Trevethan Norn
2017-06-29, 01:42 PM
The Gutter Don't Care
Recruitment Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?524856-Street-Level-Shadowrun-Looking-for-Players&p=22144162#post22144162)
OOC Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?528716-OOC-The-Gutter-Don-t-Care&p=22144834#post22144834)
Dice Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?528782-The-Gutter-Don-t-Care-Dice-Thread&p=22147330#post22147330)
There are a few things that matter in life: Family, and survival. Nothing changes that, not even money. Money only obscures how frail life is and chummer, we ain't got much of that...
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
A time to be born and a time to die,
A time to plant and a time to uproot,
A time to kill and a time to heal,
A time to tear down and a time to build,
A time to weep and a time to laugh,
A time to mourn and a time to dance,
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
A time to embrace and a time to refrain,
A time to search and a time to give up,
A time to keep and a time to throw away,
A time to tear and a time to mend,
A time to be silent and a time to speak,
A time to love and a time to hate,
A time for war and a time for peace.
-- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, the Bible, New International Version.
The aid worker quietly lowered her hands as she finished reading the ARO in front of her. No tears came from her eyes this night, nor any night in many years; you didn't have tears after you worked in the Barrens, only unending numbness. She was better than most at handling the stress, which is why the chaplaincy duties always fell to her when the dregs of the city made it to her tiny corner of Bellevue General. She would have laughed at the irony that those with SINs got care, while those without SIN had to die in the holding room, but she hadn't laughed in years either. She quickly administered her digital signature to the batch of ARO's for the fifty recently deceased meta-humans who had had a religious preference on their ID. This was the easy part. It was also easy to go through the twenty different religious rites accorded by the UCAS charitable organizations who paid for her time. It was less easy to care, and impossible no to do so.
The tech at the end of the room got up from his desk where his eyes had been following some diversion as she administered the final touches. He could not have cared less about the rites, but Sal knew for a fact that he cared about what came next; there is no graduating pre-med student who would not leap at the chance to get ahead of the monstrous debt incurred by medical practice in the 21st century. He keyed open the secure door to the corridor running the length of the main floor and she followed him past two non-descript metas dressed in flat gray suits. As they did, Sal saw her account with Saeder Financial go up by 25,000 nuyen, and she could tell from the satisfied smile that Frank was seeing the same. Dead meat was bound for the incinerator one way or another, she might as well try to make the best of what opportunity came her way when she could.
Sal and Frank walked down the hall, never looking back, and finished their decontamination routine as efficiently as always. She stepped out into the musty brown-orange fog that was Seattle at night and made sure that her respirator and chemsuit were securely fastened. The acid rain had been a lot worse lately, and she knew she should earmark at least some of it for improved outerwear. All things in this town rot, she thought, and was soon lost to sight as she climbed onto the automated grid-taxi which her 'link had paged for her the moment she had retrieved it from her cubby.
23:42:00 Thursday, October 31, 2075: All Hallows Eve
124th Ave NE & NE 169th St.
Apex
Something was very, very wrong. Accustomed as Apex was to the loud lifestyle that had become the hallmark of gang life since his return from Daliah, the dead silence was loud in his mind. The family seemed to have gone from their normal live-it-up lifestyle to a more taciturn manner fitting an Asian organized crime family. Their courier had delivered sobering news; the attempt to edge in on the Laes trade coming out of Tacoma through magical means had failed. In truth it had worse than failed, it had been pure foolishness and now the whole family was going to have to fight for their lives: the Ancients were coming. If he had not seen the corpse reanimated by the kannushi himself - in itself normally forbidden - he would not have believed such horrific tidings. It seemed the elven gangers had subjected him to mentally force himself to self-dismember while they slowly healed him with their own magics. While creative, it was not something for which Apex had the stomach. He slowly edged out of the room and headed for the wishing pond in the small downstairs lobby. The adept had barely made it to the 1st floor of the gang compound when he was thrown to his feet by an incandescent explosion from above. Something hit his head and he momentarily blacked out.
