Shadowrun: Clockwork Ashes 1.2 (Patreon)

Revolution: 1.2

“You look like hell.”

It took me a minute to process that I’d been spoken to. After hearing my alarm, I’d sat on my bed before my body moved without input from my mind and carried me through the motions of showering, tying my hair back, changing into a clean white shirt, putting on my dress shoes, tie and jacket, and walking out the building to the bus station.

Blinking guilessly, I turned to find Rusty standing there, giving me a smile, and I realized I’d forgotten my earphones.

I blinked some more, then shook my head and nodded. “I feel like it, too.”

“Mm, sleep wrong?” he asked.

“Sleep little,” I corrected, rubbing my eyes as best as I could with the little movement afforded by the crushing mass of bodies cramped inside the bus.

“I got some teas for when I can’t sleep,” said Rusty, giving me a friendly grin. “You just let me know if you feel you need one, miss Feyden.”

“Thanks, Rusty,” I said, giving him a weak smile. “I just got some bad family news last night.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “Nothing serious, I hope?”

“... hard to say,” I confessed. “My brother, he... It doesn’t bear talking about.”

“I understand,” said Rusty, moving awkwardly to rest a huge hand on my boney shoulder. “You’ll just have to hope for the best, I think. Things tend to sort themselves out, for better or worse.”

“Mmn,” I hummed. I patted his hand, gave him a smile, and went back to staring down at my shoes, lost in thought.

The car swerved side to side on the bendy path up the hill, stopping in the parking area on the east side of the lab building. The human tin can opened and its contents spilled out, people separating at the gates before lining up in two more or less tidy rows.

The two automatic doors opened every time one of us tapped the reader at the side with our ID cards, then closed behind us as we got inspected by the security officials that were still there from the night shift.

Bizarrely, I expected alarms to go off when I passed, as if the metal detector or the pat down could detect the knowledge I now held in my head. I’d been spinning what I now knew about the White Lab around in my head all fragging night, and I still wasn’t sure what I’d do about it.

I mean, what can I do? I asked myself as I entered the elevator with five other researchers, ignoring all attempts to exchange pleasantries. Okay, so my estranged best friend ran off, became a fragging shadowrunner, discovered a fragging conspiracy and dropped everything on my fragging lap because he’s dropped off the surface of the earth. What am I supposed to do?

I walked over to my desk, draping my suit jacket over the back of my chair, rolling up my sleeves and opening my latest project. And then I just stared at it blankly.

I mean... okay, Dami—or ‘Hawkeye’, apparently—said that Lone Star and Knigth Errant wouldn’t be able to help. But that’s his opinion, and he used to drag me to anarchist parties and take cram with crazy motherfraggers with mohawks, so maybe I don’t take his advice on what the Stars can or can’t do, I reasoned, taking a pen and spinning it between my fingers as I thought. But then, it’s just a letter that I say mysteriously appeared in my apartment. Even if they don’t think I’m making it all up... what if they think Damien made it all up?

The thought of whether he did actually make it up was considered, but not long enough to voice it in my head. I knew Damien—enough that I recognized his handwriting all those years later—and I knew that he wouldn’t lie to me about that.

So... did I just do nothing? I couldn’t think of any possible way I could get any form of authority to believe me. I had neither the connections, nor the evidence, nor... anything, really.

... someone will take care of it, surely, I told myself. I mean, Dami found out about it and he wasn’t even looking for them. There’s hundreds of people, qualified people, looking into the disappearances. Surely someone will—

A stabbing pain formed in my gut and seemed to crawl up my body, curling up in my heart and expanding through my veins and lungs. I exhaled the air before I could scream, and when the pain reached my brain I was paralyzed in place, incapable of so much as moving my eyes.

The pen dropped from my fingers, and all the pain vanished like it’d never been there. Still, the phantom sensation of stiffness remained in my body, pulling at my limbs from the veins.

Breathing heavily, I stared at my hand, clenching and unclenching a fist.

“What. The. Everloving. F—”

“Whoa, watch your language there, Feyden,” a voice interrupted me, and I looked up to find Park leaning on the wall of my cubicle, smiling down at me. “This is supposed to be a wholesome, family-friendly space.”

