The Hiring [27JUL2003 Friday 02:30 AM]

An ork sits side-saddle on his bike, smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer. Leathers, chains, and a para-military armored jacket tell the tale of a street tough. He is flanked by an ork and a troll, both of which look grim, deadly, and eager to inflict pain. He sits on a shiny new bike, but obscures enough of the bike that the model is not entirely obvious. The bodyguards and the expensive toys tell the tale of a successful business man on the streets.

A troll approaches from a light fog that is rolling in over the Tacoma docks. He is big, as all trolls are, but rather small for a troll, but he might as well be twelve feet tall. His bearing is palpable and his look does not countenance disrespect. His clothes possess a few magical signs and both a sword and a submachine poke out from under his secure longcoat.

A deep, commanding voice rolls out of the troll, "What's the deal Six Caps? I hear you got a job lined up for me."

Six Caps takes a swig of his beer and a long drag off his cigarette, squinting at the troll with a sidelong glance. "Eh, Chavez, looks like the Shadows have been doing all right by you. Yeah, I gotta a job. A special mission you might say; I need a team to go down into the [Ork] Underground and recover something."

"Threats?"

"Maybe some spirits and drek, critters, ghouls, some trigger happy ork guards...you know, the usual."

"You said special."

"Yeah, I did didn't I? Nothing gets past you; but you're one of those smart magical types ain't ya?" Six Caps smirks.

Chavez is a rock. His expression is grim and unmoving.

"Right. Anyway, so it's 'special' cause you're gonna have to go down through a guarded entrance, so you'll need a good stock of Metas for street cred, preferably Orks, of course. You'll probalby want another magic type cause I hear that spirits and such will be a big problem. You'll need a medic of some sort because your package may be wounded. If you can't scrape up enough good Orks, then trolls and dwarves are your next best choice, then elves, and finally breeders [humans]. If ya gotta take a breeder, go for someone with serious street cred or maybe ex-military. The guards down below have a lot of ex-military and wannabes, so they might not beat him down on sight. If you want to have fun, bring a human suit and watch the blood fly. But you ain't got time for that omae, cause you gotta mission."

"Time?"

"Right fraggin' now, why else do you think I'd interrupt my blow out block party for this drek? Thing is, if your package gets dead, your pay gets cut in half. If you come back empty-handed, then you only get the advance. The longer you wait, the more likely it is that you are not getting' the full payoff. It's the usual shadow drek - right damn now and real fraggin' dangerous."

"Cool?"

"Cool."

"Get your team together and call me when you are ready to go. And remember your target may be getting eaten as we speak, so tick tick tick."

Six Caps smiles wryly as he gets back on his bike and kicks the engine to life. It purrs perfectly, as one would expect of a brand new Blitzen combat bike. His bodyguards kick their Honda Vikings to life and the trio rides off into the mist.

Tagger’s Warstory 28JUL2063

“Who is dis mutherfragger sittin’ at my bar?” shouted the ork from the doorway. T-man strolled into Coolie’s Ice House with a small posse of three accompanying him. The African-American ork was average-sized, but only height and weight. A hard commanding presence seemed to follow him around that made him anything but average amongst the working-class Auburnites.
Tagger grinned broadly and stood up showing off the beer in his troll-sized chunk of a hand. “Just keepin’ dis beer company and thankin’ ma cred that I ain’t running with your stupid tusker ass.”

The two shook hands solidly while the other Dragos gang members started scattering to various places in the bar. The entrance had been made, the rest of the time at Coolie’s was their own. Grog was already ordering a round for da boys, Justin was watching from the corner jukebox for anyone with a beef with his gang, and Upstart was making a beeline for the pool table. Biz as uze.

“So youse ready to come back to your real job, fragger,” asked T-Man half serious.

“Nah, I’m gonna try my fist in this shadow biz for a bit. Gotta see where da skills will take me,” answered Tagger cautiously. He had had this conversation with T-Man too many times and if it wasn’t ended quickly the ork would just get annoyed. Time to change the topic.

