A café wasn’t exactly what Grosha had expected. Bars were normal. Bars were also more comfortable. Places where the overly large and burly weasel woman felt eyes on her the moment she walked in. She was an Ork. That was probably bad enough, but then a couple of the patrons and even one of the servers all seemed to be trogs like her. Not quite as built into their powerful natural frames, but enough so that the breeders should be taking note.
How she looked did play a part, though. A ratty leather vest and simple athletic top worn well with age covered a mound of muscle shaped not through gym time but a hard life of struggle. The only exception to this was her right arm. Long since gone after a particularly horrific encounter with a devil rat, the cybernetic prosthetic sat in its place probably could have afforded her a proper house somewhere. It wasn’t flashy, all sharp angles and exposed myomer bundles amid armor plating that most would probably assume was just there for show. Still it wasn’t that either. More than a few patrons had slick, modern prosthetics of various sorts and they seemed more than fine with it. All shiny and neat, some with the proud displays of logos branding the parts from one boutique line or another.
It wasn’t even her hair. She kept most of it shorn down to fur level with only a long braid of wiry black hair reaching down past her butt in the back. Outlandish, yes. But nothing compared to the vibrant rainbow of styles and colors smattered though the small shop that all sought conformity though some form of carefully planed uniqueness.
No, Grosha knew what this was about. She was a Trog. A ‘real’ Trog. Dirty and smelly and scary looking even to others with tusks in this quaint middle class slice of heaven. In the end she didn’t know if she should be offended by that or pleased. But she erred on the latter while making her way to a table situated in the back of the café.
Three figures already occupied the booth. The boar woman she’d never seen before, though even an initial glance told her that the fur was more akin to Grosha’s kind even if she was just a baseline fur and not a Meta-fur like the ork girl. A biker jacket with the word ‘Draugr’ and a stylized emblem of some undead warrior in old armor on the back of the leathers. The name ‘Boarmay’ among the patches at the front breast of the same jacket gave a possible name, but little else.
The twins, however, that was another story.
If someone blinked they might mistake the pandas for dolls. A perfectly matched pair of scrawny things that could only have been in their tweens from the looks of it. Both brimming with energy even without the heavily sugared coffee drinks sat before them. One laced with caramel syrup the other chocolate. Grosha knew them, well, one of them. Though ghost help her if she were to try and tell them apart at the moment.
“This everyone?” The gruff ork muttered pulling herself into one corner of the booth. The heavy duffle bag she’d bought to hide her gear from the easily spooked suburbanites thudded into the corner beside her looking over the table at the others and slumping.
“It is.” one of the twins chirped
“Sorry to make you come all the way out here.” The other muttered apologetically before sipping on their drink and letting out a long, drawn sigh. “I was going to ask that we meet somewhere a bit more you guys’ speed but everywhere I suggested this dork said would be unsafe.” The second twin muttered rolling their eyes.
“I’m just trying to be safe.” The first twin growled. Even now the ambiguity of the pair in their matching flavor of the month Idol-chic outfits was wearing thin on the ork She reached over to whichever one was closer and gave them a shake, eyes narrowing as she looked down at the shocked gnome at the end of Grosha’s one remaining ‘real’ arm.
“Spr1te, N`/mph, whoever. Will one of you kindly tell me what’s going on?”
“It’s Galahad” The worried tone painted the panda nearest her as Spr1te, meaning the one further from the ork was N`/mph. “He took a job down near the CAS border and vanished a week ago.”
“We thought he just went to ground.” N`/mph muttered “But she hasn’t gotten any of his typical signals or communications yet. Sis is worried, and I’m not going to live in a house where I have to deal with a grumpy sister while trying to do our job.”
--------------------
“Ok wait, wait a second. I have questions.” Tabs grumbled as she looked around the table. One eye falling heavily on Justin
“What’s up?” The otter asked, his ears perking up
“Why are we here?” The wolverine woman crossed her arms and looked around the table of kids all half her age. “I mean using all these code names is kinda silly enough but why are these guys all here in a café talking about someone who went missing?”
