Chapter Text
I wake up in unfamiliar darkness.
For a moment, my heart jumps in my chest as I try to figure out where I am, and then I remember.
Mostly because of the machine-gun rotary-barrel around 2 inches above my head. Max's damned drones had been poking me in the side all night. Where the hell did she even come across this shit? The finer points of mechanical engineering aren't exactly the sort of thing an avowed loner hipster nerd picks up overnight.
I roll over on the sleeping pallet (clearly taken from a coffin hotel, by the way, not that beggars could be choosers), and tap on my deck to bring up the time. Six thirty. Good to know. At least my sleeping schedule has lasted through the hell of the last couple of days.
It's a small thing, but at least it's something. I've spent the last two days mostly feeling adrift, alone. I want to feel like I belong again. I want to feel I have some damn control over my life. So, the small things will have to do until I can make the big things happen. And you can be damn sure, I'll make it all happen eventually. I got it all through hard work and hard decisions once, so I can do it again.
I open the door to my room and walk into the main living space. It's technically open plan, though only because the divider walls are so old and worn that they've mostly fallen down. It looks different in the morning light; the large bay windows lining every wall of the warehouse-turned-penthouse apartment let in light from every angle, except for over in one corner opposite the doors that has cardboard taped over the windows to create a dark spot with absolutely no light.
Max is sitting there, in the dark, staring at me.
She's not actually staring at me. Her eyes are that odd shiny texture one gets when one 'jacks in', meaning her mind is off floating about in a drone somewhere. Or maybe gliding through the Matrix. Either way, she was checked out and Chloe was nowhere to be seen.
I tried to wait, but I was hungry and everything in here was hidden away in side-lockers and drop-boxes and thus totally frakking inaccessible without keycodes. So, I stalked up to Max's prone form and, with a scowl at her blank face, pulled out my deck and started hunting.
I found the drone a short distance away. The ICE was child's play (for Ice... Ew. No. I need to keep working on that catchphrase, fucking hell.) and I was in after barely a minute of work. Huh. Apparently the thing had a camera. Max must've been using the drone to look at something... I piggybacked a carrier on the signal and brought the feed up on my screen.
I was immediately inflicted by the sight of a naked troll girl with neon-blue hair writhing beneath me and I shut my damn eyes just as immediately.
Fucking gah!
I slam my hand down on the key to close that Pandora's Box of horrors. My disgusted shuddering was interrupted by a light, rippling, familiar laugh that made me snap my eyes open.
Max's eyes were back to their usual dull hipster sheen and she was fucking laughing at me. That... that bitch! After a few irritating seconds, her laughs die down into muted chuckles and she just shakes her head at me. "You really shouldn't go prying into other people's heads, you know."
I jab a finger at her. "And you shouldn't be doing... that in a public space! That's just-"
"Hot?" A voice comes from behind me, accompanied by the low swipe of an opening security door as Chloe joins us. She's clothed, thank fuck, but I get an awkward flash of... what I just saw that causes me to flinch and my stomach to turn.
"No, I just-"
Chloe stalks over. "What were you even doing, dude? Why the frakk would you try that drek?"
I shake my head another few times to clear that... image, and just shrug. "I needed food. She was busy. Figured I'd find the passcode in her head and get it myself."
"Yeah, well. Don't do that again." She glares at me expectantly. "Stay outta our heads, so ka?"
I nod. "So ka."
"Wiz." All animosity suddenly disappears as she grins, flashing me her tusks. "What's for breakfast? I need a soykaf."
"Make it quick." Max waves a chrono and taps it. "It's nearly seven and Nana wants to see us at eight."
I stay quiet as the two cheerfully banter and flirt their way through making breakfast, only speaking up when they asked a direct question. I honestly wasn't sure what I was feeling listening to them. Most of my meals were taken alone or over business with colleagues, so they always had an air of... formality to them. Chloe and Max, on the other hand, couldn't be less informal. They joked, they laughed, they... flirted. It was all so... unfamiliar.
I think it might've been nice. I certainly never had anything like that with my... partner, before he...
I sigh, and stand suddenly from the table. "Shouldn't we be going?"
Chloe froze, spoon halfway to her mouth. "Huh?"
"It's a fifteen minute walk to Nana's house and it's just turning twenty to the hour. Don't you think she'd appreciate us being early?" I tilt my head imploringly. "Nana's already not a fan of mine, I need every edge I'm going to get to convince her to let me stay."
