Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Mike Goldberg <michael.goldberg@*******.COM>
Subject: Captured in Denver? (Denver Saga #2)
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 02:00:08 MST
***** Private: Easy, Griffyn, Karma, Kor, Trax, Neuron Basher,
Midnight Shadow's
>>>>>[ You are receiving this as a courtesy from Midnight. I am
showing as much as I'm allowed to showed as dictated by my boss.
Sorry it can't be more, but boss like's to keep his tricks secret.
I'm sure you can understand and probably even relate.

On the plus side, we think Midnight may finally be healing. Of
course, he can put up a pretty good act when he wants.

+++++ begin transmission

Welcome to the other side of Denver. The side only glimpsed if you
are unlucky enough to have a horrible, dead end job from a cheap corp,
in a suburbia-wannabe neighborhood. The houses are all run down, and
the people that are driving seem overly intent in only minding their
business. Where there are sidewalks, there are people on the corner.
This is obviously gangland, but even these gangers, don't seem overly
interested in anything save breathing.

Plainly put, welcome to a poor man's hell. What a place to be lead
to, eh?

The drone leads you to a pretty nondescript house. It has some
privacy, but not much as the yards are just big enough to allow a
small family the privilege of having weeds in their lawns. There is a
gray van parked at the curb and the driveway is empty. The garage
door is open, but aside from the usual family clutter in a garage, it
is empty enough to accommodate the van. The drone hovers at the door
and watches the car pull into the garage. Once safely inside the
garage, the door shuts.

As you get out the car a deep, guttural voice says, "Hoi, Griff. Been
a while." Hidden in the dark shadows of the garage are two trolls.
Both are wearing urban camouflage which makes them hard to pick out.
One moves enough to catch Griffyn's attention. That troll smiles
enough to help make him out. The face is pretty hard to pick out even
then because it is painted.

Easy snorts. "Strangers, strangers everywhere. You know these guys,
Griffyn, or should we kill them and eat them?"

Griffyn shrugs and says, "Eating Doomsday would not be something I
would try lightly. Something tells me he might object. Doomsday, it
has been a long time. Who's your friend?"

"My liddle brodd'r, Whirlwin'." The other troll just nods and keeps
in the shadows of the barely lit garage. He moves enough to get a
good look in the car and then sticks his head in the only open exitway
and says, "Midnight, looks like you get to do some work, too."

A clean-shaven man in his late twenties comes out, he is dressed in
urban camouflage and looks like he was earlier ready to go out for a
serious night on the town. He smiles, and says, "I trust your drive
was boring." He looks over both of the two healthy individuals, Easy
and Griffyn, and then says, "Nice bit of work out there." He shakes
hands with Easy and then Griffyn. He looks over the injured and
lightly says, "Unfortunate that they aren't in more of a shape more
conducive to polite conversation. Oh well. Whirlwind and Doomsday,
if you would please bring our injured guests to the room prepared for
them, I will attend them shortly. Croaker --"

A dark, metallic voice replies in a drone, "Yeah, boss?" Doomsday and
Whirlwind carry the injured into the house.

"Inform Doc that he needs to clean up this car. It wouldn't do for
anyone to see the car in daylight and see those bloodstains.

"Lady Easy and Sir Griffyn, welcome to Castle Chaos. Nothing quite
goes the way we expect it, but it does provide some rather interesting
moments. This particular house has proved quite useful, but it will
be evacuated soon after you leave. Castle Chaos seems to randomly
move almost by a will of its own. Normally, after a short period of
time, it seems to find me, if we ever truly get separated.

"I believe, if I am not mistaken, that you are looking for someone on
the behalf of a mutual friend of ours. While, I'm not trying to
interfere in your search for that someone, I believe Mr. Finny knows
some information that I need to know as well. I will give you a
choice though. Think it through carefully. You can question first or
second. If you question second, you have the luxury of being able to
kill them afterwards if it suits your purpose."

"Second." Easy says without hesitation. "Just make sure he's alive and
in shape to talk."

"Oh, he will be alive." Midnight says knowingly, "The question is
will he be sane after Geiger finishes with him."

You walk down a short corridor and enter what looks like it was once a
dining room. There is absolutely no furniture in the room and on the
floor is Lady Quinn and a rather strange man playing cards. His face
is painted up in one of the most horrifically, twisted, series of
grays, purples, yellows, blacks, whites, and reds. The paint runs
through his very short hair. He grins ferally as Midnight enters the
room, and says, "Its about damn time. Quinn is wiping the floor with
me in this game."

"Lucky you aren't playing against Lilith, then." mutters Easy. "She
redefined the term 'card shark'".

"I guess I will count my blessings then."

Midnight smiles back, "Didn't anyone tell you to not play games with a
Coyote disciple? This is Easy and Griffyn. These are the Mighty
Quinn and Geiger. Let me leave you here, while I go make our other
guests more comfortable."

"Hi there, farmgirl." Quinn looks up from her hand of cards, grins.
"The Queen of Nine-mil herself. Been carving a real path. Hi, Griff,
long time no see."

Easy keeps her peace, smiling slightly. Quinn lays her cards down.
"Straight flush and you can't beat it."

Geiger groans. "Does a pair of jacks count?"

"Not a chance. You owe me... fourteen million dollars." The Coyote
shaman cackles like a maniac.

Midnight shakes his head in amusement and enters a far room as Geiger
says, "We would offer you a drink, but we cleaned out the fridge
earlier. I believe we have soycaf if you are interested?"

When no one takes him up on his offer, Geiger starts staring at Easy.
Easy stares back at him curiously. After a while he shifts over to
Griffyn and studies him intently. Griffyn stares back at him flatly.
Whatever the case, he snaps out of it about four minutes later. If he
made any conclusions from the staring, it isn't obvious as he holds up
his left hand to an earpiece and listens for a little bit. He then
says, "I respect your need to keep the rest of your team informed as
to what is going on, but I have to request that you keep the drones
out of the house. We have at least three people playing with drones,
and in that confusion, it would be easy for an enemy to implant one
of their own. While I don't consider this a strong possibility, it
is my head if it happens."

Geiger continues, "Once the interrogations begins, Midnight's security
goes sky high because he is aware of the limitations the prepared room
represents. Security is officially made up of the remainder of
Midnight's 'shadows' who are not involved in the interrogation.
Unofficially, your drones as well. Inside security is pretty much
limited to Doomsday, FireWraith, and Croaker. We are assuming this
will be enough due to the lack of attention we have already gathered."

About a quiet minute later Midnight and Doomsday exit the room.
Midnight motions to Geiger and says, "Scare them, Geiger."

"How badly, Midnight?"

"Push the line that would upset your mother."

"Really?" Geiger voice sounds like an odd mixture of surprise,
happiness, and fear all rolled into one.

"Yes."

"Poor bastards, this could take a while." Geiger almost manages to
sound sympathetic. Almost. Geiger calmly stretches and purposely
strives toward the room.

Midnight softly says to no one in the room. "Report in." After a
brief while, Midnight says quietly (again to no one in the room), "Doc
tested that room. I'm not worried. Whirlwind will know what to do if
this becomes a problem." ]<<<<<
-- Croaker <08:54:23/07-02-58>

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Captured in Denver? (Denver Saga #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.