“Because they’re going to ask you to find them.” Justin said, trying to keep the confusion out of his voice “They need people to go with them to help.”
“Yeah, it’s an adventure hook. Plus it’s not like they can just ask around.” Becky chimed in. The badger girl was not quite comfortable having a teacher join in to one of their games. Less so that it was probably the worst teacher in the school in terms of student relations. She still wasn’t sure why either of the boys were giving her the time of day let alone helping her out by letting her join in the first game either had run in months. The fact that Ms. Blake was now interrupting the hook? Well…
“Look, I’m sorry. I get that it’s like a movie and I should just go with it, but there are just a couple of things bugging me. Like why don’t they call the cops?” Tabs asked
Collin, now dressed up in a skirt and anime tee shirt, tilted his head a bit as he glanced at her “Well there are a lot of different possible ’cops’ due to corporate security. But whoever has him, or hurt him, may not be willing to say.”
“Still, if these guys know enough to go that far away from their home turf I’d have to imagine they know people down in… what did you say, St. Louis?” Tabs glanced at Justin
The otter boy nodded a bit “Well I didn’t say that in game yet, but yeah that’s where you all will be heading. Don’t’ worry it’ll make sense when you guys get further along A-, Ms. Blake. Just trust me, It‘ll all make sense once I kick the rust off.”
The boy turned his attention back to his laptop and fidgeted around in the rather uncomfy computer chair he’d pilfered from one of the near by computer stations. Not that the public library in such a small town saw that much computer traffic. Not that it saw much at all. A place quiet enough that he and Hui could ‘play’ in there without worry of getting caught, and with staff so bored they generally didn’t mind the snacks or pizza a weekly game session demanded so long as they got a few slices in tribute.
Becky looked at him going over his notes again, trying to get the unwanted stories of kinky escapades Hui had regaled her with out of her head as she sank back into her own somewhat less comfortable wood-and-foam reading chair. She’d asked for a game, and she didn’t even mind the library that much. But somehow this whole experience already had her a bit on edge.
--------------------
"What kind of job was it?" Grosha asked, carefully eyeing the other woman. Something about her kept the ork on edge. If she could help it, she'd do the job alone. But going into the CAS alone on a rescue mission was bad idea in it of it's own.
"We don't know," Said N’/mph, "Galahad kept this one quiet. He does that from time to time, has problems opening up."
"I'm sure I could get him to," Boarmay said with a small but confident smile. Grosha decided to put a pin in that, "Well I'm sure we can get him out. Just give us a more solid location and then we'll discuss pay-"
"We're coming." Spr1te spoke up, earning a blink from Grosha, a head tilt from Boarmay, and a sighing head roll from N’/mph. "What?" They said, "I'm not gonna sit by twiddling my thumbs when my Galahad is in danger. And I can't stream when this worried anyway."
Grosha opened her mouth, but Boarmay spoke up, "I don't think that's a good idea."
"It's non-negotiable." N’/mph said, "Galahad is our friend, and we're not exactly helpless information gatherers. So we're going, and we're paying you to keep us safe and find him."
--------------------
“Ok, so. We decided to scale back and we have a new player, so I’m going to cover a few things now while we have the chance.” Justin noted, digging a few starburst out of his backpack and chucking a pink one into his maw. “So most everyone here knows this, but in case anyone doesn’t or has forgotten, the Confederate American States are basically the confederacy without slavery… kinda. So not sure why it even exists but it’s a different nation than the UCAS, which is where you are. Getting in won’t be too hard and you can probably avoid customs all together but just know that things are going to be a bit tricky if you end up getting caught doing anything overly illegal.”
“I kinda figured it’d be bad getting caught either way.” Tabs snickered “Makes sense though. Lucky I think my girl’s truck is probably a bit normal looking if what Mr. Sang here told me he did pans out.”
“Concealed Armor and a hidden gun” Collin noted “It just looks like a normal crew cab, and with the top on the back your bike can sit in it without any real issue. That’s kinda the thing about Shadowrun instead of Pathfinder. You gotta think about all of these weird little things.”