Max chuckled at Chloe's... lack of enthusiasm, but stood anyway. "She's right, Chlo'. Let's buzz."
Chloe groaned and dropped the spoon. A few moments had all the dishes cleared away and a few more had all of us packed to leave. Max still wouldn't give me the damn gun, even when I asked nicely. I was tempted for a moment to try intimidating her, but I quickly dismissed that idea. It probably wouldn't work anymore, plus Chloe would probably kill me without a second thought if she thought I was going to hurt her girlfriend. So once again, I stayed quiet. I suppose it might be a good habit to get into. I don't have to talk and reveal myself as a suit and it also made a decent personality quirk for someone named 'Ice'. I'd met enough Shadowrunners to know streetnames often linked to personality traits, so giving into their expectations might help me blend.
It was worth a try.
--
As planned, we arrive at the quaint little house with time to spare. Chloe, unwilling to wait, strode up to the door and knocked. The same psychedelically-haired troll answered the door. "You're early."
Chloe flashed him a bright, toothy grin. "Figured Nana would appreciate the punctuality for once. We can wait, just wanted to check and make sure Nana knew we were here."
He flashed her an equally bright, patronising look. "Of course she knows you're here, chummer."
"So..." Chloe offers an olive branch of expectancy. My shock at her mature response was sorely tempered by the immature tone. "Can we come in?"
"What do you think?"
"No?" She tries.
He snorts. "Smart one, ace."
So, we wait. And wait. And wait.
Eventually, the door opens, and Bolan steps out. He grins, wide and toothy. "Now you can come in."
--
"Hoi, Ice."
I tilt my head at a very respectful incline. Everyone in this room would happily kill me if this woman ordered it. Again, respect was in my best interest. "Hello, Nana." I drew the rules of behaviour and etiquette, all the distant refinement and polite poise my parents had spent my childhood instilling within me together and cloaked myself in it. I had to be Ice, if I was going to survive. And I was going to survive.
The woman eyed me for a few seconds, then nodded. "Your job is there, and we's ready to get that SIN of yours gone whenever you finish." She tossed a small datastick to me. "The associate in question is out in Puyallup. He's been skimmin' scratch that he owe to me. When I found out, I sen' a man to remind him who he fucking works for. My man didn't return, sha. So, I need you to go in, geek him, an' take any data you can find. If you can recover any o' the moneys he took, then you'll get a cut of it. Call it fifteen percent." She grins another knife-wound smiles. "I'm feelin' gen'rous today."
I keep my face implacable, but inside I'm panicking. "...just me, Nana?"
She chuckles. "Nah, sha. You may be an 'ace decker', but you sure as hell don't know how to kill folks. Take Max and Chloe wit' you. They be the muscle, you be the brains." She tilts her head to focus on them instead of me. "She's in charge until she does somethin' stupid that's gon' get you killed. So ka?"
They both nod. "So ka, Nana."
They're agreeing to this? To following me? Are they insane?
I start paying attention to the conversation again just in time to see Nana throw Max a datastick. "-an' by the time you come back, your SIN'll be gone. Now, get out. You has a job to do."
--
The tramcar was obnoxiously quiet. Well, more accurately, the people inside it were quiet. The actual car was screeching like my mother after she found out my 'beloved husband' had gone missing. And believe me, that screech was loud.
There were very few people on the tram this early. The few that were gave us a wide berth. One woman, out with her daughter, was giving Chloe (who towered head and shoulders and upper chest above everyone else in the cab) the most obnoxiously nervous side-eye I'd seen in a while. It was fucking infuriating. Racist bitch. Though admittedly it could've also been the obnoxiously large shotgun Chloe had hefted over one shoulder. Wait no, not Chloe. Blue. I'm supposed to call her Blue on missions. Damnit.
None of us spoke. If we had, I wasn't sure what I'd even say. How do you give orders to two childhood nemeses to do something you've never done before that could get any of you killed or arrested at a moments notice? It's one hell of a dilemma and, as the tramcar slowed to a stop and Max and Chloe step up to the doors, I realised that I had very little time to solve it.
I trailed them out, narrowly skirting being locked back on the tram by the closing doors. I barely registered my near-escape, honestly too distracted to notice. My mind was busy running through possible outcomes of my leading today's venture, most of which involved inevitable and painful death. Perhaps understandably, my confidence was very low when Chloe's hand stopped me walking past the door to the slum building our target was supposedly inhabiting.
