“Hello!”
Jolt
started; he was walking along in Redmond-earplugs shoved into his
ears and punk rock blaring into it at an unhealthy volume as he
usually had-and could still hear the shout of the man standing
outside of the strange building; it was called the Octagon, and it stood out like a beacon if you stood on one of the taller buildings of Redmond. He reached into the
pocket of his synthleather jacket-it was still spring, and evenings
were still chilly in Seattle-to turn down the volume of his player.
“Please,
have a few words with me!” He looked like he was about pass out
from excitement.
“Uhh...”
he slid the small earplugs out and turned around. A man stood-wearing
a suit, looking fairly clean-cut and unexceptional. He was holding a
pile of pamphlets in his hand; other people of all metatypes-mostly
humans, but a few others-were milling about, either holding
pamphlets, getting handed pamphlets by a couple of the other people,
or trying to sneak a peek inside of the place.
“Yes?”
he finally said, after turning the music off. He had liked this song,
too.
“You
look lost.”
“Actually...I
know my way around pretty well. I visit this area a lot.” It wasn't
a lie. A few of his friends-a bit more rougher around the edges-lived
around here. He was going to visit one now, in fact, who happened to
be at a place called the Rusty Barrel. He doubted this guy had ever
been there.
“No,
not like that. In life. The Brotherhood can show you the truth.”
“...Truth?”
Jolt raised his eyebrow, scratching the datajack on his temple. He
shifted his bag, which held a cyberdeck and a few other various
things. It wasn't his 'baby'-that was a supreme deck whose cost would
probably amount to more than some shadowrunners may see in a
lifetime, built up since he was only about sixteen-but it was good
for jacking into Shadowland and dropping or trading basic
information.
“Truth!”
the man said, still sounding way too excited. Some of the people had
started to try to back away from the other two that were outside-a
man and a woman-who were likewise just a little too...direct. “Did
you know we all-humans and metahumans-come from the same tree, so to
speak? We are all one, and the Brotherhood is here to help bring us
together in these trying times.”
This
guy's a few numbers short of a SIN. He
slowly took a pamphlet from his outstretched hand before he possibly
popped a vein and glanced down.
The
pamphlet was innocuous enough, though had a very sleek and
streamlined look, which Jolt found a bit strange.
The
Universal Brotherhood had been gaining chapters around North America
and the rest of the world, for that matter-he didn't know exactly how
many, just heard some mumblings about. But for an organization that
ran soup kitchens, had a clinic that took care of the less fortunate for apparently little to no cost, gave beds to the homeless and
espoused the equality of humans and metahumans, it had a
very...sterile and almost even alien look to it. The building was a
tall, sleek thing that had been built in the middle of
a rather seedy area of Seattle, a stark contrast to the more run-down
and dirty plascrete buildings about. The area around it was very
clean for Redmond; just a half a block away the streets began to be
litter-filled again.
It
almost had the feel of a sort of cult, though he did not know of any
leader. Generally, in his experience with a few cults that had popped
up over time-usually some sort of magical conspiracy stuff-they would
have a fairly public and charismatic leader getting people in.
This place was just a bit bizarre in that regard. He had heard of a sort of 'religion' in
the past that the Universal Brotherhood had analogues to, but he
didn't know much about it. He had heard some rumors that the place
had some shady tax stuff going on, but since that was fragging anyone
with a lot of nuyen nowadays he didn't particularly take much stock
in it. He had also heard some weird rumors of them recruiting people
in droves in some areas. There was some info that had floated around
the Matrix from the early 2050s that Jolt remembered reading, but it
was apparently said to be either the ravings of someone on one two
many BTLs or spent way too much time in the conspiracy theory
chatrooms. He had a chummer, Kyra, who liked those rooms and while
she was fairly straight-laced, she could
occasionally spout some weird drek. He recalled she had some stronger feelings about this place, but some of the stuff he read was so far-fetched that his usually rational mind had a lot of trouble believing all of it.
Looking
around-sort of wanting to get to his friend before he was too drunk to spill the info he said he had-he decided to flip through the pamphlet. Most of it was the
same drivel this guy and his friends were spouting. One or two of the
people-looking quite scruffy and down on their luck-seemed sort of
interested in the place.
He
didn't particularly like all of the the rumors, though-particularly
the ones that people would disappear; especially those that did too
much digging. It was another thing that lent the idea that there was
something just a bit
wrong with this place. He could not confirm nor deny these things,
though. At the end, he knew very little.
“So!”
the man said, after Jolt looked up with a fairly uninterested look on
his face. “Please, think it over. You do not need to come in now.