Justin rolled his eyes and sighed “You’re just mad you lost the coin toss.” He snickered “I’m GM this time, deal with it. No Pathfinder.”
Becky rolled her eyes at this and sighed, looking at Justin, then glancing at Collin. The boy was in girl cloths again. It didn’t seem like he felt a need to hide it. She tried to remember what he liked to be called in that outfit, then sighed and figured it best to just be vague until someone else said it. Not that it felt comfortable. All of this felt wrong somehow. A sharp left turn from the straight laced but ultimately good natured boy she’d always known.
“If she has a crew cab then I take it the trip should be easy enough, so what about when we get there? Do we have any leads on where to start looking?” In their last session Grosha had gotten quite a bit of skill building done to make her character both more an outstanding champion of ork rights and more of an urban survivalist. Both were things she planned to build up again and already had mapped out. But at the same time neither one let her have the eff off gun the Krime Katalogue had just given her, and that also felt like it fit Grosha just too well. Even if it meant she wasn’t quite as capable in this mission as she should be.
“Well we know where his comlink last went dead thanks to Spr1te” Justin snickered
“She had his comlink followed by a Data sprite when he went quiet.” Hui noted proudly.
“You really haven’t changed your character at all, have you Hui?” Becky sighed
“Nope!” the wah quipped back happily “But because of that we know where he is, or where he was, and that’s where we can start.”
Justin nodded and typed a little bit on his computer, looking over who knew what before glancing back up at the assembled players “Unfortunately what you know about the building is that it was a Neonet facility before the ‘ugliness’ happened. On the one hand that means it should be abandoned.”
“And on the other hand it means it ‘should’ be abandoned.” Collin chimed in. He looked over at Tabs and smiled a bit “Long story short Neonet is a company who did something really bad and now they’re paying for it. If the building isn’t bought and paid for by someone else yet odds are good nobody should be in there. Because they lost everything for what they did.”
“I figured that much, Kathy.” Tabs sighed rolling her eyes “It’s a megacorp after all. If one of them did die I can’t imagine it went down easy.”
Becky turned to the teacher. They all did. Shocked expressions all around landing on the woman as she sat there sipping from a water bottle that almost certainly didn’t have water in it. “How did you…”
Tabs smirked, then her smirk faded. “This is cyberpunk shit, right? Kids, I grew up in the 90s. Johnny Mnemonic. Neuromancer? The Matrix? Freaking Virtuosity” The wolverine sighed and leaned back in her chair until it groaned in protest. “Seriously now. Just because I didn’t know all this stuff had a name to it doesn’t mean I don’t know what it is. I had a childhood you know.”
The whole thing caused Becky to slump and shake her head. That was all way more than the badger hoped to unpack. She pinned her ears back and looked up at Justin instead who was thankfully as stunned as she was for whatever small comfort that meant.
“Ok well, I think we can all agree to head there and try getting in. Worst case scenario we just have to fight our way out, and we have two decent fighters along with a mage who knows some combat spells. Just so long as we aren’t walking into some super top secret off the books experimental bunraku or something. Right?” The smirk the otter held only grew, and Becky sank back in her seat gritting her teeth. “Right?”
--------------------
There was something about seeing an abandoned NeoNet building and knowing why that felt monumental to Grosha. The Big 10 were supposed to be untouchable. They really ruled the world, reveling in riches a poor trog like her could never experience even if she sold her soul. Boarmay snickered, resting her warhammer styled fluid motion mace across her shoulder. "Like walking into a titan's grave." She said, casually spinning the flail, "Can't say I'll miss em. We could use a lot fewer corps. Starting with Lone Star."
"Knight Errant ain't much better." Grosha mumbled, having 'fond' memories of the boys in black patrolling near the border of her home. Too chickenshit to go in, but brave enough to beat kids looking for a view of the better life. "Least Lone Star has more fatties."