“Fact, just finished up a fragged up weird job a couple days ago. Fraggin crawling through the sewers and blastin’ cave bugs and drek.”

“Dat so. Tell me bout dis “job” mutherfragger. I haven’t watched a good fraggin sitcom in a couple days,” smirked T-Man.
Tagger order another couple soybeers for the pair before jumping into his warstory.

“So I get dis call from a fixer out in ‘Coma, Six Caps. Says he’s got a job. I sleaze into this fraggin shanty sailor bar wit my drek ready to drop. First time on the biz, not sure if I gotta roll at a drop or if I get some days to chill before go time. Turns out dropping fresh is norm, so I was good.

“Other fraggers show up bout same time too. We was meetin our main man and dis Six Caps guy to get the low down. Our barg was dis Aztec street lookin’ trog, Chavez. He had these drek cool tats down his arms. Turned out he is a mage. There was also dis Russian breeder merc called Thunder, a skinny stylin’ looking breeder magic medic Doc, and this ork chica shaman Cutter. Dis chick was hard and mean, but hot. Ya know da type.”

“Yeah, da kind you keep a medkit by da bed, scars on your back, and a smile on your face,” grinned T-Man. “Drek Trog, you know it. I’m still working on tappin that tusk,” replied Tagger.

“Anyways, the whole crew ended up being razor. Good runners. Da fixer shows up and tells us we gotta go down into the UG to rescue some lost sumbitch. I always thought Six Caps was an ork, but turns out he’s just a human. Go figure. We were getting’ some solid cred for the job and sounded straight.”

“A couple hours later, we’re headin’ down into the UG. I jacked a truck null sheen for a get away in case we come runnin’ out blazing. Tats had to do some magic drek before going down also. We had to come back out an’ grab some flashlights for the fraggin breeders who kept trippin on rocks and drek, but we was heading down sewer tunnels ready for action after dat.”

“Dem tunnels are fraggin annoying, barg. At first it was like rocks and cracks in da dark, but them quakes worked over those tunnels with a bat. We had to climb over fraggin holes in the ground, big rocks blocking the tunnel. Drek, I ain’t no splunker, or whatever them fraggers are called. We got through dem though and with a couple scratches we were ready for something real. I thought dis shadowrunner drek was like sneaking into offices and hitting yak bosses and drek, but I guess there’s the weird drek too.

“So then we get to this fraggin mall area with rundown collapsed stores and drek, all underground. I guess some mall and streets fell down dere back den. Before going under we had this mystic guy tell us da mark was northeast and the Cutter chick had some mojo to helps us find him too. So we kinda knew where to go. We’re headin out of this plaza area and outta no where these two stone-looking gargoyle fraggers leap off of some roofs onto us. Da first one caught us all off guard, I ain’t kiddin, dropped ol’ Tats with a single clawed smack. The rest of us start pullin’ guns and scrappin wit these beasts. Don’t remember exactly who did what, but there was some gun fire, some spell slingin’ and I was wrestling with one tryin’ to rip my throat out. I took care of one of ‘em myself and the others dropped the second one. Tough fraggers. Good thing we had ol’ Flash the medic. He can also do some healin’ mojo and he had Tats back on his feet and ready for more and the rest of us mint.”

“Kept goin’ down into the ground and came into some overgrown park down there. Musta been some freaky plants and trees cause there weren’ much light around, but frag there we were. Started huntin’ around for an exit and got jumped by a swarm of devil rats. Yeah, those fraggers are target pratice rummaging round a bin, but when dere’s twenty of the little bastards, it’s a different story. Musta got a shot of courage or something that morn cause they came straight for us. Those other chums had some problems with them, but I took care of them no problem. I got jumped by like four or five of them, smacked a couple down, blasted one with ol’ Frenchi , clubbed the last couple. Flash had the most problem wit dem, guess workin’ for Doc Wagon you don’t fight demon critters much. Da others had more trouble den I expected, except Chica and that Ivan merc. Took care of them eventually and was patching up the wounds when some UG guys come on us.”

