My name? Yes, I have a name. I have several in fact. If you must know them, I am called Star, rzrbldsmle (Razorblade Smile), and sometimes, I am called Betty. I was born on October 31, 2036 in Seattle as Lorelei Christine Espanes to my mother, Janet, and my father, Alex. I had changed my name to Betty Page Davis when I was 20. Both my parents were very loving and very supportive of me. To me, they were the best parents in the world. My father was a teacher in the local high school and my mother was a suit. They helped me get through school, kept me up with my school work, making sure that it was done, turned in, etc. Even though I was a good student, that didn't mean I didn't have time for friends or that I didn't get myself into trouble. I had many friends and we had fun.
There were so many changes that went on through the recent history of the world. The Crash of 29 really fragged up the economical system of the day. My father nearly lost his job and we had to do everything we could to be able to keep our lives the way they were. After the crash, everything started to go to hell in a hand basket. The corps started to take over, wars started, the NuYen was introduced, some of my closest friends died due to the second VITAS outbreak. The country started to change and become their own little countries and nations. California became CalFree. Not only did secession fever spread here, but also throughout the world. Cyberware started to appear here and there. Magic made it's appearance throughout the world and I went through the change and became an Elf. You know, the world has really gone to drek.
After I graduated from High School, I was only able to afford half of the tuition that I needed, so my parents helped put me through college. It was there that I got my nickname of Fade. It seems that whenever I was with my friends, and someone whom I didn't know would come over and talk to my friends, I seemed to fade out of existence. My friends seemed to notice that and they then started to call me Fade and it just seemed to stick. During my senior year in college, I was introduced to the legal form of the Matrix. I started to dabble a bit into it, becoming fascinated in it. I took the name of rzrbldsmle as my handle. Well, after four years of college, I graduated with my Masters Degree.
The rest of my life was pretty uneventful after that, until I was 10 years old, when I joined the UCAS military for four years. There I learned how to use firearms, brawling, toned up my athletics and stealth. The military helped me get into shape and toned very well. They helped me become smarter, quicker and more resistant. When my four years was up, the military gave me enough experience and money to support myself and so I got myself a nice house of my own to live in just on the edge of the Downtown area.
As I settled in, I met a very handsome man by the name of Damien Starfire, who I immediately fell in love with. He worked as a bouncer at the Prenumbra Club. He was the most wonderful man that I have ever met. He had long blonde hair and the most beautiful blue eyes. He was perfect. We started going to the movies, out to dinner, hanging out, just trying to get to know each other. After a few weeks, we finally got together. Our relationship lasted for little over two weeks when I caught him cheating on me with another man. He turned me off on all men from then on out. The bastards.
In 2054, I got a job as a pilot for "Willsbury's Helicopter Services Inc". I was also a Mechanical advisor for the firm. I got paid good and got some friends, although they didn't last long. In early 2056, Sheykuro Corp. was planning a buyout, and the succeeded. Sadly, they demanded that everyone that belonged to the lesser races were to be relieved of their duty. I was fired later that week because I was an elf. Bitter and angry I turned to the bottle, all the time cursing those "damned Sheykuro assassins", crawling into the bottom of a bottle to hide.
After some months on the bottle, living now in the Barrens after I became broke, I knew I had to get a job. However, a 20 year old drunk hasn't got job opportunities liked up for her, so it went quite a while before I found one. It was working as a car thief, then as a chop shop mechanic. I tried to hold back on my drinking, so I only got drunk three times a week. The other chop shop mechanic, Cruicifix, and I became good friends. After some months of saving, I got myself a datajack and 100 MP of headware memory because I thought it would help my work. After some months, a runner team of four stopped by the shop in desperate need of a car and a driver, as their former rigger had been killed. They proposed that I could drive them. The boss wasn't in at the time so I hesitated a bit, not sure of what to do.
But I decided to help them, while Cruicifix stayed at the shop. One of them, dressed like a shaman told me where to go, and to step the pedal to the metal. Some fifty meters behind us a van was picking up speed. To my amazement I saw that the Ork in the team, ripped off parts of the roof, and stood to his feet. His torso over the roof, the Ork started to shoot with his Ingram SMG, hitting the van several times. The Ork cursed as all the bullets ricocheted off the van. One of the runners, grey hair, round glasses, slim, and a face made of stone, handed the Ork a bag. Through the rear view mirror, I could see that it contained a small cannon.
The Van picked up speed, out of the window a man fired a gun several times at us. The window in the back of the car was blown to pieces , and several bullets made their way through the front window as well, accompanied by blood and bone fragments from someone in the back seat. "DREK, DREK, DREK", said the smallest of them, he had a strange haircut and a datajack.