The woman laughed, pulling Grosha in close, "Oh boy, I should tell you about this one time I laced some of their donuts with novacoke. It was a goddamn riot."
"Can we share stories after we get Galahad?" Spr1te said, "I know he's here, but..." biting her lip, the gnome looked to her brother, "I can't pinpoint it."
Grosha set her drone to activate, letting the rattle of the Krime Chatter attached to its face liven their mood if only a little. N’/mph settled against Boarmay's truck and whispered to himself in mandarin, no doubt casting a spell that Grosha couldn't see. Boarmay kept a close watch on the gnome while he was in trance, idly spinning her flail in the meantime. "The entrances don't look occupied," he said, snapping back to reality, "Couldn't see any locks on them, and I'm guessing from the lack of lights people have cut it off from the grid. Really does look abandoned..."
"So what are we waiting for?" Boarmay said, patting N’/mph on the head, "Let's go in and find your sister's crush." Taking the front, Boarmay had her own drone following behind her with a Sigma armed at the ready. Keeping her shotgun at the ready, Grosha picked up the rear, leaving the two gnomes between them. The lights inside the building were out, leaving only the daylight seeping through the windows as their source of sight. Didn't bother Grosha at all, though Boarmay muttered a few choice words. "Should have paid extra for some lowlight contacts."
"You think that's funny you-" The lights returned, cutting Boarmay's frustrated call in two. They huddled together, weapons aimed and searching for targets. Grosha heard wheels rolling towards them, followed by footsteps, "I don't think squatters have drones with them."
"I hope not," Boarmay chuckled, "Wouldn't be much of a workout."
--------------------
“Combat already.” Becky snickered “Why am I not shocked?”
“Because you know me?” Justin shrugged while Hui snickered and stole a few starburst form his little pile. The otter shot her a faux grumpy glance and then smirked back at her instead leaning back in his seat. “But if nothing else it’s a good way to give Ms. Blake an intro to combat.”
“So, the combat drug thing you made me… you don’t really want to use that right away, yes little one?” Tabs tilted her head at Collin who nodded back gleefully.
“Yeah, it has a hard crash when its’ done. It’s sort of an emergency button. Though no idea if that’s how real drugs work.”
“From the few I’ve taken, not really. Not that I ever did much worse than beer. And you kids are better off if you stay off booze. You’re all too smart for that anyways.”
The idea of a teacher, any teacher, speaking so openly about having apparently done drugs once felt surreal to Becky. She was old enough to know most probably had. At least pot. Hell pot was legal now. Many of them probably did it every weekend. Would explain Mr. Shelly’s creative writing classes. At the same time the badger felt herself bristling a little every time Ms. Blake spoke. Especially the way she spoke to Collin. She told herself it was just some irrational anxiety. Her mind nagging at her and trying to rationalize other feelings of jealousy she might feel.
Well I don’t have a machine sprite compiled so I think I’m going to do that if we’re facing Drones.” Hui nodded confidently looking over at her brother and grinning knowingly
“As the other squishy, N`/mph is gonna cast Increase reflexes on the big bad boar.” Collin murred
Becky scrunched her face and gritted her teeth roughly looking at the crossdressing boy across from her “I guess I’ll try to attack whichever drone comes at the spell caster boy first then. After all, to quote my own personal hero quoting one of his favorite game series… I got a shotgun” The badger did her best to recreate the sound of a shell being chambered in a shot gun and some stereotypical horror movie scream. The little moment of self indulgence left her friends rolling their eyes and Ms. Blake just looking utterly confused.
“Ok.” Justin sighed “Before we confuse Ms. Blake more would you guys kindly care to actually roll for initiative?”
--------------------
Drones burst in through the door, meeting a devastating explosion from one of Grosha's assault canon shells and then both samurai's drones. Boarmay roared, charging in and spinning her flail with blinding speed, slamming it down against the biggest target she came across. A sakat wearing drone with blade arms took the blow, shattering only to be replaced by another charging towards her. It jumped up, arms raised and ready to strike.
