We relax a little, maybe have a drink." he told them, "A few people took a great interest when we walked in, so we let them have a little time to talk, maybe ask their boss about us."

"That's it?" J.J. asked.

"Ain't quite like the trids." Tony replied, "You don't just walk in, talk to the barkeep, and get all the info you need in a few minutes. His goons, if they're smart, would be expecting that."

"Think he knows by now?" Cypher asked.

"If he's got smart people, yes."

"I wonder just how smart." Seraphina commented.

"Well, word has it," Tony said, looking at Cypher, "you are supposed to be quite the hacker." He looked around the bar before adding, "Seems they got quite the eye in here. Would be nice to know what they've recorded in the last week or so." He then stood, saying, "C'mon James, let's go get some drinks." To J.J. he said, "Stay with them. Act like you're their babysitter while he works."

"While we work." Seraphina amended as Tony and James walked back downstairs. "And I like cherry!" she yelled after him.

With a thought Cypher opened up an ARO to track down the Gravity Bar's node. It was not all that hard as it was a public business. Then he checked his running programs and started off with a basic scan of the node. "Higher end, but doesn't look like they're running a whole lot for security." he said as he made an initial log in as a random guest.

"You blame them? Not like they're a mega." Seraphina said.

"True."

"Disarm and sneak in quick?"

"Not in VR. We can't make the drunk look work here." Cypher glanced at J.J. and noticed her confusion. "Don't worry. We got it covered."

It seemed to take forever working in the real world through an AR window, and Cypher did wish he could drop into VR to get away from the soft jazz music that saturated the place. Eventually the disarming program had neutralized the node's analysis program, helping to render them all the more invisible to their work.

Then came breaching the node's firewall, which again felt like it was an eternity to try and break through. So much longer actually that Cypher started to miss his ability to mesh the real and virtual worlds together so he could break into a network without physically looking like he was breaking into a network. Eventually he got in at an administrative level. He started looking around through the data within the node while he waited for Seraphina to break in. It took her almost twice as long to breach the firewall.

"Was it this much a pain in the ass when you started?" Seraphina asked him.

"Worse."

"Worse?"

"Yeah, didn't have… as good of software then. Would've either set off an alert or spent a few hours breaking in."

"Any place you'd like me to start?"

"Yeah, hit the pics and vids." Cypher told her, "I'm working through the accounting books right now. And just look, don't copy anything."

After looking around for a while they found a hidden file folder. In it they found files detailing both bribes and threats that Junior had given the bar's owner, Gary McCain. It also contained several trideo recordings from the internal cameras showing a Hispanic ork entering and leaving the club from the elevator by the main entrance. There were no recordings of this ork using the actual front door, and it looked like this ork in particular (the only consistent figure in each recording) was Junior based on the file names.

"Find anything?" asked Tony when he returned. James held a tray with numerous drinks on it.

"He's been bribing and threatening the club owner for a good while now." Cypher said. Having all they needed he closed out his connection to the bar's network.

"And he doesn't use the front door. Always comes out of the basement from the elevator." Seraphina added.

"We kinda think that the Underground's got an entrance in the basement." J.J. said.

"Makes sense." Tony said, sitting down after having passed around their drinks. "Fun part would be trying to get down to the basement and check."

"Can't we just use some other place, like the one under the Big Rhino?" asked J.J.

Tony shook his head. "A lot of the tunnels twist about before they reach the main caverns. We could end up a long ways from where he's hiding down there if we try a different entrance." He looked away, and Cypher followed his gaze to another group of couches on the mezzanine where four men were sitting.

"What is it?" J.J. asked, turning to look.

"Stop." Tony harshly ordered. "Just don't look. Kid, you got something?"

"Yeah, hang on." Cypher said. Looking at the men he used his implanted simrig to capture an image of the four and sent a file transfer request to J.J.'s commlink.

Speaking softly, Tony said, "There's about ten mooks in here…"

"Mooks?" J.J. asked.

"Mafia thugs." James answered.

The realization was quite clear on J.J.'s face.

"Relax. It's fifty-fifty if they know who we are or why we're here. Shouldn't be too hard to avoid trouble, especially if they don't know about Murphy's Law."

"Same family?" Cypher asked. After some suspicions of Angela Cairns they had done some research into the criminal organizations in Seattle. Again he felt a chill run down his spine, the same liquid ice water feeling as before.

It was no surprise that the Yakuza, Triads, Seoulpa Rings, Vory, and Mafia all had chunks of the Seattle underworld, and in the case of the Mafia there were three principle families. The top family was the Finnigans, led by Capa Rowena O'Malley, and word was she was more of a high-powered business woman than an old world gangster. Then there was the Ciarniello family, led by Vince "Numbers" Ciarniello, a man with the cold soul of an accountant and a calculator. Last, and certainly not least, was the Gianelli family, led by Joseph Gianelli, handled much of the Mafia smuggling and fencing in the southern part of the metroplex.

"Odds are too good not to be." Tony answered.

"At least it should be obvious that we're not…" J.J. started to say, stopping when Tony held up a hand.

"The other guys back there could've easily hired gaijin like us." Cypher told her. "And they won't look for evidence. Suspicion's all they'll need, or want."

"So how're we gonna get down there?" Seraphina asked. "They'll notice us taking the elevator down."

"And I'm thinking we probably should." Tony said, "I'll bet real money that the dwarf talked to him long by now, so he knows someone's tracking him. Drink up, then hit the bathrooms."

They were not in any rush to finish their drinks. Cypher figured the longer they stayed, making some idle conversation when someone walked by, might help put the Mafia thugs at ease. It seemed to take a bit longer for J.J. to look more relaxed, and he figured the novice elf had been expecting they would be in and out of the club in a matter of minutes.

It was close to twenty minutes from when they had first sat down, drinks now finished, that they left. Per Tony's suggestion they all used the restrooms to relieve themselves before he led them over to the bar. All the while, Cypher still had a slight chill feeling at the back of his neck.

After a short chat with one of the bartenders, partly to convince him that they knew there was an entrance to the Underground in the basement, and everyone had fronted a hundred nuyen, they were all led over to the elevator by front entryway.

The astral… Cypher heard whispered in the back of his mind, thoughts not his own but a voice both menacing and familiar. He turned to look out at the club, pushing his perceptions to the parallel astral world. Turned out spotting what was giving him that chilled feeling was not too hard to do.

At the edge of the tables closest to them was a spirit of man. It wore a long blue coat of some heavy material, a matching blue helmet that looked almost like it was a bell, and in one hand it held a truncheon. Its eyes blazed a bright blue like a clear summer sky, and it was clearly upset with his presence. If Cypher guessed that something was holding it back, some order or command, otherwise he expected it would have attacked him by now.

And up on the mezzanine, glowing around the shadows of the walkway, was another spirit of man, watching him with the same blazing angry eyes.

Cypher felt a hand at his shoulder, a gentle tug backwards. From the feel of it he knew it was Seraphina, so he slowly stepped back, keeping his gaze focused on the closer spirit. It watched him, making no move to attack, simply watching until the elevator doors closed between them. Only then did Cypher let his view of the astral world fade away.

"Everything alright?" Tony asked as the elevator began going down.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's chill." Cypher said.

"You sure? You looked like you were about to jump that couple there." J.J. said.

He turned to look at the others, but mostly to Seraphina. She looked a little scared, but a lot concerned. "I'll tell you later." he softly said to her.