“... do any of us have families?” I asked, because it was the first thing that popped into my head and I wasn’t able to catch it before it slipped out. “Doesn’t seem like we’d have time for that.”

The grin slowly fell out of Park’s face, and he stood up straight. “Are you implying something, Feyden?”

Common sense returned no me. “N-No, sir, I, I was just, um... do you need something?”

Still not grinning and starting to give me the stink eye, he gestured at the distance between my hands and the keyboard. “I noticed you’re not working.”

He stared at me for a bit, and after a moment I kinda jolted and turned around, starting to read and tap as fast as I could to look busy. After a while of him breathing over my shoulder, I felt Park walk away, and I let myself slow down to go back and correct the absolute nonsense I’d been typing out.

I looked at the clock. Six hours until my smoke break.

There was no more waiting for that chat with Fox.

*+*+*

“Can you watch my shoes?”

Toshiro blinked, still halfway through the doorway to the balcony, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips as he stared at me.

I stared back from where I had stopped in the middle of my pacing, hands wrung together and cigarette smoked half to completion in my mouth.

“Like...” Toshiro blinked, stepping forward and letting the door close behind him. “Like your actual shoes, or...?”

“Don’t be cute,” I snapped, “Listen, I gotta project real quick but I don’t want to get chewed out for fragging off on my break. Can you just cover me real quick or not?!”

“Alright, jeez!” he said, raising his hands defensively. “Sure, I’ll keep an eye out, you don’t need to bite my head off.”

“Right, right,” I said, closing my eyes and shaking my head. “Sorry, I’m... a little tense.”

“No kidding,” Toshiro scoffed. “Can you give me a light before you go?”

I snapped my fingers. When nothing happened, I growled, formulated the right equation in my head and snapped my fingers again. This time, a red spark jumped from the friction of my fingers and landed on the tip of his smoke, where it burst in a small flame.

Toshiro raised an eyebrow, shaking his hand to put out the fire on the tip of his smoke as he looked at me. “Having technical difficulties there, chief?”

“That’s what I’m about to see,” I said, taking a seat on the edge of a flowerbed and leaning back against a wall.

I took one last deep drag from my cigarette, stamped it out on the wall behind me, and exhaled slowly as I untethered my astral form from my physical form. A weightless sensation overcame me as I drifted, kinda like falling upwards while the world burst into a contrast of greys and vibrant colours where life laid.

Toshiro gave me a two-finger salute as I floated, and I gave him one last nod before floating up and away, then down the side of the building and out towards the east docks as fast as my mind could carry me.

Buildings zoomed past under me, tiny flickers of colorful light under me from pedestrians, pets and plants. Life shone with emotions, sensations and experiences, while everything else blocked my view and dulled the enviroment.

I didn’t like astral projection. It may be a bit of a boring point of view from a mage, but I feel like I need a certain amount of tethering to my surroundings and projection was the subtle art of letting all that go so you could peek in on your neighbors, talk to spirits or talk spirits into peeking on your neighbors with you.

Still, necessity was the mother of doing drek you really didn’t wanna do, and you couldn’t argue with how I got my shiny little ass over to the docks in under three minutes.

I let my astral form fall closer to the ground, then carried out the motions of walking even if my ‘body’ couldn’t really interact with the floor.

Don’t think about falling forever, don’t think about falling forever, you can fly, you’re not gonna fall forever, don’t think about falling forever, don’t think about falling forever.

The chant didn’t really help, but it was just habit. Hard to break.

I approached the warehouses. While I couldn’t see the numbers spray painted on the doors, I started counting and going by memory until I found my way to Warehouse #34.

I walked through the wall, floated up to the ceiling and flipped around so my feet were against it, before taking an imaginary deep breath and calling out, “FOX! Get your ass out here, I want an explanation!”

Nothing happened for a moment. I knew it wouldn’t, he always liked to make an entrance, but it still stretched for long enough that I almost started to think he wouldn’t show before white mists started appearing in the corners of the room.

