“So, how did you guys all meet anyway?”
The bar was a dive a few hundred meters from the Shadowrunners’ shared apartment. It was a kitschy place of brightly coloured furniture, lit even brighter by neon lighting and intricate AR patterns. Alec was in his element, but Rachel looked obviously uncomfortable, and her cyberware was drawing pointed looks from the college students and salarymen who filled the space. To be fair, all of us were drawing eyes for one reason or another.
Our group theme didn’t really match the décor, but I was pretty sure we wouldn’t be staying here for long.
Lisa smiled, leaning forward and resting her elbows against the table as she spun her tale, her gestures coming within a hair’s breadth of knocking our half-empty glasses onto the floor.
“I’d been in the city a week. I was pulling a con, stringing this rich girl along so that I could swipe her jewellery and use it to get me in with a good fence, when suddenly someone throws a smoke grenade through the window of her apartment.”
At this she leant back and punched Brian’s arm – lightly, so that she didn’t hurt herself on his cyberware.
“I staggered out onto the balcony, coughing my lungs out, only to see some guy making off with my jewellery.”
I looked at Brian, who shrugged.
“I was hired by a rival to lift the corporate data Tattletale’s gal pal had been keeping on an unsecured drive, in order to get her in trouble with her bosses and scuttle her chances at promotion. Or something. It was amateur hour all the way through, but I was able to learn she kept the data on a drive hidden in a necklace.”
“So my financial plan for the next few weeks had just gone in smoke,” Lisa continued, “and I figured I might as well go hit a bar, read the room, and see if I could get by with tarot readings, pickpocketing or genuine hired mage work. And there he was, handing off the paydata to his client.”
“I recognised her,” Grue cut in, “and we got talking. In the end, we made an arrangement. I got the money from the job, but I gave her the remaining jewellery.”
“And you decided to work together?” I asked.
“Not for a few weeks,” Lisa clarified. “I settled into a bit of an equilibrium doing odd mage jobs, and ran into one that was a bit too hot for me to handle. So I scoped out the same bar and asked Brian to help.”
“That was what gave us the idea of setting up a team. Alec came to us through a fixer, and we recruited Rachel ourselves. Once I realised the three of them were basically homeless, we pooled funds and bought the loft. Speaking of…”
He fished into his jacket, pulling out an old-fashioned metal key and lightly tossing it onto the table.
“That’s the key to our place. And I mean that. Ours as in yours too. You’re free to come by even if nobody’s there, though somebody usually is. Kick back and watch trideo, eat our food, track mud on our floor, yell at the others for tracking mud on the floor, whatever. Just no guests.”
I quickly pocketed the key, as a warm feeling slowly made its way through my core. It’s funny how a different location can make my usual activities seem so much livelier.
“And no bleeding on the upholstery,” Alec spoke up, with a smug grin he directed towards Brian.
“Is that a common problem?” I asked.
“It was one time,” Brian answered. “I got winged by a Knight Errant badge with an itchy trigger finger. They were putting the district on lockdown, so I couldn’t stick around to apply a field dressing.”
“So instead he staggers through the door like he’s been drinking all night,” – Alec interrupts – “slumps down on a pristine, white couch and starts making these pitiful moaning noises until Lisa comes and heals him up. We had to throw the couch out.”
I couldn’t help smiling, though I wasn’t sure if it was at the story or Alec’s warped sense of priorities.
“You’re welcome to stay the night, too,” Brian offered. “We have a spare room.”
“Thanks, but I have my own place,” I demurred. Tattletale nodded enthusiastically.
“That’s the dream. I mean, roommates are cool, I guess, but now that we’re in the big leagues I want to save up and get an apartment of my own.”
“It’s too fucking loud,” Rachel said. They were the first words she’d spoken since we got here, unless you counted ‘get me a beer.’ “I want to work on my drones in peace.”