"Son of a slitch blew off my chest, he blew off my chest.." as he said that blood started to come from his mouth, his chest was soaked in blood. Moments later he collapsed. In the front seat the Shaman said: "I knew this would happen," he handed me a note with an address written on it. "Drive to this address, and make it snappy." I only nodded, when the car was violently pushed forward accompanied by a loud boom. Behind us the Van exploded. "Hehe…got the foo' good." the Ork said, smiling. He sat down on his seat with the 1.50 m long "rifle". He quickly saw the mess that was left of the chest of the decker and started to curse. As I drove off, sirens could be heard in the distance, and the burning wreckage of the van lighted up the street. We could see someone crawl out of it, as I steered the car around a bend.
After a while, the Shaman turned to me and said, "I am Dances-With-NuYen, you?" I introduced myself, and the others did the same. The runners were Dances, the Shaman, HyPeRJacK, the Decker, Gut Rippa, the Ork Samurai, and Conrad Oppenheim, the elven Demolitions man. At that moment, I stopped by a house. "This is it" Dances said. The runners carried Hyper out of the car and busted in through the door where the Street Doc lived. I sat still in the car, letting the knowledge of what had just happened slip through my mind. I couldn't believe the rush. A wild car chase and actual guns fired, I only hoped that Hyper made it. He seemed like such a nice guy. After a while, I went into the house, the Doc busy binding his wounds.
"Not a single bullet inside him, and the clean entry and exit wounds suggests that APDS rounds were fired." The doc said, he looked worried. "APDS, hmm… Those foo's really wanted us dead, man. Makes me wanna crack their skulls.." Gut said angrily. "These Sheykuro guys obviously doesn't like they're data stolen and they have some decent resources on their hands. APDS is pretty rare round these parts", Dances said solemnly. "Sheykuro!" I thought. I hadn't heard that name in almost half a year now. Though it seemed like yesterday they fired me, based only on my race. It sounded like these Sheykuro jokers really had it in for the runners. Without giving it much further consideration I blurted out: "If your going against Sheykuro, I'd be most willing to help, you need a driver don't you?" Dances nodded. "Well, I'm quite good. You see, I have a score to settle with Sheykuro. They once robbed me of my job, cause I was an Elf." They went into a corner and discussed, after a bit, Gut came back smilin'. "Sure thing chica. We metas have to stick together."
Three weeks later, I was ready to roll. I had got a four slot chipjack, Image link, and a SPU: Math unit installed, all paid for by the team. I also got the Ford Bison and the WK-2 Stallion from the former rigger, post mortem of course. After a few personal adjustments, I was ready to kick some ass. I soon rang Crucifix, to hell him what had happened to me. Crucifix and the others had reckoned that I was killed, but were relieved to hear I was in good shape. I urged Crucifix to stop working for the shop, but he refused.
Chopping up cars was all he could do, and had done that all his adult life. I was disappointed. I had hoped that Crucifix and I could run together but no, it seemed like he wouldn't do that. It was way too risky for his taste. Gut told me Dances called some of his contacts and set up some meets, where I could be properly introduced to the Biz. All of the meets were at either Penumbra or Dante's. The contacts apparently held back their enthusiasm, all they said was "If she is as good as the last one, we'll send our biz elsewhere." He and the others had agreed to that they all liked me.
Soon we started to plot against Sheykuro, on how to get back at them. The wound they had caused on Hyper, gave him such pain, that he had to go on medication, all of the time to keep the pain down. They also had a peculiar side effect, they were really, I mean really quickening. The recipient got real hyperactive. And the fact that hyper used them excessively made him very, very hyper, and he started drooling too. Good thing that he was matrix backup. Cause he would have revealed or position at once, if he was in the field. One night, the gang and I, set out on the run against Sheykuro, that would cripple them. We were to go in, and steal some data that would prove their involvement in several assassinations against the larger corporations. So even if the courts wouldn't nail them. Fuchi, Ares and Yamatetsu would. Sheykuro had played high stakes, and were not to lose. Big time.
I moved the heli in over the building complex. The heli-ID they had bought was paying off. The security officer I had spoke with had okayed a landing and was, hopefully, expecting no drek from us. We were cleared for landing. The helicopter jolted a bit when it touched down on to the ground. Her door was opened. Gut, Dances and Wiley, the newest addition to the team, rand out on the opposite side of the heli then the side the offloading crew came. The deck parts were taken off, and I took off with my chopper. I switched on the com-link. I could hear some static, then Hypers voice: "ChaNnEL SeCurE!" he shouted. He had made our signals so twisted and jammed up that no one with anything less than a drek-hot decker could tap into our line.
