Titus's Warstory

"Office Hours: MWF 1400-1600"

After a brief knock, Brad opens the office door, remembering the feel of the academic setting after long years away. Compared to the streets, these well-kept halls of UofS are palatial. Dr. Dawkins is there behind his cluttered desk, typing at his computer. The light streams in from the small window afforded an assistant professor. "One moment Brad, I'm just updating my notes from my master's thesis on the energetics of summoning elementals. There are some ramifications I hadn't considered before that have recently become quite salient." Brad, clears a stack of books off a chair and sits down, looking over the notes on the desk-looks like a bunch of assensing notes, wrought with diagrams and aura specs.

With the last punctuated clicks of the keyboard, Dr. Dawkins smiles and looks up. "Sorry about that, I was riding on inspiration. How are you?"

"Doin' pretty well. You're in a good mood; you been trancin'?", he says with a wry smile.

Dr. Dawkins gives him a quizzical look, "No, I finally got a call from Vespuci. Thanks again for setting me up with him, he seems to know his business well."

"Null sheen, Dr. Dawkins. I'm glad I could help out. Without you I wouldn't be half the mojo-slinger I am today."

"Null, sheen?"

"Oh, sorry, it means 'no sweat'. So what'd Vespuci have for you?"

"It was a pretty basic job, I guess. Some of the Humanis Policlub fanatics, Alamos 30K ?, were supposed to be attacking this club on New Years' Eve-I guess they thought the club should ban non-human metas. So I was called in with a couple of others to stop an attack, should it happen. He was paying $1000 for no event, $5000 if they actually got attacked. Is that good?"

"Eh, it's OK. I guess it depends on the attack force. We don't exactly have a union and fixed prices or nothin'. I try to make sure that if someone's trying to kill me, it's worth my time. But it's hard to put a price on that, especially if they don't know what you can do."

"I see. Well, they had a couple of bouncers with stun batons, but no serious muscle. The others they brought in looked pretty capable, particularly the large troll. I must admit a pistol looked pretty ridiculous in his huge hands, but we had to keep a low profile. Boomer, the troll, was a rock of a man. He didn't seem to be all that afraid of bullets. He also yelled a lot. But he was good at killing, from what I saw of the aftermath. There was a shaman there, which was interesting. She was a French lady, an ork, and seemed to be pretty tough. Her specialty seemed to be combat spells, which was fortunate. I would love to talk with her about shamanistic magic. The School of Hermetics at MIT&T wasn't very…cross-disciplinary with the small number of shaman we had there. Too bad. There was an elf who went by Arrow as well. It was kind of a strange name as I didn't see her with a bow or anything-maybe it's figurative. She had a shotgun however, much to the chagrin of the attackers. And she moved very, very quickly. Maybe that's where she got the name. And finally, we had Kozmo. He seemed to know a bit about electronics in addition to his pistols; heck, he was the only other one there with another one of those transceivers you helped me get."

"Yeah, how'd that work out?"

"Pretty well, I guess. There was a little static, but I could talk with Kozmo pretty well. Of course, it's not quite as useful unless everyone has them-hopefully future teams will have them. So we scoped out the place and found five obvious entrances. They each took one of the physical doors and I handled the astral approach. I saw one gentleman with a large gun under his jacket, but I wasn't sure exactly how common that would be. I mean, I got in with my main pistol and a backup, so the security wasn't what you would call air-tight."

"Yeah, it's not uncommon for folks to walk around armed, depending on where you are. I guess what you look for is how big of a gun they have. People don't carry big guns unless they expect trouble-either to start it or fend it off. So anyway, get to the action! D'ya geek anyone?"

Dr. Dawkins winces. "I really don't like that term. I did render on of the attackers unconscious and picked up a large fire elemental in the process. But I get ahead of myself. The place was pretty much a party until midnight when the festivities… …increased. Then, a guy I saw earlier whipped out his gun and started firing right next to me. I withdrew to an upstairs area to find some cover and drew my gun. And that's when gunfire erupted all over the club. From my vantage point, I could see that not only was this guy spraying bullets around, but he had an awakened companion. I decided that the mage would be a larger threat since I couldn't defend the entire crowd from her magic, so I stood and fired twice at her-I think I hit both times."

"Yeah, how'd you like that Alta?"

"Alta?"

"The heavy pistol. I thought it would fit your tastes."

