| From: | jaimie.nicholson@********.otago.ac.nz (Jaimie Nicholson) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Will talk for food |
| Date: | Mon, 27 May 1996 18:49:34 +1200 |
This,
chummer: I saw some strange drek going down in the docks area last night, I
mean, it scared the hell out of me.
So I'm down at the docks, right, by this warehouse, and I'm moving along
the edge, you know, looking for somewheres out of the wind and acid rain
and drek, and I see these five japanese guys coming towards me in the
shadows. They're packing SMG's and they've all got the same uniform body
armour right? So, drek, I'm thinking, It's a fragging corp hit squad. What
the frag do I do? So I back up, just turn and run, and they don't cack me,
guess they don't want to alert whoever their target is. So I keep going for
a half a minute, round a couple of corners, and just about get bowled by
this fraggin Westwind. It stops, and this guy gets out, and he's as ugly as
hell. There's this big scar down across the left side of his face, right,
and on some guys that's a trademark, or it looks fraggin "rakish", or some
other drek out of a romance simchip, but on this guy, it's just fraggin
ugly. So he goes "better clear out chummer, there's going to be some
trouble here". And I'm thinkin no drek, chummer, no fraggin drek. So I go
past, and this chick comes out of the other side of the car, and ye gods
and little chickens, she's as sexy as the guy was ugly. She's got this
distant look on her face, and she must be one of them fraggin shamans,
cause her face goes all like a fraggin eagle, you know, beak and golden
eyes and all. She says "they're here", and the guy looks pissed. "We can't
pull out" he says "Forte?". He must have gotten an answer, from a radio I
guess, cause he says more: "Yes, I know". Then he's looking at me like I'm
a demon from hell come to spy on him. So I do my "I'm a harmless squatter"
routine, slide off, don't want to get geeked by this guy, not if I can help
it. So I'm moving away, and I notice that the retractable fire escape on
the warehouse is down, which is strange. And here's where I make my first
big mistake, chummer, I climb up the fragger instead of running like hell.
I get on to the roof, and I take a look down through the windows up there.
Now I've got a fragging good view from up there, and I can move around lots
too. Someone else must have had the same idea, cause there's another couple
of guys up there too. The first looks ordinary enough, but he's got this
gleam in his eye that I don't like. He's dressed all in black, the same
colour as his hair. It's for camo I guess, but maybe he thinks it's cool as
well, and it's probably as armoured as an armoured thing. He's looking real
intent on what's happening down below, through the big windows. The other
one looks like a sammy, bodyguard I guess. He's a big mother, wearing what
looks like a military surplus armoured jacket, and packing an HK-227. I get
a little bit of distance between me and them, and take a look down there.
Those corp boys I saw earlier are advancing into the 'house, and they're
moving nice and slow, covering each other, and drek like that. I hear a
squawk and some tinny radio-type japanese coming from the direction of the
other guys up here, and I guess one of them is listening in on the corp
freq. Must be some expensive gear to do that, I mean if they're corpers,
they've gotta have encryption and drek. I understand some of what they say,
it's mostly about "you go there", "Dave, cover Bob", that kind of
drek.
Then there's something about a wanderer coming here to get someone, but I'm
far away from the other guys up here, and I can't hear it all. I glance at
them, and the smaller one's looking down there, and he seems confused, from
his body language. That makes two of us, I'm thinking, how many damn teams
are playing here tonight? So, I'm looking at him and wondering, and
suddenly there's this big fraggin explosion, and I'm moving back from the
shattering window before I'm thinking, and there's glass flying everywhere,
and the small guy is dancing up and down, and yelling "motherfraggers, mess
with me, I'll blow you to hell!" (or similar words with identical meaning),
and a burst of light autofire comes through a window in his general area,
and he's getting down again. By now I'm back at the fire escape, and
looking back over my shoulder at the smoke between me and the bomber, when
something hits me, and I fly back towards the scene of the action. The ugly
guy from the westwind is there, and the chick's following him (chick, now
there's a good word for a sexy young eagle (?) shaman (?)). He looks at me
like a single word would be enough to set him off and make him kill me, so
I just shut the frag up, and wait to see what he does next. And then the
chick goes "you know that's not him", grabbing the guy's shoulder. He looks
pissed for a minute, like he still wants to take me down, and her too if
she gets in his way, but then he looks at her and the anger sort of flows
out of him. "North, about two hundred metres, he's moving," goes the chick,
and they take off into the smoke towards where the guy was, and I wait for
a while, then follow. It's as crazy as hell, I know it, you know it, we all
fraggin' know it, but by now I want to know what the hell is going on. So I
take a look into the 'house, and there's no-one down there now, except a
couple of bodies which I can see in the firelight where a few crates of
nutrisoy have been torched by the explosion.
So I keep moving, thinking maybe I can sell this story if I see enough
(what the frag do you think I'm trying to do now?). The two from the
westwind are up ahead, and I can just see them through the smoke that's
coming up through the broken windows. The chick grabs the guy's arm then,
says "he's stopped, he's got a plan... something to surprise the hunters...
I don't think he means us...". "I don't get that much, frag it, I just know
where he is," says the guy, "The raku boys are still alive, at least, some
of them are." I'm thinking what the hell are they going on about, someone
out there might know, cause I sure as hell haven't figured it out yet. So
they wait for a short time, then "move!" yells the chick, and pushes the
guy east (I think), and there's another explosion. I hear yells from below,
then a wail in Japanese ("shades of my ancestors!" or something). Then
there's this fireball exploding on the roof, looks like a spell to my eye.