"Status?" I said quickly. Hoping that everything was alright. At least no one seemed to be following me. The warning systems were all nice and calm. "So far so good." I could hear Gut growling into his Cyber Com-link. It was kind of strange to listen to the funny edge his voice had through it. "Your new CyberCom working alright Wart-Boy?" I said in a voice, trying to sound just like Gut.
"Don't talk to much on this channel foo'! Don't want them scanning us or anyfing." And Gut continued. "We are moving down the air ducts. We'll report when we get to the 32nd Floor, got that sucka!?!" I replied only with a formal "Ten-Four" before descending onto the rooftop of the building we had rented. Only half a mile away. I opened the door on the roof, and ran down the stairs. I absent-mindedly knocked on the door to apartment 1450, before I took his keys and unlocked the door.
Gut wasn't in so I didn't have to ask permission to enter, or risking the bones in my nose. And Hyper was jacked in, so there I had it, I thought as the door suddenly slid open. The door wasn't locked. I examined the lock more closely, someone had been scraping on the outskirts of the lock. I drew my Pred III and stood beside the door, dead quiet. Didn't I just hear something, someone talking inside? There was a loud bang, as some furniture was being thrown against the wall. "Oh drek, oh drek, oh drek!" I said to myself as I kicked the door open. The lights were off. I couldn't see drek.
"Hai! Watakushi wa kobun desu!" someone shouted. I just realized that I was very prone to be shot as the lights in the hallway behind me was on. I jumped forward into the room. Two gunshots were fired from behind the Trid. Both hit the wall behind me. "Taishikan wa doko desu ka!" shouted the shooter, someone was coming from Guts' bedroom. Gut hated that people messed with his personal stuff. I scrambled towards the kitchen as more bullets flew past me. The kitchen counter faced the living room so it would provide excellent cover. I fumbled past the sink and sat still. Opening the stove, and took out the sawn off Remington 990. I heard the silent tapping of footsteps closing up behind me, on the other side of the counter. I set the choke to 1.
"This is for messing with Guts things!" I shouted as I lifted the shotgun over my head, firing all the shots randomly into the darkness behind me. One of the Sheykuro assassins screamed "Ogenki desu ka!" before hitting the floor with a bang. The other Sheykuro assassin shouted "O-namae wa!!" as he jumped from behind the telecom, guns blazing. Bullets ricocheted of the pots and pans in front of me. I reloaded the shotgun as fast I could possibly manage, but it wasn't fast enough. The Sheykuro assassin was getting closer to the kitchen counter. Blasting holes through the whole apartment. "Komban wa!" Shouted the Sheykuro assassin as he popped the clips from his guns. I seized the moment to jump onto the counter, but saw to my disappointment, nothing but darkness.
"Die screaming!" I shouted as I blasted two shots into the dark room. Suddenly, I heard the Sheykuro assassin sneaking right into the under the counter, I could barely jump down before the metallic reflection of a katana of some sort was swung through the floor being chopped up where I had just lain. I stopped to get on my feet, but a sensation of pain in my left foot wouldn't allow me to rise from the kneeling position I was in. I turned my head, in the eternity following, my eyes managed to spot the suit clothed Sheykuro assassin behind me, with his katana thrusted through the back of my left ankle, nailing it to the floor.
I shoved the shotgun between my legs and fired off several shots. Some even ripping off parts of my feet. I cried out from the pain, accompanied by the shriek of the Sheykuro assassin as his body was ripped to shreds. With a thump, we both hit the floor. Only I was still breathing, though heavily. Through the throbbing in my ears I could only make out the sound of someone in Hyper's room. I was trying desperately to find the shotgun between all the empty casing that was lying on the floor. But the pain was to graven. I could feel the cold metal in my foot, it was starting to get warmer. Someone turned on the lights. I had to shield my eyes with my wet hands. All red, all the liquid on my hands, it was all red. I heard the Sheykuro assassin move in behind me. I hadn't the strength to put up a fight, even if my life was at stake.
The Sheykuro assassin said "YoU aLL riGHt, FadE, aRE yOu, ArE yoU!!!" The Sheykuro assassin had the save voice as Hyper. Strange really. I screamed as the katana was being stirred around in the wound. In between the throbbing in my ears I thought I could hear: "sORry bOuT thAT, I rEALly aM!!" They Sheykuro assassin that was in the process of torturing me, tread on my sore foot. My screaming was intensifying. The katana was stirred again, this time he almost ripped it out of my foot. My limited medical experienced suggested that I might bleed to death if the katana was removed, it was just like the cork being removed from the bottle. I cried out in pain as the Sheykuro assassin put both of his feet on my leg, one on each side of the katana.