They drifted in and filled the bottom of the room, above me from my perspective, and started gathering at the center in a thick white mass before it started drifting upwards, down from my perspective.

The mass of mist accelerated until it hit the ceiling with enough force to push me back a bit. When the fog cleared, my mentor stood there, as glorious and displeased as I’d ever seen him.

He presented himself as a gigantic fox, twice as tall as me. His coat was as bright orange as an emergency cone, except for the stark white of his chest and jaw and his vantablack legs and tail. His neon green eyes seemed to glimmer inside his head, staring through my anatomy.

Gold and silver chains, decorated with jewels and stones shaped like skulls wrapped around his legs, and earrings of gold covered the outside of his sharp pointy ears. When he saw me, his lip curled, and I saw fangs of iron, gold and silver inscribed with runes glimmering through the clear drool.

The astral world trembled around him, quaked with the power inherent to his being. The sensation of my flesh being warmed overcame me even when I lacked flesh, and I felt a gravity like the kind you feel when you stand on the edge of a very tall drop, like the world is inclining to push you over the boundary.

He was as impressive and terrible as he was the day he found me, on my Awakening.

“Little Seed,” he greeted me. “You Finally Grace This Old Fox With Your Presence?”

“Humble is a bad color on you,” I scoffed. “You want to tell me what the hell was that?!”

“What Was What, Little Seed?” he asked, pacing around me. The mist curled around my legs and crawled up to envelop my hands as he moved, wide eyes looking curiously down at me as he paced. “I Get A Lot Done In A Day. I Have Multiple Apprentices, You Know. More Grateful Ones.”

“Oh, you can frag right off with that. I don’t take passive-aggressive drek from my grandmother and I’m certainly not going to take it from you,” I spat. “I thought I was having a fragging stroke, you jerk! Why did you just... punish me?!”

“Why? I Have A Better Question For You,” Fox said. Before I realized, he grew thrice in size, almost filling the warehouse and snarling with glimmering teeth twice the size of me as he cried out, “WHAT MADE YOU THINK I COULD ABIDE AS YOU MADE A MOCKERY OF MY TEACHINGS?!”

I fell backwards, my mind making me drop on the ceiling by habit as I stutted, “W-What a-are you t-talking about? I h-haven’t hurt anyone or—”

“Do You Think My Issue Is With Your Fangless Maw?!” Fox snarled, stepping forward as I crawled back away from him. “I Taught You Not To Hurt The Undeserving, Not To Ignore All Those That Bring Conflict To Your Doorstep! I Taught You To Wield Your Impressive Mind As A Weapon Against The Arrogant, The Cruel And The Stoic! How Long Did You Think Petty Tricks Against Petty Bullies Would Satisfy Me, Avaeneran?!”

“I-I-I—”

“And To Top It All Off, When You Finally Get Word From That Delightful Friend Of Yours, What Do You Do?! You Decide To Ignore It?!” my back hit the wall, which turned solid under Fox’s power before I could go through it and escape. Fox’s paws landed on either side of me and his gigantic face got real close to me, shining eyes glaring down at me like headlights. “A Trusted Friend—A Brother—Begs For Help Against A Greater, Crueler Power Than Anything You’ve Known And You Turn Your Back On Him?! Did His Friendship Mean Nothing To You?!”

“I-It’s not like that! I-I-I’m just one woman!”

“You Are A Mage! You Are My Shaman! You Pride Yourself In Your Intelligence, Yet You Refuse To Investigate This Matter?!” Fox’s roaring pushed me back against the wall until I felt actual harm. “WHAT HAS MY INVESTMENT BEEN FOR IF YOU WILL ONLY TURN OUT CRAVEN AND PITIFUL?! IS THIS WHO YOU ARE?! IS THIS WHAT YOU AMOUNT TO?!”

Words failed me. I stuttered for a moment, before another loud growl from Fox’s throat shut me up.

We stood there for a moment, mentor and apprentice, separated by my behaviour, before Fox closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped back. His size decreased back to merely being twice as large and me.

He looked down at me, sat down, and looked away.

