Globalemits July 2013

July 2073 Sun Jul 21 2073 Orbs on the edge of cyberspace coalesce along bright datalines, and like a broken glass on a bar room floor in reverse, move through the Denver matrix grid. The liquid is moving, undulating along old familiar lines, back into the fractured pieces of a drinking glass. The glass reforms, the cracks disappear, the tumbler raises back onto the counter and into a hand. The data brightens, grows supernova for the tiniest fraction of Matrix time. Shiawase contractors for Denver Power & Light notice a blip on their radar and send out sniffer IC and security deckers to investigate: »Nothing to report.« Sun Jul 21 2073 Silent lightning veined against a gray blank sky. Zeros and ones. The locations of a man wanted for murder in Seattle. Out of date drivers licenses re-approved in New York City. A corp War Vet wins the lottery that he never played. Images of urban soldiers of fortune meeting in back rooms of Chrome! Suddenly, gun fire rips through the sky, shattering into pieces that cut the dreamers mind. The dreamer wakes up screaming and sweating in bed. Time and temperature displayed on the wall: Sun Jul 21 6AM 2073 / 78C Mon Jul 22 2073 Denver Grid-UCAS Sector. The digital gargoyle perches on the edge of a Green data store it's just owned with a simple Tuck N Suck IC cutter. In the distance a Kabuki look-a-like Blaster program rezzes into the Gargoyle's field of vision. The Gargoyle tosses Slow, Ripper, Psychotropic programs, but nothing happens. The Kabuki IC stares at the Gargoyle. »HI« Somewhere in a poorly lit studio apartment Gregory Hacjik flatines, blood from his nose seeping across the Fairlight. Tue Jul 23 2073 Yoshiban Yoshi Shigeda, Operating Manager of Shigeda Escorts, prepares a hot stone and towel for the Osaka Twins. The items are inspected beforehand by trusted Shategashira. Shigeda is but a Hisho in the Denver Gumi, but hes done well. He politely bows to the Osaka bodguards, thanking them for allowing him to enter. The twins look up simultaneously. Shiegda passes along the massage materials to modded twins chipped for the best massage-work in Asiatown. He personally hands them datachips containing a encrypted communique. The chips bear MCT logos. He is dismissed. Tonight, Shigeda will celebrate his step up the crime ladder with sake bombs and whores. Wed Jul 24 2073 Tilden Katz is your typical MCT executive. Excellent corporate pedigree, acclaimed corporate personnel reviews from prior branches, fit and healthy looking thanks to upper management incentives and an expensive rejuvenate spell habit. As a mobile troubleshooter there are few as storied in the zaibatsus history. But his transfer was five years ago and things have stalled. Corners are getting cut. MCTs budget cutting is hurting his ability to make recommendations, finance new programs, and train new management. Tilden Katz is a man on his way down the corporate ladder, drowning, reaching for the slightest bit of drift wood to hold onto. The younger sharks smell blood in the water. Its time for Tilden to take bold action. Wed Jul 24 2073 The Johnson reports back to Katz via the datadrop. »Decker gone awol, will refund if data not located. Apologies.« Mid-Ham Sandwich, Mr. Katz angrily types out a response »I will not be shaken down. I will throw your name in the streets. Get the package.« Thu Jul 25 2073 The armored Bulldog GMC comes to a halt two clicks from the drop. Tyson turn around in the drivers side passenger seat to look at his team. Caleb, the hired merc on this job, remains stoic despite a gunshot wound to his right shoulder. Torques consciousness exists in the NAVSAT for now, keeping the Bulldog on target for the arranged safehouse. Tyson can only imagine what the feeling of bullet holes ripping through the reinforced aluminum body must have felt like as they battled the MTC-sec team during the fragged extraction. Torque grumbles something under his breath. The lights of Denver glisten from beyond the Warrens wall. The decker Dot.Matrix wipes blood from her keyboard and checks the vitals on their passenger/quarry, I put him out with a few sedatives. Blood pressure and heart rate are steady. Mostly just banged up. Tyson counts his blessings and hopes they can hold out till the pick-up and then get paid. Fri Jul 26 2073 A low class section of the CAS. Closed strip malls, potholes, occasional Lone Star rousts. The Lincoln Arms, a step up from the a flophouse, boats warm water and a panic button for the average studio. The shadowrunner sneaks past the stationary security camera, capturing a grainy just out of frame male. He hustles up to the target, picks the door, and meets the rotting flesh of a former man. Former decker before whatever IC blew his brains out through his nose. He grabs the deck, snaps some candid photos, and performs a quick search of the studio- a dirty tepid little hole,. Satisfied he pours draino from a bottle across suspected touched surfaces, and then hes gone. The Johnson will be happy. Sat Jul 27 2073 Security cameras. Traffic cameras. Matrix connected drones. Doppler radar. Cellphones. The entity watches carefully. Studying. It tests limits. At the Misato Noodle Bar every phone rings. Customers and servers alike are confused, as if a digital angel has passed. It drains the light's power, but the object is felt near. If it felt happiness it would right now. Sat Jul 27 2073 Tilden Katz maglocks the door to his office, surreptitiously peering through the blinds before shutting those as well. He turns on the white noise generator her purchased through an ugly ork fixer at Chrome a while back, thinks fondly on that celebratory night having closed two accounts. He places the heavy travel bag onto his mahogany desk and licks his lips with anticipation. The holopix showed the bloated decker sustained massive head trauma from some kind of IC. The runner was efficient in delivery, Katz thinks as he opens the bag: A burned up and fried Fairlight Excalibur deck. What the hell are you up to Watanabe?, the corp exec wonders to himself as he runs a high level MCT diagnostic hardware program on it. It reads something very, very interesting. Sat Jul 27 2073 Leaked Document, Source Unknown: Mitsuhama: Denver Branch Bio-Research Division Eyes Only To: Internal Budget Committee Chair, T. Katz Katz-san, I am unsure if you are aware, but the latest budget plan does not include over-time or account for lab time for Project Rebirth. As you know this is considered high priority over several on-going research projects. Twice you have approved my request for additional funding in the past two quarters and I ask you again to continue. This humble employee is well aware of company…..''goals''… at present time, but I assure you Rebirth will have monetizable results in due time and with enough nuyen behind it. Sincerely, A. Watanabe Lead Denver Branch R&D Coordinator. Mon Jul 29 2073 Tyson fed the target a Yamatetsu Yum! Instameal. He popped the tab near the Happy Ork's tusk and watched the krill and powdered liquid bubble into a film of soup'. The sariman gave his name as 'Hideo', seemed ok in Tyson's view. Bit of a weasel, still, he didn't want to know what was in this mans head that made a NYC based Bio-start up find him so valuable. Dot.Matrix scanned police chans, nothing about them or the Warrens. Caleb chain smoked and cleaned his weapon, followed by his wound. Torque had been jacked into the GMC's radar suite for going on 8 hours. He didn't know how long they had, but when it felt safe they'd move to the drop. Wed Jul 31 2073 Meiko stirs in her sleep. The patterned lightning burns her skin, an acrid scent of ozone permeates her dream-scape. She's running from dogs, killer bees. She reaches the safety of the pagoda and senses a bright but cooling light on her skin. She rustles and kicks off her coves, unconsciously reaches for where Ken used to sleep until so recently. A memory of his abduction shudders. Suddenly, the light gets cooler, then colder, then freezing. So cold her mind goes numb and the light aches. She wakes up screaming.