Tt’s commlink was broadcasting from a café near the base of Charter Hill, a densely-packed district that largely provided low income workers to the more highly-priced financial district downtown. Cleaners, security guards and low-level office drones had to come from somewhere, after all, and a few of the tower blocks bore the logo of the corporation that owned them – and that owned the employees housed within.
It was a vertical neighbourhood, crisscrossed by elevated roads and walkways that cast deep shadows under which pop-up stalls plied their trade, while more illegal goods could be bought by those who ventured deeper into the darkened corners.
The café wasn’t part of that side of the district. It sat in an elevated mall complex, a bridge of shops that spanned the trench between two long rows of apartment buildings, bathed in natural sunlight for most of the day. It even had a balcony, poking out the side of the bridge where it enjoyed a commanding view down the entire length of the artificial gorge.
Dozens of other bridges reached across that gap, some wide enough to allow six lanes of traffic to cross while others were spindly things supporting elevated metro lines and the smallest were simple footways barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side, though most of those were down on the lower floors.
I only knew this because I’d been to that part of the city before, with mom and dad. In the Matrix, all I could see were the digital signatures of the flowing traffic, the barely-protected systems of the shops in the bridge, and the constant flow of icons and personas that marked people out from the landscape.
One of those icons depicted a fairly basic security camera manufactured by Aztechnology before the Matrix went wireless, but someone had since jury-rigged it with a wireless connection. Because it was a jury-rig, it was simplicity itself to work my way into the system and take control of the camera, swivelling it on its axis to point right at the icon of Tt’s commlink.
Simultaneously, I drew the feed’s web-like datastream away from the CCTV box in the backroom and pulled it into my persona’s eyes, letting me see Tt for the first time.
Her elven features were as breathtakingly elegant as they were on her persona, and the only real difference between her two was the absent third eye on her persona’s forehead. Her attire was different, too; she was dressed much the same as any other relatively well-off young woman would when she out on the town, in a crop top and fashionably tight syn-leather pants. The crop top was purple – clearly her favourite colour – and she wore a simple silver necklace around her neck, with a pendant on the end. I couldn’t quite make it out through the camera’s poor resolution, but it looked like the same slit-pupiled eye.
Notably, she wasn’t alone. There was an ork sitting across the table from her, dark skinned and built like he punched walls for a living. At six foot six, the difference between his frame and Tt’s waifish body was stark. Like her, he was dressed casually, but in a noticeably different style. Rather than her girl-about-town look, he wore practical work boots under faded jeans and a drab green jacket over a black tank top.
He also had cybernetic eyes, though they had false covers that made them look organic, and looking at his signature in the Matrix I could see other cyberware laced discretely throughout his body: the cybereyes had an integrated smartlink feeding data to the pistol holstered in his jacket, his arms were artificial – metal coated with synflesh to keep the appearance of normality – and his commlink was an implant rather than a separate device. There was probably more in there, but it wasn’t wireless. There was a UCAS System Identification Number linked to the comm, registered to Mark Andrews, but I could tell it was fake.
Tt’s commlink had a SIN as well, again for the United Canadian-American States, but if hers was a fake then it was a much higher-quality job than the ork’s. Either way, it identified her as Lisa Wilbourn, and unlike her counterpart she had no presence whatsoever in the Matrix. In fact, the only Matrix-capable devices on her person were her handbag and a pair of AR-linked aviator sunglasses sitting on the table, the lenses tinted purple. When considered alongside the third eye on her persona and the shopping bag for an occult store sitting next to her in the booth, I got a sneaking suspicion that she was a mage.
The two of them were slowly chatting about not much in particular, both of them nursing cups of soykaf like they were expecting to have to wait a while. I steeled myself, then sent another message to Lisa’s commlink.
»Who’s the muscle?«
- Bug (14:00:01/15-2-70)
Lisa looked at her commlink, smiled, and looked across the table at Brian. Her commlink was already feeding me its audio, so I heard what she said next.
“They’re here.”
