A Night in the 'Plex

“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...