[Tecumseh]

Touristville - Redmond - Seattle - Saturday - July 27, 2075 - 03:40

It's the end of another long shift at the Seamstress Union, a Redmond institution. The Friday night / Saturday morning crowd has finally thinned out, leaving only a handful of regulars leaning over the bar. Some are nursing cups of soykaf; others are asleep. Cherry Bomb, the luscious, forever-young elf, cleans behind the bar. Mr. Kluwe, the dapper but aging troll, is yawning. He's twenty years past his prime, and trolls don't age well. Still, Mrs. Kubota - the "madam of the house" - would never consider getting rid of him. Even if he is a bit slow, there are few that would mess with the height or breadth of a troll. Plus, his horns are magnificent.

Shadow counts out her tips for the evening. It was an intensely busy Friday night. A large group of Japanese sararīman had come in looking to celebrate a new soda for orks, or a hot new pitcher for the Mariners, or a destroyed orphanage, or whatever corpers celebrated. They were loud and lusty and looking for something exotic; they kept Shadow busy all night. The noctura is as fit as any professional athlete but still... the dancer's pole is hard and starts to hurt after a few hours. Still, there was no denying the rewards. It had been a highly profitable night: ¥1,400, which would go a long way toward the bills for her father and paying the rent for their two-bedroom apartment in Bridal Trails, about seven clicks down the road to the southwest.

Shadow wants to celebrate her good fortune but she was just too tired. Pulling on her armor jacket, she slots her Ares Predator into the quick-draw holster. The weight of it is comforting. Cherry sees that Shadow is gearing up to leave.

"Want me to call you a cab, sugar?" Cherry asks.

Shadow nods. Home is about seven klicks down the road; she's much too tired to walk, even if walking at 4am in the Barrens wasn't a dreadful idea. Which it is.

Cherry places the call and the cab arrives shortly thereafter, heavily armored and ready to rumble with any go-gangs that get frisky. Shadow heads for the door. Mr. Kluwe instinctively steps backward, giving her room to pass. He's pleasant, the old troll, and very polite. But he gives Shadow a wide berth, likely because he unconsciously knows that she could beat the crap out of him. Trolls aren't accustomed to feeling physically matched by elves that weigh one-eighth of what they do, and the notion is uncomfortable.

Stepping outside, Shadow scans the streets before walking quickly to the cab. There are Halloweeners out, burning rubbish in steel drums on street corners. It's not even that cold out - maybe 14 C -  but Halloweeners don't need much of an excuse to burn things. Shadow pulls her armor jacket tighter around her, not to ward away a chill but to feel the heavy, protective plates close to her. The Halloweeners are too drunk or high or lit up on BTLs to notice her. One of them takes a long pull from a bottle, then throws it down an alley. The alley erupts in flames as the molotov cocktail explodes. The ganger sprays his mouthful of fuel at a lighter, creating a fireball in front of him. Definitely time to go home.

Getting into the cab, Shadow throws an ARO with the address to the cabbie. The cab sets off and Shadow has to fight to stay awake in the backseat. The odds of the cabbie brutally murdering her are pretty close to zero, but they're not zero, so she'll try her best to stay awake for another ten minutes. Shadow notices the man glancing at her in the rear-view mirror repeatedly. She understands: she's pretty, she's exotic. Drawing men's attention is how she makes her money. Still, it's best not to draw too much attention, lest she find herself in some fatal attraction scenario. Nothing in excess.

Shadow suddenly feels very weak and very dull. Thinking about it more, she realizes what the problem is. It’s the great equalizer: it’ll stop a troll the size of car as easily as the smallest dwarf or the thinnest elf. It isn't a weapon, spell or even a dragon — it’s hunger. When it’s time to eat, you just gotta get the stuffers into your stomach before you go berserk. Junk food, munchies, stuffers. They’re probably just as good for you as nutrisoy and krill-filler, regardless of those ads from the Nutrition Council. When the pangs hit, there’s only one place to go (especially when the sun rises in two hours) to find that kind of chow. It’s the place everyone loves to hate: Stuffer Shack.

Shadow realizes that she's been performing all night with little to go on other than caffeine and second-hand smoke. She's starving and she knows it. There's a Stuffer Shack not far from her apartment where she can find something to get her through the day. Once she wakes up, she can celebrate her windfall with her father.