When Apex came to, he was face-down on some sort of black, sticky surface. His retina still had glare spots, but he turned his head only to experience an incredibly sharp pain. He screamed involuntarily and put one hand to the back of his skull only to feel wet stickiness. Apex pulled himself up on aching limbs and saw that the black, sticky surface was coagulated blood, and likely his own if his hands were any indication. He slowly rolled over, not having much energy for the time being, only to scream in horror at what he did not see; where before there had been a respectable and fortified looking manor, there was open sky. Only about 3 feet of the foundations where still standing and providing fuel for the flames. Whatever had struck, it seemed that he had been fortunate to be so close to the pond; the explosion had knocked him into the water, but the water had also softened his landing and protected him from whatever flammable elements were involved. Nothing, however, was going to bring his family back..
23:42:00 Thursday, October 31, 2075: All Hallows Eve
Woodmoor Elementary School
BIOS
<New reports this evening of dangerous arms traffickers and terrorists fighting in the Barrens just across the 405 has many Bellevue and Snohomish residents and officials asking what is being done to protect law-abiding citizens.> BIOS enjoyed the naive chatter of the anchorwoman on the news trid. She got nearly all of her information and bias wrong, but at least she was covering what people wanted to hear. BIOS grinned to himself as he hummed softly to his sprite. <Don't think they'll mind if I make the show more interesting, do you?> The coruscating pulsar shimmered and hummed to itself and he was once again reminded that he was not all-together certain that it understood him as a separate entity. The momentary pique which gripped him pushed him back into the moment; he made a few mental tweaks and carefully massaged the software in charge of distributing the feed. As he mentally stroked the watchdog's collar, it calmly unwound the leash from its neck and rolled over, begging for more attention. In a picosecond he had attached 2 new leashes to the ARO, and the anchorwoman's feed was bizarrely altered. In place of the attractive young elf who had been reading the ARO prompter, an image of a large troll seemed come out from under the news desk. <We bring you this special announcement: Deadbeats Inspired by Brackhaven's Killings will not rest until the governor resigns or meets our terms. Too long has he let metahumanity rot under inequality; we demand our rights. We demand that he explain the circumstances regarding the lack of aid to the Redmond and Puyallup Barrens. Long have metahumans been unfairly corralled in these neighborhoods, doomed to unending corporate slavery for the lucky few, or death at the hands of ghouls and other dark creatures for many. We demand that Knight Errant and the AAA corporations and government fix some of their man-made disasters. There has still been no cleanup by Shiawase or any major governmental body since the 2013 disaster at the NPP Trojan-Satsop facility. Further risk has been our ever-present neighbor as we suffer in the shadows of the current monstrosity powering the city. Rise up, citizens! Overthrow, or hold accountable, your corporate masters!> BIOS felt the tingling which meant that GOD or a spider was on its way and casually detached the first leash. The second he folded carefully underneath the collar of the submissive dog. It never hurt to be practical.
The broadcaster resumed her normal features as she quickly explained, <We apologize to our viewers for the momentary stoppage of service. There was a terrorist attack on our matrix assets which is being severely dealt with... wait a second, we just have breaking news. It appears that Governor Brackhaven is holding an impromptu press conference. Let's tune in!> The feed switched to what must have been a drone or rooftop camera which BIOS realized was showing a large area of Northern Redmond. A loud and stern voice carried over as part of the feed real estate was given to the image of the governor in his customary black suit. <I would like to address the worrying concerns of our citizens, as well as the violent attacks which our news affiliates have been subject to in the last month: Knight Errant and the Metroplex guard have been activated to contain and de-escalate the rising violence in the Barrens areas. Earlier tonight, key raids were carried out on organized crime targets ranging from the Ko'mungo crime ring all the way down to several figures involved with the traffic of controlled substances which has lead to the economic decay of the Redmond Area. Starting tonight, the Barrens are under blockade; all checkpoints will require authorization for crossing. In addition a mandatory new security deposit for those crossing from areas judged to be under the influence of hate-related groups and insurgencies is now in effect. Anyone crossing from these blighted areas will be required to make a 50,000 nuyen bail to ensure their good conduct throughout the city unless they are on special assignment from a AAA or governmental entity. Further, I have ordered intervention into the fighting now taking place in the Northern Barrens in the form of directed, smart-targeting munitions, which will minimize innocent casualties.> As he spoke the last few words, the imagery changed from heavily armed checkpoints to sudden flashes and explosions which seemed loud even for BIOS normally amped up sound settings. It wasn't until he paused the feed that he realized the feed wasn't loud; the explosions were happening not too far from him. The city was shelling Kingsgate.
