The running, part 11

A short while after we had united Tracy with her dad I got a call from Juggler. He offered a job. He said someone was missing, and he didn’t even want to know much more than that. It sounded interesting enough so I agreed to a meeting in a bar in Touristville. I didn’t get more that I’ll apparently know who I was going to meet there. Nerdy, Bobby and Shrew came with me.

We arrived at the bar. Normally weapons had been allowed there. I had visited the bar occasionally, and this was the first time the bouncers wanted to take our weapons. Well, I was a bit hesitant, but I knew Shrew had something up her sleeve if something would go wrong. So we dropped our weapons and entered the bar.

Juggler was wrong. I didn’t know. Others did though. There was this crazy-looking orc with white hair and a really weird guitar. Then there were two trolls and a dwarf. They were a band. Making music. I had never understood the concept of music. But apparently most of the world did understand, and the best were really rich.

The orc was the leader of this music-group. His name was Ludwig Von Beholder. He said that they had a band member missing, and they needed her back as soon as possible. It was Wednesday and they had a gig on Friday.

Apparently this band was famous for not having humans there. But now they had taken a human female to be a part of their band. Her name was Linda Gordon, and her stage name was Nix. But they had kept it a secret and made her undergo some surgeries to make her look like a medusa. With snakes as hair. I didn’t understand why, but it wasn't important. They needed help and were willing to pay to get their member back.

We got Linda's address and decided to start from there. Oh, and we got all the information about Linda we needed. Apparently they didn’t believe she would have taken off on her own. She had entered a singing contest or something, and this band had heard her and thought she was very good. And they had recruited her. Well, I think there wouldn't be many possibilities for a human who looks like a freak anywhere else.

We drove to the neighborhood Linda had been staying after her surgery. It was a dead place. Nothing ever happened there. We had left Nerdy to do some internet-searching about the neighborhood. Apparently there had been some disturbances with some local gangs, but it was hard to believe when we went there. There was no one anywhere.

I spotted an old man further away from the apartment. Bobby and Shrew went to search her apartment and I decided to talk with the old man. Nerdy had found out that in that neighborhood there was three newcomers, and elf, orc and a human. Well, one went right, almost. So it was so dead here that even strangers were news.

The old man didn’t know anything but thought Linda was really strange sight. I spoke with him a while, but he was annoying and I wanted to bash his head in. I was happy my neighborhood was not this dead. Well, neither of my neighborhoods.

Bobby and Shrew didn’t come up with anything in the apartment. Bobby decided to try and talk with some dog-walker and I knocked on Linda's neighbors’ door. Shrew started from the other side.

Door was opened. I asked if he knew anything about his neighbor and he asked me to step in quickly. I stepped in and saw this was some kind of teenager. He told me that there had been some gang outside last night. They were making a lot of noise and drinking. Linda had screamed at them, trying to make them go away. Police didn’t help. Then there was something that sounded like a struggle. That was all the teenager knew. It was enough. We should find some gang, I thought. I thanked the teen from his information, told him that police was no good and that they should trust only themselves.

We got a location of a teenager-gang from Nerdy. Apparently that small gang was hanging around in some area a little further. We went there to talk with them. Maybe they knew something about last night’s disturbances, or maybe they were the reason for them.

We met some teenagers who were gathered around a moped. We went there and asked around. They told us that there was this new gang. It was more violent and they were trying to take the territories to themselves. Teenagers told us that they had told them to go away and a bit taunted them. They said that the other gang was too afraid to go further, but it was obvious that these guys just drove away very fast from any confrontation. I promised to go and kick their ass as a thank you for all the info.

We met the other gang. They were dressed quite distinctively. We demanded to have some info, and they wanted to fight. So we decided to beat the info out from them. Oh how badly things turned out for them… And for us, too, for that matter.

We went to a small alley. There was seven or eight gangers, Nerdy went to the car because he didn’t want to fight. Shrew said she didn’t fight fair, but I hoped she had understood the rules here. Apparently no killing.

One of the gangers stayed to watch for possible police. And then they started yelling at us, mocking us. I mocked them back. Bobby tried too. Shrew was silent.

After a moment Bobby decided to change the “rules” and hit the gang leader to the face. All the others were shocked. They attacked and I noticed a knife. I hit hard, and took some hits as well. Bobby had most of the gangers. Shrew tried to evade all attacks, telling she didn’t fight fair. I hope they would've believed her.

Shrew got enough. She made a fireball. Some of the gangers tried to escape. One kept attacking Shrew. I tried to subdue the leader and went on the ground, wrestling with him. Bobby seemed to do fine with his opponents.

Shrew decided to make another fireball. Now she didn’t even try to avoid hitting us. She got her spirit to help. Fiery aura, the bird, the spirit. And the fireball exploded right in her feet, and all of us were consumed. I managed to avoid most of the flames but got burned. So did Bobby. Shrew got some burns as well. Almost all of the gangers were dead. I decided to kick Shrews ass later for that and Bobby grabbed one surviving ganger who was trying to crawl away.

The ganger told us that they had kidnapped Linda and sold her to the Death Zone. She had seemed freaky enough. That was all we needed to know and I slit his throat. Then we went to the car and I called Death-Zone-Jinx. He agreed to a meeting right away, and away we went.

Jinx told us that it was some stupid person in a summer job who had bought the medusa. They had realized she was just a freaky human. They had sold her forward to some mob-person who had a brothel with freaks. So she had been sold to a brothel to be a prostitute. I disciplined Jinx about having a non-magical person doing purchases. He offered me a job as an assistant. It sounded interesting, but I turned it down for now. Maybe later. Jinx was also happy to have sold Linda, because he didn’t want to be mixed in some kidnapping of a person with real SIN.

I called Juggler and asked him to organize a meeting with the mob-person or someone in charge of the freak-brothel. He promised to do just that. We had actually thought about breaking into the brothel, but it seemed easier and quicker to buy Linda.

Nerdy and Shrew met with the mob-people. They had a long dinner with them and agreed to a sum of money, a place to make the transfer and all the other small details.

We waited in one corner of a street for the mob-people. They drove by on a van. When the van got to us, the side door was opened. Two people pushed a woman out from the van. She had a bag over her head and her hands were tied. We caught her and took the bag from her head.

Shrew spoke to her calmly and got her to understand she was safe, and we would take her back to the band. She seemed a bit shocked, scared and puzzled. She still believed us and got in our car with us. I talked to her about screaming at some idiots at night. She told us she had wanted to sleep, and the gang was making it next to impossible, so she had tried to make them quiet by going out and yelling at them. I told her that in her case it would be best to call the police, put on earplugs and wish they would be silent. Or get a bodyguard or a big gun.

We arrived at the bar the band was staying in. We took Linda in. The band seemed very happy about the results. Ludwig gave us VIP-tickets to his oncoming show. Also some fan-set including posters and video and things. I thought it would be wise to stay in touch. Even though they looked weird and played music, they seemed to be famous and rich. Staying in touch with Ludwig could prove to be very beneficial.

I gave my share of the tickets to Juggler. He kept one set for him and was happy to have paid for the mob-meeting and information and Linda. Apparently he is a big fan. He also sold my tickets forward and I got some money from them. Others sold their tickets somewhere else.

The running, part 10

Actually Morgan had some other ideas when she came to help us. Apparently this small dragon-person had contacted her by flying through her window. The dragon-person, named Tracy Callahan, was looking for Bobby. Because Bobby was with us in the woods, Morgan needed to get us out to get rid of Tracy who had decided to stay at Morgan’s place until Bobby came.

After we arrived to Seattle I immediately contacted my trustee who said Billy had been giving speeches about a leader who didn’t go away on a regular basis. Again! I decided to get rid of Billy as soon as possible. And also, I wanted to have trustees I knew I could trust. Maybe Juggler could help with that.

Me and Juggler spoke for a long time about my options. He said maybe assassin was too professional, because Billy wasn't that big of a fighter. He was just a regular person with no body guards. So Juggler suggested a gang. He would hire a gang to beat up my followers and “accidentally” kill Billy in the process. That sounded awesome. We decided to do that. And Juggler also promised to get me snitches to my base. Other one was someone to stay at the base, some bum who looked after empty bottles and whatnot. And other one who knew a bit of fighting and could go with others to find someone to beat up.

I didn’t want my snitches to know about each other. It would prove useful for them to be completely ignorant about each other. They would just try and listen and find out about common thoughts. And some idiots trying to get my place. They would also try and smooth things down when I’m gone.

When I had gotten all the things in order for Billy to be killed and my snitches arriving in the near future I could visit the current place Tracy was in. We usually had a place we used as a base when we planned our jobs. No one wanted others to go to their homes normally.

They told me Tracy was a small dragon. I found it hard to believe. Her aura looked like a normal aura. She wasn’t active in the Astral Plane. She seemed to have cyberware in her head. And she didn’t know I was a shifter. Or at least she didn’t seem to react. I didn’t believe them until I saw it with my own eyes.

Oh, and maybe I should tell why she even was there. Apparently the team had met her earlier and she had went to train with a big dragon. She was the daughter of one of Renraku bosses. And she wanted to meet her dad and talk and get her SIN, phone and credit cards and clothes back. Apparently she had lost all contact with her dad when she went with the dragon. She wanted us to help her with the meeting.

We knew where her dad lived. And we knew where her old apartment was. And we knew who her roommate was. We tried calling the roommate. She didn’t want to talk. Apparently there had been Renraku people, lone stars and runners, asking questions.

Oh, and Tracy introduced us to a spirit named Naru. It was apparently her little helper, and didn’t seem to like the task very much. It had a nasty attitude. I was happy Shrews ally spirit was quite easy-going.

When others suggested that Tracy would be put in a lab to be a test subject I got a bit scared. I planted explosives on the walls of our place. I wasn't going to go down quietly, and I didn’t allow Tracy to be caught either. I didn’t even want to talk about test subjects and lab. I refused to take risks and made my point clear to the others as well.

Well, she finally agreed to transform, but she didn’t want us to see. So we went to another room and she promised to call us there when she was ready. A few moments passed and then we heard flames. We went back. There was this big lizard-like thing which looked a bit embarrassed. She had torched the walls but managed to miss my explosives.

She really was honest. She was this strange dragon-person. And now she was active in the Astral Plane. She seemed to be very surprised by my appearance. Then she made these strange sounds and called Naru there again. It worked as an interpreter between us. They seemed to share same kind of telepathy Shrew and her ally spirit shared.

She transformed back, and we had to be in the other room again. Then she demanded to know why she wasn't informed about me. We told her we thought she knew. I had read her aura when she was in her other form and it was her aura, but bigger. And she did have cyberware in her head. I wanted to know if it was active and that she could use it in both forms, but she told that the skin of the dragon was too thick. I didn’t quite understand how the cyberware could be there, during transformation.

