The Diary of No Fate (A Shadowrun Actual Play) pt3

Note to self: Buy new commlink. Don’t let Panda near it.

Did you know there's actually more smog in Hong Kong in the morning? It's true! I usually wait for the sun to be up before I go for a morning run, but since I had to meet Stardust and Mr Choi this morning, I went for a run just before dawn. Maybe it's the way the sun rises in the spaces between skyscrapers, peaking through the AC clouds dripping condensation onto Yau Ma Tei, but for whatever reason, when the sun first climbs over the horizon, scattering its brilliance across the skyline, you can really see the smog over Kowloon Bay in light and colours that you just can't any other time of day. What a world we live in. I was going to say this to Stardust when I pulled the Ramshankle up outside Mr Choi's store, but when I saw her, I was suddenly struck by how much her hair looks like a splendid soggy sunrise. It completely threw off my train of thought. Luckily, Stardust was quick to remind me that we were here for some reason and that it was, or should be, something important, and we should get going.

Mr Choi had my pants ready and a stockpile of heavy pistol gel "hats" to distribute to Panda and Spook. I introduced him to Stardust and they got to talking about clothes and fashion right away. Mostly about mine, now that I think about it. Neither of them get me. I have a style and my style is fine. It's, like, Knight Errant chic. Yeah, French. You know it's fancy. Anyway, while I tried on the pants, I mentioned that we had another request concerning the upcoming run and Stardust would fill him in. I'd already asked Mr Choi for one rush job and he'd thrown in some free pants, so I didn't want to press my luck. He's never been unfriendly to me and I'd like to keep it that way. The thing about dwarves is that everything’s arctic until it isn’t, then it really isn’t. So, while I slipped into something a little less comfortable (What? I like my shorts! They’re my thing!) Stardust discussed our need for disguises. She had seen the logo for a Mitsuhama owned security company (Overwatch) while floating over Happy Cow facility. We needed some fake Overwatch maintenance uniforms as a cover, and we needed them in less than 12 hours. Mr Choi could have them for us in eight, and he had samples of the Overwatch uniform patches (and a whole lot of other patches) already, but a rush job costs rush job money. Then, out of interest, Mr Choi asked about the run and when we explained, he agreed to lower the price if we brought him back a sample of Smoke Eel (or was it Smoked Eel? Eel Smoke? Smoking Eel? Drek, I don’t know. They all sound terrible.) A small task to save creds. Null sweat. This was, after all, why I brought Stardust. She has a certain mysterious charm about her, Avant Garde and tribal at the same time, with just a touch of the elven. It’s unique, and some dwarves have a natural appreciation for unique. Like Mr Choi. I’m talking about Mr Choi. He’s one of those dwarves. My mind is always on the job, and when it’s not on the job, it’s on finding the next job; just like Gunhaver.

Speaking of jobs, the hours before always have that calm before a storm quality. They click by slow, then, like the sunrise, suddenly it’s go time. Like a dwarf’s affection, it’s arctic until it’s hotter than a wizworm’s temper. Stardust and I parted ways for the rest of the day. Meanwhile, Spook and Sailor Van had fetched the corp profile and the boat. Panda no doubt preloaded on spam the way you preload on soy before a long run, the way you preload a heavy pistol with gel hats before a smash and grab. Make no mistakes, brawl fans, there’s never been a grab where something or somebody didn’t get smashed. Other than collecting the uniforms at four o’clock, I spent my day asking that eternal question that burns at the heart of all metahumanity.

How’s the serenity?

What? You didn’t think you’d get through the page without an obscure flatvid quote, did you? Omae, you know me better than that.

I threw Firebert, Reynolds, my Ganhaver Replica Armoured Duster, and a random selection of tools from the workshop into a duffel bag, loaded up the ramshankle and burnt rubber all the way to Sailor Van’s boat house (sure, you can’t burn much rubber in a ten-minute drive at 40k/h, but what rubber you can burn, I did.) We piled in the loaner boat, went over the plan again, geared up in faux Overwatch jumpsuits, and let Sailor Van (he boats and drives, I see where the name comes from) take us out to Happy Cow. We skirted the cliffs, waited for the water zonies to buzz, then moused into the nearest dock. So far, chummers, this is what we call wavy.

How long could it last?

We dropped ourselves at the far side of the island, with a couple K woodland between our dock and the Happy Cow facility. Sailor Van had the dog-brain move the boat around to the south dock, closer to Happy Cow, and we jammed over-land on foot. Apart from a stumble here and a minor navigational glitch, we made wiz time. We hopped a fence, using my Gunhaver coat to cross the barb wire (they say you’re not real, Gunhaver, but you’re out there with me on every run. If that’s not real, I don’t know what is) and headed for the barghest pens. The last thing any of us needed was a run in with a critter as angry as chromed up chiphead running bad sims. Good thing we’re professionals with a plan, because that plan got us to the pens the same time as the zonies, or in this case, just one zonie with his head too far up his drekhole to notice us. This is why you hire KE, chummers. Always get the best. We waited until the zonie got close, then Sailor Van took a swing at him. He might have weathered that and come through okay if Spook didn’t follow up with a burst from his Ingram. We bound him, left him in some bushes, relieved him of his professional tools (including his helmet, with integrated ‘link), and headed for the labs.