“And I want to make as much noise as I want without an angry borg throwing tools at me,” Alec said, with a smile on his face that made me think he either wasn’t being serious or just didn’t care. Either way, Rachel didn’t react.
“This’ll be good for us,” Brian said. “Faultline has one hell of a rep, which means her clients do too.” He held up his glass. “Here’s to the big leagues.”
The others seemed less eager, and Alec even rolled his eyes, but we all clinked our glasses together.
“The big leagues!”
Rachel left us shortly after – Brian said she tended to steer clear of social occasions unless she had no other choice. Three bars and an unknown number of drinks later, we all gathered outside an old auto repair shop as Brian fumbled with a hefty lock. After a moment, the door swung open and Brian swung right after it, stumbling a little before an implant in his kidney started to treat the ‘poison’ in his drink and he steadied himself.
The floor of the shop had clearly been claimed by Rachel; each wall held neatly-arrayed tools and ordered pieces of technology, and her van was parked in prime of place alongside a damaged Steel Lynx drone that had clearly been salvaged from a junkyard – equally clear was that Rachel was slowly bringing it back to working order. It was about as large as a ride-on lawnmower, with four wheeled legs and a currently empty weapon mount on its back. There was also a blue four-door Ford Americar parked up next to the Lynx, but it didn’t have any signs of Rachel’s touch on it so I figured it belonged to one of the others.
Rachel herself was currently elbows-deep in her Doberman, welding patches onto the armour plate. She wasn’t wearing a welder’s mask, and I couldn’t help noticing that she treated her machinery with a lot more respect than her meat. She was even sleeping here, if the camp bed I could see tucked into the old mechanic’s office was any indication.
She looked up as we entered, then wordlessly turned back to her work as I followed the others to a metal staircase at the back of the workshop. Upstairs, the building was a lot more liveable, thought it was clear that only extended so far. The walls were bare concrete, and the floors were only partially carpeted, but it was clear that someone had put work into making this place feel homey.
The loft space had been divided into three sections, more or less, though it looked like they’d tried to keep it as open plan as they could. The closest was clearly a weird combination of living room and ready room, with two couches neatly separating the coffee table and expensive trideo set from the gun locker, coat rack and a very prominent first aid kit taped to the wall.
Beyond that was a corridor of different rooms, three on each side, their walls not quite extending to the top of the space. Some of the doors – and a lot of the walls – held artwork of different styles and subjects, some – like the white male and female silhouettes common to mixed gender bathrooms, or the stylised elven face with puckered lips – were clearly labels, while others were a little more experimental or abstract.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
“Nice art,” I commented, pointing at a mural of a multi-limbed woman wreathed in fire. A spirit of some kind?
“Thanks,” Alec replied. Guess he’s the artist.
Past the corridor I could just about see a large table and some cabinets, so I figured that had to be their kitchen and dining room. Overall, the loft was maybe a quarter again as big as my apartment, which added up to a lot of extra space when you considered all the furniture was metahuman standard rather than troll-sized.
More to the point, it felt a lot more lived-in. A lot more alive. Most of my apartment was kept neat and orderly simply because I was hardly using any of the stuff in it. Here, the rooms were full of the kind of clutter that comes from everyday life: two dirty plates on the coffee table, a stack of cans in the dining room, a solitary shoe inexplicably sitting in the middle of the lounge. There was activity here.
“Nice place,” I said, meaning it.
“It’s an attic,” Alec said.
“It’s our attic,” Lisa replied, saving me from thinking up a reply, “and that means yours too, Taylor. This is the team’s space, for now, and you’re part of the team.”
Brian disappeared off into the kitchen, while Alec slumped down onto one of the couches, his head at one end and his feet at the other. Lisa gestured me over to the other couch, and I sat at the opposite end to her. It was too small for me, of course, so I stretched out my legs rather than risk looking like I was trying to hunch in on myself.