I asked a lot of questions. About her being some kind of shifter or half dragon. Apparently she had noticed that later in life. She had lived a happy life as a human and one day noticed that she could transform into a small dragon. She didn’t heal either. I asked her about it, and she didn’t know what I was talking about. So I showed her. I took my knife and cut my hand open, showing her the healing-process. She seemed interested. She wanted to know how I did it. I told her it was something I was born with. She didn’t possess same kind of power. Then she wanted to know if it was disturbing to see in the both worlds all the time, because she couldn't. I didn’t know how it was strange, because I grew up with that ability.

Finally I persuaded Tracy to transform at the same time as me. Others went to the other room again. We took our clothes off. We transformed on three. We counted and then poof. It was amazing, actually. Her aura changed, but yet it remained the same. There was just more of it.

I alerted the others to come back from the other room and walked around her. I sniffed her. She sniffed me and sneezed. Maybe because of all the hair. I examined her wings that were folded neatly. I poked them and Shrew asked her to spread her wings. She did what was asked. The wings were huge.

After all this examining and things we returned to planning. She wanted to see her dad. I told her Renraku had racist ideas, that they only accepted humans, so maybe his dad was a racist too and didn’t like her new self, but she didn’t believe it. I didn’t trust humans, and apparently Naru didn’t trust them either, because she said that Naru said the same thing about people not being trustworthy.

We visited the roommate. They checked their clothes and Tracy got some of her clothes back. Then they went shopping with Shrew. She found herself a belt after hours of looking. I was happy I was in my base plotting some other deeds. The gang Juggler had gotten to kill Billy had been walking around in our neighborhood. There were talk about going and telling them they weren't invited. They were some kind of orc and dwarf -gang. There was some information about them hanging around in a certain area on Friday. My followers wanted to go there and kick some ass. I told them it would be a perfect opportunity for Billy to show his leadership-skills. We agreed he would take some people to go there and kick some ass. I was eager to get to Friday, so that I would get rid of Billy. It wasn't that easy though… It was only the beginning of the week. Oh, and somewhere around that time we got our bum. He had wandered in and others thought he would be good to stay I the base and look after things, just like I had talked about before.

We had some plans on how to get Tracy to meet her dad safely. We decided it was best if we took her to her dads place. Then there was the problem of how to get her there. Nerdy suggested we’d use her as a taxi and fly there. Seemed like a good idea.

We decided to rent a boat and lie our way in the house. It wasn't an island, but the way there on land went through Salish-Shidhe, and we had already made one incident, and we didn’t want to make another one so soon.

We got on the boat. We had also hired a person to drive the boat. So we weren't going to end up swimming back on shore. While the boat swam forward we got a message. They wanted to know what business we had there. We thought for a second and told the driver to go faster. We decided to deal with that later.

We walked to the big house where Tracy’s dad lived. She rang the doorbell and was asked to ditch us and get in. We didn’t want to let Tracy there alone, so after a brief talk they allowed Shrew in with her. The rest of us waited.

It felt like forever. When I realized it had already been half an hour I rang the doorbell. I wanted to know what was happening and should we go in and save them. Apparently everything was fine and Tracy wanted to stay there with her dad. We left her there, after agreeing on a meeting on the next day. I didn’t trust her dad, but I hoped for the best anyway. Besides, what’s it to me if she couldn't trust her own dad. She had been warned, so if they wanted to take her to a lab and poke her with knives it wasn't my problem anymore.

The next day we went to the place where we had planned to have the meeting with Tracy. We didn’t want to go in. All of us just kept an eye of the place. She was ten minutes late, and we were already thinking something was wrong. Then she arrived. We waited for a while to see if there was any foul play.

Tracy was happy to have been united with her dad. She also said she had a street name because all the cool guys had one. She had picked Pepsi to be her street name.

Tracy gave all of us a bit of money to thank us for everything. She seemed so perky and out of it on occasion I didn’t know if I wanted to keep in touch with her. Then I thought she was quite strong in her other form, and her dad was some rich boss from Renraku, so maybe she had some important contacts and was in fact important enough to prove useful.

That wasn't quite the job I had expected. It was so easy it felt like it was wrong and we were in huge trouble. I don’t like easy jobs. It just feels wrong if we don’t have to fight our way in or out from somewhere.

The running, part 9

I tried my best to lead my group. I spent lots of time with them, I tried to get to know Billy, and I trained with him to learn his skills. I had heard that he spoke to my group when I was away. He was preaching about a good leader who doesn't leave. Well, I was kinda bad like that, but I tried my best. Now that I could be fairly sure no one was listening me in my office I could talk more securely with my followers. I got to know this guy who seemed trustworthy. I thought I’d make him my trustee. Well, at least I contacted him every once in a while when I was away. He told me what was going on and what Billy has said that time. I knew I had to kill Billy, or at least get someone to kill him, but I took my time.

One day Jinx called to offer a job. I accepted. It gets boring, really, to pretend you are someone you are not. I had to cut back on my hunting. I had to start eating human food to make my new self believable. Yuck. And I still have that apartment with Shrew, but I’m rarely there anymore. Nearly all my stuff is in my headquarters. Well, of course I have my most valuables in Barrens, like most of my explosives and such, but I need my stuff I the headquarters too.

I’m not quite sure if my followers know I’m a runner. I hope they don’t. I don’t know what I want them to think I am, but I think being a runner is not a good thing, because I often come in contact with metahumans. And my team consists of humans and metahumans. Hopefully my followers don’t follow me on my jobs…

I went to a meeting with the others. We met this person who said we had to steal an apartment of an artist, keep it a few weeks so that it was out of reach. Maybe hide it or something. Well, it really was an apartment, but it was a boat at the same time. We agreed on the terms, money, equipment and such and went to our base to plan.

We didn’t know much about this artist. He lived on the docks of Seattle, went to work and came back home. He was supposed to be a normal human, no magic or anything, if I recall correctly.

We decided to get to know that guy first, then get him out from his home and drive his apartment to some island somewhere on the edges of UCAS. We decided to get the apartment north.

We rented a boat and a place in the same dock. Shrew did some talking and got to speak with our artist. She didn’t find out much, but enough. We decided to get tickets to Dante’s Inferno. That would surely get him away from his home and enough time for us to ditch him there and steal his boat.

I and Shrew went with the artist. We had three tickets. He wanted to bring his friend, but we didn’t have tickets for his friend, and neither of us wanted to go there alone.

So on Friday evening we got to the artists place to pick him up. He got us a taxi, or a limo, I don’t remember. Anyway, it was way too small for me to feel myself comfortable. Luckily it didn’t take us too long to arrive to Dante’s Inferno.

We went in, and there was this big hairy thing. I don’t know what it did, but it did some weird sounds. We dropped our jackets there; I was checked magically, so they knew I was a shifter. In my amazement no one cared. I had a ticket. Strange.

We spent time with the artist, he got us drinks and we talked a bit. Then he popped into the Astral Plane. His eyes were funny when he noticed my true self. I smiled at him. Apparently too well, because I had some trouble getting rid of him after that. He wanted to dance and talk and drink and who knows what else. If we didn’t have a job to do I think I would've stayed just to see what his plans were after this huge information.

Shrew got me to dance floor, but the artist followed. Then she got an idea. She told him that we needed to use the toilet. He went to a table to wait for us to return. We got out as fast as we could.

We got quickly back to the docks, jumped in his boat and sped away. Well, it wasn't that fast, but anyway.

There were two boats. The one we had rented and the apartment-boat. Bobby was driving the other boat. We had figured that we needed to get out somehow, and we didn’t want to swim or walk.

We explored the apartment. We found a plant. It was strange. It had some threads in the Astral Plane as well. I thought it would be a good thing to sell and we decided to take it with us. We carried it to the living room or whatever, because I stayed there. There was the other item of interest. A strange water-creature. It had a big aquarium, because it was human-sized. I tried to communicate with it, but had no luck. It seemed to react to us, but it didn’t try to communicate.

We were talking through radio. I was sitting there, watching the water-creature. I told Nerdy to find out things about it. I wanted to know if it was intelligent. I didn’t get the information I wanted. Nerdy gave me some info about them. They apparently killed people on sea. But it seemed they were like animals, a bit different than normal pack animals, but still animals.

We managed to interest a coast guard. They wanted to come to our boat and see what was happening. I stayed with the creature. I had found a button that fed it. When I pushed the button the creature noticed something and sprang somewhere behind the plants. Apparently fish.

I heard that Shrew didn’t have a proper SIN. The coast guard spoke with Jinx. They wanted to look around in the boat. I felt like I was naked without my weapons. Yea, my weapons were in the other boat. So I decided to transform, just to be stronger. I took all my clothes off and put them in a closet. I also hid the plant. Then I transformed. The creature seemed more interested in me. It came next to the glass and put its hand on the glass, scratching it slowly. I sat down, staring at the creature.

I failed to notice the door opening. I had focused on the creature. It pointed something behind me. I turned around to see one coast guard and Jinx. Coast guard asked something about there being four people on the boat. Jinx walked to me immediately and petted me. He told the coast guard I was like a family member, I was one of them and he didn’t think of me as an animal. The coast guard didn’t seem to be buying it. I was ready to kill him, but decided to wait. They left me in the room.

The situation resolved after Nerdy promised a favor to the otaku. The otaku broke in the coast guard security thing and told them that everything was fine. I don’t remember which one had a spirit or an elemental there to help make things even more confusing for the coast guard, but one spirit was there to do exactly that.

Oh, I forgot to mention. Shrew tried to find out things about the plant. She called her ally spirit to help. It picked the plant from the closet. I growled at it, but it stayed out of reach again.

I spent a lot of time there staring at the creature. Then I heard Bobby’s machine gun. The team seemed to have some trouble. They had killed a spirit before, apparently the artist knew something about conjuring spirits. The second one seemed strong. The team fought hard, and I decided to go and help.

Everyone was on the deck. The spirit was there too. It seemed watery. And huge. I ran to it. I jumped and killed it. Then I almost fell off the boat. I managed to grab the fence-thing and climbed back aboard. Then the other people came, alerted by the machine gun. Navy people. I thought it was the best moment to transform back and be ready for more action.

We drove the boat on shore. It was on the border of UCAS and I believe Salish-Shidhe Council. Before the boat crashed we jumped off. I had packed the plant in a plastic bag. I hoped it was OK, so that it wouldn't be damaged by the salty seawater.

Swimming was difficult. I hadn't done it much, and with all my clothes on and the plant there I had trouble. Finally Bobby pulled us out one at a time. Then we drove to the shore and took off into the forest. Shrews spirit stayed to drive the boat around to confuse the navy. They had tried to make us stop and surrender. We didn’t plan on doing anything like that.