About then the doors opened up to the basement. The bartender went first, leading them past a set of wine racks and between some racked shelving to the far end of the basement and into a room with a door labeled "Electrical Closet." In truth it was less a closet and more a small room, and back in a corner, was a trap door. The bartender produced a ring of keys, selected one, and used it to unlock the trap door, and their first steps to the Underground.

---

A lot of people have no idea just how huge and expansive the Underground really is. For most all they know are the tourist tunnels, the "Goblin Market" and other such caverns that are friendlier to Topsiders than most. Beyond all the more brightly lit areas and the matrix coverage is a labyrinthine maze of tunnels and other caverns for the residents of the Underground, and somewhere in that mix the true Goblin Market.

They had spent over an hour just asking questions, though Tony did most of the talking while his brother stood nearby. J.J. learned quite quickly just how friendly the locals were towards elves, getting the cold shoulder at the best of times. It was less so while they were in the Tourist Highway, but still Cypher noticed the scowling looks from some of the more grizzled residents.

"Is he really here?" J.J. asked when Tony and James came back from talking to yet another merchant.

"Probably." Tony answered, "But the community's so tight knit they're not gonna give us the chip truth."

Cypher noticed a young ork boy rushing up to them. "Hey, you the guys askin' 'round 'bout Junior?" he asked. The kid, even shorter than Seraphina, looked familiar. It took just a thought for his facial recognition software to go into action, and it returned the details on an ork boy named Pip.

"Yeah Pip, we are." Cypher said before Tony could say anything.

"Great!" Pip cried, his eyes lighting up. Then his gaze fell on Seraphina, and he suddenly turned very serious, for an eight year old. "You burn any Skraacha?" he asked her.

She shook her head. "They haven't tried to shoot me." she said.

"Oh, okay." Pip said, nodding his head slightly. "Good, I've been lookin' all over for you! Come with me!" He trotted off, looking back like he was expecting them to follow him. "Johnny Torinni wants to see you. Says he can help!"

"And where's Johnny?" asked Tony as they all started to follow Pip.

"The Gold Mine."

The Gold Mine was a prominent bar and club on the Tourist Highway, and Cypher noticed that the boutique and souvenir stand were still in business. The entrance was styled to look like the entrance to a mine, circa sometime in the 1700's, along with wooden crates, shovels, and pickaxes that all turned out to be fake and part of a fixed display, and a hand-lettered wooden sign above it that simply read "Gold Mine." And Pip led them in right on past the bored looking bouncer at the entrance, waving at the others to follow him.

"What's that about burning Skraacha?" Tony asked as they walked down the tunnel.

"First time we came down here we got caught in a fight between the Skraacha and Reality Hackers." Cypher said, "One of the Skraacha thought Ashley was one of 'em."

"Had to set him on fire." Seraphina added.

Tony apparently needed nothing more. The attack had made all the media outlets, so most everyone in the city knew about that fight.

The tunnel was short, dark, and dropped about a floor before reaching the nightclub proper. The club was dimly lit but well furnished. A large bar dominated one end of the club, with a raised stage for exotic dancers at the other end. Tables and booths were well placed all about, and neoclassic rock music pulsed from numerous speakers, giving rhythm to an attractive young ork to dance and writhe to. Pip slowed a bit as he snuck glances at her and the other women on stage.

The young ork ultimately led them to a booth towards the back. On the couch was an immaculately dressed Italian ork with olive skin, his tusks polished a pearly white that contrasted well against the dark blue and gold of his clothes in the low light. At his sides were two well dressed ork women, one Caucasian with short curly blond hair, the other a more petite (by ork standards) African with large gold hoop earrings and her straight hair tied back and high in a ponytail. When he noticed them approaching, he politely shooed the women away.

"Welcome, welcome my friends. How do you like my club?" he asked. Cypher gave him a good look, letting his facial and voice recognition programs record what they could through his eyes.

"Looking like you're doing rather well." Tony replied as he took a seat on the opposite couch. "You know who we're looking for."

"Oh, it's not just this place too." Johnny told them. Cypher looked away to scan the bar and the other patrons, "There's many more places that I have investments in."

"He's the richest guy in the Underground!" declared Pip.

"Maybe, but it's not the money that's important to me." Johnny said, pulling out a credstick and handing it to Pip. He mussed the young ork's hair before he rushed off. "No, I want this place to thrive. Not this bar, but the whole Underground."

"And Junior?" Tony asked.

"Tell you what," Johnny said, "despite being able to pay people I'm still a little short handed for a few jobs. Not that I can't pay, but…"

"The risk outweighs the reward." Cypher finished.

"Bright boy." commented Johnny. "He's right. Some of this is a bit dangerous. And I think I could use some people like yourselves to help pitch in. Honest to ghost, you help me out and I'll tell you what I know about Junior."

Tony sighed. "At least we've got some time. What's the job?"

"Probably jobs." Cypher added. "Too easy to have one and done." He gave Johnny a critical eye.

"You are a bright boy." remarked Johnny. "Anyone ever tell you you're quite the precocious child?"

"Several times." he answered with a predatory grin.

"Ya gonna tell us, or are we gonna have to work these one by one?" asked Seraphina.

Tony gave her a sideways glance before looking back to Johnny. "She's got a point."

"It's nothing serious, and I'll need time to make some arrangements." Johnny told them.

Cypher sighed. Seraphina groaned just a little.

"Guess we'll take you up on the offer." Tony said.

"Great." Johnny said, showing a lot of teeth when he smiled. He pulled out his commlink and thumbed the interface. "Here's the address to a business of mine, Topside Construction. It's up north in Snohomish. It's nothing serious, really. Construction materials and supplies, but gangs have kept hitting the convoys."

"Protection and escort detail. Sounds easy enough." Tony said.

"I'll let the foreman up there know you're coming in the morning. He won't have a driver ready until then anyway." Johnny told them, "You can all go home and get a good night's rest for the job."

Cypher received a message from Tony, a text with the address for Topside Construction, 20030 Forest Park Drive, which put it just on the south side of the boundary between Snohomish and Downtown.

---

Leaving the Tourist Highway and getting back to the surface at Lordstrung's was not too difficult, though it took a little longer getting out of the luxury department store when Seraphina spotted something in the girls' clothing department and the summer clothes that were being put out by the staff. After a bit of time of wishful thinking they headed back out the way they had come in. The others were waiting for them.

"Got your window shopping done?" Tony asked.

Seraphina only glared at him.

"Anyway, there's a couple ways we can do this." Tony said.

"Split and meet at Topside in the morning." Cypher said right away.

Tony gave him a questioning look.

"Thinking of getting the Pack?" Seraphina asked. The Pack was their nickname for the collection of six GM-Nissan Doberman and two ATT Soldat drones, most of which Cypher had collected from various jobs in Denver two years ago. Only two had actually been purchased, one of them at a black market gun fair out in the middle of nowhere of the UCAS Sector in Denver. That drone, later named Ravage, had been a retired UCAS Army Doberman drone, and probably one of the luckiest purchases Cypher had ever made.

"Ya know, I still haven't gotten all of them fixed up." Cypher commented, "Naw, I think just three of them will do."

"Do I want to know?" asked Tony.

Cypher paused to think about it, then said, "No, probably not. At least, not unless it becomes necessary."

Tony sighed. He did not look pleased, and likely had an idea what Cypher was alluding to. "Fine. Let's hope we don't need them."

Cypher gave him a short nod.

"Right then," Tony said, "I expect they'll be wanting to get their cargo moved early, so let's try to meet up there by six in the morning."

