How to Succeed in Running Without Really Trying

A Shadowrun Adventure By: Joe Hatfield

Part 1:

Welcome to My World

Seattle. What can I say? It's my kind of town. Sonics still stink, since the late 90's, M's still haven't won past the ALCS, and the Seahawks..... well, let's just say they're the Seahawks. The only excitement is two things: the Timber Wolves, and shadowrunning. Completely cut off from the UCAS, we get to enjoy a little more "flexibility" on the main laws. But that doesn't mean you get to just go off and geek some greener on a thrill kill, and not expect to get away with it. Nope, the Lone Stars come and give ya a slap on the wrist. What can I say? It's a great place to be.

If you haven't met me before, the name is Flex. Yea, it sounds like a wuss-name, but that's just a smoke screen. Underneath the street name, it's 200 pounds of chromed and armed to the teeth butt-fragging AmerIndian power. I know what the next think coming is, "If he's an AmerIndian, then why doesn't he go by Lone Tree, or some drek like that?" 'Cause I don't want to, that's why! Drek, it's not like I'm not proud of my heritage, that's fragging sure! Look, if you knew me, you wouldn't be saying that.

But enough about me. I command a rag-tag trio of runners that are lucky if they don't blow up from the drek they're packing. We have Night Owl, another AmerIndian, who is our shaman, Snake totem. 'Been honing his skills so finely, he can assense a flea on a dog in an apartment five klicks away. Both Night Owl and I are originally from the Sioux Nation, but we moved to Seattle to see some action. The next guy I've got on my squad is Flack Jacket, our elven weapons expert, from San Francisco. He's got so great an aim, he can split the hairs on the flea that Night Owl is busy assensing. Finally, we've got our semi-new recruit, and a vital addition, Cyber. She's our decker. Another elf, straight from the Tir, she replaced our old decker Goodnight, when he accidentally got geeked. Her hacking abilities are pretty good, and can hack her way into any section of the Matrix, and get out mostly clean. Also, she's got a cybered arm with a Uzi stuffed in for a little fun. Luckily, she installed an off switch, or we'd be grease spots back when we were doing a job in jolly old England.

Yeah, we've been around this crazy world more than once, and still have managed to keep HQ in Seattle. Frag, the 2057 real estate market around is way out of hand, so it's more financially sound to keep where we can already "negotiate" our way out of markups. Anyway, we were in Seattle, watching our bank accounts slip down to nothing, when we happened upon a chance encounter that started us on one of the greatest fragging adventures any runner has ever been on. One that would take us around the continent, and to hell and back.

Part 2:

Life Gets Interesting

We had just come back from a two week vacation in Hawai'i that lead to nothing but a cred amount of almost zip. We walked into the Blue Flame Tavern, old haunt of famous runners everywhere. The Chinaman saw us and immediately offered free drinks. We were thirstier than drek, so we didn't mind a few watered-down boozes. We sat down at the bar and started to drink. Just then, our old contact Weaze came in. "Hey Joe!" he yelled. The room instantly fell dead silent. Not too many drekheads last after calling a runner of my caliber by their real name, but I was in a forgiving mood, so I just shot a look icier than the combined whole of the Polar-Aleut Nation. "Gulp! I..I.I meant Flex! Heh heh, sorry," Weaze managed to titter out. Flashing a weak smile, he continued, "Anyway, I heard about this great employment opportunity! We, uh I mean you, can be exceedingly richer for the part!"

"So where is Mr. Moneybags?" I said, interested.

"Here, follow me!" Weaze led us to a semi-classy hotel named the Grating Arms, or some drek like that. The maitre'd did the usual number, the "please check your fragging' weapons" drek. It took about three seconds total for Night Owl, Cyber, and I to toss our guns and knives in the bin, but it took Flack Jacket a whole three minutes! I didn't call him our weapons expert for nothing. After that, we were led into the dining room, where an elven business suit with two thugs as accessories was waiting for us.

"Hello, runners," he said cooley. "My name is.... Mr. Smith. I work for a concerned party. All around the continent, in almost every nation, there has been a serious problem. Something, is well, causing great financial and physical problems for the party I work for."

"All right, 'Mr. Smith'," I shot back, wary of the non-details. "What is this party you're working for? What is the thing we're up against?"

"I cannot tell you that as of now. All I can say is that you are up against a very powerful opponent, and it may be the biggest operation of your life. My party has authorized me to pay you a quarter of a million nuyen on completion of your task, to divide evenly between your party. Also, I am to give you this credstick, with 100,000¥ to pay off any expenses you may have along the way. Finally, this is a map of the places your target has attacked on his trek around the continent." We looked at the map. True enough, there were places marked in almost every nation, except Aztlan, the Caribbean League, and Hawai'i. "Those three are either too warm for his own personal tastes, or he just hasn't attacked them, for reasons not known. I remind you, we do not know what this is, but it only appears to be attacking minor targets, like small villages, or minor facilities in larger cities."

It all sounded fragging dangerous. Usually, that's the way I like it, but this job was getting my karma in a jumble. Even the extra hundred thousand didn't qualm my suspicions. Why was an elf sending us on this case, where even they didn't know what we were against? I thought the Tir only hired elven runners, if at all. I had to hash it out with the group. "Is it all right if I talk this out with my group?" I asked the suit.

"If you must," he said impatiently. We stepped into the lobby, and the discussion.

"Ok, we know these things," I explained. "Obviously, he's working one of the Tir corps, or the government, and even they don't know what's going on. I'll let you three decide. I'll just be a tie-breaker."

"All this unknown data, it brings up many questions," Night Owl calmly commented. "We don't even know if this is some sort of fragging death-run. I've heard some recent talk of runners going into Tir missions, then never coming back. I don't think this is a good idea at all."

"The money is a plus," Flack Jacket piped up. He always went for the monetary part of a mission. "The 65,000¥ each in our accounts should last us until the next mission."

"If we make it to a next mission," interrupted Night Owl.

"But still, we can buy protection with that 'expense account'," continued Flack. "A hundred thousand can buy plenty of wiz gear! Let's do it."

It all rested on Cyber. She just quietly stood there. Even her cybernetics were quiet, lacking their familiar hum. Then I heard her speaking softly, in Speretheil. With my extensive research on the Tir, thanks to a previous mission, I recognized it as the naming speech after the Tir Rite of Passage. She always repeated it to herself when faced with a major decision, majorly worried, or scared. After a couple of runs through, she softly spoke. "I vote yes." No explanation, no argument, just a simple yes. I admired her self control.

"Well, it's settled, then," I sighed. "We make the run." We made our way back to the elf, and set up the deal. "Just one more thing," I said. "We want the 'expense account' on our credstick. For security reasons, purely." After much negotiation, he agreed. Cyber supplied the credstick, and transferred the cash.

"You must be off," the Mr. J. added. "Our sources tell us that it's next target is Bellingham, in the Salish-Shide Council."

"Ok, squad. Let's get to fragging' that son-of-a-drek!" I excitedly said. With that, we were off. After picking up our van from Weaze's shop, we headed to the S-S border. The guards gave us the usual runaround, and a couple hours and a few nuyen later, we were on our way. We headed up Highway 5, straight to Bellingham. When we arrived, it looked pretty clean. Then we reached the airport. It looked like a fragging war zone! Flaming plane parts and gutted hangars littered the shattered tarmac. Whatever caused this, it was big. Really, really, big. Luckily, the airport was closed for repairs. Heh, go figure. They're trying to fix the fragging thing when something comes along and causes more drek for them to do. Anyway, we saw a lone witness standing about a few feet from a fragged Air West plane. He just stood there, wide-eyed at the sky, and was stuttering "Dra-dra-dra.."

"What's a dra-dra-dra?" Cyber asked, when Night Owl slammed his eyes open. He was busy assensing the outside perimeter, when he found our target.

"Uh, guys, you are not going to like this," he worriedly said. "Uh, the dra-dra-dra is actually, a mid-sized dragon." He let that quickly sink in, then said, "And it looks like it's heading back for dessert. Us." True to his word, a very big shadow was slowly creeping over us. Its owner then belched a fireball about half the size of the gutted plane standing next to us.

"Frag!!!!" I screamed. "Let's move it now!!!" The team scattered faster than ants under a magnifying glass. A very big one, threatening to barbecue them quicker than you could blink. The team was safely away, with an astral shield by Night Owl as a backup, when I saw the mechanic was still standing where we left him. I exploded out to the spot, but I lost my balance. Luckily, I was still aimed for the mechanic, so I slammed into him, and the momentum flung us just past the zone of the flame. The fireball fragged what was left of the plane, and about three meters of tarmac and dirt. The flames came so close to us, it singed the back of my leather jacket. I half bit my tongue off resisting the urge to scream.

A little worse for the wear, I arose to see the dragon take off and head south, and to see the team rushing over. "You fragging drekhead!!!" Night Owl yelled. "You could have been a fragging barbecue dinner in one fragging microsecond!" I coughed from the smoke, and sarcastically let out, "Yes, Night Owl, I'm just great. Thanks for asking." Needless to say, the mechanic was much more grateful. After taking a small break to treat my burns, the team and I headed back to Seattle, and went to the Blue Flame, to discuss our current situation.

"A fragging dragon?!?!?!?" Flack yelled. "How the frag are we going to fight a dragon? At most, the drek I have now is enough to maybe geek a small one, but one that size???" The other two were more or less in consensus.

"Yeah, I know, a fragging dragon," I said. "It's too late to turn back, though." However, even I was beginning to have doubts. "We have already signed on. We've now got our reps and our honor to think of. Besides, our karma will get really fragged if we drop an assignment just when the heat is on. Well, we only have to worry about getting enough drek to frag this bogie.

"Um, better add another thing to that..." Night Owl added, coming back from astral. "I just checked on our target, and it turns out he's heading for the Tir."

"Great, just great. Now we've gotta worry about getting into the Tir as well." I sighed. "We've got 98,000¥ left. That should be enough to get something to geek the thing, and get us VAVs."

While Flack and Cyber went with 40,000¥ each, Night Owl and I sat in the bar and talked. "Well, old friend, we certainly got ourselves in a heap of drek this time," I commented. "I'm still trying to figure out what we did to deserve such bad karma," Night Owl commented. "But all I can think of is when we accidentally got Goodnight geeked, but that was no one's fault. It was like you just did back there, risking his neck to save someone. Too bad he was on the other side of the fireball. That's why I yelled at you. I didn't want to be instantly promoted."

Cyber came in half an hour later, instantly shattering the moment. "Well, I got the VAVs, for relatively cheap! I basically had a pretty reliable decker take our old VAVs, update them, and re-laminate them. It didn't cost us a single nuyen." That should have set me off, then and there. You usually can't do that kind of work for free. But, I had other things on my mind, so we met up with Flack Jacket, and after dealing with the S-S guards again, headed down Highway 5 to the Portland Wall.

