INTRODUCTION SRM 04-00 BACK IN BUSINESS is a Shadowrun Missions campaign adventure. “Live at Underworld 93! Mecurial!” the shirt read. I smiled as I pulled out an old t-shirt I’d owned almost as long as my beloved cyberdeck. I gave him some parameters and set him to doing a data search, see if we could pinpoint who Fiona was meeting and where. Whatever the frag the kids call them these days. Line up a meet with some folks, get them on a search and retrieval for Fiona. Some were new blood to town, a few locals trying to break it into the big time, even a couple guys who had a bit of experience under their belt. Apparently a couple of her fans were making death threats again. The club had its own people, but I went back with the star of the show a long time, and she’d asked that I be on hand. I was in charge of security, helping bolster Underworld 93’s physical and matrix security for the show. Johnny was pissed that he wasn’t going to make it, but he was tied up somewhere up in Quebec, helping Becky flush out a wasp hive they’d found. There was no reason to expect differently from these snot-nosed drekheads running around calling themselves shadowrunners now. Johnson might think or even want, beyond what he was paying me to do. I wondered if I would have been that heartless twenty years ago. There were few runners I knew that would be willing to do a job for free, even if it was for a good cause such as finding a missing daughter. I even waived my own fee, simply asked what he could afford to pay. There was an old saying, “parents shouldn’t outlive their children.” This was truer than anyone who hadn’t suffered such a loss would know. Yesterday, she’d arranged to have her latest find smuggled in, and never made it home. She also occasionally sold her findings to the various organizations and corps that had an interest in such things, to finance her operations and allowing her freedom from any corp control or interference. Fiona was an Arcanoarcheologist, a specialist in pre-Awakening magical items. I’d lost my own daughter just a couple short months ago. My jaw clenched tightly as I clamped down on emotions that came bubbling up. He’d settled down some, mostly did freelance work for the Draco Foundation. I’d run into him a few times since I came to Seattle last year. It was Moreau, a chummer and fellow runner from back in the day. I wasn’t fully awake yet, and sleep slurred my words. My deck only operated wirelessly if I was actually jacked into it, and anyone unlucky enough to try slipping into my deck was in for a world of hurt. They’re too open, too easy to hack into and read. I could have gone wireless, but I don’t trust wireless networks. I grabbed the cord from the deck and plugged it into my datajack.
Besides, I’d worn the deck strapped to my arm for so long, I felt naked without it. I was always afraid I’d break it or lose it. It was a fraction of the size of my baby and several times more powerful.
The guts inside had been mostly ripped out and replaced a dozen times over the course of two decades, and several years ago I finally replaced the entire inner workings with a state of the art commlink. The case read “Alpha Allegiance K36,” and I first picked it up over two decades ago. I leaned over and grabbed the battered and well worn case of my old cyberdeck. Who the frag was calling me this early in the day? I remembered a time when working the shadows meant you worked at night. I sat up and rubbed my face, collecting my thoughts before I answered it. I groaned as my commlink buzzed, rousing me from a fitful sleep. Catalyst Game Labs and the Catalyst Game Labs logo are trademarks of InMediaRes Productions, LLC. Shadowrun and Matrix are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of The Topps Company, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. Layout & Design Matt Heerdt Shadowrun Missions Coordinator Steven “Bull” Ratkovich Shadowrun Line Developer Jason Hardy Salati, Jean-Marc Comeau, Jeremy Weyand Maps Patrick Sullivan Shadowrun Missions Logo Brent Evans, Matt Heerdt Writing Steven “Bull” Ratkovich (with material from Mercurial by Paul Hume) Art AAS
0 kommentar(er)