They all went their separate ways. Cypher and Seraphina did not go to their home in Renton, but instead went to their hideout down in Auburn, so close to Puyallup and Tacoma that you could just about spit and hit either district depending on which way the wind was blowing. It was also where they kept most of their drones, their truck, and other provisions for that "just in case" kind of emergency situation. Along the way they stopped off at a twenty-four hour pharmacy store, at Seraphina's insistence, to pick up a quality medkit and supplies. At Cypher's insistence he footed the bill for it. When they got to their hideaway she used it to help treat the damage he had done to himself from the spell. He felt a lot better after her ministrations.

Together they checked over the three drones Cypher had planned on taking, Ravage, Rumble, and Frenzy. The latter two had a full load of explosive grenades in their under mounted Ares Antioch-2 launchers, but they all did not have a full load of ammo for their machineguns. He mentally kicked himself for not seeing to getting more ammo for them at some point.

Sleep did not come easy for Seraphina that night, her squirming occasionally waking the both of them more than once. By morning she finally confided in him that she kept thinking about the girls, the one at the brothel she removed the puppet chips from and the other little girl that died outside of Murphy's. Having no real idea of what to say all Cypher could do was hold her close while she fell back into a fitful sleep.

The next morning the three Doberman drones were loaded up into Ironhide's bed and different identity chips in their more disposable commlinks, with the other chips hidden inside of Cypher's cybernetic hand. They stopped off at a McHugh's for breakfast along the way, the still overcast sky slowly brightening in the east as they went. At least the weather predictions were calling for less rain.

Topside Construction was a large and bustling construction company not far off from the I-5 and 104 interchange. Part of the property was row after row of yellow-orange construction machinery of various types, further in were several warehouses that likely held various building materials within. Even at the early hour the place was already bustling with activity.

Tony and James were also already there, talking to a male ork wearing a button-up denim shirt, jeans, and a red hardhat. Next to him was a female ork with blond curly hair and a rather petite frame (for an ork), also wearing jeans, a heavier denim jacket, and a Seattle Screamers shirt underneath. Cypher told Ironhide to park just behind their van, putting on his goggles as the truck did as it was ordered. Seraphina put on her goggles as well.

"Glad you could make it." Tony said as they were getting out of their truck, his breath visible in the chill dawn air, "We just need our fifth and we'll be ready to go."

They did not have to wait long, hearing J.J. on her racing motorcycle driving up. She stopped at Ironhide's driver's side before killing the engine and getting off, the motorcycle balancing itself on its own two wheels.

"Right, now that we're all here," Tony said, "for the sake of good manners this is Jim Johns," he indicated to the ork in denim, "Liz Schneider," he indicated to the petite blond ork, "J.J., Cypher, and Seraphina." he finished, indicating to the last three in kind.

"Names kids these days have." Jim muttered.

"No, not free spirited parents. Just our nom de plume." Cypher replied.

"Oh, you're one of those types." Liz said.

"Shadowrunners, actually." Tony said. "They may not look it but he's actually pretty good with computers and she's got a reputation for her magic. They'll be taking up the rear guard and network over watch. J.J.'s on point for a forward scout, and we'll be just ahead for whatever the need calls for."

"Almost sounds a little like too much on the trids." commented Seraphina.

"You can still learn some stuff from them." Tony countered.

"The route's pretty straight forward." Liz said, "We get on the I-5 right up here and take it down to the I-90 interchange down around the stadiums to get onto Alaska Way South and head up to the A.C.H.E."

"We got a map for this route?" Cypher asked.

"Sure do." Tony answered. A second later Cypher received a file prompt, an image file of a map and route to their destination just as Liz had laid out.

"What's really in the truck?" Seraphina asked.

"Concrete and plasticrete mixes, metal beams, wooden beams, that sort of stuff." Jim answered.

"Should be a cakewalk." Tony said.

"More like a milk run." Cypher amended, looking to J.J.

"Um, where are your bikes?" J.J. asked.

"Gave 'em the day off. Brought our truck instead." Cypher answered.

"And some other stuff, just in case." Seraphina added.

"You really think it's necessary for all that for construction materials?" Jim asked.

"It's more of the have and not need kind of thinking." Tony said. "Hopefully whatever they've got in their truck stays in their truck."

"Fine by us." Cypher replied.

"If we're all set now, I'd like to get going." Liz announced.

J.J. seemed a bit nervous about driving point at first, but seemed to relax some once they were on their way south on I-5 once Cypher had set up their group chat so everyone could talk to each other.

"Remember J.J., the hauler can't go anywhere near as fast as you can." Tony told her, "Keep to the outside lane and about eighty. This's completely legit and we're not in any rush."

Cypher glanced again at the array of AROs before him. One in the middle showed the trideo feeds from the front and rear cameras mounted in Ironhide with three more smaller AROs were off to his left, one for each of the Doberman drones in Ironhide's bed. They were currently showing only their ready status. The Dobermans themselves were ghosting, unlike Ironhide that had to broadcast an identification signal, and were set with modified transceivers to hide their connection to Cypher's implanted commlink. Seraphina, with a nearly identical commlink implanted in her head as well, had access to all of these trideo feeds, though how much attention she was paying them he did not know. Considering the vacant look in her eyes as she watched the city go by, odds were she was not paying them any attention at all.

No, odds were that she had at least summoned one spirit after sunrise. He thought he had felt something just before they had arrived at Topside. Figuring that another could be of some help, and he could use the practice, Cypher closed his eyes to focus on calling a spirit of his own, something fluid and quick. He could fell it as it came to him, a water spirit, flowing to him like a snake in water. Not so much in words but in feeling he knew it was there for one service.

"Called a spirit?" Seraphina asked.

"You could tell?" Cypher asked back, slowly opening his eyes to see the back of the semi truck's trailer.

"You're still closing your eyes when you try to call a spirit."

"Oh." he said softly.

"Just practice more." After a pause she asked, "How many services did you manage?"

"Just one, like the last one."

"Don't sweat it. Or, null sheen, I guess. I couldn't manage more than one or two when I first started…"

"Drek!" J.J. yelled. Through the falcon drones Cypher could see her pulling her Shuriken into a sideways skid in an effort to come to a quick and complete stop. Just ahead of her it looked like someone decided to change lanes to make the North 85th Street turnoff and forgot to signal or check for traffic in the blind spot, and the resulting collision had just about blocked off all lanes of traffic. At least Tony in his van and Liz in her GMC Hauler had more than enough room to slow down.

"Hope Torinni's not in any rush." Tony commented. "That wreck looks nasty."

That's when Cypher heard the roaring engines, not through the window as many vehicles are sound resistant to muffle the sounds of humming tires, wind, and the vehicle's engine itself, but through the added microphones he had put in next to the tricked out cameras the truck used to see the world around it. It sounded like several motorcycle engines to him. They roared right on past Ironhide, seven of them he counted. Motion higher above caught his attention, and while seeing even an old MCT-Nissan Rotodrone was not exactly a rare sight, the way three of them were moving like they were shadowing the bikers.

"We've got trouble." Cypher told the others.

"Looks like Halloweeners." Tony added. "I think they're interested in the truck."

Cypher growled just a little. "Red alert." he said aloud, a keyword for the Doberman drones and Ironhide. Then into their network he said, "Liz, get to whatever cover you can in there and stay inside."

"J.J., make sure you stay clear, get everyone else outta the way." Tony ordered.

