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Message no. 1
From: Mike Goldberg <michael.goldberg@*******.COM>
Subject: Better late than dead... (Part 2)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 10:47:02 MST
>>>>>[ Well... here's part two.

+++++ begin transmission (part 2)
"Honey, I can't wait for a drink. Feels like I've been slaving away all
week."

"Soon, dearest." This handsome man kisses a beautiful lady on her
cheek.

The woman giggles and says, "Isn't that odd. A ganger here. Handing
cash to a kid." The man's head whips around and scans the crowd, he
picks out a fleeting glimpse of a young boy fleeing away from a female
member of the Ancients.

The man frowns, still watching the gangmember and says, "Probably
the elf was buying some chips from the kid. They really should clean up
that drek."

She looks at him astonished. "I wonder how a kid gets involved with
that so young."

"Mostly it is bad luck and a desire to make some cash pretty easily if a
little risky."

"How do you know so much about this?"

"I --"

"Ahem, Mister Harker, I presume?" A female gangmember of the
Ancients asks.

"I think you got the wrong person, miss."

"Maybe you respond to Midnight better." The man's eyes widen
briefly in surprise. The elf didn't miss it.

"I haven't heard of that name in a long time. Perhaps we could go
inside and talk about the last time I saw him over a beer or two?"

Another member of the Ancient says, "I don't think so, Midnight."

The man glances around. He roughly pushes his date behind him and
says, "Look, you got the wrong person. I hear the Tigers are getting
ready to wipe the floor with you this time around. You probably don't
want to be wasting your time with one miserable breeder."

Another person says, "Your property. We're just collecting for a fee."

The man pushes his date roughly into the bar, as the group of gangers
come closer and closer to him. A troll bouncer says, "Hey lady! We
don't take people fleein' from trouble. Against da rules." The man
whirls to face the troll and grimaces.

"Like you would fragging know a rule if it hit you on the head!"

The woman dodges inside stunned as the enraged troll steps out of the
bar and takes a swing. The man dodges smoothly and the troll ends up
punching one of the elves. The man laughs and breaks out of the
rapidly enclosing circle and starts running. He rounds a corner, curses,
and changes directions as gunfire erupts. He runs into the street
dodging cars left and right as he makes his way across the street.

"Just fragging great."

"Come back here slave!"

"I wonder if they are Ancients or not..." He runs down an alley and
climbs over a chain-link fence. (Ripping his suit in process). He keeps
on running with the elves giving tight chase.

----
Man #2: Puppet, fragging figure out where he is going to run to, or use
your drones to herd him somewhere. Can't help a dead man!

"Blitz, you might want to hold up this riot shield. I can't predict how
we are going to do the pick-up of Midnight. Could be in the middle of a
firefight."

"Great."

Puppet: Cute, Wrecker. If I could, don't you think I would? All my
drones with weapons were deployed to try and bag Whirlwind. Hell
they are still in his area to try and nail him if they get the opportunity.
To many fragging things happening at once.

Shadowfox: Fuck it. Where is he now? We are going public with your
van. With a bunch of armed elves chasing him, who is going to care
about one van. We'll get you a new one later. k?

Wrecker: *growls* Okay. If that is the case, can I level those fraggers?

Shadowfox: Just try to leave one alive for interrogating. Hopefully, the
slot will know something of use.

Puppet: He going west on 6th.

Wrecker: At least he is only running on foot right now.

"Hang on guys, I'm about to break all sort of traffic laws. Fox, you
might want to strap in until we get close."
---
"Of all the fragging times to run into a bunch of fragging elves, I'm in a
goddamned suit, dress shoes, and no hopes of getting a gun. Aww
drek. At least I had fifteen minutes to run free and remember what
freedom is like."

He looks around, surrounded by elves. All wearing Ancient colors.

"Ancient posers."

"True enough, Midnight, but that doesn't stop the fact that you still
have to serve out your life sentence. Of course, we could just parole
you here and now."

A female says, "Easier to bring back a dead body than a live one."

A male responds, "They want him alive."

The female angrily responds, "So what? They aren't here. He led our
friends to their deaths."

The male responds, "No, they were sent on a mission that no one was
expected to survive. Midnight got lucky and somehow manage to get
freedom."

The female responds viciously, "Death."

The male calmly says, "He goes back for another trial."

The female still ripping mad, "He gets off to easy if he goes back."

The man asks, "Really? Living without freedom is worse than being dead."

"Frag you." She points a gun at the man. Suddenly only about four
elves are keeping an eye on Midnight. The rest of the elves have split
into two camps. The verbal match keeps escalating. It is about to hit
trigger point when a van sporting obvious "enhancements" comes
screeching around a corner. Midnight starts running toward the right
side of the road as the van mercilessly opens fire on the crowd of elves.
In the confusion, Midnight drops the elven chick with a vicious fire
bolt.

The side door is opened. Two arms reach out and grab Midnight. He is
dragged for a little bit before they can pull him in. Quickly as bullets
start entering the van they shut the door.

Midnight winces as he hits the floor of the van and swerves around a
corner. "Ouch!"

"Oops. Sorry about that. So come on baby, light her fire...." A man
says with amusement in his voice....

He looks up and smiles. "Thank god for friendly faces, Blitzkrieg.
Actually, I would say that I just set her on fire."

Shadowfox: Puppet pull off your drones. There are hidden ways out of
almost all those warehouses down there. And in most of them,
Whirlwind would be a welcome sight. Unless they actually know of
him.

Puppet: (resigned voice) Figures, sir.

"So people, we need to get to a doc. Then we can assess how we
fared."

+++++ end transmission

One night's work: Some gear wasted. Van could use some significant
repairs from the workout it got. Midnight, Blitzkrieg, and myself, owe a
friendly doc a decent chunk of change for patching us up, and we
missed nailing Whirlwind. Midnight is pissed off that he missed
getting a) anyone to interrogate and b) couldn't find that kid that ratted
on him. On the other hand, the kid probably has written him off for the
dead, so maybe he can use that to his advantage.

And oh, we killed one of our own. Simply beautiful.

Still if it hadn't been for the heads up thinking by Puppet and Wrecker
we probably wouldn't have been able to catch up to Midnight.]<<<<<
-- Shadowfox <00:00:54/10-27-57>

>>>>>[ I guess I owe a small explanation for why I wasn't using my
running name. It was traceable. Very traceable. I -- I should explain
why I'm not dead, but what the fuck? I have a contract out on my head
so its only a matter of time. Come and get me Whirlwind. Come on
baby, light my fire. ]<<<<<
-- Midnight <00:00:23/10-27-57>

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Better late than dead... (Part 2), you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.