Part 3:

Tir Troubles

There at the border check, the guards just looked at the VAVs and let us in. No holographic scanner, nothing. By then, we were too busy following the dragon to notice. We just went on through, and kept driving on 5. I saw the guard talk on his radio after they passed through, but I figured that it was just bureaucratic drek. Driving through Portland, Night Owl alerted us that the dragon had just landed in Salem. "Just fragging wonderful," I muttered under my breath. When we reached "Checkpoint Charlie", the outer edge of the wall, they let us through with nary a second thought. That whipped up some major red flags, and blaring sirens, and screaming whistles, but they were partly qualmed when they came back and our credstick was a few thousand short. We continued driving down Highway 5, to the outer regions of Salem. Cyber was getting excited. She lived in Salem, before escaping to Seattle, and was hoping to catch up on some old runner acquaintances while we were here.

We got off the highway at the Four Corners exit, and headed for the nearest non-biased bar to plan strategy. We pulled in to a place, recommended by Cyber, called "THE Sports Bar". Frag knows what the "THE" stands for. We walked in to see a small tussle going on, nothing new to this old runner's eyes. When Cyber walked in, last as always (drek if I know why), the people who were the runners, and wanna-bes stopped rooting for the fight, and immediately turned their attention on her. A young-looking elf came over and said to Cyber, "Hey Cyb! Welcome back to Salem! What say you break off this dead weight, and come with me..." which was replied to with a resounding jaw-shattering slap by Cyber's cybernetic arm. We sat at a outlying booth, ordered some drinks, and started talking.

Night Owl was first. "From what I can tell, the dragon, or whatever it is, landed across the river," he said, slowly. He added an undercut, straight to me, so the others wouldn't pick it up, "But I don't trust this. I've been smelling ambush since we hit the Wall."

The other two were just silent. Flack was busy trying to hit up on a hot looking elf, with less spectacular results than the guy who tried to hit up on Cyber. Cyber was watching the latest hurling game. Even in Seattle, she had been feverishly loyal to the Salem Kinsman, trying every way possible to catch the games on trideo. "Ahem!" I bellowed, catching their attention. "Now, are we awake?" The two paid attention though the small session. It was agreed that we slowly make our way to West Salem, to be careful. We headed out of the bar, and drove to the river. The bridge was almost completely barren. There was one other car next to us. Our paranoia was starting to overflow. Then we reached West Salem.

Three centimeters ahead of our car, a very large fireball violently exploded. We stopped 1.1 microseconds after. Getting out of the now pock-marked van, we were greeted by seventeen Tir paladins. Armed to the teeth Tir paladins. Behind them was our dragon. It was a very fine model of one, outfitted with an actual flamethrower. A door opened, and out walked two figures. One, a robed elf, I didn't recognize at first, until Cyber burst out "Erhan the Scribe!" The other figure was our "Mr. Smith".

"Welcome, runners. I see you survived the journey here," sneered "Mr. Smith". "Yes, I am with a Tir corp, but I also happen to be the leader of the Paladin force loyal to the marvelous Erhan. Oh, here is your payment." He tossed a credstick at our feet. "Too bad you'll never get to spend it...." He wickedly laughed.

"What's the meaning of this?" Flack immediately reacted.

"It's for the paladins' benefit," Erhan smoothly replied. "In their line of work, my paladins sometimes don't do anything for stretches of a year or two. I send out Duke Smith here to recruit a band of unwitting shadowrunners from time to time to act as..... target practice. Ordinary target practice gets boring after a while. My paladins thirst for living, moving targets. After all, we can't have their skills just go to waste, now can we?"

"No wonder we got in so easily!" I groaned, slapping my head in stupidity. I then shot out the old cliche, "You'll never get away with this!!"

"Why do they always say that?" Erhan disdainfully said. He then grinned evilly, saying, "You have nobody to tell here! Besides, who would believe a runner?" He then snapped his fingers, and yelled out, "Prepare for battle!" the paladins readied their weapons for runner pate, Night Owl launched out a massive Chaotic World spell. Luckily, we were already protected against this earlier, so we jumped in the van, and got out of there faster than it had ever gone before.

An hour later, about the time that the spell wore off, we were already three-quarters of the way to Redding. Obviously, the spell completely fragged them off, because as we were approaching the border, we were me my about one-fifth of the entire Tir border guard, flanked by about fifteen panzers, and a couple of Yellowjackets for good measure. They were armed and ready to party. To add to the fun, Night Owl chimed in, "Uh, guys, the ship is coming up on us. Fast." True enough, the dragon-ship was slowly approaching in the rear view mirror. I was beginning to feel like the blue-plate special, Runner Sandwich.

Flack started rifling around the back, and a minute later, popped through the sun roof with an Assault Cannon he had picked up earlier in Seattle. Immediately, he fired off a blast. Quickly after that, he reloaded and blasted off another round. They hit the wall door behind the group, and connected. It instantly exploded in a mass of splinters. The guards quickly scattered as chunks of wood flew towards them. During this, I floored the gas, and we blasted through the now shattered doorway to freedom. Behind us, the dragon-ship landed to help the fallen. The ramp lowered, and out ran a paladin with a rocket launcher. Luckily for us, he was a new recruit, with poor aim, so the rocket was launched into what was left of the doorway, blasting out yet another chunk of concrete from the already fragged archway. It crumbled into a mass of rubble, opening a hole four meters wide in the wall. Erhan ran out of the ship, screaming "You haven't seen the last of us!!" Yeah, and your little dog, too. Heh. Since Cyber got to go to Salem, and Flack whined to see his old stomping grounds, we hauled drek to San Francisco to recoup from this little fiasco. An extra 260,000¥ in our account would certainly ease the pain from this little encounter.

Part 4:

Bay Blowout

Using the money left from the expense account, a whole ten grand, we stopped at Oakland to buy our way into Frisco. We stopped by an Underground station Flack suggested, and picked up four very good forgeries of a Resident Pass. We started across the Bay Bridge, passed by the guard station with no hassles, and arrived in Downtown. We decided to get a bite to eat, so we drove to JJ's. Entering the tavern, we were led to a seat, and we made our orders.

"What a day!" exclaimed Cyber. "Ducking a dragon that's actually a ship, that leads us to an ambush that's led by the guy who hired us, and one of the leaders of the Tir government!" I couldn't have said it any better.

"Well, at least we survived," Night Owl added, in his usual cheery tone.

"With 250,000¥ to boot!" piped in Flack, triumphantly.

"Well, lets get a room somewhere, and relax for a while," I said, wearily. About then, the bartender arrived with our orders. "But first, let's eat!"

I woke up the next day in the Hilton. I arose from my bed, saying, groggily, "Wow, what a dream I had last night." I then walked to the window, and looked out. The sun was just starting to come up. I looked out into the parking lot, where I glanced atwas left of our poor heap of a van, and winced. The entire front end was completely charred, and the sides were laced with bullet holes. It was enough to shake me out of my morning stupor and remind me that yesterday was no fragging dream. I then turned on the trideo. It was spewing out CFS political drek, as was usual for this time of year. I flipped around the channels, and stopped on the local news. In the other bed, Night Owl was starting to stir. He woke up when the door connecting our room to Cyber and Flack's room with ours suddenly opened.

"You guys have got to see the news!" Flack excitedly said.

"Yeah, they're running a news story about yesterday!" Cyber added, following him into the room. I turned up the volume. The news story was just coming on.

"Last night, near the Tir Tairngire border, a massive attack was launched," the newscaster began. Massive attack, ha! Three shots, and it was over. "The Tir government would not release any details about the attack." Cover up. The story went in to talk about the turmoil surrounding the UCAS elections. We then walked to the lobby to get breakfast.

During the "large complimentary breakfast" the hotel offered, I asked Cyber to check our box too see if any messages were in. There was the usual drek, fan mail, death threats, and one message from our contact in Frisco, Brainer.

I read, "Way to go on that little party up at TT, chummers! I hear you're out here for a while. I have already picked up an assignment for you! M..."

I rolled my eyes, and turned it off.

"Why'd you stop it?" Cyber asked.

"We don't really need to go on another assignment just now," I replied.

"Yeah, and besides, after what happened yesterday, I'm just about trough with missions for now," added Night Owl.

"Besides, we still have 250,000¥ left," I said.

"Ok, I'll tell Brainer that we don't need the assignment right now, and to try us in a few months," Cyber thoughtfully said.

Flack finally said something, in a tone that worried me. "Uh, guys..." he began.

"Oh, no," I expectantly said. "What did you do now?"

"Um, strike the money issue. I already spent a hundred and fifty thousand last night upgrading my smartgun link. Also, I checked in with a local body shop,they said it would take 85,000¥ fixing what we've done to the poor thing, leaving us only fifteen grand to use."

"Wonderful. Just fragging wonderful," Night Owl spitefully groaned.

"Fragging great," I added. I then sighed, and admitted, "I guess we'll have to read the rest of the message now. Cyber?"

She read off the rest of the message. "...Meet me at 1700, at Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 27."

"Ok, it's 730 now," I noted, looking at my watch. "Why don't we split up, and use the fifteen grand we have left around town. We'll meet back up here at... um, 1630."

"Ok, I've been itching to catch a Giants game," said Flack. He had always been loyal to his team. "I heard they were playing the Dodgers today at eight," he directed to me. I was still semi-loyal to the Dodgers, even though Dodger Stadium was more like a fortress than a stadium now, since the gangs demolished Chavez Ravine.

"Ok, I'll go with you," I replied, interested.

"I think I'll go see if I can get some new programs for my deck," Cyber added after a little thought.

Calmly as ever, Night Owl finally said, "I think I'll just go to Golden Gate Park to meditate."

"Watch out for the I-Marines, though," Flack added. Living in San Francisco during the Japanese occupation taught him a lesson about the I-Marines' "special treatment" of the non-Japanese, especially metahumans.

We each then went our separate ways. Flack and I hopped in the van, and dropped it off at a body shop. We then hopped a bus and went to Candlestick Park. As was expected, the Dodgers creamed the Giants 25-10. We then stopped by the body shop to pick up the van. Since it was already near 1600, we decided to meet up with Night Owl, and then go back to the hotel. Unfortunately for them, when we reached the park, a group of gangers just happened to get to Night Owl at the same time we did. As we all know, gangers and runners mix oh so well, so, as you can imagine, we were soon involved in a riotous fight.

Flack warmed up his smartlinks, whipped out a loaded HK227, and started blazing away on the gangers. I also took out my modest Ares, and soon was firing into the gang. Of course, the gangers had guns of their own, so we were soon starting to rip each other to pieces. After a minute of this, Night Owl got fragged off, so he cast a massive hellblast, that roasted the gangers to ashes.

In response to this, he flicked his tongue out, and muttered, "Stupid fragging gangers, interrupting my meditation...." What a guy.