Ravage was the first one out of the bed of the truck, with Rumble and Frenzy right on its flanks. As they came around to Ironhide's side Cypher could better see the Halloweeners, each in black leathers with orange bandanas tied around their arms, a flaming Jack-O-Lantern on their backs, and each wore a different kind of horrific Halloween mask. Most were handling their Suzuki Mirage motorcycles with one hand, holding AK-97's that had their stocks removed in the other. Already he was designating them as targets for the Dobermans.

The Halloweeners started introductions by shooting up the side of the truck.

Field of fire: clear, Ravage reported. It was not only networked with Rumble and Frenzy, but also through Ironhide's sensors to feed data into its tactical network software.

Cypher did not hesitate to give the order.

The go-gangers were understandably surprised when heavy machinegun fire erupted from behind them. They all dove from their bikes, making it hard to tell who got hit and who might have gotten lucky. Cypher gritted his teeth when he noticed a blinking red icon in Frenzy's ARO, its Ares MP-LMG reporting catastrophic damage from the first shot.

"Shit, lost a gun!" Cypher cussed into the network.

"Looks like they got air support. Focus on that, we'll take care of the rest." Tony replied.

Cypher checked the sensor feeds from the Dobermans and it looked like he was right. The three rotodrones were circling back and it looked like they were turning their attention to the Dobermans. He shifted their targeting to the aerial drones, and while Frenzy's machinegun may have been out of the action, its grenade launcher was still listed as ready. It had already switched over when it recorded the loss of its primary weapon. He gave the order to fire.

With a thwump Frenzy shot first and while the lead rotodrone tried to evade it ended up taking the grenade directly. Its midair explosion was spectacular, immediately followed by a secondary explosion from its fuel tank. Ravage and Rumble followed up with a burst of machinegun fire of their own at the remaining two rotodrones, though their targets were able to evade the shots. The rotodrones tried circling wide, but Ravage was already coordinating with the other two. The move was too predictive, and the former UCAS Army drone and Rumble had their shots lined up, explosive bullets detonating inside the armored bodies of the flying tin cans. They both exploded in midair.

Ravage immediately went back to targeting the Halloweeners on the ground. Field of fire: obstructed, it reported. Cypher did not need it to tell him when he saw Tony and James slugging it out with the gangers.

"Great, we got the cops coming now." J.J. announced.

"Shit, that was fast." Cypher remarked, "Must've had units on the highway already."

Tony took a step back from the ganger he had just bodily thrown. "You two pack it up and get outta here. We'll hang back and feed 'em a story."

"Cutting comms." Cypher replied, ending the chat network.

With a few mental clicks Cypher gave the command to withdraw to the Doberman drones. Ironhide partly muscled its way out from behind the GMC Hauler, slowing just enough for the Doberman drones to jump up into the bed before gunning the engine for the getaway. The racing truck bumped aside a rather surprised Halloweener and crushed a Suzuki Mirage before making its break around traffic and the wreck. The I-5 ahead of them was relatively clear and the truck put its powerful engine to the use it was built for. Once it looked like they were in the clear he leaned back into his seat to relax.

Cypher had almost forgotten about the spirit he had summoned just a little bit ago. It was less in words and more in an impression of what he wanted: to know if there was pursuit. He got the feeling back that there was no one or nothing chasing them, and he could feel it was still with him. His next request of it took the one service it owed to him, helping conceal Ironhide from notice, which it would do until sunset.

The next available exit from the highway was a few kilometers further south, and at a more casual pace the off road racing truck pulled over to exit onto regular surface streets. Along the way Cypher cycled its colors, plates, and broadcasted access ID to something completely different. The Timberwolf left the I-5 a silver truck, and entered a quiet neighborhood a bright yellow with a few black racing stripes. It continued on at a leisurely pace towards Green Lake, turning south to go around a good sized recreational park. All the while Cypher kept glancing back to Seraphina. It did not look like she had gotten hit or anything, but she looked like she had fallen asleep. Ironhide had turned south onto Aurora Avenue North by the time she stirred.

"You okay?" Cypher asked.

"Yeah." Seraphina softly answered, carefully working out any kinks she might have had in her joints. "It takes a bit to get back if my body's moved."

"Oh, you went… projected?"

Seraphina nodded with a grunt. "It was easiest to see if they had magical backup." She stretched a little, pulling her left arm up against her head. "And they had a magician. He had a few spirits, so we took care of them." She switched to her right arm, mirroring the stretch. "Smart to have your spirit help hide us."

"You noticed?"

"Made it harder to find my body." She sighed contently as she put her arms back down. "So, what's the plan?"

"I guess we keep moving, hide, until Tony sends us a message." he told her. "Kinda hard to miss the grenade launcher after Frenzy had to shoot it."

"Yeah. You can blame that mage for it. That was no accident. Well, it sorta was."

"One of his spirits?" Then he remembered, where some techomancer sprites could cause computers to malfunction, so too could a spirit cause a more physical malfunction. A spirit could have caused anything to happen to make the car wreck that stopped them, and the bullet to explode in Frenzy's machinegun. "Oh, yeah. Now I remember."

Feeling a light touch on his right arm, Cypher looked over to see Seraphina reaching for him. She had taken her goggles off, so he removed his as well. A hint of a smile appeared on her face and their hands found themselves, their fingers lacing together.

It was a good while later by the time Tony had sent them a text on where to meet up with them. The rendezvous had been timed to where Ironhide could pull up behind the GMC Hauler just after they had exited the I-5. The rest of the drive back up to their destination was uneventful.

An open warehouse door and many orks were waiting for them, and J.J. pulled her motorcycle aside to let the Hauler by. Cypher noticed that many of the orks wore the brown and gray of the Skraacha. One of them motioned to them, waving to where they could park.

"Crazy ride, eh?" Tony asked as he met Cypher and Seraphina behind Ironhide. The Timberwolf was already opening up the back end at Cypher's command. He ignored the bounty hunter to climb up onto the tailgate.

"Pain in the ass is what it was." Seraphina answered while Cypher worked his way back to Frenzy.

"Shit." Cypher cussed when he saw the damage to the Doberman drone's machinegun.

"What happened?" asked J.J.

"Spirit induced accident." Seraphina answered.

"Explosive round detonated in the action. The whole load feed is fucked up." elaborated Cypher.

"That bad?" Tony asked.

Cypher backhanded the damaged weapon in frustration with his cybernetic hand, the sound of the blow quite audible. He gritted his teeth as the pain sensors triggered.

"It is." Tony said, answering himself.

"Can I try something?" asked Seraphina.

Cypher said nothing, but offered a hand to her to help her up. She then went over to Frenzy and placed a hand directly onto the damaged part of the machinegun. He was quick to push his perceptions to the astral, watching as a nimbus of fire began to grow about her and the Ares MP-LMG, the power focus she wore at her neck glowing like a small star. Her sorcery was quite noticeable, quite powerful from what he could see, but then it had to be in order to have any chance to affect the machinegun. The more high tech, refined, or processed the materials were the harder it was to get magic to affect them. She did not frequently work this spell, and the first time Cypher had seen her do it was to fix a bullet hole in the fairing of the Katana-11 motorcycle he used to have. Thing was that the action assembly of a machinegun was a whole lot more complicated than a sheet of layered fiberglass and resin.

And the more powerful the spell the longer it took for the damage to repair itself and stay fixed. Though it seemed much longer it was only half a minute before the spell faded away.

Seraphina sighed as her hand slipped away from the drone. "I don't think it quite finished the job." she said.