Mark – or whoever he was beneath the fake SIN – set his cup down and looked around the café. After scanning the people, his gaze landed on the security camera I’d moved to point straight at their table. He had a handsome face, with the sort of lantern jaw you’d expect from some trideo star, and he wore his hair in shoulder-length cornrows. His metatype came through in pointed ears and tusks, but they actually added to his looks rather than taking away from them. He frowned.
“Can they hear us?” he asked, leaning in and murmuring. Not that it mattered, when he was leaning over Lisa’s commlink.
“Don’t know,” she replied with an easy grin. “I’m not a tech girl, that’s why we’re hiring Bug.” Simultaneously, she was typing out a response on her commlink.
»A colleague. He’s Grue, and I’m Tattletale.«
- Tt (14:00:53/15-2-70)
Shadowrunner handles, obviously. Tattletale didn’t need much explanation, for all that it didn’t tell me about how she operated, but Grue… I send off a query in search of information, and found a film that had come out about half a decade ago, in which a magical research lab had been unintentionally sealed and most of the scientists killed by a massive monster that struck from the shadows. The monster was called a Grue.
Almost without conscious thought, I dug a little deeper, peeling back the security on Grue’s commlink. Tattletale was a closed book, digitally speaking, but with Grue I was able to find the real SIN buried beneath his fake. Grue was a registered UCAS citizen; Brian Laborn.
Satisfied that I had a little leverage in case this was a trap, I changed my persona to that of a nondescript human-looking woman, provided you ignored the fact her skin was formed from discrete chitin plates, and edited it to include a chair as I sat myself down at the head of their outdoor booth.
“I can,” I said to Grue, his cybereyes and ingrained commlink overlaying my persona and voice onto the real world, along with all the other augmented reality features in this café. His optics widened as he saw me, and Tattletale latched onto that motion like a hawk before putting on her own AR sunglasses.
“Nice look,” she said, admiringly, before turning to Grue. “Pay up.”
“You took bets on whether I’d show up?” I asked.
“On whether you’d show up in person,” Grue said, handing a crumpled nuyen bill to Tattletale. I couldn’t see the denomination. “Shadowrunners put a lot of weight on face to face meetings. It’s a sign of respect, and trust.” There was a not-so-subtle rebuke in that.
“I’m not a Shadowrunner,” I said, leaning back and shrugging. “Tattletale asked for someone who can hack, not some meat to catch bullets. Besides, why would I trust you? We’ve just met.”
“Exactly my point,” he countered. “It builds trust.”
“Look, I’m here. You have a job. I want the money. I don’t see the problem.”
Grue looked like he was about to say something, but through the camera I saw Tattletale kick him in the shin. She must have been expecting me to be seeing through my persona, rather than still using the camera. Was that some kind of signal?
I left my persona’s head facing forwards while I hurriedly scanned the nearby Matrix icons, but I couldn’t see anything unusual.
“It’s never as good as the real thing,” Tattletale mused, drawing my attention right back to her. She was leaning back in her seat, looking out over the balcony while sipping at her cup of soykaf.
“What isn’t?” I snapped, angry that they wouldn’t let this go.
“Soykaf,” she clarified, sounding a little confused, and my anger deflated.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I wouldn’t know.” I had the taste of beankaf stored in digital form from the restaurant job, but I figured Tattletale would insist that doesn’t count.
“Tattletale keeps a bag of real coffee beans back at our place,” Grue explains, looking a little less wound up. “I’ve had some, but I don’t see what the fuss is about. So long as it’s hot and wakes you up, who cares?”
“Philistine,” the coffee aficionado shook her head in dismay.
“Your place?” I asked. “Are you two… together?”
Tattletale almost spat up her coffee at that, while Grue just shook his head.
“When I put the team together, I rented a place for us all to crash. Everyone chips in for the rent, and it means we don’t have to worry about commuting in from across half the city.”
“It’s temporary,” Tattletale clarifies. “I know I want to get my own place eventually, and I’m pretty sure the others think the same way. Things are a little cramped right now.”
“So, why aren’t the rest here?”
“We didn’t want to overwhelm you,” Grue explained. “Plus, there’s no point in all four of us waiting around if you were late or didn’t show.”