The Universal Brotherhood will be here and continue to grow. Decide
in good time if you seek the truth!”
“Yeaah...”
Jolt crumpled up the pamphlet, rolled his eyes, and walked away.
Glancing back as shoved his earplugs back in, the man did not seem to
take notice; he had already began talking up another victim.
“Fragging
weird.” He continued on his way, winding through the trash-strewn
streets and buzzing neon until he got to the scuzzy looking bar that
had been his destination until he was interrupted. Looking around, he
saw the denizens of the city were moving out and about; it was about
eight, if he were any judge, and despite it being a Wednesday, people
in this part of down would go out and start getting wasted. Not that
there was much else to do, as the unemployment rate in this district
was pretty extreme.
Seeing
a tall figure leaning by a building-a small red glow in the dark
showing that he was smoking a cigarette-he saw his chummer was
already outside waiting. Inside, he imagined there would be a few
more people milling around, but more would be showing up later.
“Hoi!”
Jolt called, picking up his pace. The other young man walked forward,
snorting.
“Keepin'
me waiting.”
“You
know the transit works like drek to this place.”
Nate
was the name of the fellow; and he was actually an ork-though he
looked human. Some metas, when they changed or were born in their
forms-had more or less human features. Some elves and orks were
shorter than their usual six-four average, others taller. Some elves'
ears were much less pointed, some dwarves were taller, and some
trolls shorter. Nate almost lacked tusks-you had to look really close
since he didn't have much of the underbite-and seemed to barely be
able to grow body hair, despite orks tending to fairly easily. The
brown hair on his head was worn long. He was wearing a shirt with the
sleeves ripped off, the band on it mostly unreadable, as was the
penchant for the extreme underground metal bands he liked. From a few
feet away you couldn't even tell he was an ork, which sometimes put
him at odds with anti-metahumans once they found out.
Until
they tried something with him, that was. Ork or human, a six and a
half foot tall spiked-up metal singer tended to chase people off
rather efficiently.
Mostly
he played guitar and sung in a black metal band; when he donned the
telltale corpsepaint, this tended to cause people to keep a wide berth. Jolt and him had gone back, though, and he provided the
decker with useful information from the street. He was also a 'guard'
of sorts to Jolt when he had to deal with matrix duties on his own
time. Jacking in made you vulnerable; you were working inside the
system, but your meat bod was outside and practically running on
basic motor control. A good chummer who could bash off attackers was
a boon, though he wasn't much of a 'real' shadowrunner. He stuck to
kneebreaking and general street jobs.
“Yeah,
yeah.” He pulled a smoke out of his pocket and tossed one to the
lanky decker. “Shame you missed the gig. Was a good one.”
“I'll
catch the next.” Jolt could tell Nate-who also went by the nickname
of Alastor while onstage-hadn't even scrubbed away all of the
corpsepaint yet. He was pale, as he was mostly night-based in his
activities, but the spare white paint still in spots on his face and
chest and the bits of black around his eyes that were left gave him a
very eerie appearance still, and Jolt thought he could still see some leftover stage blood on him. The Rusty Barrel played all sorts of heavy,
grating music from punk, to hardcore, to straight up black metal and
grind; generally, the more raw, the better.
Nodding,
he pushed the door open to the smoky and run-down looking bar. The
smell of cigarettes, the odd cigar, soycaf and synthahol assaulted
his nostrils; it was a bit stuffy in the place despite the fact it
was only about fifty degrees outside. The two young men pushed their
way to the bar as Nate flashed two fingers and pointed in front of
them.
“You
can get the next four,” he said. He scratched at his arm; on it
Jolt noticed he had gotten some more ink done. He actually had some
pretty extensive work, all of it sort of demonic looking.
“So,”
Jolt started, grabbing the synth-beer plopped in front of him by the
surly looking bartender and taking his deck out. “What do ya got?”
“Mob
is movin' around,” Nate said, adjusting himself on the stool. “I
heard from someone who occasionally does jobs for them that they're
getting some sorta nuyen from higher up.”
“The
mob?” Jolt's eyes glanced around, making sure they were okay. The
bar was blasting some sort of heavy music, and it was filled with
enough lowlifes to let him know they were likely okay. He didn't
bring any of his weapons with him, and while he knew Nate could fight
enough for the two of them, alone Jolt wasn't terribly scary. He was
handy with a club to be sure and had his stun baton in his army
rucksack, and Downfall had shown him some basic self defense, but
that was about the extent of it. He had left his guns behind tonight, only liking to use them when absolutely necessary.
“Yeah.