Well obviously, runners and gangers mixing together does not equal good terms with the police, so soon a few police cars were soon arriving at the scene. Of course, we were already long gone by then, so there were no problems with them. We happily drove on through the San Franciscan streets, until the gangers' friends showed up. Apparently, they were ticked off by the fact that we toasted their friends. They began following us in an armored police van. Frag knows how on earth they got it. Anyway, they started blazing away at us, blowing new bullet holes right where the old ones were. This was really fragging me off. I yelled ao Flack to take the wheel, and ran into the back. I rummaged around the back, looking for the Assault Cannon that Flack had used yesterday. I was making so much noise, I couldn't hear Flack saying that we were reaching Lombard Street. I popped out of the sun roof just as we reached the first curve, and fired right when we were turning. You can just imagine what this did for my aim. A rose garden immediately went up in flames. After a mile and a half of curves, and me threatening to yarf in the van, Flack finally found a side street, and turned onto it. The van flew over the hill, and landed safely. We drove for a few blocks before the gangers flew over it, too. They then resumed their firing. A couple cannon blasts by me later, and the flaming wreckage of what was left of their van landed in a toasty heap.

Then we finally arrived at the Hilton parking lot, Cyber was there, impatiently waiting for us. When she saw the still smoking bullet holes in the side of the van, she asked, "Having fun without me, boys?" She then teasingly added, "I though you said you were fixing the van, Flex."

"Oh, knock it off!" I replied, exasperated.

Anyway, we headed over to Pier 55, and met up with Brainer. "Hoi, chummers! How's it hanging?" he asked, then noticed my blackened jacket back. "A little worse for the wear, I see."

Night Owl replied, "Yeah, this last mission fragged us good."

"Wow. Ok, I heard it through the vine that an Fuchi Mr. Johnson is looking for runners. They said to be at the Hyatt by 1800."

"Thanks, Brainer," I said, cheerfully. "Here's a few thousand to tide you over." I slipped him a few bills, and we parted ways.

We arrived at the Hyatt with time to spare. After walking into the lobby, we

met up with the suit in the lounge. "Greetings runners," he greeted us, in a tone we'd all heard before. "My name is Mr. Johnson. I work for Aztechnology. They have recently had an important item stolen from them by a rival corp. We need you four to retrieve it for us. I have been authorized to pay you 85,000¥ for services rendered."

"Just a few questions," I declared. "What is this 'special item', and who stole it?" Like I really expected an intelligible answer.

"We believe that it was Renraku who stole it," he replied. Hmmph. Must have been a new recruit. "The item we believe they stole, was vital information, concerning theYakuza. Renraku is planning to sell the information to the Yakuza, so they can get some vital influence in the underground. They may have stored this information, to sell it off later."

"I believe we shall take this assignment," I cheerily agreed. It sounded easy enough. We hashed out the final details, and started out for the streets.

"I actually agree with you on this one, Flex," commented Night Owl, as we were heading towards the van. "It does sound easy enough. But, coming off the experience we had yesterday, it sounds too easy. I do place all trust in you, though."

"Thanks for your confidence, omae," I replied. With a sigh, I then began, "Well, Cyber, looks like this mission is in your department."

"Yes, good thing I went out today to get those programs," she responded. "But before I go and start wasting my programs, I think we should find some more about this information."

"I agree," said Flack. "I've got some old friends who work for Renkaru, and I've still managed to keep in touch. I'll set up a meeting." After a few minutes on the phone, he came back with, "Ok, I've got it set up. We were lucky, he was about to go on his dinner break. He can meet me within ten minutes." He read off the address of the local bar where he set the meet up, and we were soon there.

Spying Flack's contact, I decided that he looked like an overworked elven wage mage. When he saw us walk through the doors, he excitedly called out, "Hey Greg! How's life been since you moved?"

"Just fine, chummer," Flack replied. "The usual drek is happening around Seattle. How's it with you?"

"Oh, the usual. Same boring, mind-numbing job. So, what's this you called me about? Something about Renraku?"

"Strange drek, man. We heard that they had their decker strike force break into Aztech, and stole some info on the Yakuza. We heard they're going to sell it soon, so we need to know where the big R's keeping the file."

"Hmmm, well, I can't help you much with techno-stuff, but, I figure that they'd keep it in their special corner of the Matrix... Watch out though, I heard from some deckers around here that the benchmark for the whole place is about Orange-7. From what you say, I'd suppose that the area that it would probably be in is around Red-5!"

"Nothing I can't handle," Cyber smugly responded.

"Watch out for the black IC, though. The R&D's been messing around with some new strains lately..."

"Child's play."

"Whatever, sis, it's your skull. Anyway, I've gotta head back to the Arch... I wasn't supposed to leave in the first place. It's been good to see you, Greg. I've got to go, 'fore they find me, and give me their 'special retirement package'."

"Thanks again. Here, here's something for you and yours, to get you out of there the legal way," Flack responded, and handed his friend a few thousand nuyen in bills.

"Well, Cyber," I calmly remarked, as Flack's contact walked off. "It's all upyou now."

"Yep, let's get back to the hotel so I can get jacked in," she confidently replied.

We drove on to the hotel, and went into our room. Cyber whipped out her Fuchi Cyber-6 and also the disks she had bought earlier. "Ok, I got an upgrade in all my major programs," she commented, mostly to herself. "Bod, Armor, Attack, Evasion, and Medic. I should be able to handle any sleazy Black IC." She did the necessary diskwork lightning quick. "Ok, I'm about to go in," she announced. She jacked in, and started it up. As she normally did, she related everything to us that happened to her in the Matrix under her breath.

"Ok, I'm in. I'm moving into Renkaru now............. Ok, I've gained entrance. Let's see... where would they put it. Hmm... try a SAN here, one there... Aha! Here it is I think. Checking now..... ok, looks like I'm right. Oh, frag! When he said there was Black IC here, he wasn't fragging kidding! Ok, I've only got a little time... while the stupid IC is tearing into the decoy, I'll download the info......... now. Arrrgh! Downloading................ done. Looks like I don't have mcuh time left.. Ok, I'm replacing that with a little file I whipped up, to frag them off. Heh heh. Arrrrgh! Oh frag!!! I set off an alarm!!! I gotta jack out now!!!! The IC is starting to get me!"

"Cyber!! Jack out now!!!" I screamed out to her.

She screamed out in pain. A second later, she barely ripped out the plugs, and collapsed. She woke up a couple of minutes later, groggily muttering "Arrrgh. I got the data, but we've got to get out of here. Now. The Renkaru goons will arrive here any minute, I think they traced me." She then passed out.

"Ok, let's get you into the van," I tenderly said. We carried her and the restour gear into the van, checked out of the Hilton, and started heading for the. I called the Mr. Johnson, and alerted him to the fact we got the data. We linked up with him, and collected our money. We then started heading out of Frisco, just when the fallout from Cyber's little package left for Renkaru in the Matrix hit. I noticed an explosion coming from the Hilton, about the room that we were in.

When she woke up, I asked, "What did you put in that thing, anyway?", as Flack drove us towards the nearest bridge.

"Oh, just a little virus I picked up downtown," she groggily replied. "It should slow things down there for a while. Oh, I also copied the data, and uploaded it to my account on Shadowland."

Well, unfortunately for us, the fallout hit us quickly. There was a Renkaru Security force following us, now within five minutes of tracing Cyber. It was blocking our way out of the city, with guns ready. "Ok, fine," I commented, smugly. "I know how to handle this." I popped out of the roof, Assault Cannon in hand, ready to clear our way. Aiming at the nearest van, I pulled the trigger. It didn't fire. "Damn!!!" I yelled, as we were getting closer to the roadblock. I pulled it again and again, but the fragging trigger was still jammed. The only thing I could do, is throw the fragging thing at the roadblock, so I did. "Flack, retreat!!! The fragging cannon jammed!" Flack then did a maneuver with the van that got us away from the roadblock in time, but knocked me back in. The tank behind us was still following us, guns blazing. "Fraggit, Flack, why didn't you pick up two of those things?"

"Because I could only get one !" He angrily yelled from the drivers seat. "You now owe me twenty grand!" He then paused, in mid-thought. "Oh, wait. I think that I picked up an AVM launcher a couple weeks ago, though."

"A missile launcher, all right!" I excitedly yelled, just as a concussion blast from our tailgaters hit the back of the van. I was knocked into a side. Blackout city.

I woke up an hour later in the van, with Night Owl standing over me, treating my head wounds. "Wh-where are we?" I groggily uttered.

"We made it to Sacramento," he quietly replied. He then told me what had happened in the space of time I was out cold.

Apparently, after I slammed into the side of the van and blacked out, Cyber got completely fragged off, and then managed to find the missile launcher Flack had mentioned. She then popped out through the sun roof, and yelled "This is for Flex!!!" Amazingly, she managed to launch the missile accurately. It connected with the panzer, and fragged it good. Shrapnel flew everywhere. One piece struck her though, knocking her off her post. It didn't kill her, but it did some damage.

He concluded it with, "That's about it. I'm still healing her now. I'm sure she'll pull through. However, she'll need some rest, and so will you, Flex."

Ignoring "Doc"s orders, I moved over to where Cyber was laying down. "Wow, gal, way to go!" I whispered. "Don't worry. You know Night Owl will heal you up."

She weakly responded, "Yeah, I know. Don't worry, I'm too stubborn to die, just like my leader."

After spending a day in Sacramento to heal our aching bones, both Cyber and I were feeling a lot better. When we were about to head off, I asked, "So, where do we head now?", and then immediately regretted it. Flack had that look in his eyes, that one I always dread. The look where his eyes seem to form nuyen signs, and roll like slot machines. The Vegas look. "Oh, no. No, no, no, no," I groaned, trying to change Flack's mind.

After filling up at the local methanol station, we were heading to Vegas.

Part 5:

Havoc, Vegas Style

As the van was speeding towards the Ute border, I kept wondering how on earth my command kept slipping. After about twelve miles of moping, I decided to skip it and keep my eyes on the road, and tolerated the trip down Highway 95 into Vegas. As he was sitting next to me, Flack's eyes seemed to be getting bigger and bigger as we headed down the famous Strip. I swear I could hear his greed growing as well. We were slowing down to stop at a hotel and scam our way in, when it started raining. With what I heard about Vegas drivers and rain, I could see this part of our trip was going just wonderful already.

Sure enough, when we were stopped at a light, a drekheaded slotter in a cheap Americar soon skidded off the road and crashed into the side of our van. As if the poor pile of drek wasn't ready for the scrap heap as it was. Well, the driver stormed out of his car, and started running at the van, yelling his fool head off. All we did was just unanimously get out. Obviously, this was the poor idiot's first experience with 'runners in the flesh, because when he saw all four of us in the flesh, he stopped dead in his tracks. I still swear I could hear his expensive cybereyes pop right out of their sockets. He let out a shrill titter, sped into his car and was gone in a flash. Some people, yeesh.

With a car-sized dent, three lines of bullet holes streaked across the sides and back of our poor van, as well as a couple rear dents and charring for good, we had no choice to look up another body shop and fix her up. 75,000¥ later, we were walking to the nearest casino to cool off our heels. I could tell that this was going to be a worse drain on our funds than Frisco. Life being what it was, Cyber and I were soon found ourselves sitting in a bar, trying everything we could to restrain Flack from wasting the rest of the thirty-five grand we had left.