"Anything's better than nothing." Cypher replied, closing his senses off from the astral. He hoped that he could become strong enough to work such a spell on his own, and that he would remember how the magic energies flowed through the damaged machinegun as the forged metal had slowly bent itself back into its original shape.

"It's gonna be a little bit for the truck to get unloaded," Liz said as she walked up to them, "and before they can get all the cargo ready to go underground. They'll let us chill in the break room until it's done."

"We're not done with this yet?" J.J. asked.

"Guess we're going under again." Tony said. "Makes sense. Gotta see the cargo to its destination."

J.J. sighed.

"And what about our vehicles?" Seraphina asked.

"They'll be just fine parked where they are right now for the time." Liz answered.

"I hope so." Cypher replied as he jumped off of Ironhide's tailgate. "You saw what my drones did to those gangers back there."

"Actually. I told them that your truck would drive itself over them if they messed with it." Liz told him as Seraphina jumped down. "It did quite a number on that one guy."

"So, um, how'd you get your truck to do that?" asked J.J. as they all walked toward the warehouse.

"Situational programming." Cypher answered. "It's set to ignore people and vehicles under certain circumstances."

"Like go-gangers on the highway?" asked Tony.

Cypher only nodded.

The break room was not all that comfortable, with the hand plastic chairs and poor ventilation. But it served well enough until the GMC Hauler was unloaded in favor of half a dozen pickup trucks. Cypher and Seraphina managed to ride together in one of the trucks as they drove into a tunnel and into the Underground. They apparently did not have to go too far as it was not long before they reached what looked like another warehouse deep underground.

Johnny Torinni was also there, waiting for them. "Ah! It's good to see you all are well!" he said as they all got out of the trucks. "I'm sorry, I honestly had no idea that particular truck was gonna get hit."

"Devil's luck was with us." Tony told him. "These two decided to pack some serious firepower."

"Scared the drek outta me." J.J. added.

"Shit, that was nothing." Cypher replied. "First time I brought those three, and two more like 'em, on a job I ended up running out of ammo. Not just them but my own handguns too."

Tony whistled. "Do we want to know how many shots?"

"Well over a thousand rounds, mostly explosive ammo, and a dozen high explosive grenades." Cypher told them.

"Just what were you up against that you needed that much firepower?" Torinni asked.

"A few dozen ghouls."

Seraphina chuckled. "I remember that night. Sorta."

"Yeah, DocWagon hired us to track down a few missing patients. Ended up saving about a dozen ork women from becoming breeding stock for ghouls."

Torinni looked like he was about to be sick. Cypher wondered who might throw up first, him or J.J. who was looking quite green.

"So I suppose you've got another errand for us?" Seraphina asked.

"Yeah, I do." Torinni answered, "Well, two really." He waved for them to follow him, continuing, "First is a run to The Narrows. It's mostly a bunch of caves where the destitute have gathered."

"We're not clearing 'em out." Seraphina sternly declared.

"Hardly. You're going to be delivering food and other supplies to them." Torinni countered. He stopped at a collection of bicycles that had small trailers attached to them, with Pip standing next to them. "It's a little ways off, and with as much as I usually send this really makes it easy. Pip's been there before so he'll show you the way. My regular guys have come down sick, so I'll ask you to fill in for them. Just make sure to steer clear of the ghost gator." He chuckled. For what Cypher had been able to gather, the ghost gator was an urban legend, supposedly an albino and awakened alligator that someone had flushed down a toilet.

"After that I would ask you to go to the Goblin Market. Some of the merchants there have been having problems with the Bot'Kham, getting shaken down for protection money. Pip can show you there, too, and you should get there just before they do."

"You mean we gotta get back here?" J.J. asked.

"This ain't the real Goblin Market." Cypher countered. "Here's just for the tourists."

"Real one moves about." James added.

"And I know where it's at!" Pip excitedly told them.

"Might as well get going." Tony said, sounding about as excited as Cypher felt.

Everyone got on a bike, with Cypher and Seraphina getting their own bikes with a smaller load. Pip ended up getting a ride with James. Cypher noticed a dejected look on the ork boy's face as he tried to sneak a glance at J.J. as James took the lead.

"I want to hear all the details when you get back!" Torinni called out at them as they pedaled out onto the Tourist Highway.

Even despite the damage that had been done last year, the damage that had yet to be fully repaired and the shops yet to re-open, there were still plenty of people walking the Tourist Highway. Towards the farther end Cypher noticed a section of the cave wall that was still soot black and untouched save for pictures and other tributes and mementos left for those lives lost during the fire.

Pip gave directions for which tunnel to take, and after several kilometers of hard pedaling through twisting tunnels Cypher figured they were starting to get close to The Narrows. It was mostly by the smell at first, a hint of sewage and burning materials. As they got closer the smells got stronger and the air itself became just a little hazy. When they reached the cavern Cypher could see numerous little campfires, the makeshift and ramshackle shelters, could smell the incinerated chemicals in the smoke, and more to him just the feel of oppression and hopelessness that infused The Narrows. The Underground was by no means an example of prosperity, but how he saw the truly destitute living here made Cypher feel like the rest of the residents were rather well off, especially those close to the Tourist Highway. After seeing this it was no wonder that many in the Underground believed that all topsiders were really wealthy.

Everyone pedaled their bicycles slowly through the cavern. Occasionally Pip would call out a hello to the few others he seemed to recognize. Their final stop was one of a few side caves, the entrance boarded up with a simple wooden wall and a door large enough for a troll to pass through, with a sign that named the cave "St. Mary's." Above the door, carved into the rock, was a Christian cross.

Pip was quick off the bicycle and did not bother knocking as he barged into St. Mary's. "Grandma!" he loudly called out in a way only a child can. Looking around Cypher noticed they had drawn quite a crowd. Everyone that had noticed them coming through The Narrows had gotten up and followed them.

"You can feel it here, can't you." Seraphina softly said to Cypher.

Cypher paused for a bit, taking in a slow and deep breath, not to smell the air but to still his mind and just feel the place. It felt no more here than when they entered The Narrows, but still he felt it.

"Oh, thank you, thank you!" said an older woman from behind them. Cypher looked back to see an elderly ork woman coming out of the door. He was half expecting her to be dressed in a full habit like a nun, but instead she wore worn and patched sweats and a sweater, her gray hair long and tied up in a bun at the back of her head. "Please, this way." she told them, holding the door open. "Just bring the bikes in, it's alright."

J.J. went first, pedaling her bike through the open doorway, with Seraphina and Cypher right behind her. Once they were through the tunnel and in the next cave he saw that St. Mary's was setup as a soup kitchen. Numerous long tables and cheap folding chairs were laid out in rows, and towards the back was the kitchen and serving area. Pip waved them to one side, a path still wide enough for the bikes and trailers heading all the way back. Along the way Cypher noticed that St. Mary's was illuminated entirely by electric lights. Likely it was the only place in The Narrows that even had electricity.

"Is it always like this?" asked J.J.

"I'm afraid it is." Grandma told them. "Ever since these tunnels were found during the Night Of Rage. Even then most of the survivors were already starving."

"It could be worse. It doesn't seem that bad." Seraphina said. This drew some harsh looks from most everyone else.

Then Tony spoke up. "Kid's magical. Both of 'em, actually. She's probably going by how bad things just feel around here."

"Despite how things might… feel around here," Grandma said, "it's still bad."