"So, Boss. What's the biz for this run?" Her irritating, fang-bearingly wide grin earns her my sharpest glare.
The fragging bitch shrugged it off with a chuckle and an expectant raise of an eyebrow. At that point, I was half tempted to punch her. One look at the thick muscle in her arms made me reconsider that course of action very quickly. I liked my facial features how they were. So, I took a look at the building. It looked old, but most slum buildings did. I peered across the brickwork, the layers of gang tags and almost pornographic grafitti covering its surface, trying to come up with some semblance of an idea that might... wait. I frown, eyeing one of the windows. Buried under the 'artwork' was the edge of a poster. Well, a label, technically. Maybe even an advertisement. All I could see was the top left corner of a very, very familiar logo. "The building is secured."
Max frowned. "What? Of course it is, Ice. Our Boss doesn't just-"
I waft a hand at her to shut up. Surprisingly, she does. "No, that's not what I mean. Look," I point to the poster. "That's an Intellicorp logo. We did a piece on them before they shut down. Their security was severely lacking." I pause for a moment, then issue my orders. "Check the outer walls of the building for any small circular panels." I hold out my hand, putting the tip of my thumb and ring finger together. "They should be about this big and somewhere near the ground."
Max and Chloe share a... sceptical look and another hurried conversation-without-words before doing as I say. I find a spot as out of the way as I can manage and open up my deck. It takes barely a moment before I have everything ChaseSpace Media wrote about Intellicorp and I spend the next few moments re-familiarising myself with the details. Mostly the truly incredible number of weaknesses in their systems. They even left a hard-line Matrix plug in the outer walls - the small circular panel I had Chloe and Max looking for - under a flimsy-as-fuck maintenance seal. Some idiot in management probably thought it was a great cost saving measure. Nearly every customer they ever had fell victim to some crime or another. Mostly theft, obviously. I could break through that protection by sneezing. And lucky for me, the system hardware was so difficult to remove once installed that most of the companies simply co-opted them and filled in the vulnerabilities or disconnected it as best it they could. They were idiots too.
Heh. This might actually be fun.
I stow my deck away and wait for Chloe and Max return. The dwarf got back first, shaking her head. "Nothing, Ice. There was a firedoor round the back though, but it was locked."
I nod. "Lets hope your girlfriend found something then."
I let out a relieved sigh when Chloe finally returned. My foot had been tapping impatiently the entire time and it was starting to hurt. "Well?" I demand, unintentionally.
Chloe flashed me a mildly irritable look and held it until I realised what I'd done and politely repeated the question in a slightly less bitchy tone. Only slightly, though. It was still Chloe. "Well?"
She chuckled and grinned. "Found your hole. It's in the alley over there."
I rolled my eyes at the fucking childish eyebrow waggle she tacked onto the end and strode past her. The alley is yet another typical example of slum artistry. Both the wall of Nana's associate's building and the one opposite were covered in just as much graffiti as the front, perhaps even more. I find myself studying some of it with what approaches actual interest, surprisingly. The large blue bird hologram fluttering over the wall, drawn around the windows as its eyes, was... striking.
My interest died a swift death as the animation defecated on the ground. I scowled at it and headed to where Chloe pointed out the access port. A few seconds of work later and I'm in. One full floor map, camera and door access, and a brief and utterly useless maintenance doc file... downloaded. I also froze the internal camera displays to run a short loop, redirecting the actual feed to my deck. What the hell, I'll get the door locks as well. I unplug from the port less than three minutes after I plugged in.
Max appeared at my left, Chloe at my right. "So, what now, Boss?"
"Now?" I grin. "Now we kick in the doors."
--
"I didn't mean it literally, damnit!"
Chloe gave me a sheepish look as the left firedoor, now barely hanging onto the wall by only the upper wall mount, swung once, then twice, then fell to the ground with an annoyingly loud, annoyingly long-lasting crash. "Woops."
I stalked past her into the building, raising my handgun that Max had finally seen fit to let me use and muttering under my breath as I go. "Well, there goes our frakking stealth! Why am I always saddled with klutzy, idiotic-"
Chloe just chuckled and followed me in. Max, though, paused for a second and swung the backpack off her shoulder onto the ground. After a few seconds the pack was back on her shoulders and we're accompanied by three moderately sized drones with moderately sized guns. We trail along through the uncomfortably empty first floor and stop at the bottom of the stairs.
A thought occurred. "How heavy are those drones?"