"Um, yes. I don't have much experience in such matters, but it seemed to work just fine-that's not really what I was focussing on at the time. This mage was understandably upset and commanded a fire elemental to materialize in front of me, I assume to attack me. Thinking back, I am really glad she sent the elemental after me, I can't imagine what it would have done if she had ordered it to materialize in the middle of the crowd. Not wanting to find out exactly what its orders were, I attempted to wrest control of the elemental from her, anticipating that her wounds would make it more difficult for her, despite the natural advantage she would have from being the original summoner. It took quite some effort, but I did it, causing her to pass out from the drain." Dr. Dawkins paused to think and a realization came over him, "One moment". He spun over to his keyboard and started typing, "I haven't really looked at the body/mana drain interaction for contesting control of a spirit. That might provide some more data for my research with Dr. d'Lorian."

"Right…. So what happened next?"

"Hmm? Oh yes, after that the gun fire died down. I dismissed the fire elemental and scanned the area for more uncontrolled spirits wandering about, but found none. That's when Fifi, the shaman, shouted for everyone to get out. I looked over to find her over a body. Surprised that anyone would have enacted a ritual magic so quickly I tried to assense the body to figure out what the problem was but noticed nothing. However, Fifi was running away at a full sprint so I decided to take her lead. I got behind a wall and then there was a large explosion. I was pretty badly injured, but was able to get out just before several other explosions went off. After some examination it appears all of the attackers were wired with a bomb of some sort. Luckily most of the patrons had fled by that point so not as many died as one would fear. But that place, Brad, it was a slaughterhouse. There were bodies everywhere. I can't imagine the mentality that would rationalize walking into a room and firing indiscriminately into a crowd of unarmed people. They just seemed to want to kill as many people as possible."

"Well, that's the Humanis Polis for you. Hate on top of hate. And welcome to the shadows, chummer-it's not a pretty world."

"Yes, I noticed."

Kozmo's Warstory

03JAN2061: Kozmo walks into the smoky confines of Moon's Shine. It's a Monday night and the dance music is blaring. The heavy bass of the music puts Kozmo in a good mood. He's slightly out of place here, but at least the music has him at ease. He looks around the room and quickly locates the table where Jared Connelly sits talking on his cellphone. Kozmo cooly walks over. As he approaches Jared notices him and a gets a big smile on his face. He motions for Kozmo to sit down with him, Kozmo hears the tail end of Jared's conversation:

"Five-to-one odds? I'll take a piece of that. I want 500 nuyen on the Screamers to win and put 100 on the Arrows. Detroit? Nah, I don't want any of that drek. I lost 200 on those fraggin' slobs last week. Neh? Yeah, that's it. I'll catch up with you tommorrow omae." With that he flips his cellphone shut and focuses his smile on Kozmo. "Well, well my young protege, what are you drinkin' tonight? Let me guess...vodka, straight up?" Jared motions to a waitress, "Bring my friend here a vodka and another soy beer for me."

"I guess you heard about the run already?" Kozmo says with a wry smile on his face.

"Yeah, I talked to Chico yesterday. Sounds like everything worked out for you omae. I heard you did some sweet talking too. I'm impressed. Not to many newbies would have the balls to stand up to a guy like Chico. You did good standing up for yourself. No one in this business is going to give a frag about you except you. Remember that." Jared pulls a cigar out of his inside coat pocket and lights it up. As he takes the first few puffs of his cigar the waitress shows up with their drinks. "Well, congratulations on your first official run." The two men take a swig of their drinks. "What can I do for you now? You here for more work?"

"Well, whatever you got I'll take, but I'm really here about some gear I need."

"What can I do you for?" Jared sits up straight and immediately takes a more serious position.

"My normal hardware just wasn't adequate on that run. I need something that'll pack more of a punch. I popped a guy 4 times from across the room with my Colt America and I think I just annoyed him more than anything." Kozmo scrunches his face in distaste.

"Yeah, I knew you'd come around on that. I know you like that light drek when you're doing second story stuff, but in this biz you need some punch. Do you have anything in mind?"

"I did some pokin' around on the Matrix. I think I could use an Ares Predator III. Can you handle that for me. I'd like it as soon as possible."

"No problem. I'll give you a call later this week. That all?"

"Yup, that'll do me." With that Kozmo takes the rest of his drink in one swig and begins to get up. "I'd like to stay, but I'm meeting someone."

"Keep your nose clean omae."

Kozmo gets out of a taxi at Totti's a small Italian cafe in Seattle. He strolls into the restaurant and looks around. He heads to the bar and sits down at the end facing toward the door. He motions to the bartender, a hulky Italian whose head and body meld seamlessly together, "Hey Joey is Crazy Ivan here?"

"He's out back talking to the boss, he said you should wait for him here. You want the usual?" Joey begins pouring him a vodka before Kozmo can even answer.