"Change of plans. Drop me off at the Stuffer Shack," Shadow tells the cabbie. The man nods, turning off the road into the parking lot. Shadow pays the ¥20 fare and adds in a decent tip to share her unexpected good fortune.

The cab drives off. The Stuffer Shack - open every minute of every day of every year - is intensely familiar. Each Stuffer Shack looks exactly like every other, so Shadow could probably navigate the aisles with her eyes closed. That's good; given how tired she is, she might have to.

[LordGrizzle]

Shadow slowly walks into the Stuffer Shack rubbing her empty belly, ignoring anybody of the nightshift, not greeting anybody of the present personell.

She walks through the aisles, not even looking if there were any other customers ripe for pickpocketing, partly because she was too tired, partly because it wasn't worth it in a stuffer shack after scoring the amount of cash she had just earned.

She grabs one bag of the cheapest snacks you can find, rips it open and eats a mouthful and another and another. The bag was almost gone before she arrived at another aisle to pick up a can of Aztekcola. When she got ready to go to the counter the bag was already empty, but she felt spendy enough to pay for that too.

[Tecumseh]

Shadow immediately feels better after eating a NutraSoy Energy Cake™. Feeling some blood rush back into her face and brain, she looks up and finds herself in Aisle 11. It features baked goodies, such as cakes, doughnuts, twisters, Sweeteez and Krak-L-Snaps.

With the threat of starvation postponed, Shadow looks around at her surroundings.

Great tracts of neon and fluorescent lights that leech away color to make everything a uniform, dull gray indicate that you have arrived at the home of synth-alcohol, soykaf, porno-simchips, Holohayo 3D greeting cards, pneumatic fluid for your bike, cheap fetish trinkets for the magical wannabes, soygrits, and a full line of stuffers with no redeeming nutritional or social value. Yes, it's the Stuffer Shack.

In Aisle 7, there are two punk-rocker-royalty wannabes. The guy is dressed head to toe in skin-tight white leather pants, a sleeveless white leather shirt and a white fringed leather vest. He also has several kilograms of FauxGold™ jewelry hanging around his neck. Angie is wearing a skin-tight black leather jumpsuit featuring about forty-two working zippers and with nearly eight meters of mesh chain wrapped around her body and appendages. They are making out, slobbering all over each others' faces, while the girl covertly slips some cans of cat food into her jacket. Shadow can only smirk at a kindred soul.

In the freezer aisle, a mousy, nervous man searches the ice-cream cases frantically as though his life hung in the balance. He looks nebbish, with an engineer's white, collared shirt with short sleeves and a thin black tie. His glasses are huge; his hairline, receding. He grabs a pint of ice cream. Peeling off the lid, he checks to see if anyone is watching, then dips his finger into the ice cream and gives it a taste.

Shadow walks toward the checkout counter. The clerk - an ARO identifies him as "Vern" - looks like a complete loser. His eyes are half-open as he stares at his holo-zine. His girlfriend - a homely, pudgy dwarf - yaps about her completely uneventful day and this new hair removal cream that Vern should use on his back.

[LordGrizzle]

With a lot more grace than before Shadow moves over to the checkout-clerk, "Vern", and elegantly puts down the empty bag as well as the can of Aztekcola while throwing both of them a playful smile.

How much are these? Shadow asks Vern without waiting for him to say anything or check-out. How's the night going? Shadow continues immediately Not even all that cold, ey?
but after spurting that much info at Vern who didn't even seem to be fully awake to begin with Shadow realized that she had to stop herself, must be the sugar talking, and wait for the tired clerk to actually get up, put his holo-zine away and do his job.

[Tecumseh]

Vern looks up when Shadow speaks to him. He's about to respond when he goes slackjawed; he's never seen anything like Shadow and doesn't know how to respond.

During the awkward, extended silence, the RFID chips in the products Shadow grabbed transmit their prices to the local host.

>>>>>(NutraSoy Energy Cake™: ¥2. Aztekcola: ¥1. Total: ¥3. This price okay? Y/N)<<<<<

A car pulls into parking lot in front of the building. Shadow turns to her left to see a mildly attractive elven woman enter the store with a wailing infant in tow. The bawling baby assaults Shadow's keen ears. The mother looks like she hasn't slept in two weeks.