"I told you Vegas was going to be a bad idea," I groaned. "Its just been a bad experience every time we go."

"I agree," added Cyber. "Remember the last time we came? Flack downed a fragging hundred grand, and we almost had to hitchhike home." She then looked around, with a worried look in her eyes. "Hey, what happened to Night Owl,?"

"I don't know," I replied. "Last time I saw him was at the blackjack tables, when we were dragging Flack away from the video poker. You know he's always had a soft spot for 21."

We scratched our heads about it, gave a double shrug, and resumed trying to restrain Flack, when we heard a muffled cry for help, "Flex!! Cyber!! Flack!! Help!!!!"

"Uh oh," I worriedly said, recognizing the voice. "Looks like the Yakuza caught up with us. They've got Night Owl!"

"Let's move!" Flack surprisingly said. This amazed me, it was the earliest he had ever snapped out of a greed stretch in Vegas. We followed Night Owl's cry throughout the casino, and finally spotted a couple of Yakuza thugs dragging his unconscious body towards the exit. "Hey! Drop that shaman!" Flack heroically yelled. The thugs just turned slightly, and whipped out high-powered stun batons. A couple of thunks later, we were all seeing stars, and were dragged away.

We woke up in a crude cell, with nothing missing but our weapons. Even Night Owl's fetishes were still on him. As we shook the last of the shock out of our heads, we heard a faint voice coming through the wall that vaguely sounded like a ring announcer. "Where are you going?" It was saying. "Don't go! In just five minutes, we have, by special request, a four-on-four matchup!" I slowly realized that we were going to be that four.

"Holy frag, we're in the Pit!" Flack shrieked, obviously coming to the same realization. "The Yakuzas are making us fight!"

"Calm down, it's nothing we can't handle," I reassured. "They were stupid enough to leave the fetishes on Night Owl, so we have it handled."

"Yeah, and besides," added Cyber, "I read that these matches are only to first blood, and besides, they're as rigged as pro wrestling was."

Four minutes later, the Yakuza thugs that grabbed us in the casino came through the door. "Time to get up and fight," they grunted.

We were gruffly led into the arena, where about a thousand screaming fans were awating the beginning of the match. It was round, with a lumpy, blood-stained dirt floor, and blood-stained cracks in the walls. As soon as we were in the pit, the announcer started speaking. "Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin our special four-on-four match!" The fans then cheered louder than before. "Thereb were be some different rules for this match. First, this one's to the death!" The fans scream even louder. We were starting to get worried. "Also, no magic will be used! If we see any magic being used by anybody, even outside the ring, Bob here will quickly shoot and kill the offending person!" Bob turned out to be an ork with looked like a Walther WA-2100 sniper rifle, with a laser sight. Now we were really worried. "That's all! Let's see the opponents for our fine foursome of runners........ The Tinys!!!" Much to our added problems, "The Tinys" turned out to be a group of four trolls, each of them at least a half meter taller than each of us.

"Flack, thanks oh so much for suggesting Las Vegas," Night Owl sarcastically groaned. "Next time you do, remind me to hit you with a power bolt!"

"I thought you said this was rigged," Flack directed to Cyber. She didn't, because she just stood there, staring at our opponents, and reciting the naming speech, triple time. What worried all of us the most was when the ring official came out to both teams with the weapons: spiked wooden clubs, reminiscent of Aztec clubs. "I never used these before," Flack whined.

"Well, you're about to get a crash course in them now," remarked Night Owl. "Just think of them as spiked baseball bats, and go from there."

When the ring official was out of the ring, the announcer let out the usual "Let's get ready to rumble!!!!!!" cliche to start the match. We just stood there, figuring the best plan for escape, as the trolls slowly lumbered over to us. Flack used Night Owl's tip, and immediately took a batter's stance as the first of the trolls inched towards him. It connected, and shattered on the troll's tough hide. Flack watched this with an "I'm a goner" look, while the troll took a swing that tossed him across the room, slamming him into the wall.

Night Owl was the next target. A shaman without magic and backup gun is, basically, a sitting duck. He tried throwing the club at the troll in front of him, to no avail. He soon found himself being chased around the ring. He finally tired, and then tried some martial arts he had learned for just such an occasion. He actually managed to kick the club out of the troll's hand, but seeing as he was just a couple of stripes above a green belt, he was soon pounded flat with one punch.

I was about ready to get used to being a grease spot, when I remembered something. "Cyber!!" I yelled, snapping her out of her self-induced hypnotic loop. "Use your Uzi!!!!" I prayed to every fragging deity I had ever known that the Yaks were stupid enough to not deactivate the cyberarm. After all, the announcer just said no magic. He didn't say anything about cyberlimbs with hidden weapons.

To the Yakuza thugs' surprise, Cyber's Uzi popped out, and shot her opponent three times. The bullets just went in, with no residual effects. I was just about ready to be a grease spot again, when the troll's chest suddenly exploded, surprising him as much as me. Cyber just calmly blew the smoke off her barrel. "Packing high-explosive rounds today, I see!" I happily yelled at her over the crowds now heightened yelling and screaming. Apparently, we were losing vast amounts of money for many people. Cyber then emptied seven more rounds into the two trolls running at me, and finished them off. She then aimed her Uzi at the last troll, who was busy trying to make a bloody pulp out of Flack by using Night Owl's body.

Click, click. Cyber's Uzi was empty of bullets. "Oh, great!" she shrieked. "I was only able to pick up ten bullets this time!! We gotta do something quickly, before Night Owl and Flack are dead!!"

I ran at the troll with my club in hand. I leaped up at him, trying to aim for his head. It shattered, but caught his attention, much to my future dismay. He dropped Night Owl and Flack, and reached for me, who was now on his shoulders riding bronco style. He managed to grab my leg, and threw me into the stands, where fans started beating me up. He then decided beating up Flack with Night Owl was getting tedious, so he went for Cyber. She screamed, and then tried hitting the troll with her club. Like the last three, it shattered, with no damage to

the troll. He then hunched over her, proceeded to wrap his huge hands around her neck, and squeezed.

Meanwhile, I was getting the drek beat out of me by the unruly mob in the stands. They then collectively picked me up, and threw me back into the ring, but not before I managed to grab a chain from a wayward ganger. I landed painfully on my hoop, but quickly staggered to my feet. I had to save Cyber, and quick! Gasping, she was vainly trying to stop the troll from squeezing the last breath outher. I leapt onto the troll's back, and wrapped the chain I had in my hand around his thick neck. He dropped Cyber, who coughed and then passed out. He then stood up, which led the force of gravity to aid me in my task. He grabbed at the chain, but it was busy burying itself in his neck. He then tried grabbing me, but the lack of oxygen was beginning to have an effect on his coordination. I wason with all my might, even though my arms were trying to rip out of their sockets. Finally, he gave a last futile gasp, and collapsed. Too bad for me, he fell back, pinning me to the ground.

I used all my strength to try to escape the crushing dead weight on top of me. Cyber woke up, and tried to move the troll. I finally wriggled free, and stood up. Cyber and I then hobbled over to Flack and Night Owl, who were just barley awake, much less alive. We helped them up, and then started doing a weak victory dance, both in relief and joy. We had won the match, barely.

The crowd erupted. People were either trying to jump the wall to get to us, or throwing bottles, rocks, and anything else they could get their hands on. All this was quieted by a single shot by Bob. The ring announcer then yelled into its mike, "Ladies and gentlemen, your winners!!" We smiled, then hobbled towards the now open escape door. Waiting for us were the Yakuza thugs, who wanted to finish us off. Two bullet holes in their heads immediately formed, and they collapsed. I flashed a thumbs-up to Bob, who was still standing in the, smiling at us. We walked through the door, and up the stairs to the ground floor. The announcer walked over to us and said, "Congratulations! For being the first people ever to defeat the Tinys, you win the 2, 500¥ prize jackpot!" He handed us a credstick, then led us to a waiting "complimentary medical facility". Theyus up, and we were released the next day. We picked up the van from theshop, and drove to a restaurant to reflect on our week.

"Wow, what an adventure," remarked Night Owl, as we were eating. "We've made enemies of the Tir paladin force, their government, the SFPD, the Yakuza, Renraku, probably Fuchi, two gangs, and a mob of fans in Vegas. We've been shot at at least seven times, almost killed, half blown up, tossed in a death match, and the week isn't even over!"

"Jeez, for the match, you'd think we'd get more than a lousy twenty-five hundred," Flack whined.

"You're right," I replied, a bit depressed. "So, where to next?"

"Let me check the e-mail," Cyber declared after a couple minutes. Again, the usual drek, but this time there was a note from Weaze. He had flown to Dallas to visit his sister, and heard of a job while he was there. He wanted us to meet with him in a couple days.

"Dallas it is, I guess," I announced. We were soon on the way to Dallas, with a layover in Pueblo to spend the night.

Part 6:

Eight Flags Over Mayhem

We were speeding along Highway 160 to Pueblo, at about 2300, with the radio. It was Flack's favorite station in the area, some fragging oldies station, playingfrom the 1980s to the 2020s. Not exactly my favorite, but I was too busy keeping the van on the road to argue. And besides, he was in the back, cleaning his guns. Cyber was in the side seat, playing some game on her deck she bought in. Night Owl was sleeping in the seat next to me. A very strange song by a singer with a last name of Yankeevich, or something like that, was playing, when we reached the Pueblo-Ute border. I began wondering why I had never known that Weaze had a sister, when Night Owl woke up. After a little while, he groaned, and asked "Where are we?"

It broke my train of thought, and I muttered, "We're on 160. We just passed the Ute-PCC border."

His eyes snapped open. "Did you say 160?"

"Yes, I said 160. Why?"

"Oh frag! You have got to find an exit, somewhere, anywhere!!"

"I can't. We passed the last exit fifteen miles ago. Why?"

"Don't you remember? After you hit the border, 160 turns into Highway!"

"Oh, frag!!" I said, starting to wake from my boredom-enduced stupor. "Well, maybe the go-gangers are all asleep..."

"No dice. Look ahead." As usual, Night Owl was right. An entire gang ofbikers were slowly making their way towards us from the front.

"Cyber! Flack!! Get up! We've got company!!"

Flack was the first to react. "I've got it covered!" he bellowed, then reached for the missile launcher laying next to him. He plunked a new missle in, slid open the side door, and fired at the bikes ahead of us. Instead of clearing the road for us, only three gangers blew up. A large shimmering force field protected the other twelve.

"Oh frag!! Wizards!" I wailed. I then decided to floor the van, and blow past the gang steadily approaching us. The van sped towards them at about 200, and we actually did clear through them. They reacted by collectively doing a complete U-turn, then launching a massive fireball at the back of the van.