Grosha heard the Chinese incantation before feeling the cold brush past her. A spear of ice skewered the drone midair, sticking against the wall. Pulling back, the ork saw two sparring drones heading towards the gnomes. Spr1te glared at one. Twitching, one of the sparing bots changed direction, swinging wild at the second in mono-y-mono combat.
Turning back to the boar woman, Grosha found her ally getting swarmed. The woman fought on, but the swarms kept coming and coming. Checking the breach of the assault gun turned shotgun, Grosha took aim and screamed, "Get down!" loosing a shell at the drones. Boarmay hit the dirt, covering her head from the chaos of shrapnel and debris.
"Get to cover!" N’/mph shouted, moving behind a nearby pillar and swiftly followed by his sister. Grosha didn't stop firing until Boarmay got moving, The gyro weight popping from her wrist to help steady each shot as she loosed another devastating shell. Last to head towards the pillar, Grosha caught two big bots coming out from the corner of her eye: NeoNet Juggernauts, each armed with a minigun. "Oh frag. Hit the deck!" She screamed, holding up her arm as a shield as she slid into her team. Cases clattered against the floor, bullets quickly chipping away at their bastion.
"Guess it ain't abandoned after all!" The biker screamed, pulling her mace back and drawing that shock lance from her back, "Not like squatters carry this kind of firepower."
Grosha searched through her bag for grenades. Flashbangs, high explosives and...she smiled, "Perfect," She cried, grabbing a DumDum grenade, "Time to short-circuit these buckets of bolts." Winding up her cyberarm, she tossed the grenade into the mass of drones blocking the way. The nanite swarm erupted from them, doing their delightful little task of cutting shutting down each and every one of those drones in the radius. Sadly, one of the juggernauts was just far enough from it.
With a grin, Boarmay pulled out her shield, "My turn." Screaming like a madwoman, the boar charged into the gunfire, holding up her lance and shield like she was riding a chariot. Bullets bounced off the shield in the precious few seconds she had to close the distance. Stomping through the fallen bots, the street samurai thrust her her lance directly into the juggernaut's center. Sparks flew, laughter bounced off the walls, and the drone fell. Stepping out behind the pillar, Grosha saw her teammate standing atop a pile of drones, holding her lance in triumph.
Grosha rested her shotgun against her shoulder, "Just so we're clear, most of these kills are mine."
--------------------
“You really need to be more careful.” Becky sighed looking Collin down bitterly “It’s not like anyone can really play bullet sponge here.”
“Could if we played pathfinder.” Kathoey, ‘Kathy’, muttered while leaning back in the chair “anyways was that it Justin?”
“Were the about dozen drones overall ‘it’? You say that like one hit from those ED-209 rejects wouldn’t have turned you into paste.” The otter sighed and rolled his eyes before glancing over at Becky “And you, I guess I shoulda checked your sheet first, huh?”
“What, Dum-Dum’s not ok mister ‘steal project Slamdancer?” the badger scoffed back
“No it’s fine. I just might have included something that wouldn’t get fragged by them in one go. Granted the Doom Marine gun you’re packing isn’t much better.”
“Are they like this all the time?” Tabs glanced at Collin who simply grinned sheepishly and nodded back up at her.
Out of the corner of her eye Becky could swear she caught a snuggle. The wah getting uncomfortably close to the teacher and looking at her with uncomfortable affection. She hadn’t. She couldn’t have. It was impossible, and looking at her the teacher was as innocent as a smug woman sitting in on their youthful fun could look.
It didn’t help that Tabs seemed to catch her glances, and the woman’s smile only grew.
“Ok. So you find twelve gold pieces and a fire ring.” Justin chuckled “you also find a service elevator. One of them that the bigger drones came out of. It’s stuck open thanks to one of the Juggernaught’s feet. You also find about a dozen disassembled humanoid drones. All very lifelike, very realistic, their remains draped in maid uniforms.”
Hui squeed, Tabs smirked, Collin chuckled, and Becky just let out an exhausted sigh of resignation.