Shadow feels a tingle at the base of her head, where her spine meets her skull. Danger. From the woman? The child? She doesn't know, but the buzz grows and grows to the point where Shadow can't ignore it anymore. She catapults herself across the counter, toward the startled Vern, and hits the floor.

Suddenly a violent explosion erupts form the parking lot, spraying glass and Stuffers everywhere! The wall caves in and dangling fluorescent lamps spray sparks as they sway precariously. Vern is blasted into the cigarette rack and knocked unconscious. Shadow turns to see Vern's girlfriend cowering behind a collapsed holo-zine rack, whimpering quietly to herself.

After a few moments of shocked silence, Shadow can hear two heavy figures step through the gaping blast hole that used to be the front of the Stuffer Shack. One of them shouts, "None of ya’s is gonna get hurt if ya keep yer yaps shut and stay outta the way. Now tell me where the lady with tha baby is and you all is gonna live to see sunrise."

[LordGrizzle]

Shadow is sure that she does not have the goon's attention yet. She readies her Predator loaded with regular ammo. Never was a good idea getting caught on a regular job carrying anything worse. Even passing this stuff off as legal was cahllenging enough sometimes.

The smartlink of the Predator awoke to life, feeding tactical information directly into Shadow's optical nerve through her implanted smartlink. Aiming her favorite American pistol with her right hand, and brushing some glass off of her armor jacket Shadow rises from behind the counter keeping an eye out for the woman and all potential threats, and says with a coolness in her voice I always wanted a red appartment. I would leave now or I'll do the colorjob tonight. With your blood.

[ScytheKnight]

Mace was having a dreck day, well technically two days running now... first his doss got turned over by KE doing a 'security check', actually just knocking around some SINless slummers for a handful of easy credits. Then he'd been chased around by a pack of bored Halloweeners, being a member of a small time gang did frag all around a gang as powerful as the Halloweeners. And now here he was in the Stuffer Shack at too-damned-close to 4AM in the morning trying to decide if he could splurge the extra credit 'creme' filled turnover or just get some cinnamons, frag knows he needed the sugar.

He'd eyes the nocturna as she walked through, hell would be impossible not to eye her off. She looked almost as tired as he was, but he was enough of a street tough to know she was dangerous. He watched her chatting with the clerk, a rather monotonous one-way conversation, then the evlen chit with her brat bawning in tow comes in. Groaning and rubbing his head he decided that this was the last straw and reaches for the turnover...

... and then the world turned over, or at least that's what it felt like to Mace's ringing head as he gets thrown into the shelving and slumps dazed to the ground, his head spinning from lack of sleep, lack of food and the beginnings of a concussion. He's barely able to focus his eyes on the gaping hole that used to be the front of the 'Shack, his head and eyes ringing too badly to make out what anyone might be saying, his head spins a little more as he mutters out loud "Ohh fucking hell, gimmie a fucking break..."

[Tecumseh]

Shadow takes a moment to compose herself and check for injuries. Finding none, she silently removes her Ares Predator from its holster.

Before she stands, she can hear the two men kicking over shelves and debris. There's a screen behind the counter with the camera feeds for the store, but all of them are static. Were they knocked out in the explosion or hacked?

"Whar is she!" one shouts.

"I don't know!" the other responds. "Keep looking!"

“Ya don’t cooperate, yer dead! Get over by da freezer aisle!"

"Man, hurry up! Make or break time!"

Shadow can hear their desperation grow with each passing second. She stands and sees two orks stomping through the store with AKs. She speaks and they swing around in alarm.

[LordGrizzle]

Orks with AKs. Not the most professional lot Shadow has ever faced though possibly a cut above from your average ganger. She quickly pulled the trigger three times while aiming at the nearest orc leisurely, yes pulling the trigger. She never liked shooting through smartgun electronics even though she liked everything else about smart links.

A weapon telling you when it needed to be taken to the gunsmith was wondrous for a girl so technologically impaired as herself. But this was not a time where it needed to be taken to a gunsmith. This was a time to make use of her favourite gun.