We ran, trying to get away from the navy. Well, we had managed to make an international incident out of stealing a boat. The artist wasn't going to get his boat back anytime soon… Then we just really hoped our fixer would be happy enough with our solution to the problem.

After a few hours in the forest we decided to stop and rest. The spirit had said that the plant had started to die or something. Its aura seemed to wither. I opened the plastic bag, found two fish and tried to get all the salty water off the plant. I put the fish in my pocket for later use.

People were trying to make fire and get themselves warm. I took all my clothes off for others to dry and transformed. I started to dry myself and felt quite comfortable. I decided to try and hunt something. Others had asked me to do something like that anyway.

I found a rabbit. I carried it around for a moment, trying to find another one. I didn’t so I ate the first one, sniffed around and returned to others. Shrews spirit had materialized. It’s a terrible being. Human-shaped but fiery. It looked like it was on fire. One more reason why I don’t like it.

I transformed for a second to tell everyone I didn’t find any rabbits for them, but I gave them the fish from my pocket. Then I accompanied Shrew in search of fresh water. I tried to sniff around to find more rabbits. Then I realized the spirit followed us in physical form. I transformed for a second to shout a bit about visibility and stupid spirits. I didn’t find any more rabbits, and we didn’t find enough water either.

We had a long way to go. We needed to walk back to Seattle. And then cross the heavily-guarded border. It seemed awesome. We had to walk there, take on UCAS army and navy and Salish-Shidhe-Councils army as well.

We contacted Morgan. Mostly we kept our phones off so that no one could trace us, but she promised to help us when we got there. So now it was only the matter of running from the army behind us and arriving in UCAS border.

I stayed in my leopard-form. I found it easier to avoid being seen and running quickly. Luckily Bobby carried my stuff. I kept my distance to the others, and they didn’t walk in a group either, but further away from each other.

We kept running forever. At least it felt like forever. Then we heard a chopper above us. Bobby started building his machine gun, or at least assembling it to shoot the chopper, but it flew out of range. Then Shrew destroyed it. It was quite the sight. First Shrew seemed to be gathering magic from the Astral Plane. Her spirit materialized above her. Flamy aura surrounded Shrew and the spirit. Then she pointed the chopper. Then a bird appeared above Shrew and her spirit. It was huge and flaming as well. It opened its mouth. Fire flew across the area and a huge fireball surrounded the chopper. It exploded and fell. The aura was gone. Spirit had disappeared. Shrew fell down unconscious. Bobby picked her up and we kept going. That’s firepower for you…

Some army people were tailing us with dogs. I think Jinx called his elementals to help or something, because after a few moments we managed to shake them off and met this group of smugglers. They had been contacted by Morgan and they were there to help us.

We went underground to a bunker. Bobby dropped Shrew, maybe accidentally. I grabbed her by the trousers and pulled her to the room. Then I decided to transform and dress up. We had the most difficult part still coming. To go through fully armed border.

Morgan was ready on the other side with some more firepower. She was ready. We were ready too. It began.

There was a lot of shooting, and we snuck to the trenches and past. Turrets were blasted off, so that we wouldn't get hit. People in the trenches were shot from two directions. Morgan and her friends shot grenades. At first I was a bit doubtful, but soon we noticed they shot smoke-grenades.

I was shot. I had been running in the middle of trenches. I had also been shooting the soldiers with my shotgun. Then they noticed me and shot me down. Too bad I was very near of the trench. I got up and jumped in. There was smoke everywhere and the soldier inside shot me again. The bullets went straight through me. I fell down laughing. He had emptied his clip and was defenseless when I got up again.

The soldier seemed like a kid. He didn’t seem to have any experience in situations like this. He had been shot a few times by me. He was terrified, screaming and cowering. I stared at him. I knew I had to be on my way, others were on the chain-link fence by that time already. “If I were you, I’d shut up” I told the kid. He gasped and kept his mouth shut. I kicked his nose in and climbed off the trench.

Others were closing in on the fence. But there was a mine-field. Bobby was first. I followed their tracks and managed to avoid the mines. The wounds had healed already, but I didn’t feel like getting blown in the air just then.

Bobby managed to trigger one mine. But we kept going. The first ones squeezed through a hole in the fence. Bobby made the hole bigger, if I remember correctly. I was the last one to go through the fence. Then we met Morgan and her friends and left the border in chaos. Hah!

The fixer was really happy with our mission. We had managed to make some sort of big international incident. The boat was there, and not going to be recovered any time soon. We got our reward double. Ohh, the joy. And I got back to my followers.

I asked Morgan if she knew anything about assassins. She promised to help me, but later on her contact suggested me to use Jugglers contacts, because he thought there shouldn't be too many fixers in one case. Well, I contacted Juggler. He was eager to help me.

We had some florist take care of the plant. Shrews talis monger Rose looked at the plant afterwards and told us that she could give us 10 000 nuyen right away or something later. It could be much more, and we decided to wait.

The running, part 8. New names to the kill-list. Glittering coward and his cook.

I was contacted one day. We had a job. I was happy to accept, I had started to get bored on hating metahumans and talking about kicking their ass and dreaming about the world without magic and metahumans. I agreed to a meeting and went there, happy for some other activities than training my followers and being a leader.

We met one new person in our team. I don’t know if anyone knew her, but she seemed professional enough to fit in our team. She used rifles and seemed to know something about first aid.

Our job was to kidnap this cook and transport him to the elf-nation, Tir Tairngire. I don’t know much about that, only that only elves are allowed there. Well, humans and other races too, if they apply for some permits, but only for a few days. Elves there seem to think they are better people, and don’t want to interact with other races. Well, I have heard about a dragon that decided to move there. No one disagreed, even though I don’t think they liked that, they just had to accept. Dragons are interesting like that. If they want something, no one dares to oppose. I would like to hear the Humanis Policlubs’ plan to destroy the dragons, because they are magical beings.

We made a plan to take the cook when he was in some round-trip on a blimp. He wanted to be kidnapped, so he was going to make our job easy. Or so we thought. Apparently the cook had a long contract in Seattle, and he wasn’t able to get out easily. So the only choice was to kidnap him and take him to his new employers. I didn’t know cooks were so valuable.

Our contact told us the cooks schedule, and that when the blimp would be close to Tir Tairngire, the cook would be in position. Still easy, right?

We were “hired” to be waiters in the blimp. We had choices too. We could either dress up like chickens or like pigs. We chose chickens. Our job was to do waitering there, to other customers, and when the position was good, do our real job and grab the cook, take an escape pod and go to Tir. Still easy.

We packed up, I tried to find out if Humanis Policlub needed some information or something from Tir, but apparently they weren't that organized. Or how would I know, I’m just a small leader. I have no idea what the big leaders are planning. Maybe I should try and climb there…

In the blimp we looked around carefully. We needed to get to know the premises, and make final plans for the kidnapping. There wasn't much to plan though. Just routes to check and waitering to be done.

There were other waiters as well. They were dressed as pigs. They handled the other side of the restaurant.

I found it quite difficult to move around and do a job I had never done before in my chicken-suit. I stumbled around a bit, but managed to do my job decently. Some of us pointed out that the pigs didn’t do much better job than us. But Bobby seemed to do the worst job. He didn’t seem to know where his limbs were. Good thing he didn’t attract too much attention, because he was in his chicken-suit.

At some point someone noticed some weird sounds in the engine room. Nerdy went there with one of the employees of the blimp to check the engines. One of the employees was found dead. He had a knife through his head, if I remember correctly. We never caught the person responsible though. Shrew told her spirit to go inside one air-vent. It went there and died. We didn’t know the reason, but Shrew would find out after one month. That thing in the vent would make some problems to them later on. I thought about climbing there myself, but it seemed too small for me. I wouldn't have been able to do anything but tremble and be terrified. And if there was some creature that I had to fight against I would've gotten my ass kicked.

The trip took ages. We had a chance to eat something from the kitchen. I asked for a raw steak. They didn’t give me a raw steak. They gave me a meal with raw steak covered in some spices and oil. It smelled terrible. I washed all the spices off as well as I could and ate the steak. It tasted a bit watery. And it also tasted like spices. I didn’t like people ruining good meat.

When the blimp was in its position we took the cook and left. We also left our chicken-suits in the dressing room. The cook came voluntarily with us. Still seemed easy.

My memories about the fight and the capture and things are a bit hazy. I think it went something like this though.

The pigs were some other team trying to kidnap the cook to another place. Apparently to some tribe-country. The team consisted of orcs, so I think it’s safe to assume the tribe was some orc-tribe.

We had to wrestle our way to the cook. And then there was one other team. They seemed really strong, running around shooting people on the head with their pistols.

The cook was in the pod, we had killed all the orcs and Shrew had tried to summon a big spirit which had gotten out of control. It raised a bit of hell there, others were fighting and suddenly Shrew told the spirit to carry me to the pod departing the blimp. Well, it was the only way to get our money. I didn’t like the idea of falling but I decided to jump anyway. I managed to climb through a broken window, ready to kick ass. We didn’t know whether the cook was alone or not. But he was.

I climbed to the front seat and noticed the thing was flying somewhere it wasn't supposed to fly. Others contacted me through the radio and told me what I should do to change direction. I unfortunately had never driven that kind of thing, and it was a bit too small and I was sweating and feeling terrified. I tried to make the cook to program the thing to drive to Tir, but he seemed to be worse than me. So I tried to push all the terror out from my mind and do what I was instructed to do.

I managed to make the thing turn and go to Tir. I was quite satisfied, for a second. I felt terribly trapped, horrified and all. I wanted to get out. I tried to distract myself with talking with the cook. It made me want to bash his nose in and throw him off the thing.

The cook was full of himself, stupid, arrogant, annoying. If I wasn't supposed to bring him to Tir alive I would’ve at least bashed his head on the window a few times. He was an asshole.

When we finally got to Tir, we had some elves there to welcome us. They took the cook I swore in my mind to kill someday for being so annoying, and then they noticed what I was. There was this elf-man with all this glitter and fancy clothes and a sword. He glowed in the Astral Plane. And then there were some other elves pointing their guns at me.

The elves told me to go down and put my hands behind my back. I figured I couldn't take on all the elves so I did what I was told. I memorized the glitter-dude, and he got to be in my to-kill- list. He was some paladin or knight or whatever. In my opinion he was a coward.

The elves examined me, took some blood and did some tests. Then they escorted me to the border. There the glitter-dude asked if he could do some other tests on me. He wanted to see me heal. I asked if the blood-tests weren't enough. He wanted to try a bigger wound. I put all the hatred and anger in the word “No”. I think he understood. They told me never to come back, or maybe try and get a permit next time and left. Cowards. I hate them.

I took a bus to Seattle.

When I got back home I found out that the blimp had spiraled down on some army-base in Seattle. And a month later Shrew s spirit told that it was some fairy with a katana who killed him. Yeah, apparently ally spirits don’t die permanently. They just go to their plane or wherever and heal there.