"HeRE GoEs!" said the assassin. I screamed as the katana was pulled out of my leg, after the I blacked out. "HaLLo!" the ugly monster was about to swallow me, I punched the monster in the face, as hard as I could. "Hunh," the monster flew back onto its back. I sat up in bed and Hyper was on the floor bleeding from his nose. My leg stung like hell. I had to whimper a bit.
"LoOK I'm BleaDIng AlL oVeR The PlaCe!" I apologized. Hyper told me what had happened. I had been unconscious for about five minutes. We were now in the backup room, three floors down. I just wanted to relax now, lay back. Until my foot was healed. Although I would need a doc. The bandage that Hyper had wrapped around it, although effective, was probably not very hygienic. I lay back in the bed. But as my head hit the pillow, a thought struck my mind. "Drek, the team!" I jumped from the bed, running tot he decks on the table. Before I cam halfway there, I stumbled. Hyper rushed and grabbed me before I could fall. "The team" I said. "What about the team?"
"Oh, HehE MayBe We SHOUld ChecK ON TheM?!" Hyper looked confused for a moment but soon regained his not so elegant posture. "Here, take this." I said as I handed Hyper the jack cable. We both logged on to the matrix. Without as much as a word, we traveled at the speed of light towards the LTG of Sheykuro's matrix system. I tried to contact Gut over the comm-link. Only static. We arrived at the LTG. Making our way into the Public area, we were suddenly running along traditional Japanese houses. Sheykuro systems was sculpted like a village, the most important houses in the middle.
Around those parts were walls, full of guards and lookouts, ICE of every variant patrolled the walls. The houses outside were public domain. Hyper led the way to a deserted section of the wall. It was the backdoor code they had bought. He pushed back a bush and there it was. A hole under the wall. Hyper and I crept through the hole. On the other side was a guard. Watching the hole. "ID please." said the Probe ICE. Hyper tried to sleaze it by popping a banana in its mouth, something that usually worked, but not this time. The ICE looked disgusted at the banana and opened its mouth. But before it could shout for help, Hyper suppressed the ICE by putting a bag over its head. Something that did work. All we had to do now was finding the cameras for level 32.
As we passed a window, we saw a red light in it. It was flashing "Compound Security Compromised, level 32 compromised by terrorists" over and over again. Looked like the drek had hit the fan. I told Hyper that we had to help them out, rerouting security, and opening doors for them. Hyper appeared to ponder on this for a moment, and finally came to a conclusion. "FoLLoW ME!" Hyper shouted as he ran towards a door in the side of the center building. I followed him. I considered Hypers icon, a clown bouncing up and down, laughing hysterically all the time. But somehow, people just fail to notice the hysterical clown bouncing up and down their paydata nodes, strange. Hyper stopped in front of the door. A guard was standing there, with a stone-cold posture it shouted.
"ID PLEASE!" Hyper just bounced around for a bit, eventually giving the guard a banana. The guards face lit up and started to eat it. Making fuzzy noises. I had to marvel as we passed the heavily IC'd node entry point, I hun up a mental note to ask Hyper where he got the code to programs like that. Hyper skipped into the building. Hyper and I were standing in the end of a hallway, leading straight forward past a juncture, with doors on either side. The walls appeared to be translated some of the signs by the doors, mostly datastores. As Hyper opened a door further down the hall, marked "Security level 32, a gong was heard in the distance.
Probably a passive alert. They had to be careful now, it doesn't take much before an active alert in initiated, and they would be positively scragged by then. Inside the room were several Samurai Warriors, some icons appeared like scholars running about. And finally, one clad like a Chief Samurai, better clothes, bigger katana and such. This was probably the decker on duty here. I noticed some gunfire on one of the monitors. Gut and the boys were pinned down behind a desk. One of them were bleeding, but the monitor was too far away for me to see who was hit. My angel icon drew a magical lollipop-wand. Moving slowly towards the decker. However as Hyper approached the Sheykuro decker, the decker turned its head.
"Sumimasen?" he said, activating the alarm. Hyper laughed hysterically and summoned an anvil ten feet over the decker. Seriously hurting him as it hit him square in the head. I moved forward, initiating my Attack 6S program, blasting holes in the icon of the Sheykuro decker as it dissolved into the datastream, I examined the different monitors, while Hyper bounced towards the entrance to the room. Building a roadblock of fluffy bunnies, I wondered if it was a new kind of program. One of the monitors caught my attention. Gut and Dances held off an attack by several Security Officers in an office they had barricaded with desks. I tried to reach them with the com-link, still offline. What could cause it. Someone had to know which frequency they were using, and had the means to scramble it completely. How could I contact them? I had to think fast.