"I don't think so!!" shouted Night Owl. He leaped out of his seat, and raced for the back of the van. He threw open the doors, and quickly tossed up a force-fieldthe whole van, as the fireball was just about upon him. Night Owl had to use all of his strength to keep the field up against the inferno launched against him. It finally cleared up, but he collapsed from the drain. Cyber jacked out of her game just in time to catch him before he fell out the back. She closed the doors as a weaker fireball arced from the gang. I found myself thanking myself that I had the Vegas body shop hype up the armor on the van, as the fireball glanced off, blackening the back of the van. Flack then whipped out a time-delay grenade,the necessary calculations, set it, and dropped it on the road. It was small enough that the bikers didn't notice it, but powerful enough to wipe out enough of the pack to convice them to leave us alone.

"Why does trouble always seem to follow us wherever we go?" Cyber whined.

"Cause we're runners," I smoothly replied. "It's part of the job description."

We finally pulled into Pueblo at about 130. We wearily parked in a hotel parking, plugged the van in, and checked in for a room. Luckily, after what happened before, the night at Pueblo seemed pretty docile.

The next morning, we checked out early to get into Dallas in time to meet up with Weaze. We got into Dallas without any troubles, and met up with the mechanic. For a second, I thought that he seemed somehow... strange. I shrugged it off, when he looked the van, and let out a small squeal. "Chummers, you guys have got to take better care of the van!!" he groaned. "I'm not going to be able to fix her up after every fragging run!" He then shook his head and grinned. "Anyway, I heard of a wiz job TI wants some runners to do. The good thing is, they don't need you guys to contact their Mr. Johnson for about three days. I figured you needed some rest after what's happened." He then took another look at the van. "Yeesh. How was Vegas, anyway?"

"The usual," I replied, dourly. "Trying to keep Flack from depleting the rest of our account, until the Yaks tagged us, and threw us an a very real deathmatch in The Pit. Nothing we couldn't handle, though."

"I saw. The Yaks pirated a broadcast into the Sports Network, as an example of what happens to us runners, if we frag with them. Worked pretty well, until you guys made it so much drek."

"Believe me, it was not so much drek to us..."

"I wouldn't doubt that. Anyway, we have a few days, so wanna go to Eight Flags? My sister works there, and she's always offering free tickets."

"Why not?" Cyber excitedly said. "I haven't been on a good roller coaster since the '50 International Expo hit Portland."

"Sure," agreed Night Owl. "Besides, I heard they have some exciting rides just for mages."

"Yeah!" Flack joined in. "We'll have more fun than Vegas!"

"Except we won't be fighting for our lives..." Night Owl commented, smirking.

"Fine," I sighed. "Well, I'm prone to a little fun now and then. And besides, what can happen at an amusement park?" I grinned. "A disgruntled stomach? Ok, Weazey, let's go."

We all hopped in the van. While we were driving around Dallas, Weaze directed us to the front gates. We paid the usual outrageous fee for parking, and managed to find a spot only seven kilometers from the main gate. We hopped a trolley, waited two hours in line, and walked to the booth that Weaze said his sister worked in. She gladly waved us through. Once inside, the gang was split apart on which ride to go on first. Cyber and Night Owl wanted to go on the more traditional rides, and Flack and Weaze wanted to hit the newest, fastest rides in the park. I didn't really care, so I flipped one of the souvenir coins that Weaze's sister handed us at the gate. It landed on its side, and rolled away. I slapped my head, and the first ride we went on was the Chase the Coin ride. When we finally found it, it had landed on tails, so Cyber and Night Owl got to choose the next.

During the next five hours, we proceeded to ride every single ride in the park, thanks to a little help from Night Owl magically moving people in line. We were on the Cyclone, after a bad time with the snack food vendor, when the one thing I didn't figure happening on a roller coaster, happened. We were just going down a hill, when the track just behind us exploded into a trillion splinters. We were ducking for cover still when the car came into the station, missing three seats. We quickly madeway over to the shattered chunk of the coaster's frame. No one else could see it, but my cybereyes, and Night Owl assensing, picked up on a tiny slip of charred paper at the same time. It was a calling card, for some terrorists called the Aztlan Vaqueros.

"This is all I want from a vacation!" I angrily yelled. "Some fragging gang just barely fragging my hoop off!"

`"Drek!" Flack added. "It's not like we almost get geeked in every other city we go to! If this weren't a public park...."

"Ok, chummers," Night Owl interrupted. "I'm tracking their trail, I hope. I've got a group of five guys quickly running away from here. They're heading due south to the parking lot."

We chased them to the parking lot, just in time to see them peel out at high speed. We rode the closest trolley to the van, and started chasing after them. They then crashed through the parking lot exit, with us following suit. A couple of AVM started fired at us from the van, but thanks to my expert driving, they just barely missed us, and blew up the surrounding street. We raced through the flame, and chased them on Highway 75 to the Aztlan border. They then tried to escape us by ramming through the highway divider, and doubling back towards Dallas. We followed suit, and soon, we were in the middle of Arlington. Exiting there, the gang tried to lose us in the side streets. Thanks to Night Owl's assensing, and Weaze's semi-knowledge of D/FW streets, we eventually cut them off at the pass. They screeched six feet in front of the side of our van. Seeing no other course of escape, the gang then quickly sped out of their van, and escaped into the street on foot. We rushed out after them, and soon we were chasing them a third time. Flack dug into his jacket, and brought out a concussion grenade. He pulled the pin, waited a second, then lobbed it in front of them. We hit the deck, but they didn't. It went off right in the middle of their tight bunch, and they all fell to the ground.

We gathered them up, and dumped them off at the local station of the Lone Star. As we were driving to his sister's house, Weaze started excitedly remarked, "Wow! Is this what you do every day?!?!?"

"Yeah, Weaze, we do," I replied, drowsily.

We arrived at Weaze's sister's house, after a nice, easy drive. After what we had went through, that brought my suspicion up. As we were walking up to the front of the house, Flack asked, "Do you hear that?" Cyber was the only to reply,"Yeah, I do. It's a faint humming, almost coming.." when Night Owl shouted out,"Don't touch that door!", right when Weaze was about to unlock the door.

Apparently Weaze never got the message, because he turned the key, right when Night Owl yelled out to him. The house erupted into a massive explosion. Every one of us ducked out of the way, except Weaze. He was still attached to the door, when we found him lying in the street. When I finally peeled the door off of his body, he looked real bad. I knelt down to see if he was all right, when I noticed something off about his face. When I reached down to feel it, a rubber mask peeled off his face, stuck to my hand. "He's an elf!" Night Owl said, shocked.

"This ain't Weaze!" I said. "I've been around him too many times to know if he was an elf!"

The elf coughed a little bit, miraculously still alive. He muttered, "You were lucky for now, runners, but soon your luck shall wear off."

I grabbed his shirt, and yelled, "Who sent you?!?!?"

He groaned, and with his last energy, moaned, "The Scriii..."

Flack started wailing, "Just great! We have some psycho after us, and now we't have anywhere to sleep!! I hate Dallas!" He then stopped, and thought out loud, "Well, at least we have a run to do in a couple days."

I shook my head. "We're not doing that run," I soberly said, gingerly lying the fake Weaze back on the street. "No doubt that run was either fake, or another ambush setup. I'm not gonna risk that. I think we're going to get the hell outta here, and not look back."

"Good plan," Night Owl replied.

After picking up supplies, we quickly drove out of the Dallas area, headed for nowhere in particular. It just so happened, we ended up in Atlanta.

Part 7:

Enter the Coyote

Atlanta. It's a city with a previous streak, just not a good one. Ever since their expansion, parts of it have decayed, festering slowly like boils. Heh, kinda reminds me of Seattle.

Anyway, the van pulled into a small cheap hotel for the night. The next morning, we decided to finally take a vacation from the turbulent week, one that didn't include exploding roller coasters, Yak thugs, or gangers shooting at us. I called the real Weaze and all of our other contacts, and told them to not tell us about another run until I called them back. With that, the team and I took our first relaxing deep breath in a week, sitting in our hotel room.

"Aaahhh," Night Owl happily sighed. "Atlanta. We shouldn't have any major trouble here."

"Yeah..." I agreed. "I hope that the worst is behind us. Now we can just relax, until the money runs out."

"Which shouldn't take long, with Flack..." Cyber muttered, remembering San Fran.

"Hey!" Flack shot back. "I needed that smartlink! Night Owl might be dog meat if I didn't get an upgrade!! Besides, I didn't see you saving any money!! Like you really needed that one hundred nuyen game you bought!"

"Oh, shut up!! I needed the programs I bought!"

"Yeah, and you still got traced!"

"Would you two shut up!!!!!!!" I bellowed at the top of my lungs. When I had their attention, I said, "Now, please! You both spent money, sure, but it doesn't anymore! Yeesh. What matters now is that we still have money now. Let's do something with it."

The first thing I did when we exited the hotel was drop the van off at the nearest body shop. I swear, we make more friends in the auto repair biz than anything else. Fifty five grand later, we started exploring Atlanta by foot, when I smacked straight into somebody in the street.

The way he was dressed, he looked like a walking paradox. From his stature, he was obviously AmerIndian. He wore traditional leathers; leggings, moccs, shirt, and breechcloth, but over them, he wore a t-shirt and lined jacket, festooned with fetishes, and a flannel shirt worn like a late 1990s grunge star, tied around his waist and over his breechcloth. On his head, over his raven-black hair, he wore a sweat-stained grey bandanna tied like a headband. His chocolate-brown eyes were almond in shape, his ears were slightly pointed, and he had the most impish grin on his face I'd ever seen on anyone. Finally, he was carrying an finely-carved staff in his left hand, and had a small pack slung over his right shoulder. Flack, Night Owl, and I immediately recognized him.

"Party Animal!" I happily yelled, and hugged him. "What the frag are you

doing here in Atlanta? I thought you never voluntarily left the west coast!"

"Who is he?" Cyber asked, wary.

"Oh, I completely forgot," I said, slapping my head. "Cyb, this is the guy've been talking about for a long time, Party Animal. He's been an old chummer of ours for years. How long has it been since we first ran into each other?"

Party Animal grinned, remembering. "About twelve years, omae," he gladly answered. "I even thought Night Owl a thing or two when we first formed the original team of him, Flex, and me." Night Owl grumbled. "Still as hospitable as ever, neh?" PA asked, smirking.

"Yeah, that's Night Owl for ya," I said, and Night Owl shot a snake eye at me."Anyway, PA, this is Cyber, our new decker, since Goodnight, well..."

"Yeah, I know," Party somberly agreed. "That's what made me split. The strain from having an chummer like him die in my hands."

Cyber finally squeaked in. "Twelve years?" she asked, suspicious. "That can't be! You don't look older than twenty one!"

Flack piped up with, "Ah yea, Cyb, but he's, um, fourty three?"

"Fourty five, Flack, but nice guess," Party Animal corrected.

"That's impossible!" Cyber shrieked.

"Ah yes, but didn't you notice these?" He said, motioning to his ears. "I'm part elf, Cyber. I thought you would have picked up on that immediately. Flack did, when he first met me, after he moved up from Frisco, and joined the squad. So you know what that means, I'm nearly immortal."

