Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: jaimie.nicholson@********.otago.ac.nz (Jaimie Nicholson)
Subject: What the (underestimated) Squatter saw
Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 10:02:23 +1200 (NZST)
***** Private: Anyone who left a credstick at the squatter's drop point
>>>>>[Hokely dokely, Chummeroonies, here's the rest:

As I recall, on the last gripping episode I had been threatened, and
witnessed a crash.

So, I stay where I am, and watch. The guy in black is moving across the
road, pulling that plastic gun out and getting it ready for action (I
suppose he is anyways, he's pulling back a lever or some drek). There are
another two of them moving from similar positions, all converging on the
truck where it went into the electronics store. Another gets out of the
(now ruined) Americar, pulling out a similar weapon, and a fifth gets out
of a station wagon at the side of the road. A couple of guys get out of the
cab of the truck, carrying SMG's, but before they can aim and fire, they're
going down quickly and quietly. the guys in black are shooting them with
what appears to be fraggin' _water pistols_! What the hell, I'm thinking,
this is stupid! But its working, so who am I to complain? Another guy
sticks his head out the back of the truck, doesn't seem to get seen by the
dark-clothed guys, and jerks himself back in again. I wonder if I should
warn the men in black, but frag it, I don't really want to get involved,
and even if I did, I don't know who to support. The attackers didn't geek
me earlier, when they probably should have, but it's like the Raku boys all
over again. They didn't take me out becuase they had to avoid alerts, and
this could be the same. Anyways, I just wait.

The attackers have been moving towards the back of the truck while I was
struggling with my moraldilemma, and now four of them are moving out to the
sides while the fifth gets ready to open the back up. He pulls it open,
then dives to the left as a burst of rifle rounds chews up the road, then
keeps moving in a crouch as the others get down and more bullets come
through the canvas sides of the crashed vehicle. The bursts continue for
about another three seconds, then it all goes quiet. Apparently whoever was
inside has run out of ammo, cause two guys come jumping out the back of the
truck, one waving a god-damned broad-sword, the other unarmed. The second
runs like hell, while the berserker wanna-be screams out some kind of
war-cry and attacks one of the dark-clothed ops, cutting the hastily raised
water pistol thing clean in half. The target backs off a little, trying to
give his chummers a clean shot. One of them takes the guy who's running,
dropping him quick just like the guys from the cab, but no-one seems to
want to risk hitting their chummer while going after the swordsman, who is
swinging again. The target of his wild attack looks a little pissed off by
now, and he avoids a couple of swings then moves forward in the space
between one sweeping cut and the next. Inside the swordsman's reach, he
grabs his sword arm and snaps most or all of its bones with some sort of
spinning hold, then slaps what looks like a hypodermic patch on the guys
forehead as his victim goes down. What looks from here like a grimace of
agony crosses the swordsman's face, quickly followed by dazed confusion.

So now that all their opposition is down, two of the ops disappear into the
back of the truck, while the third moves the station wagon he (or one of
the others) got out of before, and the last two head for me. Drek! I think,
what the frag am I going to do now, I'm done for, etc., but it looks like
they don't want to geek me (yet). Both of them put their guns away, and
pull crusty smelly coats out of one of the bins I'm lurking among. They
hunker down next to me, saying words to the effect of "shut the frag up, or
there'll be trouble". I guess they're right, so I shut the frag up. I don't
want trouble, it just seems to seek me out. I don't ask much. Anyways, the
guys in the truck have come out now, each carrying two boxes with what
looks like the words "Angel (numbers) mm (words, rocket is one of them
maybe) Launcher" on the sides, and they put them (gently) in the back of
the station wagon. They wait for a moment, looking around the street, then
get in the car, and get the hell out, leaving the two with me behind. I'm
wondering why the hell these guys are waiting at the scene of the crime,
but I don't want trouble, so I shut the frag up. Don't ask stupid questions
that'll get you geeked when you don't need to know the answers anyway,
that's my motto (though it's not one that has an application in many
situations, I'll admit). So I wait, and watch, and keep my trap shut.

After about three or four minutes (insert the usual "it felt like a
lifetime" cliche here, if you must), a Mitsi Nightsky pulls up at the
corner, and four suit-clad sammies get out, pulling heavy pistols and
scouting out the area. One of them speaks into a wrist mounted mike, and
after a second or two, another well dressed man gets out of the Nightsky,
swearing under his breath (I guess it's swearing, anyway, from his
expression I doubt he's muttering about the weather.). The sammies grab a
body each, throw them into the back of the truck, then drop in a couple of
grenades each. They run back up the street, and the grenades go off. The
truck goes up in flames almost straight away, and the sammies get back in
the Nightsky. One of the ops, who are still waiting around with me, swears
under his breath. I guess he's pissed off that after all that trouble to
take those guys down non-fatally, they got geeked anyway. Price of failure,
and all that drek, I guess.

So the Nightsky leaves, and after another minute or so, so do my friendly
watcher-guys. They move off down the street, then disappear into an alley.
Seems like a good idea, I remove myself as well.

That's pretty much it, actually. I'll be talking to you next time I almost
get geeked by sticking my nose in where it wasn't wanted. And thank you
kindly for your generous donations.]<<<<<
-- (Temporarily appeased) Squatter <9:52:42/05:30:57>

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about What the (underestimated) Squatter saw, 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.