23:42:00 Thursday, October 31, 2075: All Hallows Eve
124th Ave NE & NE 169th St.
Sentinel
Sentinel measured her pace as she approached the respectable oriental structure where her clients lived. She was not nervous, but it never helped to forget where you were when dealing with fellow gangers. The Shimmering Inferno were a newly powerful whiz-gang that had made its mark in the north barrens of the Kingsgate area, and as such were worth a good bit of respect. In her experience, the newer the power, the more prone they were to perceiving unintended slights and weaknesses. That also made them more prone to violence. Her first sojourn into gang life to escape SK had been eye-opening, and she had needed to flee the Puyallup barrens as quickly as she could to avoid having her throat donated to the corpse cutters. This time around, she had seen things she never thought possible back in her days as a corpsec lieutenant. She would do more, too, in order to survive, but this recent relationship with the Shimmering Inferno had been lucrative and relatively unstrained. She was a low-level mystic with a penchant for delivering just the right sort of message. Her preference to not leave a body behind was what made her uniquely valuable in a landscape where life was cheap. This evening had been no different; collect on the overdue neighborhood watch investments over on NE 171st, administer gel rounds to the owner of the stuffer shack on 140th Ave and NE 171st, and collect his pinky as promise of future cooperation. It was rough work, and she did not feel great doing it, but she felt that her qualms could be eased by reasoning that with her on the job, no one had to die. Someone else given the same job would not have been using the same care.
All that remained to her was to collect her due and head home to her own turf. It was not large, but she was proud of the group she had forged together to carve it out nonetheless; a ragtag group of survivors who always had each other's back. Most of them had similar stories to her - it appeared that national and corporate armies thought that PTSD and other symptoms were too expensive to treat their average grunt. Sentinel had brought the 10 ex-veterans and disavowed sec workers together and forged them to a positive influence on their block. No graffiti covered the loop formed by NE 157th St., 156th St., and 125th Pl NE. That was another reason it was important to keep the Shimmering Inferno happy; they owned the turf around this area, except for the small patch which she kept clean by her own reputation. Apparently the wizards could care less who was in de-facto control so long as you worked for them, or paid them in favors.
So lost was she that she did not hear the sound until she was thrown onto her back by a violent burst of light. Thankfully, her flare comp on the newly acquired goggles saved her from the worst of it, but there were still some bright purple spots in her vision as Sentinel struggled to her feet. What she saw stunned her. Where before there had been a small and elegant compound surrounded by security walls and concertina wire there was now just low flame and empty space.
23:42:00 Thursday, October 31, 2075: All Hallows Eve
NE 160th St & 124thi Ave NE, Sewers, Maintenance shaft D25
Jack
The thrash metal booming in Jack's mind seemed almost real. He had been told that his dreams were weird by even the most sanguine druggies which he had the pleasure to know, but he could not imagine life without imagination. His imagination had power, he knew that much. Sometimes, when he least expected it, it seemed that life bent to his will when he was either truly desperate or truly thrilled. He sometimes felt as if he was able to talk with the few treasured machines which he had managed to gather together while trying to pay for his kid's education. At any rate, his affinity for diving was what kept him alive; diving in the sewers on the edge of the Barrens, getting down to the confluence that washed into Lake Sammamish, and into open water was his first and only true love. It was shocking what people threw away, even in the Barrens. True, it was often a case of disposing of evidence as much as it was getting rid of feces, but the mysteries of that underworld made Jack feel like he wasn't the abomination. In the sewers, it was easy to convince himself that he was something better than he was; dirt-poor, starving dad, and an inveterate junkie.