Getting apparently big money for something. Bigger than most
organized crime can supply. Corp cred.”
“Why
would a corp shell out big cred to the mob?” He scratched his
temple again as he would do, taking a drink of the cheap beer in
front of him. “You'd think they'd be able to get whatever they need
from elsewhere.”
Nate-who
was often helping out various syndicates as a strongman when he
needed cred-shrugged. “Corps obey their own laws. Only thing I
could think of is maybe they wanna stay low.”
Jolt
nodded thoughtful. “Yeah, that makes sense. Other corps may
well have spies and such, moles, whatever. Maybe they think if they
try to get something from another corp they'll know. Of course we
don't know what that thing is. Drugs? Who knows what they got. Maybe
they got some sorta way to do somethin' else with it.”
“Hey,
this is your area, chummer. I just drink, hear things, hit people and scream
in a band.” He downed his beer. Jolt waved the bartender over to
buy them both another.
“If
I wanted you to accidentally hear a thing or two, how much more would
you need?”
Nate
shrugged, grinning. When he did this, Jolt could just about see his
tusks, but you had to actually know they were there.
The
decker rummaged around in his rucksack, taking two small chips out along with the planned certified credstick.
He handed them to him. “How about a couple hours of that gig you
wanted along with...imported versions of a few of those yet-unreleased games you had
your eye on?”
Laughing,
the young man took them. “Now you're talkin' my lingo.” Jolt,
in his spare time, dabbled in pirate trid broadcasting, and managed
to collect quite a few copied and bootleg items which he could use
for 'barter' for certain things. While some people wanted cold
cred-which was understandable-because he and Nate were friends for
about three years now-a lifetime in the shadows-unless the
information was seriously dangerous, they often traded each other
goods such as this. He usually included a little cred alongside, given he knew most of Nate's jobs tended to not pay particularly well. Half the time they paid each other in beer.
“Wiz.”
He waved over two more beers for the pair. “Just get in touch when
you find something.”
“Right.
Also, I got one more thing for ya. Figure since you're buyin' right
now and we go back I'll throw it in.”
Jolt
raised an eyebrow, scratching the shaved side of his head. His hair
was cut into his usual telltale long, braided mohawk which he had
pulled back.
“Some
of the informants hang out in a room in the Matrix that has some sort
of name like an Italian restaurant. I can't remember the exact name,
but you might be able to run from that.”
He
nodded. “Easily. Can't guarantee I'll find it of course but I think
I can track it down.” Taking a pull of beer from his glass, he sat
back around and lit another smoke. He took his deck out-no one paid
it much mind due to it being a bottom of the line piece that looked a
bit battered on top of it-and plugged in the screen while plugging another line into his datajack.
“Watch
for me,” Jolt said as he began to send out a few notes to his
buddies to get to looking. It didn't take him long to jack back out.
Nate had watched his gray cybereyes almost roll back as he did this;
he was only there physically, as what usually happened when someone was decking.
“That's
so weird.” Nate was no stranger to cyberware-he had a fair few
things plugged into his bod to help him hit things harder, though it
wasn't the highest quality-including a datajack, though whenever he
plugged into something it was never a cyberdeck into the matrix; it
was always something minor like a port to a motorcycle or something,
all of which left him totally in control.
Jolt
shrugged. “You get used to it. I told people what they needed to
know.” Lighting another smoke-he had forgotten about the one he
had, and it had burned out-he sat back on the stool, letting the
blaring punk music relax him.
“Guess
where we'll see where this heads.”
The
larger young man nodded, drinking off half his beer in a gulp. “Just
promise me you'll try to make a gig.”
“Of
course.” He held his fist up, the other man bumping his into it.
Within
a few more minutes, someone was crashed into the wall near the bar.
They notice the person was one of Nate's band's roadies. The big
fellow stood, walking menacingly toward the people who did the
shoving in the first place. They paled.
“Here
we go...” Jolt muttered to himself, laughing as he sat back with
his beer to watch to see how far the perpetrators would be thrown
tonight.
--
For
folks who know the lore; this story actually takes place just some
months before the truth about the UB actually gets out. I'm not sure
if I want to spoil it in case anyone decides to play Shadowrun
Returns...;)
This
is just a little story to showcase another one of the main
characters(like, the team are all fairly main, it's just Downfall is
usually the more 'POV character' I use since he's my table
character.) Still, this goes to show some of the more
information-digging aspects of Shadowrunning, going about the
underworld/street level and finding out what happens at that end,
too. Corps have their fingers everywhere, including organized crime.
It's
sometimes nice to have a chummer on the street you can trust! As well
as throw a few back with...
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