“The rooms,” Lisa said, waving her hand at the corridor. “On the left, there’s Alec’s room, the bathroom, and mine. On the right, Brian’s, Rachel’s room that she doesn’t use, and the storage cupboard. Mine and Alec’s rooms are doing double-duty as our magical workplaces, which is why we want to get our own places eventually.”
She paused, looking at Alec, who nodded.
“You can take Rachel’s room,” she said to me. “She likes to sleep in her workshop.”
“You don’t have to do that for me,” I told her, taken aback. “I have my own place.”
Lisa made a pained face. “Can you take the room anyway? It’d be a lot better if you had your own space here.”
Alec must have spotted my confusion. “Brian has his own apartment,” he explained, “and he was pretty clear he didn’t need a room, but after he ruined a perfectly good couch he came around to the idea of having a bed here just in case.”
“It’ll also give you somewhere to work that’s closer than a phone call, so I can pop in and say hello,” Lisa smiled.
“Just so you know, I’m not helping you carry any of your gear upstairs,” Alec said, and Lisa gave me a pointed look.
“Um,” I started, before forcing myself to continue. “Gear isn’t really a factor. I’m a Technomancer. I probably will need to buy a bigger bed, though, if the one in there was meant for Rachel. And maybe some other things.”
Lisa nodded, while Alec leant up in his seat, looking more intrigued than I’d ever seen him.
“Technomancer?” He grinned. “You feel an urge to crash the whole city, just let me know. I’d like to watch.”
I shrank into my seat, though I couldn’t shrink far.
“Don’t believe everything you see on trideo,” Lisa said to Alec, even as she nudged my side with her elbow. I chuckled.
“So,” I heard Brian’s voice from the corridor, and turned to look at him. He was leaning against the wall, looking almost entirely sober. “Feel free to hang out here as much as you want, I’m sure Lisa has already offered a room. When you’re not here, keep your commlink on you in case we have a job.”
“Won’t be a problem,” I said. “I’m a Technomancer. My commlink’s in here.” I tapped the side of my head.
“Huh,” Brian stopped and blinked. “Well, that’s useful. Regardless, I’m heading home for the night. You kids have fun.”
Alec lifted up an arm to flip him off, but otherwise didn’t move. I raised a hand to wave him goodbye, only to hold it up in their air like an idiot for a couple of seconds before lowering it again. I don’t know if it was the size difference or just how effortless they made it all look, but I still didn’t feel like I fit in.
“I should probably head back too,” I said to Lisa once Brian had disappeared down the stairs.
“On foot?” she asked. “Without a gun? This isn’t the best neighbourhood.”
I opened my mouth to reply, then paused as I was hit by creeping dread. I’d been so caught up in the moment that I’d forgotten there were perfectly good reasons to stay locked up in my apartment for months.
I smiled, awkwardly and without feeling. “Guess I’ll be taking that bed after all.”
“I’ll grab some spare bedding,” Lisa said, rising from the couch. “Come find me tomorrow. We’ll go shopping for the essentials, and you can spend some of your ill-gotten gains.”
Fatigue was starting to set in, so I didn’t comment as Lisa handed me a duvet and a pillow and showed me into a fairly cramped space, by my standards.
Sleep didn’t come easy. It wouldn’t have come easy regardless, given that I had to curl up just to fit on the human-sized bed, but what really kept me up was the realisation that this was the first night I’d spent away from home in five years, and that I was spending it in the base of a team of professional mercenaries. Mercenaries I’d just joined.
If it wasn’t for the beer in my system, I doubt I’d have fallen asleep at all.
The next morning, I woke up to the smell of cooked bacon and stepped into the corridor to see Lisa upending a carrier bag of paper-wrapped rolls onto the table, then setting down a carry tray of three cups of coffee only a little more gently. Bitch was with her, and she took a seat at the table before opening up one of the rolls and digging into it with gusto.
“Is one of those for me?” I asked.
“Of course,” Lisa said. “The soykaf, too. I’ve got my own cafetière.”