“Right,” I drummed virtual fingers against the table. “So what’s the job?”
“How much do you know about how Shadowrunners work?” Grue asked.
I shrugged. “Only what I’ve seen on trideo.”
Grue shifted in his seat a little so he was properly facing me, resting his elbows on the table as he accented his words with gestures. My conversations in meatspace were so infrequent I couldn’t remember if that was a nervous tick or not.
“We’re trying to move up in the world, which means getting an in with a better Fixer. A better fixer means a higher-quality of clientele, which means we’re not stuck getting fragged by some street-trash gang in an alleyway behind a Mega-Mart. Or, if we are, we’re at least getting good money for it.”
He tapped his middle finger against the table, the metal beneath the synflesh making the tap much more distinctive.
“The Fixer we want to impress has given us a little interview job. Directly, rather than sending Mr Johnson our way.”
“Is that normal?” I asked. About the only thing I’d picked up from the films was that Shadowrunners were always hired by ‘Mr Johnson’ – a euphemistic name used for any number of anonymous clients.
“It isn't, but then this isn’t a normal job. Could be that the Johnson wants anonymity, could be that our Fixer doesn’t yet trust us to interact with their clients.”
“Could be there is no ‘Mr Johnson’” – Tattletale piped up – “and this whole job is just a consequence-free test they cooked up for us.”
Grue gave her a weary look. Clearly they were getting close to rehashing a discussion they’d already had.
“Regardless,” Grue continued, “we’ve been hired to locate a specific package inside a specific shipping container.”
“I can get you into the port authority systems,” I said, already sending off a datastream with the backdoor password dad had kept on his computer for a rainy day. “I should be able to pull the container’s projected route from there.”
“Good to know,” Grue said, and he looked impressed, “but that won’t be necessary. No need to tangle with corp security today, because Lung's Clan already tangled with them. They waited till it was on its way out of the city, then jumped it before it hit the interstate.”
“They want the package too?” I asked. “What’s inside it, anyway?”
“It’s not our biz to speculate,” Grue said, even as Tattletale rolled her eyes. “As for whether they’re looking for it as well… probably not. They raid shipping all the time.”
“So what do you need me for? I’ve got no experience with Yakuza systems, if they even have one.”
“They’re not Yakuza,” Tattletale interrupts. “Not real Yakuza, at least. Most of their core diaspora are exiled Japanese nonhumans, which means the actual Yakuza families back home want nothing to do with them.”
I think I remember mom saying something about that once.
“Semantics aside, I still don’t know why you need a hacker.”
“The Fixer suggested it. They’ve improved their Matrix presence recently – which is probably how they masked the container’s RFID signal in the first place.”
I thought it over, my persona completely motionless as my mind focused on other matters. After a moment, when their stares became a little pointed, I mirrored Grue’s mannerisms and started drumming my virtual fingers on the table, consciously generating the sound of chitin on plastic to complete the illusion.
“They could have used a device wired directly into the container, or an area jammer. The former would be harder to track, but more wasteful if you need one for every container.”
“We think they’re storing the container in a warehouse along with the others they’ve lifted,” Grue elaborated. “They’ll unpack them one by one and slowly filter the contents onto the black market.”
“Area jammer, then. Take it out and I’ll be able to point you to your target, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to help you find it in the first place.”
“That’s my job,” Tattletale said with a predatory grin. “I’ll ask around their favourite haunts, do some investigating of my own, maybe even borrow one of the others to lean on a few people. Someone’ll talk.”
“So,” Grue said, trying to look casual but it didn’t quite reach his eyes – Cybernetic they might have been, but that didn’t stop the muscles around them tensing – “what do you think?”
I sat there for a moment, my mind alive with possibilities. It sounded like there were a lot of things that could go wrong with this plan – and I’d be exposing myself to more risk than ever before – but on the other hand, the money was really good. Besides, maybe it’d be nice to be working with people, rather than for them?
“For three thousand? I can do it.”
Some of the tension slipped out of Grue’s shoulders, while Tattletale laughed happily, trying and failing to pat my virtual shoulder.