Without checking what her shots had done she hunkered down behind the counter again, expecting a hail of 7.62 bullets to come crashing down into the counter and herself. Now she was awake. Sugar and adrenaline made actually for a quite enjoyable rush. Her life hand't even been remotely in danger since last year's fall when... never mind that wasn't the time to think about these things. Though she wondered what these guys wanted from that woman. But, even if the woman was the dreaded Ghostwalker in disguise, she would neither put up being threatened, OR having a mother and her child threatened. She mentally readied herself for turning the entire shack into a battle zone.

[Tecumseh]

Shadow feels the recoil from the Ares Predator slam into her wrist three times. As much as it hurts, it's nothing compared to what the shots do to the target. Shadow's trio is tightly clustered and as precise as someone could be with a Predator.

The ork is wearing an armor vest and nothing underneath, likely due to the warm summer weather. Unwisely, the vest was not fastened down the middle, and the rounds find their way straight through the gap. They pound him in the gut, spraying blood and stomach acid onto the pile of pet food that the man is standing on.

Orks being orks, the man does not drop. Instead, he and his partner bring their AKs up to bear while Shadow drops for cover. They hammer on the triggers and send an angry swarm of bullets her way. The cash register terminal is the first to go, then the credstick receptor and the barcode scanner. Then it's the counter displays, including a line of greeting cards and packages of Long Haul, Betel, and G3.

[LordGrizzle]

Everything around Shadow gets torn to bits by bullets, though she avoids the sluggish shots by these unprofessional orks by using evasive manoeuvres and the merger cover provided around her to maximum effect. Even without her supernatural danger senses it would be possible to predict the trajectory of there shots. After the first load of bullets has subsided Shadow was almost the only thing unscathed by the hail of bullets. She hisses Boys, always predictable and annoying.

[LordGrizzle]

Right after that she stands up into a standing position, exposing more of herself than need be, but she is now full of herself again and takes another snapshot at the wounded ork while motioning a pistol shot with her off hand.

[ScytheKnight]

First the pawns... then the Halloweeners... then the baby... then the bomb... and now they're shooting at each other. Mace covers his heads with his hards, partially to try and stop the sickening spinning, partially to try and block out the roaring AKs. As things settle down he notices the checkout shot to hell, blood and bile dripping from one orc and a deluxe creme filled turnover in his lap, undamaged. Taking this as a sign he stuffs the pack in a pocket and makes a run for it, with everything else going on no-one's going to miss a ¥3 stuffer.

[Tecumseh]

Shadow lines up her pistol and aims right for the ork's heart. He tries to throw himself to the side but all he accomplishes is getting shot in the side of the ribs instead of the front. He collapses into a heap on a pile of Purrrfect Cat Food^TM. He is unconscious and bleeding profusely; it is clear he will die without medical attention.

His partner reacts coolly to Shadow gunning down his accomplice. Taking time to recenter his aim, he fires off a six-round burst at the dodgy little elf, hoping to plaster her all over the wall.

Shadow feels a warming sensation to her right, near the huge hole that the explosion tore in the wall. The feeling grows hotter and hotter until it's TOO HOT! TOO HOT! It feels like someone has started a microwave with the microwave door open. At first she wonders if the Stuffer Shack microwaves were damaged in the hail of gunfire and are now malfunctioning. But, no, that doesn't make sense. The Cook-It-Your-Self microwave, the rotating pizza display machine, the Synthmeat “Hot Dog” dispenser and the Soy Patty Yummy Burger Grill-O-Matic are all to her left and she is most definitely getting irradiated from the right. She can feel the hair on her face start to singe; it smells terrible!

[LordGrizzle]

And as the pain becomes unbearable she realizes it must be fragging magic. She had been hit by stunbolts and powerbolts and all that other drek mojo mages were slinging.  Now there was a real threat. She changed her mind from being cocky to being a bit more careful. Realizing that she hadn't yet spottet the source of the spell, she decided to ignore the number one rule to geek the mage and focused on the threat she could clearly see. She hammered the trigger once more and hoped to take out the goon she actually could see. The pain was tough on her entire right side but not enough to prevent her from landing a shot. That the shot pretty much struck the goon into his armor and didn't do a load of hurt was another story. After that she immediately ate dirt and cowered down behind the counter as to hopefully avoid getting hit by any more of that mojo.