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Shooting Stars [IC]
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Once she feels they are far enough, Rebbeca stops and pulls out her bow. She chants the lyrics of a popular song to focus and then fires her bow at one of the mobsters.
Spoiler: -
[Saturday September 10, 2078; Quayside, Panama City]
Seeing the mobsters bolt Lily saw little reason to prolong the engagement… there would always be more mobsters, better to evade. Sagging down in to some meagre cover she dug out a stim patch and applied it to the flesh of her neck, one of the few places the drugs could enter her system…
***
Spoiler:#58
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The delaying action having served its purpose, Al was relieved to see the beleaguered Lily move to break off the engagement. Which was his cue to help her get clear – by doing exactly what he’d been doing….gut shoot criminal scum, one after another.
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Once the drones vanished from the matrix, Preston returned to AR to see that they had vanished from the meat world as well. Al was still shooting at people, but the others were all gone. Well, going was the plan, so that was good.
<<Sorry I couldn’t deal with the drones in a timely manner, thanks to whoever took them down.>>
<< Should Becky get Alex out of here immediately, or wait for the rest of us to join them?>> -
Becky’s arrow nailed another one of the fleeing enforcers, but by now the harbor was filled with absolute chaos as people had begun to try to run away from shots being fired.
Though at least now the way to the team’s car was free.
Thorn came out from behind the crate he’d been hiding with the captured drone: “You should go – quickly. Al, great to have met you again. Come by again when things have cooled down a bit. I’ll keep you posted about what else happens around here.” -
Rebbeca texts >> Come pick us up. She says to Alex, “Keep the invisibility until they arrive.” she texts Preston their location and stands to watch in case there are other complications.
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“Will do”, Alex replied apparently not minding getting told what to do.
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<<We’ll be coming soon>>
“C’mon Al, time to be ‘runners.’ Not that either of us is in the ladies leagues of foot speed, but the* window before authorities make life difficult can’t be long, so let’s do our best.”
Preston hoisted his gear bag and headed toward the docks, checking as he went that his pistol and taser were still in place. Not that he expected any opposition to still have fight left in them, but better to be prepared. Once his feet were on the wharf he brought up AR and started scanning for public security type announcements.
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Rebbeca has only met one other immortal that she knows of, but he played such a long game that it was difficult for her young mind to understand.
“If I may seize this opportunity and ask, knowing what you know about Horrors, should we be worried about them coming back? “
It was impossible to comprehend just what kind of being Alex was, living for so long, how different they must be. -
“Worried? No. Terrified – absolutely. You have no idea just how vicious and alien these things are. What you saw in that simulation was not even close to what it was back then. But don’t worry too much – there is still time to prepare.”
Alex replied once the team had all piled into the car. -
Seeing that his friend had the agreed-upon tech and that they were thus square, Al nodded back. “Vaya con dios, Thorny baby. Keep yer head down around these Mars freaks.”
Al took a last look at the field of battle, a couple of dead thugs polluting the rapidly clearing dock area, with a couple more writhing in wounded agony, abandoned by their ‘friends.’ Al saw one of the fleeing gangsters trying to pull a woman and her child out of their car. Whether the scum was trying to escape faster or pursue Alex and Becky, Al didnt care, he raised his rifle and painted the woman’s face with the man’s brain tissue. Then he slung his rifle, placed a hand on the boat’s gunwale, and vaulted onto the pier. Preston was already on the move, saying something about doing their best, which sounded like a lot of work to Al. Still, he ran along behind his friend as best he could, coughing only occasionally as the excess of salt air clashed with the tar-blackened alveoli of his lungs.
He thanked the voodoo gods when they got to the Hotspur. Becky was already behind the wheel, and they were moving before he and Preston had fully clambered into the back.
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“Good shot Al” she says, there was a numb sensation as the thought of a kid experiencing all that violence -but she reminded herself that it is like Redmond’s kid. These must be tough, and they better wise-up sooner than later. She remembers painfully her less than ideal childhood, and how weak, and sometimes helpless she was. She had to play smart to survive.
As they pulled away from the crime scene, Rebbeca lets out an audible sigh “Any damages on our side?” she proceeds with Al’s instructions to their extraction point. Wanting to get back home, craving home and that special feeling she feels when she is in her mansion. Perhaps she is more tied to that location than she is to Roger, or to Linda, and perhaps it was in her cards all along.
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The escape from Panama city went off without a hitch – apparently the Wayfarers had played their last card and were now out of leverage.
The Snakehandler was still where it had been and ready to go.
Alex gave Al the coordinates for a private airport before finding a seat where he could take a nap. -
[Saturday September 10, 2078; The Snake Handler, Flying away from Panama City]
While the plane bounced around on the humid air currents Lily settled back in to her seat and reflected on the last few hours… so now she was a real shadowrunner, with a real run under her belt… well assuming the J didn’t stiff them when they got back to Seattle but with Alex in tow that seemed unlikely. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about it… the adrenalin buzz had been undeniable and it was what she had been created to do, more or less, and she’d relished the chance to test her abilities outside a simulation. But on a more emotional level the violence hadn’t been nice and certainly not what the trids portrayed. That shouldn’t be a surprise really after all of Jazz’s warnings about the trid crap that she consumed… but it had been. Everything has a price, wasn’t that the saying that everyone spouted. The price of her freedom was likely to involve violence and she had to admit she was good at it. She told herself that provided she chose the right jobs that she could live with herself afterwards…she hoped that would be true…
***
Spoiler:#59
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Once they were at altitude, Al finally had a chance to hang his wet clothes and gear up in the hold to dry properly. He flew most of the trip on manual, activating the autopilot only during the many trips to the head required by his copious beer consumption. A pile of cans, empty but for discarded cigarette butts, accumulated next to his pilot’s chair, rolling to and fro noisily amid the low thrum of the Snakehandler’s engines.