“I noticed dem and had ‘em covered, but I knew it was gonna get messy blastin with them, so I defused da sitch.” T-Man looks at the troll funny and Tagger grins at his new vocabulary word. “Turns out dey lookin for our slitch, Bob, also. Said he stole sumthin. Tats laid out some serious line of drek bout us lookin for an ork chummer who got lost. Even I could smell what he was shovelin, but the UG took it and moved on.”

“Time for da third episode of Piasma Hunter. Da mojo and da compass says we gotta go through this big cave. Prob is dat dere’s all these weird giant beetle fraggers hanging from the ceiling. Turns out dey can hear really good and we gotta slide our way across dis football field fraggin’ cave. Member how I said I ain’t a spelunker? Dat’s da lesson here. Anyways, I was damn quiet compared to dese rock-kickin mutherfraggers. Guess jackin’ cars got me some skills. We’re goin’ across and every now and then a couple of dese fraggers come floatin down towards us. Can’t shoot em, it’d make noise; Can’t run, it’d make noise; Can’t smack em wit a club, too high up and da noise thing; so good thing we got three spell slingers wit us.”

“Frag, three of dem fraggers, huh. I’ve only known four myself, and two I had to kill. Never trusted something that can look at you funny and pull the plug,” mumbles T-Man as he finishes off his third beer.

“I hear ya, but in dis game I think there’s a bunch more of em. Anyways, I was happy to have ‘em, even Flash through some mojo that dropped dese buggers. Near the end our luck ran out though. A bunch came down and da spells got most of them, but I had to step in and throw down with them bugs and they had some mean lookin blade drek comin’ out of them. You remember Night of the Death Blade, da monorail fight. Like dat fragger, only bigger. I got cut bad, but beat ‘em down. Den we got da hell outta there, right into another fragged up sitch.”

“Dis one wasn’t so bad though. Some zulu lookin monkey men with spears lived in the next cave. Nice place to make a town, really smart. ‘Let’s go build a hut ten meters from ol’ Blade Death’ ‘Yeah Joe, sounds like a plan. We got dese spears, we’re set.’ *humf* I pulled out some R-Bars and tossed it at dem and they lets us go by. It was a trip watchin Tats try and to talk to dis spear-chucker. Ya had to be dere I guess.”

“We got past dem and with some of Chica’s mojo found da guy in some abandoned subway track next door. Fragger stepped right of the wall, all camoed and drek. Guess dat slitch was some corp spy type fraggin with the UG. It’s all biz I guess. We head on outta dere best we can. Gotta go through da Death Blade Cave again. More fraggers driftin down, more mojo, more of me swingin some beat down wit da baton. It was lookin hairy there for a bit, but we pulled through.”

“We got outta dat caves alright though. Ran into those UG patrols again, but camo guy just blended into some trees and Tats shoveled some more drek dere way. Out da mall, past some rocky bad patches, and we wuz outttaaa deeerrrre. Cred in da bank. Oh yeah, Ivan or Flash had a good idea to grab one of dem Death Blade Beetles dat had gotten taken out by my baton. Good call too, cause we sold it to some UDub slitch for some extra cred.”

“End of da game. Good chummers all around. What my talk ain’t grabbin your attention any more, T-Man?” asked Tagger with a smile.

“Nah, sounds wiz, omae. Looks like Justin found some trouble. Later, Tagger. Watch the Star and keep the raze.”

With that T-Man headed towards his gang member, pulling an iron pipe from his jacket. Tagger ordered another beer and returned to the Urban Brawl game. Damn, another point for the Detroit Nightmare. Fraggin’ Screamers better pull it up and check their six.