I shrewdly grinned, and said, "He's also a Coyote shaman."

PA just rolled his eyes and grinned. Flashing his trademark wild look in his eyes, he said, "Now then, Flex.. I can't take credit for all the insanity in our old team."

Laughing, I replied, "Suuure, and California's still in the UCAS."

Cyber thought about Party Animal's prior comment. "Huh. I would have guessed differently, but now that I think about it, you do look slightly elven."

"Yes, and that's why I got to stay in Salem after the Tir came up, twenty two years ago. I even served in the Peace Force, through the battle of Redding."

"Interesting."

"Yep, he's lived through every major event in the Sixth World," I chimed in. "He was even born at the beginning, December 24, 2011."

"Yeah, but let's not dwell on ancient history," Night Owl muttered.

Party Animal half sighed and half chuckled, then let out a broad grin. "Ah, Night Owl, how I've missed your unique sense of dark humor."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you've always been one with the witty comeback, Coyote Kid..." he hissed.

Party responded to this by grinning, while growling out, "Bring it on, Snake Eyes."

As they began taking a more aggressive stance to each other, Cyber innocently, "Coyote Kid? Snake Eyes? Why are they calling each other that?"

As Party's hair began turning golden silver, like a coyote's, and Night Owl's skin began taking a scaly look, I replied to Cyber, "They were their original street names. PA was Coyote Kid for his first couple of years, and Night Owl was Snake Eyes, when he started out with me. They gave each other their present names, back when they were still friends, but they soon became bitter at each other after Goodnight died. They blamed each other for incompetence in the healing process. It's a long story."

They started circling each other, like two roosters in a cockfight. Flack was trying to calm them down, but they still didn't stop. In fact, Night Owl shot a look as icy cold as the stare of a rattler at Flack for interfering.

"That's it guys, fight's over," I mediated. "We came to Atlanta to have atime, not stand by while you two fry the other to a burnt cinder."

"You men and your always fighting," Cyber sourly added, her arms crossed.

They continued to size each other up for a while, then gave up with a sigh.

"Eh, you're right, Flex," PA admitted. "So, what are you guys gonna do here in Atlanta? I've been keeping tabs on your recent exploits from Seattle, and I had a strange note to be here, so I flew down here yesterday."

"Odd," Flack remarked. "We've had odd drek happening to us for the last two weeks. Maybe it's just runner bad luck."

"Not since yesterday," Night Owl said.

"Huh, odd. Oh, I also got this note from a Mr. Johnson here who was looking for a crack team of runners. I figure we team up, like old times, and do a cake walkthe run."

We considered it for a moment. "Well, we always could use more money," Flack said, thoughtfully.

"Good old Flack Jacket, always dealing with the money aspect," PA commented.

"Eh, what the heck," I said. "From what Party Animal said, it should be easy."

"I don't trust 'easy'," Night Owl replied, suspicious. "And besides, PA said it was easy, so I dunno.."

"Oh, don't you start that again!" Cyber angrily remarked.

The two formed an uneasy alliance, and we made our way to the bar that PA's Mr. J has us meet him in. "The van's in the body shop, neh?" he remarked, as we were walking along. "Heh, we never could keep that bucket of drek in one piece for more than a couple days."

"Yeah, it's like it's got an attract damage spell on it or something," I said,

chuckling. We walked into the bar, expecting the usual bar company, but strangely, there was no one there except for the bartender and the Mr. Johnson. I shrugged it off, and we walked to the table where he was seated.

"Welcome, runners," he said, in the sly tone that every runner knows all too well. He then preceded with the usual corp drek they shovel onto us. "I represent a party that is in dire need of assistance. We have recently had one of our top scientists kidnapped from our headquarters. Normally, we would send out ourtroops to recover him, but the kidnappers took him to the Fulton County Stadium, south of I-20."

We looked quizzically to each other. We had never really spent much time in Atlanta on previous trips. I asked, "What's so different about south of I-20?"

A strange gleam appeared in the Mr. J's eye, which startled Cyber. "Oh, nothing," he said, continuing. "Let's just say that the area he is currently ina special sort of team to go in, to stealthily slip in and out. Our company can pay you fifty thousand nuyen for the extraction."

Something kept nagging me about the situation. Something about I-20, and that stadium, that I'd heard before. I held it back. "Only fifty grand?" I asked, insulted. My charismatic bargaining kicked in. "For what you're talking about, we can't accept less than a full hundred grand."

"Done."

I was shocked. That was actually the first time my bargaining actually ended in the first round. I thought my skills were getting better. "Ok, chummer, we'll take this job." I added, just to the team, "Should be a breeze."

After receiving the information on our target, we left the bar, and started to walk around Atlanta. Night Owl looked like he was chewing on a thought, so I asked him what was up. "Is it just me, or did that meeting seem odd?" he asked, thinking.

"What do you mean?" Cyber asked, puzzled.

"Well," he explained. "It seemed to me that this particular Mr. J was all too eager to get us to go on this mission. I also didn't like the look he had in his eyes after Cyber asked what was up with I-20."

"Yeah, I got that too," added Party Animal. "I'm beginning to think that this may not be the cakewalk it seems. Ah, well, maybe that's just old runner's rock-hard paranoia kicking in."

"I see what you two mean," I muttered. "Let's be sure that we be on guard this time around. After what happened in the Tir, I'm beginning to look these 'simple runs' with a little more skepticism."

"See," added Night Owl. "I've been trying to teach you that for twelve years!"

"Yeah," smirked Party Animal. "And he's still never learned. I swear, we got into more hot drek with you chasing after the 'easy kills' than all the seemingly hard ones, Flex."

"Whatever," I said, shaking my head and smiling.

We stopped at a restaurant, and talked about old times, while waiting for the van to be fixed. It really felt good to be back with good old PA. First, he explained to Cyber his whole life story, from his birth, his times before and after the Tir formed, to when he finally settled in Seattle. I then joined in, and talked about when he, Night Owl and I first met, when we first formed the team, our adventures, and then talked about when Goodnight joined. After that, we discussed the other, later members of the team, all quick runners, that pushed the number of members to nine once. It got toFlack first joined, and ended with the adventure that caused Goodnight's death, and Party Animal's quitting of the team. After that, PA talked about his life after leaving the team, about how he had hooked up with some other runner, caused general mayhem in the LA area, and finally, the events leading up to his flight here yesterday.

Soon after our lengthy talk, I decided that it was time to pick up the van, and headed for our hotel, to finalize plans, and pick up any needed equipment. PA said that he needed to go to his hotel room across the city. We offered to drop him off, but he said that he'd rather soak in some atmosphere of Atlanta for a while. With a shrug, I dropped him off on a street corner, and drove to our hotel. After an hour, I called his room to see if he was in yet. Nobody answered. I shrugged it off, figuring that Party Animal was still walking around Atlanta. Another hour later, I was going to call again, when the phone rang. I picked it up, and an eerie voice. "If you want to see the Coyote again, you'd better get to the stadium by midnight!" The voice said. "They're going to kill him!"

"The Coyote.. You mean PA, right?" I demanded.

"If that's what he's going by now," the voice replied, "Yes. Meet me at thebooth in the parking lot by 23:45, and I'll explain everything." Something told me that this guy was serious. Deathly serious. Before I asked him who was going to kill PA, he hung up. I quickly hung up the receiver, and started getting my stuff together. "Let's move it, gang!" I said, urgently. "We gotta make it to that stadium!"

"I thought we were going to pick up Party Animal first," Flack whined.

"I still don't understand why you let him set that run up for us," Night Owl. "It's just going to end us in a drekload of trouble."

"Funny you should mention that," I added. "There's a little problem.. It seems that PA was captured, and we have to get to that stadium now, or we won't see him alive."

"Oh, is that all?" Night Owl asked, monkeying with one of his spell locks. "Let him get out of this one. He probably caused this trouble, anyway. He always

does. Coyote shamans never could be serious about anything."

I began to fume. "You listen to me, James," I angrily yelled, calling him by his real first name. "That Coyote shaman has saved your fragging hoop more times than you can count!"

He looked a little agitated as well. "Look, Joe," he angrily added, staring me in the face with a snake eye. "I wouldn't give a fragging damn about him right now, even if he saved me a billion times! It's all his fault Goodnight's dead, and I'm going to stay right here, while you three drekheads go out there, risking your necks over an old, scatter-brained, two-timing, good-for-nothing psycho!"

At that point, I was at the breaking point. I grabbed him by the collar of his vest, and stared him straight in the eye. "If we get there, and he's already dead, I will hold you responsible, and kill you myself. You are going with us, whether you like it or not!"

"Frag off, you damned bull-headed suicidal maniac!" Night Owl yelled, square into my face. "So help me, if you touch me again, I'll barbecue your hoop so fast, you won't even see it coming!"

I threw him to the ground. "Fine then," I announced. "Let's do it right here, right now." I flexed my fists, ready to pulverize Night Owl. He stood up, and began to chant angrily. I leaped on him, fists flying. We began to beat each other with everything we had. After watching our argument, now turned bloodbath, Flack, with a very ticked off look in his eyes, loaded up his Ares Predator, and fired half a clip full of gel rounds at us. We collapsed on the floor, bloody and stunned.

"That's enough!!!" Flack screamed. "You two have been friends for all of your lives! I'm not going to stand back, and let your friendship deteriorate to a bloody fistfight! Next time your two babies feel like exchanging blows, I'm not going to use gel rounds! Now, when you two recover, we're going to go save PA!"

Cyber walked in, and looked at the scene, with a surprised look on her face. "What the hell's been going on?" She asked. "I've been on the Matrix for the last half an hour, and I come to hearing Flack yell at you two!" She cocked her head, and suddenly something came to her. "Oh, it's almost 2300. Shouldn't we go pick up your friend?"

After about fifteen minutes, we finally packed up, and headed for the stadium. To prevent another outbreak of a fistfight, Flack forced me into the driver's seat, and Night Owl in the back. We quickly made it to the outside, where we parked. outside of the twin stadiums was almost eerie. A veritable shantytown had risen up along the outside. Cardboard boxes and makeshift wooden shacks were set up on the old decaying parking lot. The really eerie part was that there didn't seem to be anybody around. I glanced at my watch. "Well, it's 23:40," I remarked. "We'd better find that phone booth."

We walked around the fringes, until we came up on an old, battered phone booth. Nobody seemed to be there. After close inspection, Flack found a hastily

scribbled note. It read, "Sorry, but I can't be there! They're after me! All I can tell you is that the Scribe has your friend, and he's going to execute him at midnight! Please, save him, he's almost an idol to a great number of us! Oh no! They're coming now! I must flee!!"

"Very strange," Flack remarked, after reading the note.

"That's not the only thing," Cyber added, pointing on the ground. There was a large blood spot on the ground, and a trail leading to the inside of the stadium. "Something's rotten in Denmark, and it ain't old cheese."

"Hmm," I mused. "You may be right, Cyber. We should make sure and be careful when we enter the stadium."