I can’t tell you what a relief it was to know we wouldn’t have critter problems. Panda, flash deck jockey that she is, even turned off the cage’s matrix connection so they couldn’t be let out once the drek hit the fan. I mean, so far the run was wavy, but how long could it last?

Using the zonie’s ‘link and key, we let ourselves into Happy Cow Ice Cream’s labs. We opened the door and stepped into a security check point. They looked at us. We looked at them. We looked at them. They looked at our stolen helmet and key. We looked at them reach for a PANICBUTTON.

They looked at me draw a taser. We looked at the taser glitch and the battery pop out as I pulled the trigger.

Turns out wavy lasts about that long.

The run went from arctic and wavy to wizworm hot and covered in drek in less time than it took me to scoop up the battery and try the trigger again, and if you haven’t noticed, omae, kamikaze junkie’s can’t match this girl for speed. Things went real bad real fast, is what I’m saying. We’re talking S03E24 season finale ‘Who Will Have Guns?’ bad. But we’re still professionals, and while Panda and Sailor Van focused on getting us through the remaining doors and into the security office, Stardust, Spook and yours truly put our focus on dusting zonies. Non-lethal dusting, of course. Stardust laid down some heavy mojo, Spook hit them with his gel loaded Ingram, and while I wanted nothing more than to bring out Reynolds and Firebert and let them have their say, it was faster and quieter for me to use the zonies’ own tasers on them. When I ran out of darts in one, I borrowed another one.

Even though we were out-numbered and couldn’t stop the zonies hitting their PANICBUTTON, it looked like we’d get the sitch under control. Then the drones rolled out. Two tiny tanks opened fire on us, bleeding Panda while she tried ducking for cover behind a security cyber terminal. Poor Spook panicked and shot one of the drones with his gel rounds, which splattered ineffective on its chassis. Poor guy. Running’s not for the faint of heart. Still, he’ll learn. We all start somewhere.  Panda wanted to try and disable and adopt one of the drones for Van to rig, but we’d hosed this job enough. I made sure both drones fried before they could frag us.

Security down and bound, drones turned to slag, and an empty research facility before us, we set to work on the grab part of this smash and grab. Panda gave us security clearance, and watched over the security systems with Van. Spook, Stardust and yours truly found some coolers and searched the labs until we’d found Mr Wu’s experimental flavour, plus a few extras, including Mr Choi’s Smoke Eel (smokey eel?) and the formulae for both. Job officially done, we bugged out before any we could get in deeper drek.

We made the rendezvous with time to spare, handed off the samples and the formula, then headed back to my place. I had the closest freezers and we needed to store Mr Choi’s ice cream until morning. And as for that other ice cream…

As for that other ice cream.

That damned ice cream.

Five flavours, mostly marine flavoured. Cute names like Oystravaganza and Caramel Krill Swirl. It all seemed so innocent.

Then came the vomiting, and the orgasms, and the wiglies, the brain bending, mind numbing, eye opening, jaw dropping, cliché listing experiences that sprayed across my living room floor, clogged my sink and overflowed from my toilet. None of the flavours sounded apetising, so I passed. Never have I been so thankful for my delicate and risk-averse gwailo tastes.

I like to think I’m a welcoming host, but even yours truly has limits and even this girl needs sleep eventually. I let them all take their experimental awakened ice creams to do with as they pleased, cleaned up, and went to bed. By morning, the escrow had our money, bonus and all. That’s good because I’m going to need to replace my rug.

It really tied the room together.

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Carl's player note: Skimmed over in this entry is our embarassing lack of preparation in regards to the formulae we found. We needed to hand it off in a matrix dead zone but had no datachips. Fortunately, every device has plenty of storage, electronic eskis included, so Panda plugged her deck into one of them and transferred the file with the physical sample. This, unfortunately, came with a malware attack, which then spread to No Fate's commlink with the smoke eel formula. Rather than bother trying to fix it or risk further damage, No Fate chucked her 'link in the harbour, popped over to a Snack Shack for a data chip, and had the formula transferred to that once Panda finished cleaning the malware from her deck. Salvaged the formula, but couldn't salvage her collection of spam pictures. Hence, No Fate's reminder to herself at the beginning. Her diary is really all about her wins and her love of Gunhaver trids and classic flatvids, so such a mistake has no place in her personal notes.

I also failed to mention, in the last entry, that Stardust, in her astral projection, had seen the critters being used to patrol the grounds and the Overwatch logo on security uniforms/equipment. No Fate didn't see it, but she was filled in, and its omission was an oversight on my part. Important information that No Fate should have mentioned but I, in my worry that the entry was dragging, forgot. Thus the sudden mention of them in this one.