People occasionally dropped into the co-pilot’s seat to chat away the time. Eventually, one of those people was Alex Veljanov. Al didn’t waste time on small talk. “So I won’t presume ta pry inta yer million or so years o’ never-die past. But relevant ta the job at hand, what’d them Martians want ya so bad for, they didn’t mind ya warn’t exactly a willin’ participant?”
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Alex shrugged: “Two things: They wanted me to come with them into space to teach them about how to fight Horrors and also to help terraform Mars with magic – once they had a strong enough living aura going there.
I wasn’t particularly inclined to go on such a journey – dying in space is not something that my kind of immortality can prevent. So they drugged me – and as a precaution – put me into a very real seeming simulation.
It all felt like a dream – somehow familiar and yet completely wrong.The thing is: I can understand their motives. It’s not a bad idea to prepare a second base on a different place for humanity to survive. But on a personal level I resent being forced into such a mission.
I’m still not sure, how they learned about my real identity though. Beside my old master, only a very select few people should have known about that – to which you four now also count.” -
Getting on the plane, Rebbeca switches to plain comfortable training clothes that attempt to hide her body. She no longer tries to augment her appearance with makeup, and clothes. She spends her time practicing card tricks and attempting to what she feels is impossible. Or at least a metaphor rather a reality, movement without movement. She has no idle time, not really – her time to slack was over the soon as they boarded the plane. She practices breathing and is careful to stand up and stretch her legs every 20 minutes.
When she has an opportunity, once Lilly is recovered she comments “You are one bold runner” It is said with appreciation, but it is unclear if she says it as a good or bad thing. “What got you into this mess? she then asks.
…
On another time she asks Alex “So the trid career, is it the real deal or just a ruse?” -
Al answered Veljanov. “Well, yer secret’s safe with ol’ Al. Sheee-it, perfessional privilege aside, I got so many o’ y’all never-dies in my little black book already, one more ain’t gon’ be nothin’ worth singin’ about. As ta who spilled, well, if’n this were a trid show, then it’d be Horn, hands down. I ain’t got no reason ta suspect it. It’s jist how they write them things. But you’d know all about that, bein’ in the business yerself an’ all. So turnin’ ta more meanin’ful topics, what can ya tell me about any upcomin’ scenes where that lovely co-star o’ yours gits her clothes off?…strictly fer artistic reasons essential ta the story, o’ course.”
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[Saturday September 10, 2078; The Snake Handler, Flying away from Panama City]
Lily looked warily at Becky… she was intimidating in her casual beauty and her voice made Lily want to fawn at her feet, not something she was used to or liked very much. But neither of those things were Becky’s fault and Lily couldn’t deny how effective the elven bowyer had been in the conflict. She had Lily’s respect, she doubted they’d be friends, or that Becky even had friends, but respect was okay.
“Don’t really have a choice, I’ve got bills to pay like everyone else and I don’t have a SIN so legal work is ruled out more or less. This body…” and she lifted her metallic hand up for Becky to inspect “was built for combat” she tapped her chest “and in my heart I want to help people. Hopefully I can use one for the other without too much compromise. So what about you?” she asked to try and deflect further questions… she wasn’t quite ready to admit that she was also being hunted by her creators and had a sizable bounty on her head which made other avenues of employment rather difficult…
***
#60
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Once they were in the air, Preston apologetically fell soundly asleep for the first few hours. Even once he woke up he was subdued, mostly just passing a few words now and then with Lilly and Rebecca and largely avoiding Alex altogether. He knew it wasn’t a good showing on his part, but he was feeling immensely tired in a way that sleep wasn’t going to help much with.
He eventually asked Rebecca “Do you ever find you need to be away from this life for a while? To have things be more more normal, well I guess there is no such thing as normal so maybe say more routine for a bit? I felt like I was not on top of my game at times in this run, and I feel like part of it was that I was wearing my role too much, trying to be my role rather than being my best me, if that makes any sense. Do you ever feel anything like that?”
* Eliza: No point in asking Al, he never seems to struggle to be himself
* Oleg: If he ever WAS confused about who he was, all he’d have to do is take a sniff and he’d know
* Gamma: This was Lilly’s first run from what she said.
* Eliza: Hopefully she isn’t having an identity crisis yet, and no need to bring her down by talking about such things.
* Gamma: Alex has long experience, including taking on a role as an actor and probably other roles as well
* Oleg: He’d probably give me a trivial answer. Me explaining how I feel to a three year old would probably not close to encompass how it would feel to him.
* Eliza: If he did give a detailed answer, that much perspective might crush me.Later on he did go up to the cockpit to clear away the usual pile of detritus that Al seemed to accumulate anytime he sat still for long, and then to sit with him for a while. Preston mused “It is funny, that time down in Texas — you remember — has been making me homesick for the Athabaskan territories. I don’t know if you’ve ever been up Edmonton way, it is different than Texas in a lot of ways, colder for example, but the oil and cattle and dry flat country, those are all similar, and all very different than Seattle. What about you, you ever feel like you need to get back to your roots for a while?”
Before they land he finally sits with Lilly, and simply says “I don’t have the experience and network that Al has, or even Becky, but we should stay in touch. Maybe we can help each other, maybe we have contacts each other can use. I might be going out of Seattle for a bit, but here is my evergreen contact info.”
To Alex he just wishes “Good luck with the show, and with whatever you decide to do next.”
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