Movement above him made him tense up on the ladder which he had been slowly ascending from his recent salvaging trip. He went completely still except to slowly ease his Needler in the holster on his thigh; he didn't need to get in a fight for a lot of reasons, most important of which was the cost of ammunition, but he was no coward. He lowered the mental volume of the thrash his mind had been playing for him as he realized much of the crashing was coming from somewhere above the manhole he had been seeking. Muted noises penetrated through the steel which were hard to make out, but he had been in the barrens long enough to know a firefight when he was close to one. As he turned to move back down the way he had come, perhaps to the next maintenance shaft 3 blocks away, his eyes were met in the darkness below him by 10 blinking red eyes. Frag! Devil Rats! He shouted. An unknown fight above him was nothing compared to the savagery he could count on if he had stepped into the pack of aggressive animals. He quickly thrust himself up to undo the latch securing the manhole cover but found himself being thrown up and out as some force lifted the cover forcibly from its moorings.
Jack tumbled onto the pavement to see the biggest trog he had ever seen holding his manhole cover like a sort of shield against the gunfire skipping past from a desolated building not 50 feet away. Jack gave the troll a startled glance but the other meta was already charging the muzzle flashes with a lit Molotov in his other hand. Frag you, Keebs! This is 69's turf! Eat fire bastards! Jack scrambled away as the ground around him was lit up from the apparent explosion of the cocktail being thrown. He made it to relative safety behind a plascrete slab which dangled from steel rebar off of the parking garage before turning to look. Everywhere he looked for at least 2 blocks, there were bright popping sounds and a crush of bodies. Some of the bodies were prone on the ground, but many were making a huge commotion as they busily wailed on each other with chains, tire irons, plascrete chunks, and anything they could get their hands on. His immediate thought was for Barbara and the rest of the rolling 6's... this was pure warfare and from the looks of it it covered their turf. Had his chummers survived?
Recruitment Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?524856-Street-Level-Shadowrun-Looking-for-Players&p=22144162#post22144162)
OOC Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?528716-OOC-The-Gutter-Don-t-Care&p=22144834#post22144834)
Dice Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?528782-The-Gutter-Don-t-Care-Dice-Thread&p=22147330#post22147330)
There are a few things that matter in life: Family, and survival. Nothing changes that, not even money. Money only obscures how frail life is and chummer, we ain't got much of that...
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
A time to be born and a time to die,
A time to plant and a time to uproot,
A time to kill and a time to heal,
A time to tear down and a time to build,
A time to weep and a time to laugh,
A time to mourn and a time to dance,
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
A time to embrace and a time to refrain,
A time to search and a time to give up,
A time to keep and a time to throw away,
A time to tear and a time to mend,
A time to be silent and a time to speak,
A time to love and a time to hate,
A time for war and a time for peace.
-- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, the Bible, New International Version.
The aid worker quietly lowered her hands as she finished reading the ARO in front of her. No tears came from her eyes this night, nor any night in many years; you didn't have tears after you worked in the Barrens, only unending numbness. She was better than most at handling the stress, which is why the chaplaincy duties always fell to her when the dregs of the city made it to her tiny corner of Bellevue General. She would have laughed at the irony that those with SINs got care, while those without SIN had to die in the holding room, but she hadn't laughed in years either. She quickly administered her digital signature to the batch of ARO's for the fifty recently deceased meta-humans who had had a religious preference on their ID. This was the easy part. It was also easy to go through the twenty different religious rites accorded by the UCAS charitable organizations who paid for her time. It was less easy to care, and impossible no to do so.
