Ajax's Warstory

Ajax stood outside the cab and made a slow scan using his astral perception. Nothing unusual...that he could see. As he reached the building entrance a large troll "doorman" looks him over, "Hey there omae, you look like bug shit."

Ajax supresses a small smile, and retorts, "Yeah, your mother worked me over pretty good last night."

With that the troll lets out a large bellowing laugh...most people don't often talk to a troll like that, especially Teddy Bayer.

"How's it going Teddy?" says Ajax.

"Not too bad Mr. van Otterloo. Are you here to see Ms. Lindo?"

"Yeah, I'm unannounced though. Is she in?"

"She got in about an hour ago. Said you might be stopping by unexpectedly, I'll buzz you in." Teddy pulls his sleeve up to reveal a wrist computer and pounds a couple buttons. The building doors open.

"Thanks Teddy. Take it easy will ya', I know how hard it is for you to stand out here lookin' big and scary." Ajax hears a low chuckle from Teddy as he enters the building. As the doors close he can hear the sound of Monica's voice as Teddy tells her that he's here.

The elevator ride up to the penthouse is quick. As the doors open Nils sees Monica walking towards the elevator, "Hey where have you been?" she says in a genuinely concerned voice. "What happened? We got a bit worried when your body went missing...that's not a typical reaction to an astral quest."

"Yeah, things got interesting there," said Nils. Monica looks Nils over and says, "Nils, you look like bug shit." they both laugh, Teddy put her up to that one, "I'll draw a bath. You'll need to go to the lodge eventually, but that can happen later. I'll get out some of your extra clothes you left here. Should I save the ones you're wearing? They smell smoky and dank...were you wet?" Nils smiles ruefully as they begin walking to Monica's bedroom.

"Well, let me start from the beginning. My memory is a little blurry, but this astral quest turned into a real quest. My body was transported with me to some strange, ancient land. Magic seems more powerful. Only old low-tech gear around. I can't really explain, but I know that this is where the Horrors come from."

"I found myself in a cave where outside there was a blowing storm, but inside deep within the cave, beyond where I could see, the horrors were stirring. I ventured outside of the cave and began to wander through the storm. If not for a spirit I conjured, I know I would have frozen to death. I finally came upon the lights of a town and the people of this town took me in. I was there for what seemed like a long time, but now my sense of time is so skewed, I don't know if it was real."

Ajax pauses at the bedroom threshold and kicks off his grimy shoes, "The people in this town seemed pale, my being was glowing compared to them. Only one other man looked like me. He seemed to be a traveller, he spoke of our time and world. I learned that he knew magic as well and he said he would get me out of there, send me home...and he did."

Nils looks over at Monica. Her expression is suprise, but not incredulous. She knows better.

"Well, the story doesn't end there. This man I met, did get me back to this time...I don't know how it happened, but he managed to switch me and Kuma. I wound up with the team in a van on the way to a run." Monica looks suprised, "Kuma's the big one right, not the troll, but the Korean guy?"

"Yeah, they were on their way to do a little industrial espionage job. Posing as AC repairmen. All Kuma was wearing, from what they told me, was a pair of overalls. All his tech-heavy weapons and gear were left behind."

Monica's eyes get big and she seems concerned, "So he's in some ancient time, with no gear, and a pair of overalls, freezing his balls off?" "Yup. I hope he doesn't kill that guy who I was with. That man is probably his only means of survival." Monica moves into the bathroom and he hears her turn on the water to the bathtub. Nils begins to remove his dank clothes.

"So they need me to be the fourth guy on this job. Luckily they had some more overalls to wear. Turns out we're doing a simple switch at a bio-tech company. Grabbing some drugs that they're testing. I'm not totally clear. Well, the job is going good. We're making good time, no problems. Finally get to the lab, make the switch. Next thing we know, fire alarms are going off, sprinklers are set off. Of course, we think its because of us. No, turns out a terrorist group hits the building. There's a Humanis Policclub office in the building. There are bombs going off. A full blown gun battle in the basement." Nils heads into the bathroom and Monica motions for him to get in the tub.

"Wow, that's convenient. I bet that made it easier for you guys to get out?" she says.