Then the fraggin thing grows arms ans legs, and whizzes back down there!
There's a shout of surprise, a short burst of SMG fire, and a sudden roar
of rising flames. I hear a final yell from below, then a couple of rifle
shots from up here, from ahead though, not from where the westwind couple
went. Neither of them had a rifle anyways. That's all for a while, so I
move towards where the rifle shots came from, trying to stay in the cover
of the smoke, and I see the dark-clothed guy, and he's got a hunting rifle
slung over his shoulder now. He's walking my way with a big drek-eating
grin on his face, and the bodyguard is following behind, watching over his
shoulder. I know I've got about three seconds before he spots me, and I'm
thinking "Oh _drek_".
But then the two from the westwind are there. "Hoi, Boom-Boom." says the
guy, and the chick just stands there looking menacing (oh baby, I've seen
some menacing looks thrown around in my time, but that's one that'll haunt
my dreams and nightmares). The bodyguard spins, lifting his SMG, but goes
down to a pair of what look like tranq darts, fired by some sniper on a
nearby crane or rooftop or something, I guess. The small guy, must be
Boom-Boom I suppose, goes for his rifle, but the ugly guy's hand blurs and
his Viper (I think, I'm no gun nut) is spitting fire, and Boom-Boom's left
looking stupid as the rifle goes flying. "Frag," he yells, "What the hell
do you want from me?". "Justice." says the sammy (he's got to be a sammy,
wired as hell from what I've seen) and moves forward a little, holstering
the Viper, then he's spinning and sending a roundhouse kick at Boom-Booms
head, faster than a bucketful of any fast thing you care to name.
Boom-Boom's moving almost as fast though (maybe eighty percent of a
bucketful of the afore-mentioned fast thing), and he ducks under the
attack, rolls and comes up with his fisted hands out in front of him. They
close up again, and it looks like the ugly sammy is just waiting for BB to
make a move, which he doesn't for a little while. As they circle, I can see
the woman moving around too, but the sammy waves her off, some sort of
drek-headed pride thing, I guess. Then the fire thing is back, and its
going for the woman, so looks like the pride thing (unless, of course, he
meant her to keep watch) saved her from a nasty surprise. She starts to
hammer spells into it, but they look like firebolts, so I guess it don't
care much. Meanwhile, back with the sammy, this Boom-Boom fragger moves
forward, quick, feinting with a jab and bringing his knee up, but the ugly
sammy is pulling back, making to block the jab, and swivels back on his
left foot to avoid the knee. He comes round in a spin with his arm out, and
hammers a backhand blow into BB's lower back as the latter passes him by.
BB grunts, keeps moving in the direction he had been going in his little
charge, and stops to turn once he's out of range. Another tranq dart flies
past where he went through, bouncing off the steel roof, and damn near
hitting me. I move back a little, but not so far that I can't still see the
action.
The fire thing (elemental, I guess) isn't having too much luck, the shaman
is singing, like a song of power I guess, and it seems to be shrinking. She
looks a little wilted too, but she's winning, I think. She's real close to
it, but neither of them is moving, like they're locked in a contest of
will. The word "Chud" comes to mind, but I'll be fragged if I know why.
Something I read when I was a kid, maybe.
I look back to the sammy's clash, and I can see that Boom-Boom's moving a
little more stiffly now, and the ugly sammy is making little "come right at
me" gestures, like in the cheaper trid actioners. BB obliges though, comes
in with a spinning high kick, but the sammy is moving back, and the foot
just goes through clear air. As BB comes back around, the ugly sammy moves
forward, and BB tries a quick trio of punches. The sammy dodges one, blocks
the second, and catches the third in his left hand. Then he's spinning to
put his back to BB, grabbing the arm with his right, and pulling BB over
his shoulder, all as fast as a Humanis beer-run in Ancients territory. BB
slams into the ground, I mean _hard_, and he doesn't get up.
Then the sammy's looking straight at me, and I realise my cloud of nice
obscuring smoke has drifted away, and, as it were, my hoop is hanging out
in the cold night air. The elemental is gone too, and the chick is heading
my way. "Does she look happy to see me?" I hear you ask. Nope. After all,
she stopped the sammy geeking me earlier, and now here I am again, pissing
them off some more. So I take the only option I've got, and jump down
through a broken window.
That's not _quite_ as stupid as it sounds, the crates that are stacked
below reach most of the way to the ceiling, so I've only got a couple of
metres to fall, and then I'm hitting, dropping to absorb the impact,
rolling to my feet, and running off down the stacks of boxes. I hear the
sammy laugh from above, and I think "what a bastard", but what am I going
to do? Go beat the hell out of him? Obviously not, instead I get the hell
out. I pass a few twisted bodies, those (Renraku?) corpboys, I guess, and
relieve them off their SMG's, for which I later got a good price from the
local fixer.
So, now I've talked, how about that food? And if that sammy from the
westwind is reading this, I'm sorry chummer, but you really are that ugly,
so don't geek me, okay? I just say what I see. You can feel free to feed me
though.]<<<<<
-- (Hopeful) Squatter <18:44:52/05:27:57>