"Bah," Night Owl grunted. "Why bother with all this drek? I say we justthat foolhardy Coyote to his own purposes. No doubt he got into this mess by himself, he can sure as hell get out of it." A shadowy figure then stepped from behind the booth. "You're right, chummer," he said. "I can."

Part 8:

Will The Real PA Please Stand Up?

The figure stepped from the shadows, into the light. It was Party Animal, yet different. He looked exactly like the Party Animal I've known for at least twelve years, yet just a bit off. He was wearing his usual clothes, the mixture of traditional leathers and '90s grunge, yet two things were missing. His breechcloth was gone for one, with only his flannel shirt about his waist. Also, his moccasins were replaced by cheap sandals. Yet another oddity was that he was chewing on a toothpick, something that I'd never seen him do. I shrugged it off, yet still took a defensive mode.

"PA!" I replied. "It's good that you got away! But, tell me chummer, what's with those sandals, and your breechcloth, or should I say lack of it?"

He slyly grinned, and flicked the toothpick away, another unsettling fact, since he had always been fervently environmentally-conscious. "Eh, I lost my moccasins, and found these sandals instead," he replied. "Also, I thought that damn 'cloth was getting in my way, so I got rid of it."

I scratched my chin, and shrugged off the odd feeling I had. 'Same old PA lackluster logic, you can't copy that,' I thought to myself.

Flack sighed, and said, "Well, I guess we don't have to go to that mission now... I was really looking forward to some action."

Night Owl crossed his arms, and looked at me half-sourly. "See, Flex, I told you!" he murmured. "I keep trying to tell you, but noooo! You have to go rushing, head-first!"

Cyber looked at Night Owl harshly. "Will you stop that! I've had enough out of everybody for a long time!"

Night Owl grimaced at Cyber, and pointed at me. "Fine," he replied. "Tell Mr. Stubborn there that."

I groaned at Night Owl, when suddenly I realized something. By now, Party Animal would have eagerly jumped in on Night Owl. I became a bit suspicious. Ignoring Cyber and Night Owl, who were busy having a yelling contest, I looked at PA again. He was just standing there, watching us with the same sly grin he always has. 'Ok, nothing new there,' I thought. I then noticed something. PA was a tad bit shorter, and looked a bit less tan than his Native American blood normally showed. I pulled Flack over to me. "Hey, Flack," I whispered, "Do you sense something odd about PA?"

"I sure do," he replied. "He doesn't seem to have that aura about him."

"What do you mean?"

"You know, that aura, like he's always got a trick up his sleeve, and you're

going to be the one on the receiving end. Also, I haven't seen the staff he always carries, or his pack!"

"Yeah, I noticed that too... Hmm, what do we do now?"

"What else? Ask him a question only PA would know!"

"All right." I turned to PA. Meanwhile, Cyber and Night Owl had stooped down to a stare-off. Flack ran over to them, trying everything to get them to stop fighting. Turning my head, I looked Party Animal right in the face. His chocolate-brown eyes had a sparkle of wrongness to them. "So, Party Animal..." I muttered, slyly. "My memory seems to be lapsing on me. Mind if I ask you a question?" Meanwhile, Night Owl and Cyber were now both staring menacingly at Flack.

Party Animal's face had a slight shift, but still remained sly and cunning. "All right, chummer," he responded. "Shoot."

"You remember Night Owl, right?" I pointed at Night Owl, who looked like he was about to zap Flack.

"Why, of course I do!" Party Animal answered, still grinning.

"For the life of me, I can't remember his original street name. Could you help me out here?"

"Um, or-original s-st-street n-na-name?" he stuttered, with a worried look on his face. "It was, uh, you know what? I can't really remember! I guess the shock of being kidnapped and all, you know?"

"Yeah, sure, that's all right," I responded, now really suspicious. "I understand." He then grinned again. I slowly turned to the team, in time to see Night Owl give Flack a major hotfoot. Flack leaped about three foot, then did a maneuver in resemblance to an ancient rain dance, hopping around painfully, looking for a pool of water to cool off his poor foot. I groaned, then walked over, and tapped Night Owl on the shoulder. "Are we done torturing the gun-toting psychotic yet?" I asked, with a fake smile on my face, and a sour look in my eyes.

Night Owl muttered, "Not yet.." with an impish grin that could rival PA's, he muttered something under his breath, and Flack became drenched by a mid-air waterfall.

With that, I decked Night Owl upside the head. "Dammit, James," I yelled. "We need everyone on this team, so if you're going to go around drowning Flack for him trying to break up your hissy-fits with Cyber, you can just get out of here!"

Meanwhile, Party Animal as watching us with a now eerie version of his sly grin. "Are you guys gonna keep beating the drek out of yourselves, or what?" he asked.

Gumbling, I turned to PA with a quickly-manufactured happy look. "Just about ready, chummer!" I replied, just as Night Owl slapped me in the back of my. I rubbed it, and turned to slug him back, to see Cyber do it instead, tossing him to the ground. Walking over to Night Owl, I offered my hand. "Now," I calmly said, after picking him up, "Are we civil?"

Night Owl grumbled for a bit, but finally gave in. After standing up, he, crossing his arms, "Everything was just great, till PA showed up."

"Yeah, well, I don't think he's exactly himself today, if you get my drift," I muttered.

"Really?" Night Owl asked, still a bit sore. "What'd he do? Get that frontal lobotomy I suggested for him?"

"No, but I don't think that the person standing to the back of us is really Steven Laughing Coyote."

Cyber scratched her head. "How can you tell?" she asked.

"Easy," I answered. "I asked him something that only he and us would know, Night Owl's original name."

"Lemme guess," Night Owl murmured, "He botched it, then countered with a cover story that would just barely fit his warped sense of logic."

"Exactly," I replied.

"So, now what are you going to do?" Cyber wondered.

"That's what I wanted you three for. I was going to distract him, then you could devise a plan to immobilize him, so we can get some real answers outta him."

"Fine," muttered Flack, still dripping from Night Owl's little prank. "I guess Night Owl could just make him stand still."

"Sorry," Night Owl broke in. "I never learned how to control actions or thoughts. Never did feel right to me."

"Hmm," I mused. "I guess Flack could shoot him with a gel round, and go from there..."

"Sorry," Flack countered. "I used up the rest of my gel rounds on you two. other half of the clip is explosive rounds, and I don't think you feel like talking to hamburger."

"Rats," I grumbled. "I don't know how we'll do it then."

"How about you just tackle him?" Cyber offered. "I'm sure you can stun him so that he couldn't do much.."

I smiled. "A very good idea, Cyber," I happily commented. "Ok, here's the plan then. You three distract, then I go in and tackle him."

The others basically agreed, so we began to put the plan into motion. They started a conversation with Party Animal, drawing his attention completely away for a second, and then I rushed at him, knocking him into the telephone booth. He slammed hard into the glass, and slumped into unconsciousness. When he awakened, I yelled, "All right, 'chummer', what the hell have you done with Party Animal?!?"

He groaned slightly, and winced. "Of what matter is the Coyote?" he asked, in a tone different than before. "He is a traitor! All traitors must die, so says the Scribe! If you leave him now, the Scribe may even be tempted to release you four from the same fate!"

"Frag that!" I yelled. "He's a former teammate, and deserves our help! You fragging tell your 'Scribe' to shove it up his hoop; me and my chummers are taking PA back!!"

"Your suicide," the imposter muttered.

I then grabbed his synthesized shirt and lifted his face to face mine. "Who is this 'Scribe', anyway?" I asked, with an undertone of suspicion.

"You will find out, in due time, my AmerInd friend," he murmured, then grabbed his throat. He yelled out, "The will of the Tir be done!", just as a green mist began to seep from his nose and throat. I dropped him, and backed off. Soon, he was dead.

"Damn!" I yelled out, frustrated. "Those psycho dandelion©eaters are after us again!"

"Not to mention Party Animal," Flack added.

"Well, I don't care if this 'Scribe' brought every single elf in the Tir to, we're going in there, and we're not coming back out without PA!" I yelled, shaking a fist in the direction of the stadium.

"Great," sighed Night Owl. "Just what we need... A suicide mission to rescue that damned psycho."

"Would you stop that?" Cyber growled.

"Fine, fine," Night Owl relented. "I just think we should at least plan this thing out first."

"No time," I replied, glancing at my watch. "We've only got about thirteen minutes before he gets executed by the Tir fanatics."

"Great," grumbled Night Owl. "Now this suicide mission is going to be unplanned and spur of the moment, with mindless violence.. Exactly what I hate."

Flack grinned, and readied his pistols. "Exactly what I love!" he responded. "C'mon, Flex, we've gotta get there, while there's still time!" Cyber urged.

"Ok, chummers, this is for all the marbles now," I calmly said. "We have to get in there and blast our way through, 'cause it doesn't look like these slotters are just about to roll out the red carpet for us. This is for Party Animal, so, Night Owl, you help out, or I'll shoot you myself. We need all four of us in this, or the whole thing is shot to hell. Now, I recommend we hurry back to the van, load up with whatever drek we can get our hands on, and get through the gate as fast as possible. Let's go!"

At that moment, we all rushed back to the van, even Night Owl. Thanks to Flack's habit of picking up at least one new gun a day, we assembled enough ordinance to blast our way through an entire Urban Brawl tournament. We then drove through the aisle in the shantytown, leading up to the massive gates of the

stadium. Stopping, we hustled out, ran through the gate, and found ourselves in the inner workings of the aincent decaying stadium. Garbage and electronic equipment littered the massive hallway, leading all the way around the inner moat of the stadium. Suddenly, a screen in front of us alighted. A face appeared, immediately recognizable to the whole group. It was Erhan the Scribe.

Part 9:

Runners 4-Domers 2,000

"Welcome, runners," Erhan shrewdly announced. "I assume that you have gotten past our little actor, and would like your friend back."

"That's just about the gist of it," I acknowledged, crossing my arms.

"Well, then, the Coyote awaits..." The image of Erhan blinked off the screen. Suddenly, a door opened, underneath the darkened screen. Faint cheering could be heard streaming from the lightened portal.

Throwing caution to the wind, we went through. The door led to a tunnel,in turn led to a dugout in the stadium. Appropriately enough, it was the old Visitor's dugout. I noticed in one corner was PA's clothing, tossed into a pile, with his pack and staff on top. I then took a deep breath, and ventured out of the dugout, the rest of the team following.

The inside of the stadium was immense. There were seats all around the oldfield, and the top of the stadium was covered in a faint green glow. Also, here and there in the seats, sat what appeared to be the residents of the shantytown outside the stadium. Loners, vagabonds, and bums all, they began cheering as soon as we entered the playing field. The unfortunate part was, that a good number of them seemed to be augmented either by cyberware, or strange new types of bioware.

"This doesn't make me feel too good," Cyber commented, looking around. "This makes me feel like we're in Vegas all over again."

"You and me both, chummer," I responded.

"Wait," Flack broke in, "What's that, on the pitcher's mound?" On top of the mound was a figure, one that I couldn't make out from where we were. We walked towards it, and suddenly I could see what it was.