Max gave me a puzzled look and shrugged. "Few kilograms. Why?"
I look at her. Then the stairs. Then the drones. Then back to her. She smirks, and taps a button on her own deck. Suddenly, the damn things sprout wings. Well, not quite wings. They look like the giant fans on the side of some of what used to be my staff airbuses. I really miss those things. The only way to get two dozen staff across multiple subsidiaries back to headquarters for meetings. Disorganised pricks.
I let the drones go first. There's a brief crack of gunfire as they clear the second floor stairwell of guards and we follow them up. I have to swallow a rising tide of nausea at the sight. Those moderately sized guns caused far more than moderate damage. A little shiver passes down my back as I hastily look away from the limb reaching out to clutch at my ankle. Normally, that would be fine, but the body said limb belonged to was pasted against one wall.
The stairs up to the third floor were blocked by piles of random household things. "Damnit." A quick search on the map reveals there's a secondary stair on the other side of this floor. Unfortunately, a quick search on the cameras shows it's guarded. I smile when I see exactly what it's guarded by.
We hurry past the broken bodies and discarded detritus and head into the main lobby of the second floor. Unlike the first, this one is populated. The people around all have the characteristic twitching of BTL Junkies and the worn complexions of a brutal life; The aptly named 'Better than Life' chips let poor nobodies disappear into dreams that, for them, are better than their sad, inescapable reality. Some of these people are uncomfortably young.
We keep our eyes low and head through. Max nods to the one cognisant individual here, a tall elf wearing headphones that I presume is the operator of this place. He absently nods back and we disappear out the next door.
The next few rooms were unfit to house pigs, never mind human beings. The walls were as covered with graffiti and random dirt spots as the ones outside, and the floors were littered with... effluent. My internal interior-designer almost screamed in agony seeing the state of it. The people there were just as heartrending to look at. Downtrodden expressions on the faces of those who'd escaped into apathy and vacant glassy stares on the faces of those who'd escaped into their heads. Chloe had to almost pick me up to get me to move onward. When we were through and alone again, I turn to them. "That was horrible."
Chloe shrugs, but the look Max gives me is almost compassionate. "You've never seen anything like that before, have you?"
"No," I almost spit the word out. "No, I haven't. I mean... we covered BTL dens, but we never saw anything like this."
Chloe chuckles. "You never do, suit. Might as well be on frakking fairyland for all the reality you corp dogs see. You're always jandering around, nose in the air, up in your ivory frakking towers, never seeing any of the drek us commoners go through." Her chuckle turns dark. "Always missin' the know on anyone not 'important'." Her last remark was surprisingly bitter.
Max hushes her and steps forward, putting a hand on my shoulder. "You're landing hot in a situation you've never been in before. It's only natural to be uncomfortable with it. Do you need a minute?"
I shake my head. "No. I'm going to see worse doing this, so I'll get used to it."
Max almost beams. It's a little freaky in its intensity. "Wicked. Let's buzz. Not far to go now."
We head out of the BTL den and into more regular accomodation. It's a relief to be in somewhere passably civilized. I watched mutely as a human man gets launched through a plaster divider wall in front of us, then dragged through into another room by a large troll. The other two don't even blink. Okay, scratch the 'passably civilised' comment.
Max stopped at the stairs up to the final floor. "We're here. Last chance to back out, Ice."
I shake my head. I've gone too far to start questioning things now. "I'll do whatever I have to to get my company back."
Chloe grins. "Good choice, omae. Let's go frag these fuckers already. Drinks on Maxie when we get back."
I let them lead the way as we head upstairs. I'm confident and without other options, not insane.
--
The security door fizzed as we walked up to it. I just tapped a key and it slid open instantly. Man, I don't think anyone has ever been more grateful to encounter the shitty Intellicom system than I was right then.
A corridor stretched ahead of us, two doors set in even intervals along both walls, then another larger door sat at the opposite end. It was quiet. Max sent the four drones down the hall, positioning two at each of the first two doors. Max and I went to the left, Chloe took the right. At Max's count, I opened the doors and she sent the drones in. Our side stayed quiet, but two loud cracks of bulletfire from Chloe's side let us know contact had been made. We paused and waited, keeping our guns lined on the other two doors. A couple of minutes and no action meant nobody would be coming out, according to Max. When I pointed out that just meant they were probably waiting in there for us, Max just grinned.
Crazy little bitch.