As I thought about this, Gut was hit by a shot to his head, but there wasn't much blood. But he was partly out of the cameras view angle. A computer terminal was in the way. I heard the sound of laughter behind me. Hyper was using an insanely large club, whacking ICE and Deckers in the head until they dissolved. He seemed to be having a jolly good time. I turn my attention to the screen once again. The terminal was still in the way. Wait a minute, if I could just. I moved to another terminal and ran an analyze utility. One sec…There it was. I knew it, that terminal in front of Gut was intact, so I could write messages on it. Only basic computer skills were needed to write a program to do that. In the background I could hear several sounds accompanied by maniacal laughter. But in-between I could hear some whining when Hyper was hit, like a baby I thought.
I typed. Didn't seem like they noticed. No wonder, Dances was half beaten by drain, plus he had some scratches that implied a couple of stray shots had been fired at him.
I activated the sound system, which enabled the Terminal to "say" what I typed.
On the monitor I could see Gut sitting up. Guns blazing, looking surprised at the screen. He ripped it off the table and positioned it on the floor. Saying something to Wiley, the elven samurai.
I smiled to myself while I continued to type.
I could see the elves face twist in agony as he typed on. I was glad that I couldn't feel my foot, while running a hot deck.
As he wrote that, a bullet hit Wiley in the chest. He fell and rolled over to his back. Oh drek, this wasn't good. I downloaded a blueprint of the floor as I started to think about how to get them out of there. I turned around as an "uh-oh" sound manifested itself. A counter had started a countdown over Hypers head. His laughter was really intensifying now. A friendly voice of a lady informed the surrounding deckers the following:
"15 seconds to self destruct sequence will be initiated. All will die. Thank you. Hahahahahahahaha." I was starting to panic, so now Hyper had given me a deadline as well, the famous bomb of his will dump all icons within the node. Including ours. Though Hyper had put a line in the code, which erases it after use, so he has to rewrite it each time. Go figure. "13 seconds to self-destruct." I looked frantically over the blueprint. There had to be something I could take advantage of. What could it be. The roof was the 35th floor. An elevator led all the way to the 34th floor, there was stairs from there to the roof, unless they went through the executive lounge. Not bloody likely. "10 seconds to self-destruct." Umm…lessee, they are in a room adjacent to the corridor leading directly to the elevator. Let's see, what is that. I zoomed in on a lamp, it had a link. I accessed it, look at this. A sentry gun, loaded with live ammo.
"7 seconds to self destruct." Hmm..I uploaded vital data about Gut, Dances and Wiley to the sentry gun. Lucky I was designing a thermal system for the chopper, I needed their body mass and temperature for optimal results. Umm, do not fire at these. The sentry gun had excellent sensors, heh, ironic that I was to be the one using them. "6 seconds." Upload a virus that frags up the command sequence of slave systems, no one will control these babies in the next five minutes. "4 seconds."
"3 seconds." Oh drek, I had to activate the guns. I started to reroute outside the virus, I know the code so it shouldn't be to hard, but doing it without erasing the virus. "2 seconds." Drek, another typo. I really do not need more of those, I thought. "1 second. Have a drekty day.." I hit the keyboard hard, do it! Do it! Suddenly all I could see was static. I opened my eyes. Drek that hurt. I was bleeding from under my fingernails, I bled from my nose, even from my eyes. I whimpered as I saw steam rising from my deck. I saw Hyper, he was lying in a pool of blood, laughing under his breath. His deck was on fire too. I took an improvised crutch, under one arm and Hyper under the other. He was really small and fragile. I ran out of the apartment, stumbling every now and then. Trying not to break down from the pain of my leg. I needed to get up the stairs, up to the heli pad. My body was aching, crying for rest. But I wouldn't give in, I was on my way to the chopper. And that's final.
After what had seemed like an eternity, I reached the roof. The cold nigh air made me sway. But I soon regained control. Although there were two choppers now. Mine was the one on the left? Frag it, I would try both if necessary. I stumbled towards the chopper on the left. The last couple of steps I fell forward, but reached the chopper just in time to brace myself on it. Dropping both the crutch and Hyper in the effort. I opened the door and started to drag Hyper inside, I noticed that I bled something terrible from my leg, it had swollen badly. And I had some serious dizzy spells. Well it had to wait. I had some friends in need of assistance. My leg felt better as I sat down in the cockpit seat, taking the weight off the foot. I powered up the chopper and was soon on the way to the Sheykuro building. ETA 2 minutes.