"Holy frag!" I yelled. "That's PA, the real one! He looks like they beat the absolute drek outta him!"

We ran to him, to see the full extent of the damage that Erhan's followers had exacted upon the poor shaman. Party Animal was tied, spread-eagle to a crude wooden frame. His body, naked except for his torn breechcloth and shredded moccasins, was covered in blood and various wounds, a number of them deep. The wounds looks like there were some from whips, some knife-slices, a couple burn marks, and even a few bullet holes. His blood was running down his body, and dripped from his toes to a pool forming around the frame. His long black hair was mussed, cut off in places, torn from his scalp in others, covering his slumped head.

"Why the hell did they do this to him?" Flack asked, shocked at the sight.

"I believe that I have the answer to that," Erhan's voice called from behind

us. We turned around, to see him standing on home plate. "Well, well... So, you've seen the extensive work we've done to your friend? You're no doubt asking why we did this? It is for one main reason, you damned fools, he is a traitor! And all traitors to the Tir must perish, lest they cause more trouble."

"Traitor?" Cyber asked, confused. "But all he did was leave our country! How could he be marked a traitor?"

"My poor, misguided Cyber," Erhan replied. "You, too, have been too long away from our loving country. You don't understand, do you? The act that branded him a traitor was him leaving the country! No doubt, you have heard through his friends," he waved his hand at Flack, Night Owl, and I. "That he was in our illustrious Peace Force. We entrust our forces, especially the top brass, with top secret information, my dear, and when he left, well, that information went with him. Even fifteen year old top secret information is still top secret, so he had to be eliminated, lest our enemies learn our plans from him."

"But what does this have to do with us, then?" Night Owl wondered. "Your 'actor' mentioned something about you not killing us if we left here, leaving him for you butchers."

"Advice, I warn you, you should have taken," Erhan imparted. "What you have to do with any of this, my dear Snake shaman, is that we have been trying to be rid of you pests ever since you four first entered our border! Who exactly do you think was behind all your 'adventures' in the recent two weeks? Do you think that Renraku just happened to be able to trace Cyber? Who do you think tipped the Yakuza off to the pilfering of their secret information? And who do you think paid the Aztlan Vaqueros to blow up the very ride you were on in Dallas? Finally, do you think that it was just a coincidence that Party Animal got a call to fly to, just as you show up?!?"

Flack shrugged his shoulders. "I just thought that it was all just dumb runner bad luck," he muttered.

"Ha!" Erhan snapped, writhing his hands in gloating, and evilly grinning. "My followers and I have been responsible for every single mishap you four have been involved in since you destroyed the Medford border!!"

I aimed an HK-227 at the mad elf. "Your mad schemes end today, psycho!!" I yelled, pulling the trigger. The bullet passed right through his head, and struck the home plate fence. "Damn! A fragging hologram!!

"Bah," he snorted. "Do you really think I would be stupid enough to reveal myself to you in the flesh?!? You must have been dipping too much into the peyote in Sioux, Tonto."

I grinded my teeth down in anger. I really hate it when an old stereotype of AmerIndians unearths itself. But, Erhan used two in the same sentence. That made me see red. I was ready to tear through Erhan, even if he was a fragging hologram. It took all three of the others to keep me back.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," Erhan scolded, waving his finger. "Someone just can't control his anger." He grinned wickedly. "Well, my friend, I'd recommend that you save that energy, when you face my new batch of followers!" He cackled profanely, as the domers began to file out from the seats.

Flack took a quick look around, still holding me back. "Um, Flex..." he said, in a worried tone that cooled some of my rage. I stopped struggling, and looked. The domers were beginning to pour from the walls, and lining up around us.

"Oh, frag," I said, now fully relaxed. "There's gotta be a thousand of 'em!"

"Two thousand, actually," Erhan replied. "That would make the odds against you at.."

Cyber gulped. "F-five hundred to one.." she finished.

Erhan curled his lips back into a cruel sneer. "Exactly," he said. "And these domers are especially hungry, and since you seem to be the only things around.."

Even Night Owl became worried. "W-we're g-gonna be the B-blue Plate Special!" he sputtered.

"Yes.." Erhan returned. "Well, I must bid you adieu, runners.." With that, he began to slowly fade out. "You really should have stayed in Seattle.." he said, grinning.

"Damn you, Erhan!" I yelled out. "I'll get you for this!!"

"If you ever survive... Perhaps," Erhan retorted, before the last of his image faded from view.

"Great," I muttered, as the domers began to rush at us. "Five hundred-to-one..." A rush of adrenaline then ran through me, and I yelled out, "Ok, gang!! This is it!! Us versus them, the prize: our lives!" I cocked the action on my rifle, and shouted, "Let's kick some domer hoop!!"

Almost on cue, the domers began rushing us, headlong. They were met with heavy gunfire from Cyber, Flack, and I, while Night Owl was relying more on his magical talents than his gun. I was beginning to slam another clip into my Ares, when I looked up, and shrieked. Past the wall of domers that was advancing at us, I saw a group that was circled around Party Animal! "Frag!!" I yelled. "Chummers, we gotta get through to PA! Those cannibals are gonna eat him alive!" I then took out another Predator, and began cutting a path between me and the pitcher's mound. The others followed suit, with guns blazing. By the time we made our way to the mound, to make a defense around it, we had already taken down at least fifty of the bloodthirsty domers. Flack seemed worried. As I was slamming another clip into one of the Predators, I asked him what the problem was.

"Um, Flex," he replied. "I don't think we're gonna have enough bullets to take out all these guys... I've already gone through at least six clips, and I only had fifteen!"

"Yeah, Flex," Cyber added. "I only got seven from the van, and I've gone through five."

Night Owl was too busy to add anything, but he looked like the collective drain that his spell-slinging was taking a heavy toll on him. Still shooting, I did a quick inventory on myself. I had six Predator clips, three HK-227 clips, and a clip for an Assault cannon remaining. Sweat began to form on my forehead. Our only saving throw was that none of the domers had any weapons of their own, just a few sticks and clubs, except for the ones augumented. Luckily, they were keeping back with the rest of the bunch.

Suddenly, I head Cyber yelp. Her last clip was gone through for her, and she didn't have any other clips left for the one sniper she had slung on her back. Right after that, Night Owl finally succumbed to spell drain, and fell to the ground. I looked around me, with a very worried look on my face. We had only cut down about one hundred of the horde advancing upon us, leaving way too many left to overwhelm us. Looking around, I immediatley yelled at Cyber, ordering her to help up Night Owl, because I had just seen a grisly fact of what became of the bodies of the fallen domers in the hands of their bloodthirsty brethren. I again took up firing upon the black tide that began to close in on us.

I heard Flack swear. He was nearly out of bullets, and he had been struck in the shoulder by a flying rock. I gritted my teeth. I did not want to end up on the menu of a bunch of mindless, psychotic maniacs. I was formulating a plan of attack, when I head one of my Predators click. I reached for another clip, when I had a horrible realization. There were no more Ares clips left. I did what any person under stress would, I tossed the empty, useless gun at the domers. To my surprise, I managed to knock one of them down. He was immediately consumed, slowing down the horde a bit. That's when I had a brainstorm. All I needed to do was take down enough domers to keep them busy, not the full two thousand. I had a reality check. There were still about eighteen hundred domers left, they were still coming, and I was the only one with bullets, the three HK clips, and assault cannon rounds.

When the other Predator expired, I tossed that at the domers, knocking two down. The delay was brief. I then tore out the HK, saw the clip that was in it, and used the automatic setting on it, cutting down fifteen fiends, before the clip gave out. My side had slowed considerably, the domers in that area now busy with the new, freshly killed meat, instead of us. I then heard Cyber shriek. I turned, to see that the other three sides weren't slowed at the same rate; in fact, they were almost at the mound. I ran around the mound, slamming another clip into the HK. I bought us some more time by cutting a ring of bodies around the mound. I pumped through the other two clips, and had harvested up a medium-sized ring of bodies around us, keeping the domers happy, for the moment. When it was empty, I threw the HK, knocking out five this time, and hefted out the Panther cannon slung across my back.

"Ok, Flack, hurry and cut PA outta that thing, and carry him!" I shouted. I'm breaking us outta here!!" Flack whipped out a knife, cut Party Animal's bindings, and then slung him over his back. Night Owl had began to recover from the drain, so I shouted, "Night Owl!! I need you to give me a huge fireball, in that direction!" I pointed to the Visitor's dugout, our way out. As Night Owl prepared the spell, I cut apart the line of domers in front of me, with only a few shots of the cannon. Suddenly, a huge fireball flew down on the domers, roasting us a path to the dugout. Night Owl slumped from the drain again, and Cyber carried him.

I led the charge through the rapidly narrowing path, with the cannon at the ready. The domers around us began to lose heart for the pursuit of us, instead opting for the easy meal that the charred bodies now provided. Suddenly, Erhan's hologram came over the loudspeaker, "No! You useless fools! Don't go for the dead slotters!! Go for those damn runners!!" From his tone, it was obvious that he wasn't too happy with the results. I grinned, as we were heading to the dugout.

When we reached it, still ducking the few bloodthirsty domers that weren't either dead or busy eating the dead, I snatched up PA's stuff, and we quickly headed out to the door. We charged into the van, and was about to peel out, when, coming from the west, a group of about five or six Yellowjackets thundered in. They landed next to the dome, and opened their doors. Out filed a huge army of Tir Peace Force, who quickly filed into the stadium. I yelled out, "What the frag?!?"

Cyber grinned, her cheeks blushing. "Oh, did I forget to mention?" she. "I had a couple of high-ranking contacts back in the Tir. I contacted them a bit ago, and pulled in a few favors."

I smiled, shaking my head. Then, I could hear Night Owl groggily muttering, "Too bad they came a tad bit late.."

I turned, and looked at him. "Yeah, omae," I added, "You're right." I then glanced at PA, lying on the floor of the van. "You'd better get to work.."

Night Owl grunted. "Yeah, I know," he muttered, a frown on his face. He did a slow chant, and placed his hands on Party Animal's body. While the healing process was going through, I quickly headed to our hotel. When we arrived, Night Owl announced, very wearily, and with a stream of blood coming down his nose, "Well, it's done... Took a hell of a long time, though.. We're lucky he hadn't died."

Party Animal slowly awoke. We clustered around him. He slowly sat up, and groaned, "Oh, Auntie Em, Auntie Em! I had the strangest dream!" He then pointed at Cyber, Flack and I. "You were there, and you, and you! And," he then saw Night Owl. "Eeek! The Wicked Witch of the West!" He then wearily grinned. "Any mail for me?" Same old Party Animal.

I could swear that I saw Night Owl smile. "Watch it, Coyote Kid.." he replied. "I could always put you back into a coma."

Party Animal rubbed places all over his body, wincing. "Yeah, yeah, Snake Eyes.." he then groaned, and muttered, "I hate Atlanta." After that, the whole team broke out in laughter, for the first time in weeks.

The End.