We got the reward, I got to put two names to my to-kill- list and then life went on like always.

The leader of the branch

On one job I encountered this Humanis Policlub. I went there undercover, because I was the only one on our team at that point who looked mostly human. Shrew has the ears, Nerdy is too nerdy, Morgan didn’t want to, or then she wasn't there with us, same with Jinx, and Bobby is nothing like a human. He’s a troll. So I went there.

Their thoughts seemed OK, and I stayed. I left the job to stay with the branch for a while and somehow I became their leader. It felt cool. I have to lie a bit, but mostly I don’t. I just have to pretend I hate all the metahumans, and magic. And magical animals. And everything non-human. I would take magic and magical animals out from that list and put humans there. But I’ll try to get on with what I have. I do have a plan to steer them into right direction. And if that fails, I think I try to go and get me a new pack of followers. Maybe from some animal rights -group. They seem crazy enough.

But anyway, my followers are fine. They mostly come from the streets. They need a place to stay and food to eat, so they say they hate metahumans. I believe they would say anything to get food and shelter.

Occasionally we go out on raids. We kick some metahuman ass and go back home. I try to go on those ass-kicking trips as well, but I just need to be really careful, because they are not supposed to see me heal. I just need to be very good. Well, we mostly fight with some idiots who are normal people, they are not gangers or runners. They just happen to be in a wrong place in a wrong time. I don’t mind, but they are normally too easy to beat. But it raises the spirits. My followers are not that strong. All aggressive and crazy people don’t stay in my branch. I report them and they go to other branches that do more fighting and hate-things. My department, or branch, is more like in throwers. We get people from the streets, give them food and shelter and make them fight for our cause. Well, their cause. It’s not completely my cause…

I do speeches and blame metahumans for every shitty thing my followers have experienced. I have tried to separate the ones who really have something against metahumans and the ones who just say that to get food and shelter. I want to make them run my cause, not Humanis Policlub. I just need to be very careful because some people don’t like my thinking.

I raised some questions and I had to defend my cause to the bigger leaders one day. I had some problems with one of my followers. Billy was trying to push me aside because I was away a lot when I was on my jobs. He tried to make everyone angry at me because I didn’t spend time with them. I think he was the one who spied on me.

One day Juggler came to talk with me. He visited my branch and found out that I was spied on. He found a bunch of devices that allowed the person who had planted them there to listen to me from my small office. That’s probably the reason why I had to explain my speeches about magic to the bigger leaders. I decided to buy devices that disrupted the spying-things. I also bought baseball-bats and duct tape for everybody. Good thing Juggler is so good at getting things.

Every time I went on my jobs I was a bit worried. I knew I had to get rid of Billy, but I didn’t know how. That’s when I demanded to meet one of the bigger leaders. It was interesting. I got the meeting. And then he said that he didn’t know who should go, me or Billy. He said that only time would tell. Maybe I was to be transferred. At that point he told me that they didn’t like my opinions about magical animals. I had tried to speak about their goodness, and that they weren't bad. Well, I was one so I knew what I was talking about. I wasn't about to tell anyone that though. I just explained that we should let the magical animals go because they weren't a direct threat to us. The leader didn’t agree. He said we should kill them on sight. Well, good luck with that, I thought. But I said that we shouldn't focus on magical animals now. That we should focus on getting rid of the metahumans first and after that massive mission would be over, then we should focus on the animals, because they didn’t directly do anything to sabotage our mission. The leader agreed with me.

The meeting didn’t go as I wanted it to go. I didn’t manage to get rid of Billy and I had to speak big lies. Well, I don’t mind lying. Mostly I speak the truth. I just find it hard to accept the fact that all magical animals should be killed on sight. Good thing they think I’m a human and Humanis Policlub doesn't accept magic. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to keep my position. They would try and kill me. Like they would succeed.

The running, parts x-y

From that job on I have quite vague memories. I have done many jobs, I have gotten shot, my ass has been kicked a bit, but I have managed to win in the end anyway. There have been dragons and vampires. One time we went to the desert to catch giant scorpions for Jinx from the Death Zone. That was a cool job. I walked around in my leopard form, fought with a fire-breathing lizard (wasn't a dragon) and stole some strange eggs. And ate one.

At one point the otaku told me and Shrew we all had to move. Their headquarters had to be abandoned. I didn’t have enough time to take all my explosives so I left there somewhere around sixty kilos worth of commercial explosives and hit my sledgehammer on the wall so hard it stayed there. There was something to think about for the people arriving there.

The otaku didn’t like me and Shrew living there, and I had started to feel it wasn't a good place for me. Flats were quite expensive, and I think Shrew just grew on me. We started to get along; we still fight occasionally, but mostly we just get ourselves in trouble, alone or together.

We got a decent roof over our heads from Redmond Barrens. We claimed the territory, and no one questions that. We have quite a bit of magic in there, so all the bums go around us, as well as all the other trouble makers. Nowadays I have to go out and really look for trouble if I want to find some.

I have bought a transportation-thing with Shrew also. And we installed a machine gun on top of it. The transportation-thing is because Shrew needs to go on Lava Fields to do her magic. She has a cabin there, and occasionally I join her there, to guard or just walk around. She has her shamanic thing there. Apparently she needs lots of heat, or something.

Oh, and Opium left us a while after Arcology. I think she went to some jungle to be a soldier, or then something else. But she left Seattle. Maybe Arcology was too much for her. She didn’t want to be a runner in Seattle any more. I haven’t seen Rugh around either.

Nerdy’s mother was saved from the Arcology, and now, if it’s even possible, he talks more about his mother. She is apparently in a nursing home and goes to therapy. And he brings her flowers and takes her to walks. I would really like to meet this woman. It would be interesting.

The running, part 7. Ghoul-hunting. And occasional troll...

The otaku had made extra efforts on my case. I thought it was because they wanted me out, and they wanted me out fast. I had said to stay there until I had what I needed. They don’t say it out loud, but some of them are afraid of me. There’s nothing I can do or say to make them not be afraid of me. Well, they should have respect for me, but I would never hurt them. It’s not worth it. And they did try to help me with my mission. I was grateful, and I still am. They might be a bunch of kids from the streets, but they know their stuff, and they keep their promises.

On one day Shrew came to my room. She wanted me to teach her fighting with knives. She promised to get me a roast beef for my help. I didn’t want that. I prefer killing my own food. Then she promised to add me to her debt-list. I didn’t really need anything from teaching her, but she had been such a pain to me I wanted to have some kind of payback.

We moved all the furniture next to the walls from the big room in the headquarters. Then we trained for a few days. I was happy to see her improve. She wasn't as good as me or anything, but she did improve. After she seemed to be okay on her own I returned to my old routines. I stayed in my room during the day, resting, thinking, sleeping. Then, during the night, I went out hunting. I got something to eat almost every night.

One day the otaku called me to look at a map. They had found the lab. It was in another nation, in the tribe-lands somewhere. It looked like a long way off. It seemed impossible that they didn’t find out the exact location, but they said it was a very secret lab. Well, it should be. I just wonder how good contacts Luis and Stephan had to find out about it.

The otaku were thinking about a way to pay for the trip there and back. I told them to look for a place to rob and then sell the loot. They told me about a cargo that was about two million nuyens worth. It would arrive to Seattle very soon. Shrew seemed to have caught the sum and came there, interested. The otaku told us the cargo was blood honey. I had no idea what it was. But Opium, who we asked for an opinion, told us that she wouldn't go. Rugh didn’t want to do it either. They said the problem was to sell the blood honey. The otaku told that they knew how to sell it, but no one believed them.

We went through our options. The first one was to steal the blood honey. Second and third had something to with a man named Jinx. Not the one who belonged to our team. This Jinx organized fights and ran the Death Zone. I could’ve gone there and fight and win. I would get money from wins. It seemed a bit risky. I didn’t want to fight in front of an audience. The third option was to go and hunt some ghouls to fight for Jinx. The ghouls were good fighters, apparently.

I didn’t know anything about ghouls. We had seen two in the Arcology, but they ran away. Others told me that they ate human flesh. They had some sort of virus. Rugh told me their brains had dripped out through their noses. It didn’t seem likely. But I figured they weren't very intelligent.

Well, actually we had a fourth option. Someone needed soldiers in a jungle somewhere. It sounded like a great idea for me. Hired soldiers in a jungle. I was an animal from the jungle, even though I had never been in one. I have read that leopards, especially black ones, thrive in jungles.

So there were our options. No one wanted to steal the honey. No one wanted to fight in the Death Zone. No one but me wanted to go to the jungle. So the only option was to go ghoul-hunting. We went to see Jinx, but it didn’t get us much. I asked about shapeshifters. He said one shifter had fought in the arena once, and been very good. He didn’t seem to know much though. I had really wanted to know some false beliefs. I didn’t.

So we left to hunt ghouls. They were known to hang around in the Barrens. So we went there. We asked around, if anyone knew anything. At first we met this group of seven people. Rugh asked about ghouls. They were gangers, and Rugh didn’t seem to know his business. I thought I would've been better one to talk with the gangers, because he was a mage, but I didn’t say it out loud.

We went and bought two cases of beer. Rugh promised to give the other one to the gangers if they told us everything they knew. Other one was apparently for himself, because he drank couple bottles when we got out from the store. He then put the other case down in front of the gangers. When their boss didn’t know anything, Rugh shot the case with a lightning bolt. Then we kept going. I craved for a battle. We would've kicked the gangers asses easily. Opium was a good fighter. So was I. Shrew wasn't that good yet, but Rugh was. There would've been two for me, two for Opium, two for Rugh and one for Shrew. But nooo, no fight this time.

We found a bum who, after we gave him two bottles of beer, told that there was this old orc who had had to move because of some monsters. We found the orc and Rugh offered some beer to him. He wanted food. Opium gave him energy bars. He didn’t like them, so I offered to hunt some rats. He liked the idea, and off I went.

There seemed to be more rats that where the otaku lived, but these ones seemed more paranoid. I got bored of the rats running away from me all the time so I transformed. I caught one rat. When I was bringing it to the orc I noticed others taking some other food to him. Well, it didn’t bother me. I ate the rat myself. I returned to the others with my stomach full. Well, one rat didn’t fill me up, but I wasn't hungry to begin with.

The orc told us where he had been forced to leave from. He didn’t know what there was. Maybe gangers, maybe monsters. He didn’t stay around to find out. We decided to go there anyway. Maybe there were ghouls for us to find and catch.

We arrived to the place the orc had told us about. An old building. We went in. We walked slowly, downwards, floor after floor. Shrew and Rugh stayed behind to have our backs. Me and Opium went ahead of them.

