Sudbury Saturday Night
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Sudbury Saturday Night
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Batshits place was austere, simple and clean. Neat too. Not that she had much to. Mess the place up with. It was spartan almost as if she packed everything each morning with the assumption she would be on the next bus out of town. She listened to lilly as she cooked. Then she suggested they settle down and get some sleep. Just as they were getting ready Becci arrived. Bronwean gave her the other bed and she curled up on the sofa wrapped in an old army blanket.
When they woke they found Bronwean in the kitchen again breakfast was offered and eaten to the point of being uncomfortable.
She dressed in a set. Of overall and high spec cloak. As they mounted up she packed everything (what little there was)
As she sat quietly listening to becci and kynos. Lilly noticed her blush when Beccie mentioned lawyers.
Politely batshit raised her hand. When the old man noticed “yes dear?”
“what kind of mess has your neighbour got into. Often the toxic shaman is a symptom of the land not the other way. Killing him might not stop the spread of the poison”
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“Chicken or egg, don’t make no matter ta ol’ Al. Hell an’ fer Christmas, ya had me at puttin’ down a toxic.”
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Kris waves to Sirius and says “You explain.” then sags back and rasps for breath.
The spirit seems reluctant, but finally speaks “I don’t know how much botany and para-botany you know, so please let me know if this is too simple or too complex, I’m not a good judge of such things.”
“Pine trees in this part of the world are often in a relationship with large fungus colonies. The fungus helps deliver minerals to the trees in these poor soils, and the trees share some energy to the fungus. There is an awakened version of this fungus, with some colonies on our property and elsewhere nearby. Kris has been studying it for years, lobbying to have it recognized as awakened. It causes the trees to grow better and the colony expands with the health of the trees, helping more of the pine species to grow. This is good if you live in harmony with the trees, less good if the roots are tearing up your roads, pipes, or house.”
“If you kill off the trees, the colony turns poisonous, killing all plant life in its soil as it drains them of life, and it expands aggressively, seeking more plants. If it finds pines it can stabilize, but mostly it becomes a growing ring of death.”
“In either form it is possible to harvest some to form into reagents, but the nature of the reagents is obviously different.”
“The neighbor has been cultivating a toxic colony for some years, trying to develop it into a marketable product, for clearing plants in places where people don’t mind poisoned soil. Kevin has been worried about the result. He won’t permit me to go there, because of what it does to the astral. He went recently, and says he was attacked by toxic spirits. I do know that his body suffered a heart attack while he was gone, and although he ensured I have medical knowledge I was not able to stop real damage to his body.”
Kevin visibly braces himself, then rasps “Body is only still running because I’ve got it wrapped in spells, but at least I was still ME on the astral. Now I don’t dare project for fear my body will die without me. I want that bastard, and those spirits, put down before I go. I should have done something years back, but I was stupid and waited for proof.”
“I have money put aside still, plus an agreement to sell my 94% of this property to a great-great-something niece. Sirius changed his mind about keeping the land, something about something that is going to happen to the SK smelter. Just as well I’ll be gone before they poison the land. So I’m selling. That’s the other half of the job, find my great-etc nephew that owns the other six percent to see if he wants to sell now that I am. I haven’t been able to reach him for a couple of weeks and Sirius doesn’t have any feel for why. Probably a waste of your talents, but while I’m handing out money like it was halloween candy might as well take care of that too.”
Sirisu takes over again briefly “We will place money with the Tomlinson twins, as a guarantee of payment. I hope you can bring Trevor to see Kevin one last time, but if Kevin does not have that long, then I will wait until the mission is done, to close off any loose ends.”
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Rebbeca asks “How experienced is this shaman? I take it that he is conjurer, but what else do you know about him? Is he a sorcerer? An alchemist? Any other notable skills or allies you know of? Do you know anything about the kind of security he keeps?”
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“thanks for the detail, well I’m in but before we get to that stage we do have to put a figure to the recompense, now I’m sure my mentor, kynos here, has a reasonable figure we should be charging for the elimination and I have a number for the trace and recover. ” Bronwean made eye contact with Kynos to hand control of the conversation to him. She knew she was out of her comfort zone on this one but the question needed to be answered before they got planning and plotting.
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Kynos shrugged: “One thing after the other. Finding the heir is the lesser of the two tasks thanks to the danger involved. Many would consider pressuring an old, dying man for money pretty gauche – not me though. I’m pretty sure I don’t even know what that word means.
So, for the wetwork part against a target with mage powers and natural defenses I usually charge 2000/hour + expenses for equipment and insurance. If you can meet that price, I’m ready to do your clean up.”