After an uneventful ride to the high Sheykuro building the comm came to life. "This is Sheykuro Air Control, please ID yourself." The dispatcher had a dry, bored voice. I didn't respond and turned off the com. I didn't have time for drek like that. I looked at the rooftop. No sign of life. I only hoped that they made it. In the backseat, Hyper was starting to show signs of life. He started to giggle, and made funny noises with his nose. I moved closer to the building, long into Sheykuro territory. I activated the Aural Masking. The sound of the rotors disappeared, revealing the sound of gunfire from the rooftop. Though I could not see any sign of them. But on the far side, I could see the door, which led down to the stairs. I accelerated towards it, suddenly lights started to flash in my cockpit, it was the ECM, I was being targeted. This was not the time for games. I lowered the HGM, and armed the two missile racks. I raced towards the door while keeping close watch over the Warning lights and the radar.
Soon someone were going to launch a missile, I was not in the mood get hit. The Plutocraft that had been on the roof took off as I swept past. I fired a couple of rounds into the edges of the door as I got about ten meters away from it, trying to blast it from the hinges. One of the flashing lights got permanent, implying that a missile had been shot. Right ahead of me, slightly left of the door to the stairs, I could see it accelerating towards me. I kept cool, as the missile was fifteen meters ahead. I released flares and banked hard left, as the missile swept past, burn marks had formed on the side.
"Too close." I told myself as more lights turned bright red, the radar showed that three missiles from various directions were fired. ETA 3 seconds. I pressed the stick down, as the chopper lost height, I nearly suffered a red out. But Hypers insane laughter kept me in touch with reality when the heli crashed to the ground. Several new lights indicated that the landing system had broken, and that the HMG had snapped loose. The missiles flew over me. Exploding in the air some meters away. I struggled to get the heli in the air again. A bit unsteady, but the chopper still had the tough. That second, the door to the stairs was ripped off its hinges. The ugly, blood smothered face of Gut peeped through, Wiley under one arm, and his Ingram in the other. They were closely followed by Dances who could merely walk. I opened the doors to the chopper and lowered it to a half meter of the ground. In the doorway, several guards came running out. Their Assault Rifles firing bursts, which ricocheted off the chopper. Gut responded to the fire, but not in a very effective way. Gut had halved the distance between the chopper and himself. I took a quick decision. I ascended the chopper a couple of meters and fired a ripple of missiles into the crowd of guards. However a burst of bullets from one of the guards hit Wiley in the chest.. Gut dropped him and instead took Dances, who was close to fainting, under his arm and ran like hell to the chopper. I set the course towards the apartment and headed out.
Gut had a miserable expression on his face, Dances didn't look very happy either. But both of them thanked me for my rescue operation. They were in serious drek back there. The little chat was stopped by the ECM. The radar pinpointed two helicopters in hot pursuit. Drek, what did they want? I steered the copper downtown, in between the skyscrapers. They had to be mad to follow me there, and I to go there. However the tail didn't seem to rub off. I turned the chopper's nose further down, until it was a mere 30 meters off the ground, twisting and turning around street corners. But the pursuing choppers gained on me, arming their weapons. I looked out of the windows of the chopper for a solution, where to run now.
There was a dead end straight ahead, with high rise buildings on all sides. I made up my mind, I pushed the throttle forward and rocketed towards the glass wall that the building was made of. An alarm went off as machine guns were fired from the chopper behind us. They still followed me. As I was a couple of meters from the glass wall, I pulled the stick backwards, making the heli go straight up. If only I had calculated the stall correctly. The choppers following me, obviously had more power under their hoods than mine had, so this had to work.
Both of the pursuing choppers went after me, probably some skilled kamikaze pilots after all. Dances and Gut started to yell in horror as they understood what I was up to. I had flown a couple of hundred meters up the side of the building as I was starting to loose height. I managed to keep the chopper vertical, with nose up as I started to rush against the ground. Soon both the Stallions that were in pursuit of us roared past on each side. I fine tuned my aiming, then fired the remaining ripple straight up at them. As they burst out in flames, I turned the heli around. The ground looked awfully close as I started to gain speed.