“We’ll contact you when we know where we’re going,” Grue said.
“Actually,” Tattletale jumped in, “I might get in touch if I need some tech support while I’m investigating. That alright?”
“Fine by me,” I answered, nodding for her benefit.
I got up, letting my ‘chair’ dissolve back into nothingness as I walked my persona out of the café, turning the camera back to where it was before.
Or rather, almost to where it was before. I’d kept them in the corner of its vision, and I hadn’t abandoned my hold on Tattletale’s commlink.
“I don’t like that she didn’t show up in person,” Grue said after a few moments, his eyes firmly planted on the door I’d just ‘walked’ out of.
“So she’s shy,” Tattletale shrugged her shoulders. “So what?”
“That’s what you think it is? Shyness?”
“You noticed her persona, right? She doesn’t want to present her real face to the world, for whatever reason. Could be body image issues, maybe. Either way, she had a point. We’re not hiring her to block bullets.”
“But the Fixer-” he began, before Tattletale cut him off.
“Let me worry about that. I can talk to her while I’m hunting this place down, get a feel for her.”
“Fine,” Grue replied, giving ground. “Got any idea how you’ll start?”
“I figured I’d go put on a nice dress and hit the clubs, see if I can get some boasting out of a drunk Yakuza.”
“I thought you said they weren’t real Yakuza.”
“They call themselves Yakuza,” Tattletale said as she stood up. “That’s what really matters.”
I spun datastreams together, creating a dragonfly sprite to follow Grue – Brian Laborn – and see where he called home. If they were all living together like he said, that would tell me where I could find them.
After all, there’s nothing wrong with having a little insurance.
Once the insect was on its way, I turned my attention to more directly following Tattletale’s commlink through the matrix as she popped into a handful of stores and window-shopped in even more.
“You’re still here, aren’t you?” she said out of the blue, and if I was in meatspace I think I might have jumped in shock. As it was, I hurriedly scanned my surroundings looking for any hint of an ambush and seized control of the shop’s security camera. There were no deckers waiting in the wings, or Grid Overwatch Division agents out to snatch me up. Or corps out to cut me up to see what made my Technomancer brain tick. She was just browsing the shop’s discount rack.
“How did you know?” She still had her AR glasses on, and they had dermal speakers built discretely into the frame.
“Because it’s what I’d do,” she said, holding a top up to her chest and checking out her reflection in a mirror. “I get the feeling you’re like me in that regard; neither of us can leave a secret alone.”
“And you’re not mad?” I asked, hesitantly. “Wouldn’t your buddy call this a breach of trust?”
Tattletale let out a short, sharp, laugh. “Trust but verify, ever heard of that? Besides, I’d be a hypocrite if I got mad. Like you heard, I’m watching you as well.”
I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach at that, but I grudgingly felt it would be hypocritical of me to complain.
“So… find anything interesting?” I asked, awkwardly.
“Oh don’t worry,” Tattletale turned to smile up at the camera. “I can’t do anything really thorough because the Matrix doesn’t have an astral presence, so I’m mostly just relying on psychological guesswork. I figure you got more detailed information from Brian’s cheap-ass fake SIN.”
I fell silent, and from the way Tattletale’s smile slowly grew even wider I could tell she’d taken my silence as an admission of guilt.
“Look, so long as your secrets don’t affect me or the team, I’m not about to spill them. I trust that goes both ways. Find what you can, but be very careful how you use it.”
She’d finally found a top she liked, a sleeveless one with a coiled snake printed on the front. She turned and made her way to the changing rooms, reaching down to the commlink on her belt and switching it off as she pulled the curtain shut.
I let my digital presence soar back through the city, pulling it back towards my own body until I awoke with a start, slumped over in an armchair and drenched in sweat. I pulled my legs up, curling in on myself as I sat there, shaking. My heart was beating at a million miles a minute, fear pumping through my system like a drug, but there was something else laced among the emotion.
This wasn’t just some everyday job lifting copy protection off stolen property; it felt real. Mixed in with the fear was adrenaline, and my heart was beating with as much eagerness as terror. For the first time in a long while, it felt like I was truly living.