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The spirit nods and says “And same for the rest of you? This is acceptable, provided you are reasonably prompt about it all. Let there be a bonus if you can finish with the toxic mage within 24 hours, Kevin has a letter from Dunkelzhan that should auction for a good amount.“
“I told you to get rid of that things years ago! It is just clutter.“
“It is a historical document, besides being valuable. I always knew it would be useful some day.“
To the question about the toxic mage, Kevin first asks “Sirius, pull out the topographical map for them please. The one where I’ve been plotting the damage.“
Once the map is pulled out you can see a roughly circular area marked in grey — across the river, downstream a bit, and inland a ways. Looking at the scale you can see that the marked zone is around a kilometer across. Kevin explains “His work place is in the middle of the dead zone. Concrete blocks, corrugated steel roof, 2 doors, no windows. Heats with propane and insulation is crap so keeping it warm in this temperature would have to be expensive; maybe he is there, maybe he’s at his house in town. This is the close place to look.” He also provides you the address of the house in town: 1359 Drummond Avenue.
“You can get to his poison zone two ways. You can head most of the way back out to the highway, turn onto River Road then onto Alpine, and just past the Marsden farm you’ll see a stand of white birch and just past that a track on your left. Follow it up and around the hill and you’ll come to the dead zone. Or you can cross the river, go downstream a few hundred meters to just above the next set of rapids and if you look careful you can see where an old track used to come down to the water, bushes have grown in but no trees. Follow that inland and it comes to the dead zone from the other side, after maybe three-quarters of a klick. River ice is plenty strong for driving on, but you’d need to borrow skis or snowshoes for getting through the bush, snow will be too soft in there for driving.”
“There were two spirits hit me the other week, I think one was related to the earth and the other air, but hard to tell for sure when they feel polluted and your body is trying to die on you. I might of seen something else up near his building, paracritter maybe, but I’m not positive. “
“About Martin Dauphinee, well, he’s a frenchie, which isn’t always a bad thing but he’s always been trouble. Only so many mages around, I got to know him a bit years ago but he always rubbed me the wrong way. He’s got to be close to fifty now? Last I saw him in person he had quite a bit of beard but not much on his head, don’t know if the poisons have made all that fall out yet. I can’t promise he hasn’t hired someone, but he’s a jealous sort, not the kind to take on a real partner. He’s what he calls a ‘proper magician,’ mostly meaning he’s got a stick up his ass and doesn’t say ‘please.’ He’s done OK for himself, money-wise, but never rich the way he wanted to be. I expect by now that he has more foci than the ring I remember, but I wouldn’t expect anything priceless.
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Al was listening more closely now. He’d liked this old codger right from the start, and the prospect of downing another toxic appealed greatly.
Probably everything was just the way this guy and his pet demon said it was.
But as Al listened to the details and read between the lines a little, he made a mental note to at least look into their target a bit before putting a bullet between his eyes. It was probably nothing, just a phrase here and there – especially the stuff about living “in harmony with the trees – what if this so-called toxic was just an honest American trying to make a living.
What if their employer was…a hippie!
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“How paranoid is the guy? Would he object if one of us drove directly to his property and knocked on the door?”
Kynos asked.
“Otherwise a delivery drone with a grenade would do the job too – and probably not even get the toxic spirits’ attention.”
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Bronwean put her hand up again “erm, I’ve got 10 rounds of 762 full of blight. That will hurt both the spirits and the mage real bad. Its that stuff we got hosed with in Seattle. It horrible it just shuts off your access to mana” she shrugged “just a thought”
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Rebbeca writes a number on a piece of paper and hands it to Sirus “This is how much I’ll charge for mage removal.
She’ll discuss strategy only once the group is out of Kelvin’s and in their own privacy.
“I have a medical drone where one of us can ride, as the patient. It’s cramped, but I installed their manual controls, and some people hesitate before shooting on an ambulance. To the very least its a good distraction. Other than that, I am not a fan of cars for this gig, too showy. We can sneak inside, murder him, and evacuate the body in the medical drone, discreetly bury it, and move on with our lives. Or if you like, we can load the medical drone with C4 and finish him off Vory style.”
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Bronwean started compiling a mental list of reasons why drone bombing their target was bad when, Suddenly, there as a massive intake of breath escaping form her mouth
“oh my gosh, is you nephew local? What if our mark has him? Did he ever threaten you to keep you shut up or something? What if sirus can find him because he is in a hermet circle? You know a prisoner and hostage?” she looked round at the faces looking at her and blushed
” sorry “
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“No exploding the damn medic, otherwise I’m with you on this. If we sneak no cars.
Ideally we take him out with a long range shot – neat and clean.”
Kynos replied.
“And yes maybe he has the heir with him. We’ll see.”
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Lighting up a cigarette in the cold air outside the cabin, Al listened to the team brainstorm initial ideas for making the toxic dead. They all sounded good.
“Long range shot or big explosions, ol’ Al’s got ya covered both ways. As I know many o’ the rest of ya do as well, if’n, fer example, we wanted ta make this a teachin’ exercise rather than a master class. But Ace here makes a damned good point. Once we git a twenny on this feller, best take a look-see, make sure the nephew ain’t there.”
He thumbed the Fairlight in his pocket and the Gaz unlocked with a soft click.
“An’ anyhoo, not ta cast doubt on our employer’s state o’ mind, but even his demon seems ta think he’s actin’ a bit hot off the grill. Reckon I’d like ta git a feel fer this toxic myself afore we go offin’ some poor para-farmer on some ancient geezer’s say-so.”