Seraphina looked like she wanted to say more, but she turned to look back at Cypher when he put a hand on her shoulder. When it came to spirits and other things in the astral, things that went bump in the night, they knew things could be a lot worse in The Narrows. There were a few types of spirits that actually fed off of the emotions of hopelessness and despair, which apparently there were none in or near this cave.

"Right. So where do you want all this stuff?" asked Tony.

They all helped unload the trailers, most of which were foodstuffs of various kinds, mixed in with some medkits and other supplies. With Grandma's guidance, and profusion of thanks every few minutes, everything was put to where it was supposed to go. Once everything was put away they were on their bicycles again and pedaling away with empty trailers with Pip guiding them to the real Goblin Market.

It took longer to get from The Narrows to the Goblin Market than it took to go from the Tourist Highway to The Narrows. Judging by the mapping his Ares Globetrotter orientation system was doing they had ended up taking half of the same tunnels back up north, going around the Tourist Highway cavern to reach the Goblin Market. It was also pushing close to 11.00 by the time they got there. The Goblin Market was not exactly in a cavern, as Cypher had thought it would be. It looked like the walls were roughly dug out from a twisting tunnel, though some plasticrete pillars had been put in for support. It was also a flea market, with most of the vendors using folding tables or portable stalls to display their wares, and many had their own illumination as well in the form of oil or battery lanterns. What was available ranged widely and almost insanely. One table had an array of commonly available handguns ranging from the massive Ruger Super Warhawk down to the colorful yet tiny Shiawase Arms Type K2072 holdout pistol, and next to it was a cart holding an array of fruit, followed by another table that looked like it was a sampling of everything from a local Radioactive Hut.

"Weird. There's usually a bunch of Skraacha walkin' 'round." commented Pip as Cypher and Seraphina each bought a pear from a fruit vendor.

Cypher did what he could to look around, again cursing his short stature around all the regular adults. Best he could tell, however, were that no orks here were wearing the brown and gray of the Skraacha.

Pip took them on a winding path between numerous tables and stalls, and ultimately to a back corner stall run by a plump and matronly ork woman who had half a dozen children working around her. Her tables were much more varied, ranging from electronics to camping gear to clothing. They were also not far from another tunnel that led into the Goblin Market.

"Pip-kun!" she cried. Pip was quick to hop off Jame's bicycle and rushed up to the ork woman, who welcomed him with a warm hug. She then plucked a yellow apple from a back table and handed it to him. He readily accepted the apple and took a big bite out of it.

"I guess we should be speaking with you about what's going on here." Tony said as he more carefully got off his bicycle. Cypher noted that she gave him a wary look. "Torinni sent us."

"Ah, Torinni-san. Si, Si. He help here. Tell when Knight come so we move."

"I'm Tony," Tony told her with a slight smile, "and this's my brother James. Real brother, same parents."

The ork woman looked James up and down, eyes wide with disbelief. "Andrea Romani." she replied.

Cypher let his gaze drift from the two as they talked, half listening to the conversation as he looked over the Goblin Market as best as he could. Seraphina tapped him on the shoulder to show him a couple of crates they could stand on. Climbing up was not too difficult, and it sounded like from the worn wood that they would hold their combined weight.

Aside from the fact that the place was completely illegal, the Goblin Market seemed like any other kind of marketplace that Cypher had been to. Most of the tables and such were operated by orks, but he noticed several humans that he figured were representative of the Yakuza, Vory, Triads, and Mafia here as well. He took a bite of his pear, slurping up the juices from the ripe fruit, contently watching everyone doing business without regard to affiliations or race, all mixed together like the rainbow of colors in a bag of sprinkles.

And again he noticed no ork wearing the brown and gray of the Skraacha.

"Poor Andrews-san," he heard Andrea say, "he walk with a limp now. He not lucky. Others lose stuff or it broken, smashed."

"Why'd they do that?" Seraphina softly asked, "If they can't sell anything they can't pay. And how're they supposed to buy stuff to sell if they ain't got any money?"

"Because they're stupid trogs." Cypher answered, intentionally using a derogatory word for orks and trolls, a word that often implied stupidity. "They're only thinking of the big bucks now."

"Hey!" Tony interrupted. They looked at him and he continued, "We're gonna go talk with the other merchants. You stay here and keep a watch out. Andrea says the Bot'Kham usually come from that tunnel." He indicated the close by tunnel entrance, "We're gonna go try and help the merchants out some, see what they can do to help us."

"They're not gonna help fight, are they?" Cypher asked, taking another bite of his pear.

"Honestly, I don't think any of them will." Tony told them, his eyes scanning the cavern towards the cave entrance. Then he looked up to the both of them and said, "Hope you've got more tricks up your sleeve. Another spell like what you did to the Spikes the other day and we'll be in a lot of trouble."

"Yeah, we got more tricks." Seraphina told him.

"Right. Just hang here and be ready." Tony told them as he walked off.

"Guess we call up some help while we wait." Cypher said aloud. He figured he would need a more powerful spirit than the elemental he called at the Spike's drug den, so he slowed his breathing and calmed his mind as he brought himself to his center. It took him longer than he expected before he was able to get a spirit to answer.

You dare pull me, summoner?

I dare, Cypher sent to it, I dare and you are mine, by the ancient pact. Until the sun sets or I tell you we are done, my orders are for you to obey.

By the pact I will obey, but only one task is yours, upstart summoner.

Slowly Cypher opened his eyes, not realizing he had clenched them shut. His whole body was tense, his feet spread shoulder wide and hands at his hips. Slowly he let the tension out of his body. The spirit he had called, a guardian, was relatively more powerful than he, and such stronger spirits tended to take a dim view of being summoned by anyone weaker than them. He even recalled the times where Seraphina had to mentally brow-beat some spirits because of how powerful they were compared to her.

But then Seraphina had a few more advantages. She was a dedicated magician while he was a mystic, and some of his magical potential went to fueling other abilities. She also had much more skill and experience with dealing with spirits, substantially more powerful, and had an extra edge from the power focus she wore at her neck. He decided he would need to see about getting or making one of his own, which would really aid him in his magic in general.

"You went bigger this time." Seraphina said, slipping an arm around his waist. Of course she would know.

"Took a few times." he softly said, "I could feel the power, how it wanted to burn me like that spell did." He took a couple slow and deep breaths, putting an arm around her. "Feels like it's still not enough. I need more." He felt a reassuring squeeze.

But the time for words was over when a group of boisterous orks came into the cave. From the reaction of the merchants they had to be Bot'Kham. For a few seconds he wondered what Tony was expecting of the two of them. Maybe he had a plan for J.J. and figured he and Seraphina would be able to just jump in and improvise something.

"You must be of the Bot'Kham, here for your weekly extortion." Tony said, brazenly walking up to the orks.

"And what of it?" asked one of the orks.

"Well, you see, there's been a change of plans." Tony told him, "You leave now, don't get paid…"

One of the orks took a swing at Tony. Cypher figured he was either too dense to think beyond not getting any money or actually smart enough to figure out what Tony was going to tell him. It did not matter as the orks had decided what to do next.

Separating from Seraphina and dropping his half eaten pear, Cypher gestured with his hands, putting his mind to his center as he drew in power for a spell. He knew where his limit was and took it only that far before unleashing a thunderbolt at one of the Bot'Kham. There was a crack of thunder, bright flash of light, and the targeted ork went sprawling into two of his friends. He could feel the excess energy feeding back at him, about half of which he was able to funnel away.

From an outstretched palm Seraphina unleashed a stream of fire, catching another ork as he was starting to help one of his fallen friends back up. Her casting was much more elegant, fire falling from her hand like water from a garden hose. The ork abandoned his friend to drop to the dirt floor, rolling about in an effort to put out his burning clothes.