I sat down side-on, as I couldn’t comfortably fit my knees under the table, unwrapped the roll and enjoyed a piping-hot mouthful of egg, bacon and ketchup.
“Ah,” Lisa sighed as she sat down. “Sorry. I guess we can buy a second table?”
“Don’t bother,” I waved her concerns off. “I’d much rather squeeze onto this one than get exiled to the corner.”
“Fair enough,” Lisa said with a shrug. “Anyway, today I figure you and I could do a little shopping.”
“What?” I snorted. “Clothes stores and girl talk, that sort of thing?”
“Not quite,” she smiled. “You need a gun and some gear to wear in the field… but you could also do with upgrading your wardrobe while you’re at it.”
“What’s wrong with my wardrobe?” I asked, defensively.
“Besides the fact it’s the same stuff you wore yesterday?” Lisa pointed out. “Nothing, really. It’s just very… you.”
“Thanks, Lisa,” I drawled, though it did hurt to hear. “I really needed that.”
“You’re a cautious person,” Lisa explained. “It’s a good quality, and one the team didn’t have before.”
“Brian’s cautious,” I pointed out, but Lisa shook her head.
“Brian’s pragmatic – professional – but that’s not the same as cautious. He’s been a hired gun almost since he was old enough to hold one, and that can colour his perceptions sometimes. If he’s taken a risk a thousand times before, he wouldn’t think twice before taking it again. Similarly, his red lines are redder than red because he’s so used to working within those rules. He takes a lot for granted.”
I sighed, leaning back in my seat as I took the lid off the soykaf cup and started sipping at the piping hot beverage. Soymilk and sweetener. How fancy.
“Go on then. Psychoanalyse me.” I could have sworn I saw the corners of Rachel’s mouth curl up.
“Well, since you asked,” Lisa seized the invitation with an entirely self-satisfied grin. “You’re observant, detail-oriented and focused. From the moment you first met us you started digging for information, and if we’d given you a reason to use that information then I know you’d have struck swiftly and decisively.”
She must have caught the look on my face, because she added “that’s something we share. Neither of us can resist pulling at a good secret. But it’s a strength and a flaw.”
“Uh huh. And that ties into my clothes how, exactly?”
“In cyberspace, you hid yourself away behind eye-catching personas that were just as much an enigma as you were: chitin plates made to look like skin, spiders crawling in and out of a robe. You were enigmatic in a way that drew the eye and disguised yourself, but right now you’re wearing your personality on your sleeve even while you’re trying to do the opposite. Muted colours, loose fits, full coverage. You’re not trying to define your identity, or fit into some clique. You’re trying to hide, and you’re screaming that to the world.”
“And you want to change that.”
“Hiding isn’t ever going to work. I’m sorry, Taylor, but you’re eight feet tall and grey. More than that, I don’t know how you got rid of Bakuda, but I’ve heard of her reputation and she’s one nasty bitch. I’m interested to see what other feats you can manage if I can coax you out of your shell.”
I sighed. “Alright, fine. But I’m not going crazy; I’ve got rent to pay.”
“I’ll take my victories where I can find them,” she exclaimed, before turning to Rachel. “Hey Rache, want to come to the market with us? We could use a lift.”
I presumed she’d refuse outright, but instead she took the last bite of her roll and stood up, her cybernetic eyes shifting as the lenses changed focus.
“Sure,” she said. “Need to get new parts, anyway.”
She started making her way through the corridor, and me and Lisa followed her. As the three of us got into the van – myself in the middle, the pair of them up front – Lisa turned to me and grinned.
“Well would you look at that. I’ve got you on a girl’s day out after all.”
I looked between her fashionable crop top and Rachel’s grease-stained tanktop, then caught my own horned reflection in the mirror and couldn’t stop myself from laughing.
“Hey!” Rachel slammed a metal fist against the metal roof. “Buckle up back there!”