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“Not against, feeling him if you must, but don’t go all soft on me Al after you feel him. We are killing the SOB whether he deserves it or not.”
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Al shared his trademark wolf-grin with Becky and all the others, cigarette clamped between his yellow teeth dead center in his mouth. He flashed a peace sign, then took the Lucky from his mouth and exhaled into the frosty air.
“Precious, you done knowed me way too long ta speak such nonsense. Chances are he’s a filthy toxic an’ I’ll be first in line ta put him down. But if he’s jist some feller pissed someone off with his insufficiently green farmin’ practices, then hurt him we will not. An’ if that’s a hard pill ta swallow from a Christian standpoint, think of it like this – if he ain’t a toxic, then yer employer misrepresented the nature o’ the target, makin’ yer contract null an’ void. Hell, ya prove he’s not bent, then ya take that ta the black demon thing, reckon end o’ they day we’ll git thanked fer our discretion.”
He paused to scratch at the stubble on his chin with a tobacco-stained fingernail.
“But like I said, probably he really is a toxic or similarly lost ta Satan an’ they ain’t no issue.”
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Saturday 21 Jan, 2079, 8:47am, Kevin’s property west of Sudbury
When Bronwyn had asked about Kevin’s nephew, Sirius had looked to Kevin, and Kevin had taken several shallow breaths before answering. “I don’t think he’d do that, but I also thought he was just greedy and would never turn toxic. Didn’t seem like he’d care about enough about anything except money to go that way, eh? I don’t know that he’d even know Robert, or know he is related to me. Then again they say there is a hundred-thousand people in greater Sudbury but it can still feel like a small town, so it is possible.“
He thought for a few moments then said “Sounds like I’d better tell you about Robert, my ‘nephew.’ He is actually my stepson’s wife’s sister’s boy. The sixth world has heaped its blessings on me, but it has been rough on Emily’s family. We got together after she lost her husband to VITAS, my stepson Danny was killed by a Wendigo, after which his wife moved to Seattle to work for Renraku and was living in their Arcology when, well you know. Our daughter Anna was shot by shadowrunners — I bear no ill-will now but I wouldn’t have talked to you all a couple of decades ago. Robert’s mother got addicted to tempo and his sister burned out on BTLs. So Robert’s about as close kin as I’ve got from her family, and I want to do right by him.“
“About the boy himself, he’s“
Sirius interrupted “‘Boy’ is mis-leading, he is a man of thirty years.“
“Thirty? I guess you would be right, hard to believe. Anyway, Sirius, pull out the pictures of him — I’ve had trouble with electronics these last year which is pretty funny for an electrician, eh? So Sirius has printed some stuff out to be able to look at.“
“Where was I … pictures … we have his address from Christmas a year ago, we didn’t get a card this year but he’s not always good about that. He’s what we used to call an Aware, I don’t know what they call ’em now, you know sensitive to magic but can’t work with it. He’s very good at it, but that isn’t always steady work, more like contracts, eh? So I’m not sure what he was doing recently. I don’t know much about his friends, but he was part of a crew called ‘The Spiffs’ that do some of those snowbank sculptures on Elm street, he used to show me photos of their latest crazy spaceship. Seems they might know what he’s been up to, it being snow season.”
Bronwyn knows what Kevin is talking about. There is a boulevard in the middle of Elm Street for half a dozen blocks in the middle of the city. The snow-banks are carved and painted as dragons, space-ships, race-cars, and more. She’s been here long enough to have experienced a snowfall; the old sculptures were torn up and buried by the plows, but new ones were made and decorated within a couple of days.
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“I know you long enough to know you are troubled, and for some strange reason – you only kill the people you think that deserve it. Don’t worry, I don’t do it for the money this time, I joined because Bronwean outed me at the bar, and killing some mage is a good distraction for me.
If you want to feel him, just be interested in his product, there is a huge demand in Seattle, and the legitimate sources come with a risk of exposure. Huge war and anyone with a whiff of talent are pushing themselves to the limit. “
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“Well, reckon we gotta find him first. House in town’s easier fer findin’, mite harder fer the killin’. His farm’s the reverse. Either way, eyes on is the first thing we need. Since it seems like we’s puttin’ off the findin’ o’ the nephew until the mage is geeked, we can go at this one at a time all together or split up, town an’ country. Me, I’m fer stickin’ together, but unfortunately these things tend ta be a democracy, an’ one o’ them modern types where the women gits a vote, ta boot.”
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“For discreet recon, I’ve got the right toy.” Kynos pulled a flap on his cco backpack and a tiny drone flew out. It looked like a cube with one little robot arm.
“Had it fitted as a hacking machine, unfortunately…”
“Hi there, my name is Cubo, How are you, I hope you have a lovely day. You are looking great today…”
“…Mute! Unfortunately, it belonged to an AR vlogger and influencer that couldn’t quite pay full price for my services and it has this vomit inducing personality of a lovestruck, hyperactive teenager.
Besides that it’s really useful for scouting and electronically marking opponents.”
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