| From: | Autonomous Zone <thak@******.UCHICAGO.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | more chicago... |
| Date: | Fri, 11 Nov 1994 08:37:53 CST |
matrix when I intercepted this. It's sad, and gruesome, but I'm
glad someone got it.
+++++Include Trideo Upload
The picture expands to show the face of young man, barely out of
his teens, with subtly green cybereyes and several datajacks.
Looks like your standard new, young, hotshot decker. He's jacked
into a deck but he's looking into the camera. The deck has what
appears to be a satellite uplink array. His expression is a
blend of frustration, fatigue, and fear. Behind him is a large
room in what looks to have been a spacious apartment. The room
is crowded with people, humans, orks, and a few dwarves and
elves. Some are obviously wounded. Most of them look like war
refugees off some charity tridshow, but then you notice that a
few of them are dressed and armed like shadowrunners. Even some
of the civilians are armed, you realise, although they hold their
weapons unsteadily. One of the runners is pointing a light
machine gun out of peephole in a barricaded window. You see two
well barricaded doors. The sound cuts in and you can hear the
moans of the wounded in the background, interspersed with what
sounds like screams and the occasional gunfire in the distance.
"If anyone in Chicago picks this up this is really drekkin'
urgent. I don't know if the UCAS military is around, or maybe
Knight Errant, or maybe some other runners, but we've got a
desperate situation here and we need some drekkin' help right
fraggin' now! We're holed up in a loft on Grand Avenue, I think,
Grad Avenue & Ashland, and we've got about two dozen civilians,
about half wounded--"
There's a piercing inhuman screech from what sounds like right
outside the window, then the street sam opens up with the LMG.
People scramble away from the window and then something heavy
seems to smash into it from the other side. The measly barricade
holds, but the runner gets knocked backed. A tired looking elf
steps over to the window, chanting and moving his arms in a
strange pattern. There is another screech from outside, then the
elf collapses to the ground, obviously exhausted. Others
scramble over.
The kid looks back to the camera again, you can see his hand,
holding an Ares Predator, is shaking with fear.
"Look, when the bugs first started rampaging, we stayed in our
area and tried to help our neighbors out. When we tried to get
away, away from the bugs, we had drekkin' Knight Errant grunts
shooting at us too. They were shooting everybody who came near
'em. We tried a different route and almost got free when a
Mantis took our rigger out and our van wrecked. We lost Far
Eyes, our shaman, to some wasps, and now Warlock's exhausted. We
ain't gonna stand long against these nightmares without magic
support," the kid's voice starts to raise to a fevered pitch.
"The bugs already know we're in a here and it's only a matter of
time. They've already tried several times! There's been a horde
of roaches outside for over an hour now. I think they've eaten
everyone else left out there. This is an emergency! Oh frag,
I'm patching this through a satellite but I don't even know if
it's being received. We haven't been able to get through with
any signals--"
There's a scream from behind him again, this time from a dwarf
woman. The kid looks back, scared, and suddenly everyone's
screaming and scrambling about. A wide space seems to clear in
one corner of the room, and you see roaches, hundreds and
hundreds of roaches, crawling out of the sink and pipes and
cracks in the floor and walls. Then you realize they're crawling
out of cracks all over the room, scurrying en masse and starting
to crawl up onto people. The kid loses it, and starts firing his
gun at the crawlers, screaming his head off. So do some of the
civilians, and they all start fighting each other to get away
from the bugs. The roaches keep coming, and you several of the
wounded are now engulfed, with bugs crawling into their ears,
noses, and even mouths, gagging them. The street sam finally
gets his head together and starts pulling off the window
barricade, as roaches start to stream up his legs. He gets help
from a few others, despite the chaos. With a surge of augmented
muscles, he rips the last plasteel board off, and immediately two
insect claws reach in and slash and grapple his face. With a
nightmarish scream, he is pulled out the window.
Complete pandemonium reigns in the room as roach spirits begin to
manifest and begin attacking the survivors. Several are grappled
unharmed. Those that fight back die. Blood and gore stain the
walls while roaches cover the corpses on the floor. Finally,
mercifully, roaches begin to cluster over the camera sights,
blocking the carnage.
+++++End Trideo
I don't know if anyone knew that runner team, but they were good
people. I'm sure there are many other such untold tales of what
now goes on in Chicago...]<<<<<
-- maTrixster <08:15:33/11-11-55>