We both went into the rooms and took a quick look around for anything interesting. Nana wanted data, after all. The room Max and I took was small storage. Lots of basic shelving filled with all manner of miscellaneous goods and supplies. I imagined... yep. Drug paraphernalia, too. I poke into a few more boxes. Nothing interesting or worth anything.
"Ice!" Chloe called from the other room. "Get in here and hack this shit!"
I rolled my eyes. Demanding bitch and her- I pause and take a moment to yell back. "What shit?"
"Fucked if I know! It's got sockets and a screen, so it's either a computer or the weirdest fragging sex toy!"
I grimace as another flash of that mornings events pops into my head before I can lock it back in the deepest darkest recesses of my brain. I do wish there was some kind of mental napalm I could use to burn that particular memory from my mind. It's the only way to be sure.
Still. If she's found something interesting, I suppose I had better go check it out. I leave Max poking through the storage and head into Chloe's side. I find her playing with some kind of fleshy looking thing and laughing to herself.
I shake my head and ignore it. "Where's the computer?"
Chloe waves vaguely to a set-up in the corner. I sigh. "That's a cd player, Blue."
She looks at me. "It is? Ah shit." She shrugs. "Nevermind then." She tosses the fleshy thing over her shoulder. "And fragg this. Let's buzz to the next rooms already."
I follow her out and we burst in, finding both rooms clear of people. There was, however, a very interesting set-up that I actually had to work to break through. I filtered through a few bits of information and determined it was definitely something Nana would want. Honestly, I wasn't sure what it was, but Max patted my shoulder and said "Nice work, Nana will be happy with that find." so I'm making an educated assumption. A natural born Shadowrunner, I am not.
We met up back in the corridor, and eyed the last door. "Just one more left, huh? Think he's in there?"
I shrug. "There are no cameras in there, so I couldn't tell you."
Chloe resists the urge to comment and takes her post at the left of the door. Max takes the right and I go behind her. I bring up the program on my deck that had control of the building's subsystems and tap to open the door.
It... doesn't.
"Problem?"
"The door isn't opening."
"I can see that, Ice. Why isn't it opening?"
I tap a few keys. "...because it's not tied into the other systems. It looks like it's operating on its own grid here on the upper level. I'll have it open in a moment." My fingers fly across the keys as I practically soar through encryption. They didn't even bother with a Matrix security net? It's like they wanted me to break in!
Unfortunately, I was a little too impressed with my own brilliance and forgot to warn them before I opened the door. It slid open as Max was leaning forward in full view of the people inside. They promptly decided she was a threat and, since they were criminals and their response was to shoot threats, they, uh... shot at her. It was only Chloe's quick reflexes that saved the girl from being torn to shreds by the sheer amount of lead and steel they were throwing at her.
Max... honestly didn't seem all that upset about being shot at. I think it was a Shadowrunner thing, because I was terrified and I wasn't even the one under fire!
She took a second to breathe, then laughed, pulling herself up to lean against the wall. "That was bracing." She quickly poked her head out, dodging back again after another blast of what I was mostly certain was machine gun fire nearly hit her. She grinned at me. Lunatic. "Seven of them, two to each side, two behind metal pillars in the middle of the room, and one behind an automated turret emplacement at the back."
I perk up. "Automated?"
--
"We surrender! Nana wants to talk to you, Manny!" We'd improvised a small white flag - still a recognised symbol to everyone, even now near every nation that'd ever held it as a rule had fallen to corporations - and waved it around in the doorway.
'Manny' called back "Fine. Come on out, throw your guns down." It was odd, he sounded... British, maybe? But there was something off about the accent. Maybe he was from Somerset?
I shrug at Max and mouth "Remember the plan," before walking in.
I toss down my still-unused pistol and, after a moment of hesitation, Chloe and Max follow suit. That's when I get my first good look at the room. It's bigger than I thought it'd be. Bigger than was really possible, given the size of the building. They'd knocked through the back walls somehow, doubling the size of the room. There was a corridor in the middle of the wall off to the right and a recess in the wall to the left. The set-up was half living area, half hacktivist collective. The far wall was dominated by a large screen and smaller workstations were peppered across the room. The guards were still loitering around, guns pointed at us.
Hmm. The angles should be right...
This will work.
"So?" Mandy, a tall elf man in dark leather, crosses his arms and glares impatiently. The turret looms impressively behind him. "What's the old bitch want now?"