The tech at the end of the room got up from his desk where his eyes had been following some diversion as she administered the final touches. He could not have cared less about the rites, but Sal knew for a fact that he cared about what came next; there is no graduating pre-med student who would not leap at the chance to get ahead of the monstrous debt incurred by medical practice in the 21st century. He keyed open the secure door to the corridor running the length of the main floor and she followed him past two non-descript metas dressed in flat gray suits. As they did, Sal saw her account with Saeder Financial go up by 25,000 nuyen, and she could tell from the satisfied smile that Frank was seeing the same. Dead meat was bound for the incinerator one way or another, she might as well try to make the best of what opportunity came her way when she could.
Sal and Frank walked down the hall, never looking back, and finished their decontamination routine as efficiently as always. She stepped out into the musty brown-orange fog that was Seattle at night and made sure that her respirator and chemsuit were securely fastened. The acid rain had been a lot worse lately, and she knew she should earmark at least some of it for improved outerwear. All things in this town rot, she thought, and was soon lost to sight as she climbed onto the automated grid-taxi which her 'link had paged for her the moment she had retrieved it from her cubby.
23:42:00 Thursday, October 31, 2075: All Hallows Eve
124th Ave NE & NE 169th St.
Apex
Something was very, very wrong. Accustomed as Apex was to the loud lifestyle that had become the hallmark of gang life since his return from Daliah, the dead silence was loud in his mind. The family seemed to have gone from their normal live-it-up lifestyle to a more taciturn manner fitting an Asian organized crime family. Their courier had delivered sobering news; the attempt to edge in on the Laes trade coming out of Tacoma through magical means had failed. In truth it had worse than failed, it had been pure foolishness and now the whole family was going to have to fight for their lives: the Ancients were coming. If he had not seen the corpse reanimated by the kannushi himself - in itself normally forbidden - he would not have believed such horrific tidings. It seemed the elven gangers had subjected him to mentally force himself to self-dismember while they slowly healed him with their own magics. While creative, it was not something for which Apex had the stomach. He slowly edged out of the room and headed for the wishing pond in the small downstairs lobby. The adept had barely made it to the 1st floor of the gang compound when he was thrown to his feet by an incandescent explosion from above. Something hit his head and he momentarily blacked out.
When Apex came to, he was face-down on some sort of black, sticky surface. His retina still had glare spots, but he turned his head only to experience an incredibly sharp pain. He screamed involuntarily and put one hand to the back of his skull only to feel wet stickiness. Apex pulled himself up on aching limbs and saw that the black, sticky surface was coagulated blood, and likely his own if his hands were any indication. He slowly rolled over, not having much energy for the time being, only to scream in horror at what he did not see; where before there had been a respectable and fortified looking manor, there was open sky. Only about 3 feet of the foundations where still standing and providing fuel for the flames. Whatever had struck, it seemed that he had been fortunate to be so close to the pond; the explosion had knocked him into the water, but the water had also softened his landing and protected him from whatever flammable elements were involved. Nothing, however, was going to bring his family back..
23:42:00 Thursday, October 31, 2075: All Hallows Eve
Woodmoor Elementary School
BIOS
<New reports this evening of dangerous arms traffickers and terrorists fighting in the Barrens just across the 405 has many Bellevue and Snohomish residents and officials asking what is being done to protect law-abiding citizens.> BIOS enjoyed the naive chatter of the anchorwoman on the news trid. She got nearly all of her information and bias wrong, but at least she was covering what people wanted to hear. BIOS grinned to himself as he hummed softly to his sprite. <Don't think they'll mind if I make the show more interesting, do you?> The coruscating pulsar shimmered and hummed to itself and he was once again reminded that he was not all-together certain that it understood him as a separate entity. The momentary pique which gripped him pushed him back into the moment; he made a few mental tweaks and carefully massaged the software in charge of distributing the feed. As he mentally stroked the watchdog's collar, it calmly unwound the leash from its neck and rolled over, begging for more attention. In a picosecond he had attached 2 new leashes to the ARO, and the anchorwoman's feed was bizarrely altered. In place of the attractive young elf who had been reading the ARO prompter, an image of a large troll seemed come out from under the news desk. <We bring you this special announcement: Deadbeats Inspired by Brackhaven's Killings will not rest until the governor resigns or meets our terms. Too long has he let metahumanity rot under inequality; we demand our rights. We demand that he explain the circumstances regarding the lack of aid to the Redmond and Puyallup Barrens. Long have metahumans been unfairly corralled in these neighborhoods, doomed to unending corporate slavery for the lucky few, or death at the hands of ghouls and other dark creatures for many. We demand that Knight Errant and the AAA corporations and government fix some of their man-made disasters. There has still been no cleanup by Shiawase or any major governmental body since the 2013 disaster at the NPP Trojan-Satsop facility. Further risk has been our ever-present neighbor as we suffer in the shadows of the current monstrosity powering the city. Rise up, citizens! Overthrow, or hold accountable, your corporate masters!> BIOS felt the tingling which meant that GOD or a spider was on its way and casually detached the first leash. The second he folded carefully underneath the collar of the submissive dog. It never hurt to be practical.