Fifty meters above ground and still not enough speed, this was staring to look bad, luckily there was a vacant parking space underneath us. So hopefully I wouldn't have to crash into anybody that had nothing to do with this. 25 meters and looking bad, I had no choice. I had to go in for a rough landing. I leveled the chopper and set full speed up to slow us down.. The screams from the backseat stopped as they were about 5 meters off the ground. Transforming into a mute silence, broken by the crash against ground. Shockwaves threw the inventory of the chopper everywhere. But the armor didn't breach. No smell of smoke, or any signs of fire. Debris from the two Sheykuro choppers started to rain, making crashing noises outside.
"Everyone all right?" Dances asked from under his breath. Both Gut and I replied after a little while. Hyper giggled in his own vomit, smiling an italic smile. Sirens was turned on some distance from where I had parked my chopper. "Let's see if she can get us out of here." I said as I took the controls. Both Gut and Dances moaned loudly. After a couple of goes, the rotors started to spin, slowly at first, but gained speed relatively quickly. Coughing now and then, the chopper started to rise from the ground. Slowly I headed the chopper out of there, in a very unelegant fashion. Steam rising from her overheated engines.
One month later, we had come to the decision of splitting up the group. Several attempts on our lives by oriental assassins and such had made life miserable for us. So we figured that if we split up now, and only contacted each other through secure lines, Sheykuro would have a harder time following us. Dances and Gut decided to retire from the running biz. Instead they would start to get other professions in the shadows. Gut would start to use his doctoring skills from med school, patching up runners who caught some drek. He would set up shot with, "Knife Barnes", the regular Doc of the group. He had never actually worked in any hospital, at least that he would tell. He obviously had some very personal reasons for why he hadn't started to work as a doc before this day. Dances decided to start working as a fixer, utilizing the wide array of contacts he had collected all these years running. He agreed on being a fixer for Hyper and me, since we both were deckers, and thereby fully able to secure lines when needed be. Dances was also fully aware of the abilities and disabilities of both Hyper and I, which could also prove to be a big advantage to relay jobs that had demands that suited us.
Hyper was going to rebuild his deck, since his last self-destruct code had completely erased the whole deck, but the MPCP and Masking. Bod, Evasion, all the programs, Hardening was all wiped out. Either from the fires or the code. I decided to cool down on my decking side, since it would cost too much to rebuild after Hypers SD program had wiped out the whole fragging deck. Instead I would concentrate on doing some runs, which I found not as exciting as decking. But as soon as I got some serious NuYen, I got myself a new deck. As of now Dances was in the progress of finding me a new group, which whom I could run with, and use as cover against Sheykuro assassins. A few months later I was given another run as a decker and I once again too the handle of rzrbldsmle. The run went down something like this:
The faint glow of the monitor was all that lit the darkened room. A pale figure lay still in the darkness, blood flowing forth from the small bullet in his forehead. Another sat nearly motionless at the other end of the room, at a computer terminal which connected to a synthetic wooden desk. The office was decorated with synthetic plants and standard company issue paintings on the walls, which marked this as the workplace of a salary man. Some cog in the corporate machine. A faceless worker who toils in the darkness, never experiencing the world beyond the walls of the metroplex. Never experiencing the freedom that, to some people, is the only reason to live.
One of those such people is the woman at the terminal. Although her body was in the office, her consciousness was in another place. The wire connecting to the porcelain datajack located in her temple fed the simsense signal which allowed her to exist simultaneously in the real world, and in the Matrix. She floated through the silicon landscape of the Matrix, passing by the systems' feeble Intrusion Countermeasures like they weren't even there. Her skills were certainly well beyond those needed to enter this system, but her current employer likely thought it best to leave nothing to chance. "I've penetrated their systems defenses." the woman said into her wrist communicator.
"Roger that, Razor. Escape route confirmed. Get the data so we can get out of here. Shakk'ar and Eddie are in the car. I'll stay by the front door until you're out." they answered. "No problem, Siren. rzrbld out." I said as I returned my focus to the task at hand. It would take only a few minutes once I found the datastore to download the information into my cyberdeck so that I could be on my way. At least that was the plan. I floated past a few layers of sub processing units to get to the proper location. At one point, I thought I noticed something at the edge of my awareness, almost like it was hiding it's presence from me, but it vanished almost as soon as I noticed it. Did it ever really happen? I thought it would be best to exert additional caution.
A short time later, I found what I was looking for. The data contained in this node was apparently what the groups' employer wanted, so he wasted no time approaching the glittering wall of light. I reached a chromed hand into the data stream and began my search. There it was again. That strange feeling. I had only noticed it now, but my arm was caught in the flow. The wall of liquid data froze into a block of ice. I was trapped. Before I could try to free myself, I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye. Rising from the smooth floor of the datastore, a shining chrome Minataur took shape, the datastore to download the information into my cyberdeck so that I could be on my way. At least that was the plan.