After a while something attacked Rugh. I noticed something in the Astral Plane and launched towards the place with my knife ready. I didn’t pay any attention to others, I just hoped Rugh didn’t kill the enemy before I got my hands on it.

I ran with full speed, past Rugh, and slit the throat of the attacker. Rugh hit it with his staff. It was dead. It had bitten Rugh on his leg. Others were talking about healing. Shrew did know a spell. Heal spell. I told her that I knew she knew how to do magic and that she had been lying. I said that if she ever would make a spirit to poke me again I would not be so nice.

The attacker had indeed been a ghoul. But it was way beyond healing at that point. We went back home to come back the next day. We were supposed to come and catch them. I figured all ghouls were as disgusting as this one there. It smelled bad and it was ugly. I didn’t expect much from other ghouls.

We arrived the next day. Nerdy had bought a car, and we packed two large cages to it. There wasn’t room for more cages.

I had brought my sledgehammer and my knife with me. The knife was for desperate measures in desperate times. My main weapon was my sledgehammer. We would get money from intact, strong ghouls. Not injured or dead ones.

We returned to the building we had encountered the one ghoul. Nerdy drove the car to the bottom floor, to the car park. We left the car there and continued on foot.

After a short look we found out that there were no ghouls there. Shrew asked her spirit to go and see if the building really was empty. It was. Great, just great. The ghouls had just packed up and left with their dead buddy. I suggested tracking the ghouls in my other form. Others thought it was a good idea, so I got undressed and transformed.

I sniffed around. The stench of the ghouls was strong, but mostly it had faded away already. Our smells had covered most of the ghoul stench. Then I found the place where the body had been. I followed the stench outside. Others stayed and waited. My mission was to go and find the place and get back.

I didn’t get far until I saw a hungry troll. He had spotted me and was coming closer with his knife ready. I had better things to do than this and I growled at the troll, hoping he would go away. He was too hungry to care. He called me a roast. He walked slowly, like he was stalking his prey. I knew the behavior. I practiced it every night. I didn’t want to turn my back to him, he would've stabbed me in the back.

I turned to meet the troll eye to eye. I bent my back, I made my fur stand up, and I pulled out my claws. I hissed and growled. I tried to scare him away; I didn’t feel like fighting him. I hoped that he’d leave, go where he had come from. He didn’t.

Finally I got bored. He was coming closer all the time, so I attacked. He threw his knife at me. It hurt a bit. I scratched him. Then he beat me unconscious. It hurt a bit more.

I woke up rather quickly. I noticed I was carried. The troll had put me on his shoulder. I was happy he hadn't slit my throat. Or maybe he had. I didn’t know. I decided to wait for a perfect moment to kill him.

I thought I had my opportunity when the troll dropped me on the floor. I kept my eyes closed, planning on attacking when he’d turn his back on me. He didn’t. I waited and waited. Then it was too late to wait. He pushed his knife through my stomach. Apparently he tried to gut me. I didn’t want to play dead anymore so I grabbed him with all my claws at once. He seemed puzzled, told me to hold still. I didn’t, I jumped back a bit and then attacked again. This time I won. He fell on the ground, dead. I stood there for a while. I was a bit shaken. Someone had tried to cook me for lunch!

Others arrived. Opium looked very serious when she said that I was supposed to hunt ghouls, not trolls. I growled at her, took a few steps to her direction. Opium dropped her gun to its strap and showed me her claws. The claws came out from her fingertips. I decided to go back to my original search. I found the tracks again and started following them. I noticed Shrew following me. I ran as fast as I could for a while to leave her far behind and continued following the tracks calmly.

I reached a big building. It was an ypermarket, according to the sign. Apparently the h had dropped down ages ago. I sat next to the door and started licking the blood off of me. I wanted to be clean before transforming. I had time, the others were far behind me.

I had had time to clean myself almost completely when the others got there. They had left the car where I had the incident with the troll and had walked from there. Rugh was carrying my stuff. We went inside and I transformed. I asked for my clothes. Rugh seemed reluctant to give them to me. I asked for my sledgehammer, and got it. I told I could be naked no problem, but Rugh had to be too, to see how cold it was. Opium forbid Rugh from taking his clothes off. Finally Rugh gave me my clothes, but kept them so high in the air I had to stand on my toes to grab them. Nice if he had a nice time…

Others stepped around me to guard me while I dressed up. As I was putting my pants on someone shot Rugh with a machine gun. I yelped, grabbed my clothes and jumped outside. I jumped around on one foot to get my pants on. I dressed as fast as I could. I was a bit too jumpy.

I decided to go back in. It was dark, but I saw auras. I noticed Rugh and sneaked after him. He was glowing brightly in the Astral Plane because of a spell he had casted. I saw some small aura following Rugh. I followed both of them. I was almost certain the smaller aura was Shrew. I decided to keep my distance though. Rugh seemed to reach back to the other aura and pointed forward. I was finally sure it was Shrew. She tried to throw something somewhere. Opium was in that general direction. Rugh yelled something about a grenade and made a fireball that hit the back-wall.

 We moved next to the wall. Shrew sneaked on the other side of the shelf, I followed Rugh in between the shelf and the wall. We arrived at the door. Rugh secured it. Then he kept going. I stayed, just in case someone came. I was ready to hit with my sledgehammer as hard as I could.

Disappointingly no one tried to come through the door. I heard gunshots and explosions from the other side of the door. I decided to sneak to the room through another door. I snuck to the door and waited for a while. I was hoping someone would come. Soon I heard someone left from the other side of the door. Apparently that someone had been waiting there, having same thoughts with me. I opened the door carefully and snuck to the room. From there I continued along the hallway. I noticed the front door closing slowly. I started to sneak to it. When I noticed a grenade floating in mid-air on its way to me I forgot my carefulness. I jumped out through the door. I saw two auras further away. They were quickly moving away from me. Apparently these were the ghouls. I followed.

I ran after the ghouls to a house. They went in. I stayed and waited. Opium arrived there first. I pointed the door the ghouls had gone in. I told I had seen two. Opium ran to the other side of the house, apparently to watch the other door. Shrew, Nerdy, Random and Rugh came to me almost at the same time. The grenade came there as well. Apparently Rugh was holding it with his spell.

Shrew called her ally spirit to search the house. It went in through the door. At the same time several bullets came through the door. Someone had tried to shoot the spirit. It came out quickly as well. Shrew talked to it for a moment and then Rugh made his grenade float inside. It exploded, and that was our cue. We went in.

We stayed downstairs for a while. Rugh was injured, so Random gave him first aid. Shrew told her ally spirit to go and search the house again, and count the ghouls. Rugh shone in the Astral Plane. He was watching from both worlds. The ghouls were easy to spot from the Astral Plane, just like me. I wouldn't be able to hide from them very well, but they weren't able to hide from me either. I was starting to get very bored.

Finally Shrew told us the locations of all the ghouls. She also told us how many there were. The ghouls had tried to shoot the spirit, even though it wasn't in its physical form. I thought the ghouls were quite stupid, despite the fact they were able to use machine guns.

We made a quick plan and decided to move quickly. Rugh told one of his elementals to go upstairs. When we heard sounds of fighting it was our turn to run up. I followed Rugh.

There was two ghouls and one elemental there. They were fighting. The other ghoul ran away. We beat the other one unconscious. Then the elemental threw the unconscious ghoul down the stairs. The elemental then disappeared, from both Planes, and we kept going. Random stayed behind to give first aid to the ghoul, after he had tied the ghoul up.

We arrived to the door the other ghoul had run to. Rugh went into position, next to the door. I opened it standing next to the wall. The moment I pushed the handle, someone shot the door. The door around the handle was full of holes. Good thing I was next to the wall. Rugh shot some cover fire inside and seemed to start running inside. I followed the example and passed him easily. I was shot once. There was two ghouls, and the other one ran away after he saw me. I went after him. I caught him, hit him in the head with my sledgehammer and he fell down unconscious. I turned back and saw Rugh struggling with one ghoul. I went back and started swinging with my sledgehammer. One ghoul was trying to help him friend, apparently, and ran towards me. I hit him. He fell down unconscious. After that we hit the only ghoul awake so long he surrendered.

Rugh tied the ghouls’ hands and legs together. I crouched next to him. Rugh told me to look after him so that he wouldn’t escape. I tried to talk to him, asking if he knew how to speak English, did he think, did he feel. I didn’t understand all he said, but he told I was an animal and spat in my face. I spat back. I poked him a while and noticed he had his sense of touch left. I figured the ghouls were creatures who had feelings, they thought, they were intelligent, sentient beings. I started to feel remorse. I felt bad. I thought I should’ve done some more digging to find out about these things before going out hunting. It was too late now.

We packed the ghouls to the car, two at a time. With the last ones we left the place. I felt like I had made a huge mistake. I didn’t want to do things like that. I hoped they would be treated with respect. Like how they had treated the shapeshifter. After winning he had gotten his money. And had a chance to leave. I knew it wasn’t happening. People were cruel animals.

When we got to the Death Zone I talked to Jinx. I asked about the fate of the ghouls. He told me that if they won their fights, they would wait in their cages for the next ones. I asked if he had any conscience left. I asked how he could sleep at night. He didn’t seem to care. I told him what I thought about all of this, and he offered to give me the ghoul that was injured the most. He told I could take care of him. What the heck would I do with an injured ghoul? I would try and take care of him until he was well enough to go away, but that was not likely to happen. I noticed how they reacted to me. They were afraid of me. They thought I was some kind of monster, a beast. And I also thought what was done was done. I couldn’t undo things. If I could, I would.

It wasn’t right, to catch sentient beings to fight for their lives for amusement. I didn’t care if they were not sentient, if they were just animals, or people. I didn’t find any compassion in my heart for people. But ghouls, they were different. They were suffering already. There was no good reason to make them suffer more.

After I got back to the otaku headquarters, home, I asked them to get me all the information they could about ghouls. I got a paper containing everything people knew about them. It made me feel even worse. I couldn’t sleep that night, and I didn’t even want to go hunting.

I got over it eventually. But I still feel bad when I think about it. I would never do that again. I don’t care about animals, people, or creatures that have no ability to think, but I don’t really know what I think about Death Zone. It’s entertainment. I hunt for entertainment, and fight. But I want to do it on my terms. I don’t want an audience to look at me when I fight. It feels wrong.

I had learned at that point that people were cruel, nasty beings. They wanted to make other beings suffer, and thought they were superior to everything else. Not all people, but some. Enough to make me hate people. Of course, my team consisted of people, but it was a bit different. We didn’t do things for our entertainment, we did it for money. Maybe Jinx is also doing it for the money. I don’t know. But I thought he’s a contact that might prove useful later on.

The running, part 6. Hunting the bird-killers

The otaku headquarters was a decent place to sleep. It was some abandoned town house in the suburbs. It was a good area, so I could only go out to hunt during the night-time. It didn’t bother me. Streets were a feast. After Arcology everything was.