I take two steps forward, stopping as one of the guards raises their gun and the small relay in my pocket vibrates. "To tame you, mostly. She's rather unimpressed with your recent changes in loyalty, Manny."
Manny scoffs, and the anger in it sends little shivers down my spine. Maybe this plan wasn't such a good idea... "Then the bitch can go fuck herself. I found new friends now," With that, he waves his arms vaguely at his hirelings. I peer curiously at them. I mean, they were all elves, but surely he couldn't expect these few to help her- Oh. Each one of them had a familiar green A stitched or painted somewhere on their jackets. Shit. "They're Ancients."
Manny grins. "Sure are, chummer. And they're right happy to help protect an angel with arctic info like me. And man, the cred is good. Like, we're talkin' triple what Nana condescended to pay me." He pauses, and his grin turns disturbing. It's too wide, and too pleased with himself. I took it in stride. Honestly, it was far scarier seeing that smile in body language than blatant expression. This was just... small time. "So, now you hosed this drek run up, what was your plan? Were you just going to break in here and shoot us?"
I shrug, trying to sound as casual as I could. "Something like that." Damn it, I should've gotten a signal by now. There has to be something in here interfering with the connection. I... crap. I think I need to get closer. "Actually, we were supposed to introduce this," I pull out the relay after carefully finagling it inside my pocket until it slotted into a standard connector socket and toss it in his direction. He catches it, frowning in confusion at the flashing lights and odd configuration. Come on, come on... "-after we killed you. You might no longer be useful, but this is apparently decent real estate and she needed to give whoever came after the right info to get biz going again." He looks between me and the relay speculatively. I keep my eyes on him, but keep careful attention on the littlest green light right near the socket. Please connect, please. If my plan gets us all killed, Chloe will never let me hear the fucking end of it.
After a tense moment, he tosses it onto a workstation with a shrug. "Well, we'll look through that when you're all dead, I guess. Thanks."
I shrug again. It should be ready any time...
The automated turret suddenly starts firing.
Now, I suppose.
I dive into cover - not from the turret, that was entirely under my control, but from the Ancients. - just as Chloe grabs Max and dashes out of the way. She takes a couple of hits with pained grunts, but makes it out of the room.
I just stayed down and waited for the gunfire to stop.
"Everyone dead in there?"
Chloe somehow manages to sound genuinely interested in the answer to a rhetorical question. I call back anyway. "I'm fine. The Ancients are less fine." The bullets had torn them into tiny pieces. It wasn't pleasant to look at, but after the BTL Den I found I could hold my gaze without the nausea. Still. Work to do, now. "Can you bring my deck in?"
I head over to the workstation that Manny put the relay down on and pick it up, pushing a button to switch off the auto-turret and another to sever the connection between it and my deck back in the corridor. No sense leaving it open for someone else to exploit.
Max appears at my shoulder. "Here." She hands me my deck.
"Thanks." I plug into the system and access it manually, there really wasn't much point going through the Matrix here. The file manager access screen pops up and I start trawling for anything useful. Nana had said Manny was selling data, right? So, she'd have to have some record of what data she sold and the ancient whom she sold it to.
Ah. Here.
"Got it. Let's buzz."
Chloe groans. "Seriously, Ice, you gotta stop talkin' like that. Just sounds hella frakkin' wrong."
--
"Well, shah." Nana smiled as the goon behind me nodded affirmatively at the receipt of the information she'd asked for. "Looks like you gon' be wit' us after all. An' Manny will not be betrayin' anyone else anytime soon, I hope?"
I nod. "Never again, Nana."
"Good. Tho' the Ancients bein' involved is somethin' of a problem. We gon' have to deal wit' that sometime soon. Regardless. Your SIN be burned and your new life wit' us be good for our biz, so you be welcome to stay." She wafts a hand aristocratically in our direction. "Now, get out. I be sure Chloe an' Max wan' ta celebrate the win wit' you."
We get the hell out of there.
--
Chloe slings a companionable arm over my shoulders and grins toothily at me. "So, Ice. Whatcha gonna do now you've survived your first run as a proper Shadowrunner?"
I think for a moment, then... "I'm going to get a drink."
Chloe laughs. "My kinda girl. Let's buzz over to Dante's. Drinks're on Maxie!"
--
Jander - Swagger
The Know - information
Landing Hot - Crashing in a broken vehicle
Arctic - Great
Angel - Benefactor
Hosed - Fucked up
Drek Run - Simple Job