"Not quite, turns out the terrorists were the other AC repairmen. The ones we thought were real. So now we're carrying stolen drugs wearing AC repairmen overalls and there are heavy security forces moving in. Well, we got real lucky and managed to dodge any heavy drek. Finally wind up on the 6th floor looking for a way out. By then the security people are on to us as part of the AC crew. We try to slip out by sneaking down the elevator shaft. We just barely slipped by the security team after us. If Piker, she's the troll, wasn't such a behemoth, we'd be dead for sure. Anyway, we climb down the elevator shaft to the second floor. Then we just jump out. Of course this is in front of a big crowd. Luckily we were able to blend in with the real victims from the building and slip away."

By now Monica is washing Nils' back and he is slowly becoming distracted from his story. Before too long, they are not concerned with terrorists or strange lands, there is just the two of them.

Later that night, Nils wakes up and rather than slip out like usual, he rolls over and curls up around her. No need to pull that suave, macho, bullshit tonight.

Hound's Warstory

It's a clear night, far away from the confines of the Seattle sprawl. The air is fresh, the moon is almost full, and the breeze blowing in from the Pacific is waging a silent war with the campfire for control of the comfort level of the two individuals in camp. Hound and Michelle are seated around the fire, enjoying the last of a meal of freshly killed venison and freshly opened beer.

"Thanks again for taking me along on the hunt, Michelle. It's doing me a lot of good to get out of the city and back out into the land. Helps me clear my head."

"No problem," the large woman replies, "you haven't gotten in the way too much." As usual, Hound isn't quite sure if Michelle is kidding or not, but he doesn't ask. For now he just leans back and relaxes. Several minutes pass in silence, then Michelle speaks up.

"So, Mr. Shadow Runner. Tell me a story to help pass the time. You ever work with Orcs? Tell me a story with Orcs in it."

"Well, OK," replies Hound, "but I'm not sure what you'll think about it."

"Try me."

"Well, I haven't actually worked with an Orc on the team, although I run with a Troll pretty regularly. But I did have a run not too long ago that involved a bunch of Orcs. Me and my team were hired by a fixer I know to hit this bio research company. Just a simple run to steal some samples, with a bonus to swap out dummy product if nobody's the wiser. Looked like it'd be a sweet deal, too, because the fixer had already set up a great cover story. We were going in as part of an air conditioner repair team already hired to go into the building and do some repair work. We had intel on the floor of the building where our company was located, general AC repair knowledge chips, maps, the works. Plus, we were set up as the ones monitoring the air flow, so we got access to most of the rooms on several floors, including the lab where the samples were kept. Yep, it was a sweet deal, but it soured pretty quickly."

"First of all, it's too complicated to explain, but on the way to the run one of our team disappeared, and was replaced by another guy I run with who had been missing. I know, I know, it sounds weird, and it is. But the guy who had gone missing is a mage, and he got trapped on some other plane or something. Anyway, the way he got back must have made him trade places with the guy we were running with. So there we are in the van on the way to the run when all of a sudden, bam, one guy disappears and the other one appears. We didn't have time to think about it, we just briefed the mage on the run and kept on, figuring we'd look into the disappearance after the run was completed. It was that or abort, and none of us wanted to call it off just because our Sammy had been replaced by a mage. Hell, for a stealth mission like this, the mage was a better bet anyway."

"So, from there it looked like things would go smoothly, but of course I wouldn't be telling you this story if it wasn't more interesteing than that. We get to the site, and we meet up with the rest of the actual AC repair guys. I had thought about trying to get a decker friend of mine to get me a rundown on the repairmen before we got there, but cash was tight and I decided not to spend it on intel we probably didn't need. I wish I had now, but you can't go back in time." Hound sort of stammers a bit at this point, " I mean, um, well..."

"Anyway, the repair guys are a bunch of Orcs in coveralls, with big toolboxes and grease stains to match. They say their hellos and we say ours, then we go our separate ways into the building, them to the basement and us to the floors we're supposed to hit. We're supposed to work around 5 floors, but we've never actually done this before, and it takes a lot longer on the first floor than we thought. By the time we finish the second floor we're worried that we'll run out of time if we don't jump right to the floor where the samples are kept. So we pretend we hit the wrong button on the elevator, and when the guard asks what the problem is, we cover by saying that we'll come back to the floor we skipped. It's a damn good thing we did that, too, because if we didn't we'd have been screwed."