A bolt of lightning jumped from my hand to the Minataur, and tore a sparkling rift in the body of the beast. The wound was beginning to close itself, as I struggled to free myself from the grip of the ice block that held me. I desperately stripped away the code of the trap program that held me, and managed to free myself just as the glowing War Hammer of the Minataur struck the wall above me. The impact shook the entire node, and sent a shockwave through my mind. This was black ice, and would fry my brain if I didn't do something quick. I reached for the cord and jacked out just as the Minotaur's second strike came towards me. If I would have been a fraction of a second slower, God knows what would've happened.
"Fraggit! We've got a problem!" I shouted into the com-link. "What is it?" Siren asked. "There was black IC in the datastore. Drek! I knew it was too quiet. They must have been expecting me. The system looked almost my attack program before the Minataur could react. A bright spark of light flashed on the screen. "Don't jump to conclusions, just get out of there. I'll create a diversion. Forget the planned route. If they do know that we're here, they'll probably have all the normal exits blocked. Go to the roof, and I'll have Eddie pick you up with his remote chopper. Siren out."
And with that, I slung my cyberdeck over my shoulder, drew my silenced pistol, and stepped over the lifeless body of the Salary Man. I left the office and made my way for the staircase. It would be a long climb to the roof of the thirty story building from the twentieth floor, but I didn't dare use the elevators. From what I saw in the Matrix, I was sure that the company knew of the intrusion, and I didn't want them to trap me in an elevator where I would be helpless. As I stepped into the stairwell, I felt what could have been a minor earthquake. Fortunately, I knew that Siren was carrying high explosive rounds for her assault cannon, not to mention a couple of kilo's of Plastique.
A while later, I reached the roof of the building and stepped out into the cool night breeze. The open sky was refreshing compared to the stale, recycled air of the Fhujito Electronics building that I had just been in. As I waited for the tell tale whir of Eddie's rotor craft, a loud, rough voice barked from behind. "Stop right there! Put down your weapons and you won't get hurt." I quickly dove behind an electrical conduit as the loud roar of autopilot pierced the air, followed by the metal ping of bullets impacting against the surface, and the whiz of stray shots flying overhead. I peered over the side and cracked off a couple of shots from my pistol at the guards. They dove for cover and gave me the break I needed.
The chopper arrived and opened fired on the guards with a high speed stream of hot death from above. The fire from the auto-cannon caught one of the guards in the chest, ripping though metal, plastic, and finally flesh. The guards dropped, twitching and spraying blood. A few shots caught a second guard in the lower leg, tearing it to ribbons. The third guard sought cover in the recess that held the stairs back into the building.
The chopper circled around, using cover fire to suppress the security guard and came around for another strafing run. He had to quickly jig to the left to avoid a burst of fire from the guards assault rifle, and pulled up as he let loose with a guided missile. The warhead impacted with the roof and exploded with great force, sending two of the guards bodies flying through the air, and reducing the third guard to ash. The explosion left a crater on the roof a couple meters in diameters, the guards wouldn't notice.
They were closing fast. I knew that if I didn't find a way out of this mess soon, I would be a goner. Just as the thoughts of my impending death crossed my mind, I heard the whir of Eddie's rotor craft as it flew full tilt over head and ripped up the concrete. It banked around again, hovering a few feet from the rooftop. I decided to make a mad dash for the chopper, gunshots tearing up the concrete behind me. I dove into the chopper and it took off. "Shakk'ar and me are in the car. Siren got outta here in her Westwind. We're gonna meet at the rendezvous point, so sit tight." Eddie said over the loudspeaker. "Alright. Let's get out of here." I said. "Can do." replied Eddie as the chopper ascended quickly and banked past another building. I sat in silence as the chopper made its way to the safe meeting place out in the barrens.
After surviving that and a bunch of others, I'm still alive, breathing fine and dandy. I recently found out that Hyper, Dances and Gut teamed up again for another run and got fragged by their Johnson. I know I'll miss them. I learned that Shakk'ar, Siren, and Eddie are still together. I hope they have better luck then the other team. As for me, I'm still decking, just waiting for the big deal when I can finally retire happy and live out the rest of my life without having to tend to my wounds. As for now, I'm happy with the way my life is. I moved to Germany from Seattle no too long ago to get away from Sheykuro because if Hyper and the others got geeked, then they must be after me as well. I got myself a Cerebral Booster and a Sleep Regulator so I won't have to sleep as much. I've settled into my home and I'm just sitting back, enjoying life the way it is. Who knows, maybe my first job here will be the big payoff that I'm waiting for.