The otaku left me be. They seemed a bit nervous around me though. At least some of them. I went and asked about the process every other day. Because I didn’t know much about the arrangements Luis did when we arrived to Seattle, it seemed a bit difficult to find out where the lab was situated exactly.

I gave a detailed description about the people in the lab. I also gave them information about the place I saw through the bars of my cage. It wasn't much, but the otaku tried really hard.

I was never bored in the headquarters, if I needed something to do. I was up to date with all the recent news. The ones from TV, ones from the internet and the ones from the streets. Ronin had disappeared a few days after Arcology. He was the human. Dodger took off to look for an AI. Didn't we just destroy one? Oh, and some people were looking for us in the shadows. Some person got the honor for killing Deus. It was all over the news. There was nothing about us there. Well, who cares?

At one point Juggler called me. I think he thought he was funny when he made me an awesome offer. Well, in his opinion of course. He offered me some gun and a snorkel for a hundred. Like really? I asked if I looked like someone who went swimming. I didn’t buy it.

Later on, when I was buying a new armor, Juggler offered me the snorkel again. I still didn’t want or need it. I don’t think he’s all there. Or then he has some twisted sense of humor. In any case, he still is a very good fixer. He gets me explosives.

After a few weeks of calmness and nice living, when I was calmly minding my own business in my room, a small spirit appeared. I think it was one of those watcher spirits Jinx used to make. It poked me. Then it did it again. And again. Then I got annoyed. I transformed. It scratched me under my chin. I smashed it with my claws. It disappeared. Then I went out from my room. The door was a bit tricky, but I got it open anyway.

The otaku who were there seemed puzzled when I walked out in my real form. I was annoyed and I growled at them. I looked around, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. I transformed to human and started asking questions about magic. They said there wasn't any mages around, but there was indeed one shaman. They had offered a roof over Shrew’s head as well. She had arrived in that day. Shrew! I should’ve guessed it! I transformed back to leopard and walked to the door I was pointed to.

I opened the door with my teeth and pushed it open. Something fell down. Apparently Shrew had tried to keep me away with a pile of computers. The otaku were horrified. One of them came behind me and whined about broken computers. He had been with us in the Arcology. He climbed over me to look at the computers. I made my claws come out and walked towards Shrew. I was ready to attack. She seemed puzzled. Asked what I was doing there. I transformed and asked about the watcher spirit. I asked why she had made one tease me. She claimed she didn’t know how to make them. She didn’t know in the Arcology either. It would've been important to know in the Arcology. I didn’t believe her. She had amnesia, yea right. Maybe she had gotten her memory back, or had always remembered how to do magic. It couldn't be a coincidence that a watcher annoyed me the same day Shrew arrived!

I didn’t feel like attacking her. I told I would teach her some manners if it ever happened again. Then I returned to my room. I wanted to beat the shit out of someone. I got to do that when the night came. I went out to hunt again. Sometimes I do that in my leopard form, sometimes in my human form. The risks are bigger in the leopard form, but the feeling is better.

If before Shrew came I rarely came out from my room during the day, after her arrival I did it even less. I settled for waiting for the otaku to come to ask some questions from me. I didn’t like Shrew back then. She knew how to push my buttons. She teased me just because she could, not understanding the power I had within me. If we ever got to a fight, it would be easy to predict who would live. Well, that’s what I thought back then. Now I’m not that sure. She knows powerful spells, but I heal. I don’t think I want to find out who walks from our fight alive.

I used to hate her calmness. She never seemed to be startled about my transformations. Only once, when she saw my true self the first time. I don’t think she slept at all that night. Maybe she holds a grudge. Or maybe she doesn't think I would beat the shit out of her. Well, I could. I just didn’t want to, because otherwise others wouldn't want to take me to the jobs anymore.

One day it wasn't one of the otaku knocking on my door. It was Shrew. She had a job. She needed someone to kill someone. I was definitely going. I grabbed my knife and my shotgun. I tried to pack some explosives, but Shrew said no. Finally I agreed to leave them.

We took the metro to some park. Rugh was waiting there. He was standing next to a bench. On the bench there was a bird. Well, in the Astral Plane there was a bird. In the physical world there was a human female. I was a bit startled. I told Shrew about the bird. She seemed puzzled. The bird looked at me with her guard up. I told her I didn’t eat birds. She said something about me not being edible. Well, this was an awesome start. I told the bird about the prey in the city, rats and dogs. The bird said the dogs were too skinny. Well, yes they were, but there weren't any rabbits either!

The bird was called Sencha. She didn’t speak very good English. Worse than me. But she told that she wanted to hunt down six poachers. The poachers hunted normal eagles, and had killed her mate. I was a bit puzzled. This bird had a normal eagle as a partner? Or had had one? Well, it was none of my business. Maybe this Sencha here had figured she was just an animal, and had the ability to transform. I think I’m intelligent leopard, and I don’t know if I could mate with normal leopards. I haven’t even seen any leopards after the time I was in the zoo. It would be interesting to meet some of my own species. Well, at least the normal leopards.

Sencha had promised to give us a piece of jewelry she had made. It didn’t seem like much, but there was killing involved so I stayed with them. I was always going if there was some killing.

We looked for a house Sencha told us to have tracked the poachers to. It took us a while to find it. It was a spa named Blue Lagoon. It was a good area, so I suggested she would leave her revenge to the night-time. She agreed, and we decided to go and eat something.

Sencha suggested we’d go and hunt. She wanted to hunt for a deer. I explained her that we didn’t have deer in the city. I told her we only had rats and dogs. I didn’t want to eat cats, they were nearly my species. Rugh suggested we ate an animal called kebab. It was already killed and cooked. Well, I’m not sure there is an animal called kebab. I wouldn’t eat cooked meat anyway. Sencha thought it was easier than hunting. I mumbled something about daring to call herself an animal of the forest for agreeing to eat cooked meals. She corrected me by saying she was from the mountains. I didn’t care. I didn’t like readily-killed meals. Where’s the thrill of the hunt and the taste of the fresh blood there? Nowhere, that’s where!

In the diner Sencha found herself a place to sit so that she would see the window and me at all times. Others ate with good appetites, I refused to eat the shit they called food. I drank some water. I waited for a moment to go on the streets to look for food.

After dinner Nerdy tried to find some information about the spa and the people we were looking for. He did that by staying there for a few days. He was talking about some seaweed-treatments and clay masks. Rugh was laughing about the treatments. I thought they sounded weird.

When Nerdy was spending his second day at the spa, he saw the people we were looking for. I had bought a good knife from Rughs fixer. A real knife. Not something you gut fish with, but a real knife with a long and sharp blade. I threw my old one to the trash. Sencha had a knife too, but hers was just like the one I had thrown out. It was like a toy.

After Nerdy returned from the spa we were ready to break in. He was supposed to do something about the alarm-system. Open doors and such, disable alarms if we triggered them. The usual stuff. The rest of us went to the spa.

The door opened easily. Nerdy had given us a card to open it with. There was no one on the hallways. We sneaked to the room of our targets. Well, they had three rooms, and we started with the first room. There were two of the guys. Shrew shot the first one, who woke up when we snuck in. She then shot the second one, only wounding him. Rugh grabbed the wounded one and I slit his throat. Then we kept going to the next room. Shrew shot both of the guys in their beds. The third room proved to be the most difficult one. The other guy woke up as we entered, and the second one when Shrew fired her gun. The other one was dead quickly, but the remaining one jumped over the bed to take cover. He pulled his gun. Rugh jumped after him and we heard gunshots. I jumped after Rugh, ready to slit throats if necessary. It wasn’t. Shrew killed the last guy quickly. Then we left. We ran into a guard which we killed.

Mission completed. I had hoped a bit more action. I didn’t even get to fight properly. Poachers are such idiots. If they were going to poach, they should know how to be on their guard and be concerned about their lives. Maybe they are just some idiots trying to make money on defenseless animals. Well, we taught them.

The running, Arcology, part 6, the end

I regained consciousness many times. Then I was unconscious for a longer time. I was sitting on a chair, regained consciousness several times and then, when I finally regained consciousness completely, my head felt like someone had tried to do surgery on it with a shovel. I spent the first twenty minutes screaming my pain. I was angry and furious and all other negative, exploding feelings I could feel. The pain faded quickly, my feelings didn’t.

I was strapped to a chair. I was covered in blood. The chair was covered in blood. Next to me there was a robot with a knife. I tried to calm down and think. Then, after I had been quiet for a while, Opium came and released me.

The whole team was alive. Most of them weren't feeling good. They seemed to be in a bad shape. Opium was uninjured. I really don’t know what had happened. Some computer-things, apparently.

They told me the robot next to me tried to perform a surgery on my head to put cyberware there. Some datajack or something. It was so that I could be able to go to cyber space with the others, to fight Deus. Well, it seemed like an impossible mission. It had had to adjust the medication to keep me unconscious, because my body had destroyed the medication so quickly. Then, when I stayed unconscious, the robot had a mission. It cleaned my forehead. Then it made the wound so that it could put the cyber there. The wound healed before it could insert the cyber. So it had to start again by cleaning my forehead, then making the wound. And again, and again, and again. It left me with a scar.

I got my stuff back and shot the robot with my shotgun. It exploded, but it didn’t make me feel as good as if I had killed a human. I wanted to kill the human behind this shit, but apparently there wasn't one. Well, such is life. Life’s a bitch, I guess…

After everyone injured was taken care of, we returned to the place we had left from. The place we had stayed after meeting with the other group. I spent a lot of time staring my face in the mirror. It made me sick to have another scar in my head. It wasn't even fatal. I was sad for a bit, but now I carry that scar proudly as a remainder of Arcology.

At some point other part of the group returned to us. Ronin, Dodger, Nerdy and the otaku. Some of the otaku had died. Aneki was dead too. Well, I now remember that he was kinda out of it when he was with us. He had been the only person in the world capable of destroying Deus. And they had done it. Deus was no more. Apparently Aneki had gotten to his senses just in time to destroy Deus.

I didn’t understand half of the shit others spoke about their mission. Apparently there had been loads of strange things happening inside cyberspace. I didn’t understand, I didn’t care, I didn’t even believe all of it. All that mattered was that Deus was gone and we were able to get out.

We prepared to leave Arcology. The best way to go was through the roof. We headed that way, and saw lots of proof about Deus being gone. At first we met a guy with green eyes. He was curled up in a ball and crying. He kept telling that he was gone. I wanted to kill him, just because I could. Others thought it was the best, to put him out of his misery. So I cut his head off with my sword.

We met lots of other people with blue and green eyes. They weren’t hostile anymore. We got to walk in peace. Others wanted to visit a shopping center. Opium and Rugh went to find jewelry. I found a place that had sold katana’s. I took six of them with me. Then I asked someone to go with me to find a new set of clothes. I only had one set of clothes left, and it smelled terrible. I had worn it for days.