"See, we find the right lab and the samples we're supposed to snatch, but no sooner do we grab the sample than an alarm goes off. And not just an alarm, but fire suppression systems kick in, and we're getting drenched. We stashed the target and slipped the bogus sample in place, then headed out into the hall to look around. Hell, I think we all thought the alarm was triggered by us grabbing the sample, but it was just a coincidence. Of course, we didn't know that, so we all figured we might have to fight our way out of there. We did, but not for the reason we thought we might."

"We start making our way to the stairs when we see a group of Corp bigwigs and their bodyguards. They don't seem to mind us being alive, so we head down the stairs behind them, keeping our distance and trying not to look threatening or suspicious. We're on our way down when the whole damn building starts to shake, like it's been hit with an earthquake or something. We all grab the handrail and keep heading down. Then, a couple floors later the place gets rocked again, but this time it's worse, and the whole stairway kind of twists. I think it was a bomb going off , but at the time we had no idea what it was. Actually, the details of what happened when are a little sketchy, but the suits get off on a floor above ground level and their guards are not letting us follow. So there we are stuck in the stairwell, when we start to hear shots from below. Masonry is falling in the stairs, and the drek is starting to really hit the fan, and we don't know where to go, or whether we should even go up or down."

"I think we tried to go down some, but the way below was worse than the way above, so we head back up. Piker, that's the troll I run with, tried to pull a door open, but she just ripped the handle off. It would have been funny if we weren't in such a mess at the time. You see, it turns out that the trouble was caused by those Orc AC repairmen in the basement. I don't remember how we found that out; I think we heard it over a guard's radio or something, but it turns out that they weren't actual repairmen either. They were there to hit a Humanis Policlub group on the sixth floor of the place. Right smack dab between where we were and the ground. Of course security is now out to get 'the AC repair team', so we get out of our coveralls immediately, but that really doesn't make much difference. They had seen us, and Piker especially doesn't blend into the crowd well."

"I'm not sure what all happened next. We met up with some security, but we managed to convince them that we weren't with the Orcs. Still, they weren't letting us wander anywhere but the stairs, and then they took off. We went back up to a floor we had access to so we could think somewhere other than in the stairway. Once we found an office that looked safe we had our mage go astral and take a look around. You know, one of these days we're gonna learn not to do that. As usual, astral security was waiting for him. Damned Earth Elemental popped out and started swinging. Lucky for us Piker was around. It was so concerned trying to fight her that I got up behind it. Between the two of us we took it out, but those things are never easy. It was alone, though, so our mage scouted again, only to find a team of serious security going room to room. We had no desire to face them, so we snuck back to the elevator. We took out one guard as we got there, but the others heard us and started toward us. We only barely managed to get the doors open and get everyone into the shaft. The guards were opening fire and chucking grenades, but we got away pretty clean. From there we made our way down the shaft to the second floor. We found our way to one of the offices with a big window and started beating the hell out of it. Eventually Piker made a hole in it big enough to climb out, and we all got away. We actually didn't find out that it was a hit on the HP until after the run was over and we were all safely away."

"So, there you go. A story with Orcs in it, but maybe not one you expected."

Michelle and Hound are both quiet for a minute after the story is over, then Michelle speaks again.

"Is that how you see Orcs? As a bunch of terrorists?"

"No, it's just a story. And I wasn't making any moral judgements. Hell, I'm not even sure what to think about the guys who did it. I mean, I sure as hell don't support those Humanis Policlub drekheads. But I'm not sure setting off a bomb in a building full of innocents is the right way to settle your grievances either."

"Really?", asks Michelle. "And I suppose that blowing the tops off volcanoes and crashing airplanes is fair and just? Don't kid yourself, Hound. When a people are pushed to their breaking point, something's gotta give."

Hound is about to answer, but then he falls silent. Severall minutes pass with neither saying a word. Finally, Michelle breaks the silence again.

"Get some sleep Hound. Morning comes early, and the hunt only gets tougher from here on out."