--------------------
“I don’t know,” Boarmay said, picking up one of the maid uniforms from a discarded bot, “I think they got some decent taste.” Smiling, she hung the dress in her hands over at N’/mph’s direction, earning a little blush from the gnome. Spr1te got the elevator working before Grosha could comment, leaving the trog confused and checking her confederate’s ammunition more for the need of a distraction than anything else.
Hitting the bottom floor, Grosha took the lead with Boarmay behind, the sam clutching her flail again after resheathing her lance. The corridor was dimly lit, flickering lights revealing barred rooms on either side. Boarmay whistled, “Really makes ya wonder what they were doing here to have their own little prison.”
“Probably making bunraku dolls.” Grosha muttered.
“That’s not NeoNet,” Spr1te corrected, “That’s more Renraku speed.”
“To be fair, sis, there are offbrand bunraku parlors. I think we’ve even had to sponsor a few for Horizon.”
“Sure but…” Spr1te paused, “Ok, I don’t have a but. Though...wait…” Her eyes focused on something. An A/R screen popped up before her, bringing a smile to her face, “Galahad is here!”
Grosha reached for the gnome, but the technomancer raced out of her reach, “Fragging seriously?” She shouted, chasing after her, “We don’t know what’s down here!”
“That’s not gonna stop her,” N’/mph said, shrugging as he followed along with Boarmay at his rear, “If anything, I’m more worried about who is in her way.”
--------------------
“And that’s session.” Justin sighed. He looked at the slip of paper he’d slid to Hui and the way the girl kept snickering at it.
Becky noticed the two of them sharing the private little joke and just rolled her eyes as she started packing up already “Yeah, well. A lot happened for a first session, and it’s not like that combat gave us much time to get in on the deep roleplay.”
“I got to smack robots with a giant hammer.” Tabs snickered “God if I could do that in real life I’d give up teaching in a heartbeat. Then again at my age I probably wouldn’t have too many more years of doing that before I had to give it up for a day job anyways. Shit, being older sucks.” She sighed and slumped her elbows on the table. The woman took one last swig from her water bottle and popped her neck pulling herself up “Still, I wish you’d told me about this before the war gaming stuff. I’m still gonna try it but, shit that stuff is way too expensive.”
“I woulda happily told you that, Miss Blake.” Becky muttered “At least if Hui wants to she can sell her stuff she sews after the fact. I doubt anyone is going to buy Co- er, Kathy’s busses full of murder drow.”
“Maybe.” Tabs shrugged “But considering how much I spent on booze when I was younger it’s a much better way to spend your cash. I’d rather you kids do that ‘plastic crack’ than the real thing any day. Lord knows the opioid abuse thing going on these days is just nuts.” Tabs caught the kids gazing at her and smirked again shoving her paws in her pockets. “Oh for the love of… why are you all shocked when your teacher acts like a damn teacher?”
It took everything Hui had not to spray ramune out of her nose. The library had a lot they’d put up with but that’d probably well over the line. Instead she simply stood and tried to hook an arm around Justin’s while the boy began packing his busted old laptop and the few hard copy accessories he brought with him.
“So I take it you can’t just loot all of the maid outfits?” Tabs snickered casting a glance at Collin.
“I mean, we probably could later. Assuming the whole place doesn’t get blown up or something. “ Collin chipred back “I’m sure they would have at least a couple small enough for a pair of pandas to color coordinate.”
“Or maybe one big enough for a disheveled ork?” Tabs nudged the cross dressed boy as she asked.
The shock on his face was apparent, and grew a bit as he glanced right at Becky. The badger was suddenly far too aware of her own embarrassment. She looked down quickly and pushed past the others seeking to break from Collin’s gaze as quickly as she could. “You’re all weirdoes. And I gotta go. I have a ton of editing to do still.” Becky snapped the words just a bit too quickly. Now she could feel four sets of eyes resting on her, even if she could no longer see them. She spared a glance back over her shoulder and a small nervous nod. “Same time next week, right?”