The broadcaster resumed her normal features as she quickly explained, <We apologize to our viewers for the momentary stoppage of service. There was a terrorist attack on our matrix assets which is being severely dealt with... wait a second, we just have breaking news. It appears that Governor Brackhaven is holding an impromptu press conference. Let's tune in!> The feed switched to what must have been a drone or rooftop camera which BIOS realized was showing a large area of Northern Redmond. A loud and stern voice carried over as part of the feed real estate was given to the image of the governor in his customary black suit. <I would like to address the worrying concerns of our citizens, as well as the violent attacks which our news affiliates have been subject to in the last month: Knight Errant and the Metroplex guard have been activated to contain and de-escalate the rising violence in the Barrens areas. Earlier tonight, key raids were carried out on organized crime targets ranging from the Ko'mungo crime ring all the way down to several figures involved with the traffic of controlled substances which has lead to the economic decay of the Redmond Area. Starting tonight, the Barrens are under blockade; all checkpoints will require authorization for crossing. In addition a mandatory new security deposit for those crossing from areas judged to be under the influence of hate-related groups and insurgencies is now in effect. Anyone crossing from these blighted areas will be required to make a 50,000 nuyen bail to ensure their good conduct throughout the city unless they are on special assignment from a AAA or governmental entity. Further, I have ordered intervention into the fighting now taking place in the Northern Barrens in the form of directed, smart-targeting munitions, which will minimize innocent casualties.> As he spoke the last few words, the imagery changed from heavily armed checkpoints to sudden flashes and explosions which seemed loud even for BIOS normally amped up sound settings. It wasn't until he paused the feed that he realized the feed wasn't loud; the explosions were happening not too far from him. The city was shelling Kingsgate.
23:42:00 Thursday, October 31, 2075: All Hallows Eve
124th Ave NE & NE 169th St.
Sentinel
Sentinel measured her pace as she approached the respectable oriental structure where her clients lived. She was not nervous, but it never helped to forget where you were when dealing with fellow gangers. The Shimmering Inferno were a newly powerful whiz-gang that had made its mark in the north barrens of the Kingsgate area, and as such were worth a good bit of respect. In her experience, the newer the power, the more prone they were to perceiving unintended slights and weaknesses. That also made them more prone to violence. Her first sojourn into gang life to escape SK had been eye-opening, and she had needed to flee the Puyallup barrens as quickly as she could to avoid having her throat donated to the corpse cutters. This time around, she had seen things she never thought possible back in her days as a corpsec lieutenant. She would do more, too, in order to survive, but this recent relationship with the Shimmering Inferno had been lucrative and relatively unstrained. She was a low-level mystic with a penchant for delivering just the right sort of message. Her preference to not leave a body behind was what made her uniquely valuable in a landscape where life was cheap. This evening had been no different; collect on the overdue neighborhood watch investments over on NE 171st, administer gel rounds to the owner of the stuffer shack on 140th Ave and NE 171st, and collect his pinky as promise of future cooperation. It was rough work, and she did not feel great doing it, but she felt that her qualms could be eased by reasoning that with her on the job, no one had to die. Someone else given the same job would not have been using the same care.