"Thanks." Kozmo takes off his jacket and positions himself so that he can see the trideo monitor above the bar. There's an urban brawl game starting, the Seattle Screamers against the Sioux Council's Lakota Arrows. This must be the game Jared was betting on. About 15 minutes later Kozmo feels the sting on his back as a giant hand crashes down on him.

"Aha, Sasha! My brother the cossack!" A booming voice exclaims in a thick Ukrainian accent, "Are you here to tell me story of your wonderful exploits!" Ivan, Kozmo's brother sits down next to him, "Joey, I tell you that little brother is beginning life of crime and deceit? He fancies himself a Shadowrunner!" Joey the bartender smiles and slides a glass of vodka towards Crazy Ivan. "Shadowrunner...bah! You are a cossack!"

"Hey Kozmo, you never said nothin' 'bout that to any of the boys. Why you wanna mess around with that fraggin' drek? I bet the boss could use you full time." Joey says.

"I bet he could, but you know me...I'm better on my own." Kozmo smiles uneasily.

"Enough Sasha, tell big brother about your first run. I want all details." Ivan takes a swig of his drink and settles into his seat at the bar.

"Ok Vanya," Sasha shifts in his chair to face his brother, "I got a call from my fixer Jared on friday night. Turns out there's a club named the Digital Ducats that needs some protection. The owner is looking for some runners to keep the drek out. I figure its as good a start in the biz as any, not to mention the club is whiz bang, so I don't mind spending my New Year's down there. Worst case, nothing happens and I spend the night listening to good music checking out the ladies." The two brothers laugh. "So I get there and the guy has about 5 runners. There's a fraggin' huge troll who looks military, some dorky lookin' mage, some tribal hunter, and an ork mage. They all seem to have their drek together. The bar owner wants us to protect the place from some humanis polyclub hit that's supposed to go down. He's gonna pay us if somethin' or nothin' happens, so I figure its a good deal."

"You get paid to sit around and watch girlies at club? Maybe I should get into this Shadowrunning?" Ivan laughs and slaps his brother's back again.

"Hold up omae, I wish it went that easy. We scope the place out. The other guys seem reasonable and know what to do. We spread out to cover all the doors. Its a madhouse though, people packed in like sardines. Before we know it, we start hearing gun fire and people are getting mowed down everywhere. I think there were a few of these people in the club already and the others came in through the doors with no problem." Kozmo takes another swig of his vodka, finishing it off, and signals Joey for a refill, "I jump behind the DJ booth because two of these drek bust in not more than 10 feet from me. Luckily for me, the crowd shielded me from the gun fire. I look across the club and two of these fraggin' scumbags are right by the dorky mage and one of them is letting loose with an SMG. I figure I got some time before I need to worry about the punks that came in by me, not to mention the tribal has got my back. So I start poppin' shots off at this guy across the room. Unfortunately these fraggin' pea-shooters I carry don't do enough damage so I'm really just pissin' the guy off." Kozmo cringes as his brother chuckles and slaps the bar with his hand.

"Ha, I tell you! You need man's gun, not sissy guns!"

"Yeah, well I just came from a meeting with Jared and I'll have that fixed before my next run."

"Good, you'll be a real cossack now!"

"Anyway Vanya, we do pretty well considering the circumstances. These punks have their own mage that seems to be pretty whiz-bang. The two mages with the group take care of her null sheen. Meanwhile the troll is a one man wrecking crew mowing down these punks and the tribal takes out the two by us. She's poppin' them with these stun rounds out of her shotgun...winds up cuttin' their throats to finish them off, I didn't get that. Maybe some tribal thing where she needs the blood on her hands...I don't know."

"Sasha, sounds like you were successful on your first job?"

"Well, I guess so. After we finish them off the ork mage notices a bomb on one of them. Turns out they're all rigged to blow. We get the frag out of there just before the whole places blows. Turns out it wasn't enough to blow the building, but just mess the place up. Unfortunately the other mage doesn't know when to just bust out of some place. He got caught in the blast. I think he's learned his lesson. When somebody yells bomb and runs, you should probably follow them. He wasn't hurt too bad. I think the bonus money we got for keeping the damage to a minimum will help him shake off the pipe that was blown through his side." Kozmo finishes his second drink and slides the glass back to the bartender.

"Sasha, the cossack! Sounds like you did good. We will celebrate tonight!" Ivan finishes his drink in one final swig and puts his arm over Kozmo's shoulder, "Tonight the brothers Shevchenko will paint the town red! And since you have all this spare cred, I will let you do the buying!" Ivan lets out a bellowing laugh as the two get up from the bar and head out of the restaurant together.