Tony and James were already mixing it up with other Bok'Kham as Cypher and Seraphina dropped down from their perch. Their sorcery had been witnessed, and a few of the Bot'Kham in particular were rather wary of the two human children before them.

"Takin' it easy on 'em?" Seraphina asked.

"A little." Cypher replied, his eyes bouncing from one ork to the next. Attacking children was one thing, something that many gangers had little qualms about, but the awakened was something different. Rare was it that someone could cast but a single spell, and now Cypher wished that he had something to help in close combat beyond channeling the guardian he had summoned, which he wondered if he could keep control if it entered his body.

One of them decided to attack, clumsily charging between his buddies at the two of them. Cypher and Seraphina split, letting him stumble between them. Cypher was quick to spin back around, bringing up a booted foot to catch the ork in the gut. It did not slow the ork down and Cypher almost fell over when he lost his balance.

Materialize, fight the Bot'Kham and drive them from this cave, Cypher ordered his spirit.

Your one service will be done.

The spirit appeared androgynous, with mirrored skin that danced with flecks of static electricity, its head leonine with a mane of black fur and eyes the color of a clear summer sky. It waded straight into the fight, slamming its fists into two orks and knocking them aside.

From behind two more orks went flying aside. Most of the Bot'Kham scrambled away as a spirit of dirt and rubies as tall as a troll joined the fray. Instead of fists it looked like it had a pair of ruby studded maces.

One of the Bot'Kham screamed in terror and ran from the Goblin Market as fast as his feet would carry him.

"Let's buzz!" Cypher heard one of the Bot'Kham yell. Those that could stand gathered their friends, helping those they could to follow their fleeing compatriot. Only one needed to be carried out by two others, the one that Cypher had struck with his thunderbolt.

"Well, that spirit of yours was certainly a new trick." Tony said as he walked up to them. Cypher noticed he was already sporting a good bruise around his left eye. "Would love to know how you pulled that off."

"Trade secret." Cypher replied.

"That seemed a lot easier than I expected." commented J.J. as she walked over to them with Pip practically in her shadow.

"Couple of kick ass spirits'll do that, I guess." Cypher said, glancing back just in time to see his guardian spirit vanish completely.

"Especially when they don't have any magic of their own." Seraphina added.

"You're sure?" Tony asked her.

Seraphina shrugged as her earth spirit crumbled to disintegrating dust. "I asked my earth spirit to go after the awakened ones in that bunch. It told me there weren't any, so I just let it bash whoever it wanted."

"But what if they come back?" asked Andrea.

Cypher sighed, but he knew it was not quite as simple as having the merchants do any fighting.

"We can start badmouthing the Skraacha for letting another gang walk their turf and collect money." Seraphina said. "Make it look like they're fat 'n lazy."

Andrea looked appalled.

"I'm afraid we can't really deny that." Tony added. "If the Skraacha were doing their jobs around here this wouldn't have happened."

"Just add in that a couple of human kids did what they wouldn't do: scare the shit outta a bunch of grown orks." Cypher added.

"Besides, we'll talk with Torinni and see what he can do to help get the Skraacha back over here." Tony said. "Hopefully they'll be back before the Bot'Kham regroup after licking their wounds."

"We're gonna go look around a bit." Cypher said, "Yell when we're set to go." Tony gave him a look as he and Seraphina walked off.

"Not that important?" Seraphina softly asked.

"I don't think there's much more we could contribute." Cypher told her. "Besides, I kinda wanted to get away a little to try and think, clear my head." He had not gotten far when they reached a table where a large ork had an array of knives on display.

"See somethin' ya like?" the ork asked.

"Maybe." Cypher replied, eying one larger knife in particular.

"Go ahead 'n get a feel for it." the ork told him.

Using both hands, Cypher gently picked up the large knife. It did not seem to weigh all that much. It had a curved tip and was sharpened all the way down one side and about a third of the way on the other side.

"Cougar's version of the ka-bar." the ork told him. "Their quality on a tried 'n true century old design. Great knife for a tool or fightin'."

"Might be a good idea to get one." Cypher said aloud. He took the knife in one hand, holding it simply up to look at the blade. He then flipped it around in his fingers, reversing the grip to hold the flat of the blade against his forearm, looking at it and feeling how it felt against his arm. Another twirl and he had the blade upright again. "How much?" he asked.

"You like? Take it." the ork said with a smile, "For what ya did to those thievin' bastards."

"Not a chance." Cypher told him, putting the knife back down. "You gotta make some cred off this. Shit, I don't care if ya sell it at cost, I ain't gonna just take it."

The ork smiled and just chuckled. "Chip true, then? Right, how's about two-seventy-five?"

"Got another?" Seraphina asked.

His smile never wavering, the ork pulled a matching blade from a box underneath the table.

"Right, let's do this." Cypher said.

The ork handed him a chip. "Put the money on this." he told them.

Cypher took the chip, slotted it, and added the money. He then pulled it and passed it to Seraphina, who did the same. When the merchant got the chip back he slotted it, and his smile grew. "Enjoy." he told them.

"C'mon! We're leaving!" Tony yelled at them.

They each grabbed their new knife and hurried off to catch up to the others. Taking their bicycles again they left through the same cave entrance that the Bot'Kham had used, though it was not long before Cypher figured the orks had taken a different passage than they were taking on their way back to see Torinni. Along the way Pip told them that Torinni was going to meet them at the Gold Mine.

The Tourist Highway was actually not all that far away from the Goblin Market, though Cypher noticed that the two larger caverns that they had passed through were strictly residential only. It did not seem too hard for him to believe that Topsiders would not be eagerly welcomed here, and word would quickly pass to the Goblin Market for everyone to clear out well before a Knight Errant raid could possibly make it there.

The Tourist Highway was busy when they got there, slowly pedaling up to the entrance of the Gold Mine. An ARO stated that the club was closed, but the doors were open anyway. They left their bicycles outside and headed in anyway.

Most of the lights inside were off, and no one could be seen except for Torinni who was sitting in the same booth when they had first met him. He smiled as they approached. "My friends, excellent job. You performed your errands perfectly."

"Hey, Pip," Tony said, "could you watch the bikes, please? We'll catch up outside."

"Okay." Pip said, looking a little dejected. Still he headed back outside.

Torinni sighed, his smile fading. "Now it's time for me to hold up my end of the bargain. When I told you that I could help you find Junior, that was true. You see, I am Junior."

"What?" Seraphina yelled.

Cypher had less than a second to react. He turned on Seraphina, grabbing her tightly and pinning her arms to her side and spun them both around so their backs were to the ork. "Let me at him!" she yelled, fighting against Cypher. He could feel her gathering power, sorcery or summoning he could not tell which. "Let me at him!" Despite how furious she was, how much she struggled against him, he managed to call a spirit, drawing it into himself almost immediately, and the existence of the astral world with it.

"Let me… at him…" Seraphina sobbed, her body suddenly going limp and her aura shifting from extreme anger to something more distressed. Still he held her, but stepped around to face her, the pinning hold turning into a more caring embrace. He knew full well that she could more than easily magically clobber him, banishing any meager spirit that he could possibly conjure, yet still she did not put her all into resisting his efforts.

Then he looked up to the others, seeing them all staring at the two of them, Torinni the most surprised and shocked by Seraphina's outburst. He cradled Seraphina as best as he could with one arm, he used his free hand to lift up his goggles so he could look Torinni in the eye. He knew the ork saw something in his own eyes.