All that remained to her was to collect her due and head home to her own turf. It was not large, but she was proud of the group she had forged together to carve it out nonetheless; a ragtag group of survivors who always had each other's back. Most of them had similar stories to her - it appeared that national and corporate armies thought that PTSD and other symptoms were too expensive to treat their average grunt. Sentinel had brought the 10 ex-veterans and disavowed sec workers together and forged them to a positive influence on their block. No graffiti covered the loop formed by NE 157th St., 156th St., and 125th Pl NE. That was another reason it was important to keep the Shimmering Inferno happy; they owned the turf around this area, except for the small patch which she kept clean by her own reputation. Apparently the wizards could care less who was in de-facto control so long as you worked for them, or paid them in favors.
So lost was she that she did not hear the sound until she was thrown onto her back by a violent burst of light. Thankfully, her flare comp on the newly acquired goggles saved her from the worst of it, but there were still some bright purple spots in her vision as Sentinel struggled to her feet. What she saw stunned her. Where before there had been a small and elegant compound surrounded by security walls and concertina wire there was now just low flame and empty space.
23:42:00 Thursday, October 31, 2075: All Hallows Eve
NE 160th St & 124thi Ave NE, Sewers, Maintenance shaft D25
Jack
The thrash metal booming in Jack's mind seemed almost real. He had been told that his dreams were weird by even the most sanguine druggies which he had the pleasure to know, but he could not imagine life without imagination. His imagination had power, he knew that much. Sometimes, when he least expected it, it seemed that life bent to his will when he was either truly desperate or truly thrilled. He sometimes felt as if he was able to talk with the few treasured machines which he had managed to gather together while trying to pay for his kid's education. At any rate, his affinity for diving was what kept him alive; diving in the sewers on the edge of the Barrens, getting down to the confluence that washed into Lake Sammamish, and into open water was his first and only true love. It was shocking what people threw away, even in the Barrens. True, it was often a case of disposing of evidence as much as it was getting rid of feces, but the mysteries of that underworld made Jack feel like he wasn't the abomination. In the sewers, it was easy to convince himself that he was something better than he was; dirt-poor, starving dad, and an inveterate junkie.
Movement above him made him tense up on the ladder which he had been slowly ascending from his recent salvaging trip. He went completely still except to slowly ease his Needler in the holster on his thigh; he didn't need to get in a fight for a lot of reasons, most important of which was the cost of ammunition, but he was no coward. He lowered the mental volume of the thrash his mind had been playing for him as he realized much of the crashing was coming from somewhere above the manhole he had been seeking. Muted noises penetrated through the steel which were hard to make out, but he had been in the barrens long enough to know a firefight when he was close to one. As he turned to move back down the way he had come, perhaps to the next maintenance shaft 3 blocks away, his eyes were met in the darkness below him by 10 blinking red eyes. Frag! Devil Rats! He shouted. An unknown fight above him was nothing compared to the savagery he could count on if he had stepped into the pack of aggressive animals. He quickly thrust himself up to undo the latch securing the manhole cover but found himself being thrown up and out as some force lifted the cover forcibly from its moorings.
Jack tumbled onto the pavement to see the biggest trog he had ever seen holding his manhole cover like a sort of shield against the gunfire skipping past from a desolated building not 50 feet away. Jack gave the troll a startled glance but the other meta was already charging the muzzle flashes with a lit Molotov in his other hand. Frag you, Keebs! This is 69's turf! Eat fire bastards! Jack scrambled away as the ground around him was lit up from the apparent explosion of the cocktail being thrown. He made it to relative safety behind a plascrete slab which dangled from steel rebar off of the parking garage before turning to look. Everywhere he looked for at least 2 blocks, there were bright popping sounds and a crush of bodies. Some of the bodies were prone on the ground, but many were making a huge commotion as they busily wailed on each other with chains, tire irons, plascrete chunks, and anything they could get their hands on. His immediate thought was for Barbara and the rest of the rolling 6's... this was pure warfare and from the looks of it it covered their turf. Had his chummers survived?