Opium came with me and showed me black jacket-suits. They looked way too fancy for me. They looked like something a businesswoman would wear. Not me. I prefer leather pants and shirts with attitude. And combat boots. There was nothing for me there, so I kicked the wall, frustrated. It made the alarm go off. Then we left the shopping center in a hurry.

After the shopping center I found me a fancy computer from a school. Apparently it was good, because all the otaku seemed to like it and Nerdy too. I decided to keep it myself and sell it for good profit.

When we got to the roof Rugh saw that there was an astral wall. Others went to the roof and I was left there, in the hallway. They said that the maker of the astral wall would notice if I walked on top of it, and we didn’t want any attention. So I sat there, alone. Frowning. I didn’t mind being alone, I just didn’t want to be alone there.

After seemingly an endless amount of time others told me that our ride had arrived. Just as I was about to climb of the hatch to the roof Rugh grabbed me in his arms and carried me to the ride. I told him I didn’t like being carried. He said that he would let me go if I wanted to. I let him carry me, even though it feeled degrading. I told him it feeled degrading. He said something about scratching me behind my ear. I’m not going to write what I said next.

The ride was very small to my taste. Because the other option was to stay in Arcology and walk hundreds of floors down and fight the army to get out, I made myself stay there. I was so happy to get out. I then decided to never return. Well, I’m going there again soon, but then it felt like a bad idea. Now I just miss the action.

Our ride dropped us off in the middle of nowhere. I had made sure that the otaku would help me to find out about the lab. They promised to do so, but they needed a few days to recover. I was ready to wait a few days. Well, I was going to wait in their headquarters anyway. They didn’t seem happy when they realized I was going to be their roommate. They wanted me to eat somewhere else. I promised to do so, and they were happy with that.

When we were waiting for another ride I decided to find me a snack. I was sick and tired of energy bars. I found me a stray dog, that looked a bit sick. It didn’t bother me at all. I grabbed it, killed it, dragged it to the others and told them that it was real food. Then I went to a corner to eat.

After a few hours our next ride came. My stomach was full and I was bored. I jumped in and got to the headquarters. I went straight to bed.

Later on I contacted Juggler. I took him my computer, and he promised 5000 nuyen from it. I asked him to pay with explosives, and he promised to get me a hundred kilos of explosives. And he gave me some money from the katana’s.

I was so happy to be back on the streets of Seattle. The otaku were getting a lot of information about the lab, my revenge was on the way and I was content. I had a roof over my head and rats to eat. What more a big cat would want?

The running, Arcology part 5, the beginning of the end

We got the devise. It was a pain to get it, and it lead us into a trap. Well, let me explain...

We had rested a while in a safe place. I had complained about my broken clothes so long that someone got fed up with me and fixed the armor Opium had given me. He told me about Deus. I wasn't interested. I just wanted to get out. I had very bad feelings about this whole thing. I was so happy to be getting out soon, one way or another. Dead or alive. My revenge had been the only thing that had kept me going. And it still is. Well, nowadays there are other things as well, but I'll get to that.

At one point Shrew got into talking with the otaku. They talked about Deus. I started listening when I heard them talking about Deus being bad to humans, and trolls. And elves too. And also animals, and the whole world. I had been thinking about myself, about what I was. I have come to a conclusion now, but I wanted to know their opinion. I asked what they thought I was. A human or an animal. They didn't know. Everything they knew was that I was a good person. A good guy. Ha, maybe, for now, we'll see.

Finally we went to get the device we needed. It was some trap-thingy. Deus was supposed to get trapped in the thing. They were talking about some system, and Deus was there, and they were going to go there and trap Deus. I didn't understand, so I prepared to fight.

We left for a certain floor. There we could see where the trap was, well, where the person who had the trap was. The plan was to go and find the trap and the person, steal the trap, and the person if he was willing to come with us, and go.

The people we had met went in front. They were really careful. More careful we ever were. They checked every corner, every single corner. Maybe they had seen too much to just wing it. Well, they had told us that they had been in the Arcology for months at a time, and gotten out only once in a while. They apparently knew more about survival in the Arcology.

We climbed up several floors. Ohh, how I hate elevator-shafts. I remembered the previous shaft too vividly. The metallic tentacles... Eww... And of course, I could get along with the tentacles, no problem. The only thing is it was too small place for me to function. I had to force myself in again.

We kept on going carefully. We took a break and then continued. We got to a side of a football-field.  Our destination was on the other side, so we started crossing the field. Opium kept looking up. Finally two strange-looking Medusas attacked us from above. They seemed to melt into the background. Their colors were strange, and if they were perfectly still, they were nearly invisible.

The Medusas sprayed some kind of foam on us. I took my sword and was attacking only to get sprayed with the foam again. Finally the foam covered me from head to toe. I was unable to move. I was trying to break free, but with no luck. The foam had hardened so it was impossible to escape. I just listened to the fight, but was unable to take part in it. I was furious.

Finally the team that wasn't trapped in the foam managed to destroy the Medusas. Rugh helped me out from the foam. To my horror I noticed he was using his big axe to cut me free. I objected, but he didn't care. I think it has something to do with my healing-power. He didn't care if he hit me with his axe, because I didn't need any first aid. I still don't like others thinking like that. It still hurts, dammit!

We kept going, after everyone was ready. We were very alert, ready for another attack. It didn't come. We got to our destination without any problems. Someone figured out where the trap was located. Luckily it was close.

We climbed up on a big set of stairs. On the top there was an otaku. He was one of Deus's otakus. He had white eyes. I have noticed that others talk about different eye-colors when talking about Deus's human-servants. The technicians and other people doing something with electronics had green eyes, security and guards had blue eyes. The people that were good with computers had white eyes. Well, I don't see the colors, but I listen to others. They talk about colors. Apparently the eyes are not real, they are cyber. Also, they are completely white, or blue, or green. Not like normal eyes people have.

One of the group shot the otaku with a silenced gun. Then we kept on going to the door from where the person carrying the trap had walked through last.

We agreed that me, Random, Opium and Rugh should go in, and others should stay and make sure we weren't disturbed.

I had my sword, because my shotgun didn't have a silencer. Not that it would even be possible to silence a shotgun like a pistol... I heard heated argument through the door. Me or Opium went through first.

Inside there was three of those blue-eyed people and then our target. One of them jumped behind a table. Opium shot another, and I attacked the third one with my sword. Random came to help me, but changed quickly to another target. I killed my opponent quickly. I slit his throat. I stopped to assess the situation. There was one opponent still alive. Others were fighting with him. Rugh had his axe, Opium her claws and Random his baton. I decided they didn't need a fourth one there. What a stupid decision. I think Arcology had had its toll on me already. I didn't was to fight!

I checked our target. He seemed to be fine, even though he was a bit startled. He had curled up on the floor, gripping the trap tightly. I also had time to laugh at the others. They seemed to have a bit desperate situation. The last opponent seemed to be very hard to kill.

Finally, when the last one of the blue-eyed guys was dead, others started talking about the leader of the blue-eyed people. Apparently he had been the hardest to kill. Well, it should be like that. The leader should be tougher than his underlings...

Then we left. We circled through a room with a pool, and headed for a lower floor. We knew the reinforcements for our enemies were already on their way. At least the blue-eyed people had made an alarm.

As we were escaping we met another group. They helped us, and when we got to a safe place the two leaders of the two groups got into a heated argument. The people who had helped us wanted to go and rescue some boss-person. Our group wanted to go and trap Deus. They didn't ask me, but I would've voted for trapping Deus. That's what we were here for anyway...

The other group left to rescue the boss-person. Our trap-carrier gave the trap to us and went to the rescue-mission. We headed for the rest of the group. Shrews spirit was called to heal injured. I hadn't even gotten scratches. Well, that's new.

We made a plan, and soon we were ready to execute. Nerdy went with the otaku, Ronin, Dodger and Aneki to fight Deus in the virtual reality. It was a place where you needed cyber to enter. Or something... I didn't have any chance to go there. I can say, it is very, very painful when my body pushes the cyber out. Well, it is also at least as painful when the cyber is inserted.

So, I was with the group which was going to make sure there was air in the place Deus was. I didn't understand. If Deus was in the virtual world, how there could be air? Or what? Hmm, maybe I don't need to know.

We got to our destination without any bigger troubles. There was two of those robots I had seen on the first day in Arcology. The one which exploded in my face. Not nice at all.

Someone suggested shooting them with a gun with silencer. I reminded they would explode in any case. So others shot them to pieces. I wanted to save my precious exploding ammo.

We got to a control room. There was a dead green-eyed person. Next to the dead guy there was white-eyed Sebastien. He was helping us. He had been waiting us.

Rugh gave me a heap of exploding bullets. I took them gratefully and started loading up my shotgun. Others started to look at the controls. They had to make sure the other team had air. Shrew called her spirit to look at the controls. I didn't bother. I couldn't understand them in any case, and I didn't care.

Finally, after lots of mistakes they managed to put air in the right place. Then we started planning the defense. After a while Sebastien told us we should see something. So we went with him. We trusted him. It was a huge mistake!

Sebastien took us to a room nearby. There were a lot of people in pods. The pods were in upright positions. Someone said it was a "zombie"-room.

Sebastien stepped further away from us. He told us he was very sorry. He told us he had tried to resist. He had tried. His nose was bleeding, and he was crying. Pathetic. Either betray us with your head high or then don't do it at all. It was really pathetic. He fell down and stopped moving.

Suddenly I felt tired. It was like a wave or tiredness had washed over me. I staggered, but managed to stand up. Everyone else but Rugh and me fell down. I asked Rugh what the hell was happening, but he didn't reply. He made a fireball a few meters away from us. Then I noticed a small bug. It landed on my neck even though I tried to avoid it. It stung me. Then it was gone. Rugh had apparently experienced the same. Then there was another bug, and I lost my consciousness.

Then I woke up. My body ached. Others were unconscious. Then another bug came and stung me. I lost my consciousness again. I lost my sense of time. I woke up, I lost consciousness. Many times. I had a few seconds to be awake, and all that time I felt the most terrible pain in my body. Maybe Deus had noticed us and started to do something about it.

The running, Arcology, part 4. Raining again

We spent a while in the swimming pool. I sat in the corner and complained about the bad food. I was anxious to keep going. Nerdy was injured, as was Opium. And one of the otaku needed new pair of shoes. Like I would be bothered with any of that. I was kinda comfy, even though my clothes were damaged and I hadn't taken a shower in days.

When we finally left the swimming pool, I got to walk behind Opium, but in front of Nerdy. I didn’t feel safe being in front of him. Who knew what he would do, missing his mommy. Luckily Opium had had a serious talk with Nerdy about why you shouldn't shoot towards your team. It calmed me down a bit, but not completely.