"Don't know what you've heard about them, but I think you might've just gotten a reprieve." Tony said, sounding a little bit nervous himself, something that was much clearer in his aura.

"I, ah," Torinni stammered, "Yes. Well…"

"Talk, and we'll consider it." Cypher told Torinni.

Torinni slowly stood, stepping out from the booth but then leaned back against the side of the bench seat. "I am proud of my ork heritage, and proud of the Underground and what we have built here. We are castoff, forgotten by the Topsiders, ignored by the city. That racist pile of drek Governor would just as soon see us buried here in the Underground, for this to become our grave. We're an embarrassment to him and to the city.

"All I've wanted to do was help my people to flourish, to thrive. A few years ago, I wanted to start my own business, but I needed some money. I turned to the Finnegan family for help, started doing a few odd jobs for them. With the money I made, I bought this place, and turned it into a real tourist spot. Every day we get a hundred Topsiders coming in here to see my girls, drink my booze, and most importantly, spend their money. So I took that money, and started investing it here. I helped other businesses get started, both tourist traps here on the Highway as well as others such as Andrea's shop in the Goblin Market. I was also able to help out people like Grandma and her homeless shelter.

"Then last year tragedy struck. Alamos 20K struck. I'm sure it was under Brackhaven's orders. After all, if he could burn out the Underground's major source of income, we'd just dry up and die, yes?" He took a deep breath and let out a slow sigh. "The damage to the Tourist Highway was terrible. The businesses lost, the deaths. The damage to the core tunnel structure cost several million nuyen to repair alone. I tried appealing to the city council, but I couldn't even get in to see them."

Torinni looked off to the bar before continuing, "So, as I did before, I turned to the Finnegans. They saw what I had done down here, knew I had a head for business, and offered me a rare opportunity. There was an opening in their downtown operation. The Yakuza had knocked off the boss who had been running things. I accepted." He looked back to Cypher and the others. "It was a chance to make some real money, money we sorely needed down here to rebuild. Within a month, I bought a construction company and renamed it Topside Construction, to aid in that rebuilding effort.

"It was dirty business, but so what? It was humans, Topsiders I was exploiting, using. No offense to you folks, but fair is fair, right? After everything we've endured, starting with the Night Of Rage, it was time we took something back. I'd willingly sacrifice a hundred Topsiders if it meant saving even one of my own people."

Cypher felt Seraphina tense up against his chest, and could not blame her. At least she seemed to be really listening to what Torinni, Junior, had to say. It would be another matter entirely if she actually considered why he did what he did.

Torinni continued, "Now I know that you're working for that District Attorney and her pet attack troll. And while I tried to keep my identity hidden, I knew it was a matter of time until someone managed to figure it out. I was hoping I had more of it, though. And hiring shadowrunners, that's awfully ballsy of her. Not the most legal thing to do, you know?"

"Remember our job." Cypher whispered to Seraphina. "We're here to catch him." Still he could feel her tensing, like a trap ready to spring.

"Legal?" Seraphina asked, her voice half a growl as she spoke. She turned in Cypher's arms, part way, just enough to where she could look at Torinni. "You helped finance a sex pit, a monster that kidnapped little girls and turned them into fuck toys, and… and…"

"And you're whining about 'legal'?" Cypher finished, his own voice even and dark.

"A little girl died last night!" Seraphina yelled, "Your fuckin' goons thought they'd shoot it up with some Yaks, and more innocent people died! I don't give a shit if they're ork or not, Topsider or not. It doesn't fuckin' matter!" She did not fight Cypher as he held her close.

There was a long, painful silence before Tony spoke. "Well, I think I know where you were about to go with this," he said, turning to look at Torinni, "A counter offer or two, a plea to our nature. Something for the good of the Underground?" He looked back to Seraphina and Cypher. "Unfortunately to most, no amount of philanthropy will wash away a heinous crime or two."

"Don't we all get a say?" asked J.J.

"Bring him in." Seraphina growled.

"I'm backing her up." Cypher added, resting his cheek at the side of Seraphina's head. His eyes were hard as he looked at Torinni.

"James?" Tony asked, turning to look up at his little brother.

James said nothing as he reached into a pocket and pulled out a set of handcuffs. Torinni hung his head as he willing turned his back to the troll, hands behind him so they could be cuffed.

"Majority vote. You're coming with us." Tony solemnly said.

"So, um, then how're we gonna get him out?" asked J.J. "I mean, he's known here, loved here."

In his arms, Seraphina slipped a hand up to touch one of her earrings. It was the enchanted one. "I can take care of that." she said softly, calmly. She eased herself from Cypher's embrace, standing on her own to face the others. "I can make him disappear, invisible, and he walks out with us."

"And if he tries to make a break for it?" Tony asked.

Seraphina reached into her jacket and pulled out her Predator. "Killed trying to escape custody. Right?" Cypher felt a chill run down his spine. As angry as she still was he wondered if she just might slip and shoot him anyway.

Torinni looked a little pale. Compared to Pip she might have looked about the same age as the ork boy, but standing before him was something much, much more terrifying: a stone cold killer.

"And here I thought Cypher was scary as all drek." Tony commented.

Torinni simply nodded.

Seraphina put her Predator away, and Cypher could feel the buildup of power again just before Torinni vanished from sight. Through his spirit he could still tell that Torini was there, under a veil that concealed the ork from sight, the spell itself quite bright as it surrounded him.

With a thought Cypher released his spirit, and with it went the astral world. He pulled his goggles back down and accessed one of the sensors that were built into them. Among other things was an ultrasound sensor, and with it active Torinni's location was as plain to him as if he were not invisible at all. "Just so you know, we can see you." he said for Torinni, tapping his goggles when he noticed the ork turned around to regard him.

"Our ride will meet us just outside The Big Rhino." Tony told them. It sounded like he had already been in contact with Tosh.

Silently the six of them left the Gold Mine and headed for the passage to The Big Rhino's entrance to the Underground. True to his word Torinni made no effort to resist or try to escape.

Tosh Athack was outside, waiting for them with a dozen other Knight Errant officers. Tosh was none too gentle in shoving Torinni into the back of a squad car, muttering something about a "fraggin' cop killer," and though the ork did not look too happy about the rough treatment he offered no protest. Once Torinni's ride had been settled Tosh gave each of them a silver colored credstick and thanked them for a job well done.

It was a long, quiet, and uncomfortable walk around the A.C.H.E., back to the warehouse where their vehicles were at. For Cypher and Seraphina it would be a very quiet ride home.

---

Joelle could not believe her luck, or how quickly it changed from good to bad. Then again, considering the devil's luck those two had maybe it had been a bit much to expect a bunch of dumb Halloweeners to be able to take down a pair of skilled shadowrunners, even as collateral in the raid.

Her luck had held when she learned they would be escorting a cargo truck from the northern end of Downtown, and it had been easy enough to get the go-gang to attack it with a tipoff that it was carrying military weapons. At least they had been predictable enough to hit the truck.

What she had failed to predict was the level of brutality that the two would be capable, and willing, to use. She had heard that they had a bunch of security drones with machineguns, but she had honestly not expected them to be brought out in the middle of the daytime for anyone to see. Even so, not only had the three been deployed but one of them confirmed that it had also been armed with a grenade launcher. It galled her that the two had managed to get away and practically disappear, again.

But they could not stay hidden forever, that much Joelle knew. And sooner or later they would get caught.