We climbed a number of stairs up. Apparently the otaku, or whoever decided our routes in the Arcology, had come up with an easy route, for the time being anyway. We walked through some kind of prison floors. Houses were altered to prisons. There were lots of prisoners.

Others started thinking maybe we should save the prisoners. They didn’t have a bright future ahead of them. I remember the test subjects we had seen a couple of days earlier. They were horrible. I also remembered my own time as a test subject maybe a bit too well. Part of me wanted to save these people, other part wanted to make them suffer. They were people, so it was reason enough to make them suffer. I didn’t talk about my thought to others though; I didn’t want them to think I was weak-minded. I didn’t want them to think I felt compassion.

We kept on going. Others thought that we couldn't save the prisoners at that time. They said we could do that when we were going back. I agreed, but still kept it to myself.

At some point the otaku, who were coming behind us, managed to get in front of us when we switched directions. They led, and we followed. The atmosphere was creepy. Quiet, deserted. It made me feel a bit on edge. I tightened my grip from my shotgun.

The otaku went past a large kong. On the other side of the kong there was three persons without auras. They looked like dead bums. No one wanted to go and see if they really were dead bums. When we were walking past them I heard a noise. I turned my gun towards the sound and Random asked who was there. The one of the bums started to move, trying to get up. I got scared and shot it. The second one got up and the third was sitting down. We shot them to pieces. One of them managed to shoot me before that, and it hurt, not for long though.

After we had destroyed the bums, which were revealed to be some kind of robots, again, we ran again. The person we were bringing to Deus, the person we had grabbed from Hong Kong, Aneki, was there with us. I didn’t remember this earlier, but he was there. Apparently he was the key to destroy Deus. Well, anyway, we ran after Ronin, Dodger and Aneki. They were heading to a house. I noticed a kid who had been shot at, and was down, and grabbed him with me. One of the team grabbed another otaku, and after we had been running a while we stopped to assess the situation. One of the otaku was dead, again. The girl who had crush on Nerdy, her name was Wendy, was shot as well, but she’d live. Others pulled out their first aid kits and started working with the wounded. Shrew’s spirit was called to help as well. I almost got bored before we left again.

Several floors higher I smelled something really disgusting. Rotting bodies. There was a heap of them nearby. And next to the heap there was two human-shaped creatures, and they were also visible in the Astral Plane. I was hoping they’d be something like me, but Rugh said that they were most probably ghouls. They ran away when they spotted us. We didn’t run after them, so apparently they weren't dangerous. I didn’t want to ask more.

On the same floor there was food. I wanted to have fish, because it was some kind of meat. Others wanted to eat fruit. I suppose they were good or something. I have never been a big vegetable-eater. I had options. The fish was perfect change from the energy bars. It tasted fresh and real, not at all like the shitty energy bars.

We also spotted some rats on the floor. They were magical rats, because some of them were hidden from the physical eye. When I hunted them down and killed them, they were not hidden anymore. They tasted so much better than the energy bars.

On some floor higher up we ran into a control room with some blue-eyed people. Opium threw a grenade in there and staggered to me. She bumped into me, and I staggered a bit from the shock wave as well, and bumped into Nerdy. I really hoped he wouldn't be scared and shoot me because of that…

Then I had to take my mind off of Nerdy, because one blue-eyed person ran there with a katana. He attacked, and I pulled my sword to attack back. The hallway seemed to be a bit too small for my broadsword, but it was the only good melee weapon I had at that moment. The sledgehammer was tightly bound to my backpack, and I didn’t have a new tomahawk. Or a shorter sword. I decided to buy a short sword if I ever got out alive.

The blue-eyed person fought me and Opium. He cut my armor into shreds. Finally I managed to pierce him from the stomach with my sword. He fell down to his knees, dropped the katana and squeezed the edge of my sword. I twisted the sword a bit, to make it even more painful. Then Rugh shouted something about explosion-danger. I ran after the others. There was no explosion.

I realized I was half-naked. My clothes had been almost ripped off in the battle, and I didn’t have time to change. I counted for a second, and came to the conclusion that I didn’t have time to stop running, pull new clothes from the backpack, take the broken ones off, dress up with new clothes and ask Opium to borrow me her other armor. And I had noticed her clothes didn’t fit me anyway. And I didn’t think she would borrow them to me just because. I had a habit of breaking everything I wore.

We ran through the living-floor quickly. I was the first one. It must’ve looked funny. A group of runners and kids led by a half-naked woman. I hoped no one spotted us and shoot, because it would've been really painful for me to get hit.

We almost reached the stairs, I opened the door, and we heard a bling from the elevator next to us. I turned towards the elevator with my shotgun ready. Rugh stepped past me. He had something in his hand. It was a grenade. He threw it to the elevator and grabbed me by the neck as he ran for cover. I was about to run when I realized he was throwing a grenade, but I wasn't as quick as he was. I decided to let him drag me. It wasn't very high on my spirit to let a troll drag me around like a rag doll. Well, not like a rag doll, but I don’t think he even noticed my weight.

He threw himself in a door. Opium jumped over us and Random stepped next to us. Then Nerdy hit the door and fell on us. Then the grenade exploded. Ohh great. It was phosphorus-grenade. Some of the phosphorus spilled on me, even though I tried to avoid it. Then I got up and kept going with the others and screamed as the phosphorus burned on my skin and remaining clothes. It took a couple of minutes to burn off. Smoke was coming from my burned skin and clothes. Then it started raining again. I’m very, very puzzled about this phenomenon. I just didn’t want to ask about it from the others, because I thought they would think I was stupid. I didn’t want to seem ignorant, so I rarely ask about anything, even though I don’t know. I normally wait and find out about things myself.

Some of the otaku needed new shoes. They had been running on the phosphorus. At that point I needed a completely new set of clothes.

We kept going up the stairs. On one landing there was a dead-end. Others didn’t think we should keep going up at that point. They decided we should break the place where the door had been. There were some beetles inside the wall that were active in the Astral Plane. I had never seen anything like that, but figured they wouldn't cause any problems if we broke down the wall. Rugh started hammering the wall with his gun. I took my sledgehammer and started hammering the wall as well. Others were keeping an eye on the other door. We assumed we were followed. I don’t wonder why.

After we had hammered the wall for a while Rugh called some spirits to help us. They went to the other side of the wall and started hammering from there. From the corner of my eye I noticed a spirit starting to materialize next to Opium. I warned Rugh.

When there was a big hole on the wall I decided to go and kill the spirit that was fighting with the rest of the group. I told others about my plan, asked that someone would grab my stuff from the floor and transformed. I walked calmly near the spirit. Then I leaped straight to the spirit. I extracted all my claws and ripped the spirit to shreds with one hit. I was happy about the kill. The I turned around and followed the others. I found the person who had grabbed my stuff and started running next to him. He seemed a bit startled.

We ran through a big hall, but luckily we didn’t have any problems. I was strong to fight the spirits, but guns were too much for me right now. If there had been guns and heavily armored people, I would've died for sure. I didn’t even want to start thinking about all the robots.

We found another dead-end. There was an alarm, and fire-doors closed. I was a bit startled, but then I relaxed. Rugh had started looking for explosives from his backpack. He seemed to have some problems locating the explosives so I took my backpack from the person carrying it and took it to Rugh. He took the explosives and started to plant it. I watched for a while and thought I would've done some things differently. As he looked like he knew what he was doing I didn’t bother to transform and tell him what he did wrong.

We went a bit back and Rugh detonated the explosives. We kept running. The person carrying my stuff seemed to hesitate when I kept following him. I didn’t care. I had talked about lots of stuff, but I had never done anything to attack anyone in our team. Well, with the exception of Nerdy, but he started it anyway.

We passed by some mazes, and found ourselves in some deserted floors. We found a nice little spot to rest for a while. Opium gave me her body armor, which was almost intact. It only had some damage from the katana. Others helped me to put it on so that it would not be baggy.

While others were resting and Random took care of the wounded me and Rugh went to look for shoes for the otaku that needed a pair.

We found a sportswear-shop. There were some sneakers the otaku needed. We went to the shop, packed the sneakers in a bag and Rugh took lots of socks with him also. I thought that seemed a good idea. I hadn't changed my socks in ages. I didn’t even take my boots off, unless I transformed. The smell was just horrible. I thought I should buy new boots when I got out. If I got out alive.

We were just leaving the shop when Rugh realized something. He threw his bag over some things. I didn’t know why he did that, but I did the same thing. I thought Rugh knew what he was doing. He didn’t laugh at me when I did like him, so apparently I did the right thing.

After hours of rest we returned to our journey. Stairs. More stairs. Hell, even more stairs. Always stairs. It started feeling like shit. Climbing a while, shooting some robots, running, climbing, shooting a bit more, resting, shooting, eating, shooting, running, climbing. I was so happy it was almost over. Finally we reached the floor we were supposed to go to. There was a group waiting for us.

When we arrived to the floor, to the other group, there was a lot of discussion, changing of information and planning. I complained about my armor, that wasn't very well-fitting and asked around if anyone had better one to borrow. Someone promised to borrow a jacket, but wanted it back. Like it would be in one piece then.

We were supposed to return several floors down to get some device after hours of rest. I thought about asking what the device did, but decided not to. I would've gotten a long and complicated explanation about how Deus was going to be beaten, but I didn’t think I would've understood it.

The next morning after meeting with the other group I found a note on my sleeping bag. It said something about shooting me and how I was able to heal. I was furious. I stared at it a while. The handwriting seemed familiar. I thought it looked like Random’s doing. I was about to go and ask about the note, not very nicely, from Random when I realized how I would find out the writer for sure. I wasn't dressed very heavily so I undressed and transformed. I smelled the note. It was Random. I noticed one of the new people being a bit startled about my presence. He pointed his gun at me. I would've growled at him, but I had a bone to pick with Random first. I transformed back, dressed up. I thought about taking my sledgehammer with me, but decided otherwise.

I went to Random and yelled at him about notes. I demanded to know why he wrote such stupid things. He said it was a joke, and innocent at that. I was about to beat him senseless, but thought someone would've come and saved him before I had a chance to finish, so I didn’t. I gave him a warning. I told him that if there ever was a next time with the notes, I would let my sledgehammer talk.

We were almost done in the Arcology. I was surprised to be still alive. I was happy that we were almost going to leave. Only the killing of Deus, and then out. I was anxious to get back on the streets of Seattle. They were nothing compared to Arcology. They were like a dream.

I was certain that we would be talked about after Arcology. I just hoped the rumors would leave out the part about me being a shifter. I didn’t want anyone to hunt me because of that. And really, the rumors the streets have about the runners who killed Deus don’t tell about a shifter at all.