“Do You Know Why I Call You ‘Little Seed’?” he asked. Before I could answer, he turned back to me and said, “It Is Because When I Found You, I Thought You Were Full Of Potential. A Young Child, Sharp As A Whip, Full Of Power And With A Strong Sense Of What Was Right And What Was Wrong.”

He looked at me, blinked, and turned around as he started to be covered by the mist again.

“Perhaps I Made A Mistake.”

And that hurt me worse than any physical damage that Fox could have decided to do.

When kids had thrown rocks at me because they heard about how shitty my parents were, when I had decided to graduate early, when my parents kicked me out, when I was struggling with three exams in MIT&T, whenever I had found myself struggling in life, Fox had been there to give me a comforting nudge in the right direction, even if the path involved putting dye in someone’s shampoo or something.

He’d made it clear long ago that it was an investment, but... maybe I’d gotten too comfortable thinking I could always just do the least work possible for the presence of one of the few people I’d thought of as a real friend.

Eventually, the mist left the warehouse, and I was fully alone.

I stayed there for a moment. I just sat there, hanging upside-down in the astral world in a warehouse, head emptied of anything solid.

After a while, I had enough.

So I turned over to be right-side-up and started flying back to the lab building.

I cut through the air without pausing to see anything. Since I was incapable of focusing on anything other than getting back to my body so at least I would have the floor be solid under my feet, the city zoomed past under me.

I didn’t even stop to see Toshiro waving at my astral form, as I swerved around him and hit my body like a bullet, the constant sensations that went ignored—my hearbeat, my breathing, the sensation of my eyeballs moving in my skull—all returned and flooded my head enough that for a moment I was free of the reality of my situation.

Then it went the other way.

I drew a sharp gasp and started coughing, body quivering and curling up as every sensation in my head finally found its way to my body. All the fear, disappointment, sadness, worry and anger. Everything found its home in my nervous system and jumped through it like electricity through wire.

“Whoa! Ava, are you okay?” I barely recognized Toshiro’s voice. “Are—Are you crying?”

I blinked, realizing my vision was blurry, and wiped my eyes with my palm heel.

“It’s f-fine,” I said, coughing and looking up to see Toshiro hovering over me. “I just need a s-second.”

“Uh... okay,” Toshiro said, clearing his throat. “You, uh, you get that business sorted out?”

“... Mm,” I managed. I looked down at my hand and frowned.

“Right, right,” Toshiro nodded, biting his lip, “So, uh, I kinda need to tell you something.”

“Toshiro,” I interrupted. “Why did my hand come out black from rubbing my face?”

I looked up and found him awkwardly biting his lip. There was a marker sticking out of his pocket.

“In my defense,” he said, “I didn’t think you had to do something that serious.”

I stood up and quickly walked to the door, and I looked at myself on the reflection in its tiny window. He’d scribbled on my forehead, drawn a moustache on my upper lip and had written little ‘z’s under my eye.

I swung the door open, turned around to give him a last glare that he met with a wince, and walked in as fast as I could without running, slamming the door behind me.

I tried to walk as fast as I could without outright running, but regretted the choice as I heard the people I passed by muttering and chuckling. It felt like everyone was watching me as I ran into the bathroom, face flushed and covered in drawings because that immature asshole just had to pile on a fragging prank on an already drek day, because I just could not catch a motherfragging BREAK—

I slammed the door to the women’s bathroom open and immediately made for the sink, opening the faucet as much as it went and starting to splash my face with water and scrubbing with my hands until my face hurt, then repeating the process over and over again.

When I looked up, my dark brown skin was rubbed raw with red blotches, and I realized I was crying freely. All of it, Damien’s situation, Park’s inevitable next attempt to get into my pants, the next six hours of work I had ahead of me, Fox’s disappointment, the fact that I was gonna get chewed out by Park for ‘making a scene’ which would probably lead to him hitting on me, Toshiro messing with me when I thought I was going to be safe...

Fox’s condemnations rang in my ears.

My ragged breathing turned sharp, my hand curled into a fist and I punched my reflection, shattering the bathroom mirror and covering my fingers in cuts. Then I reared my hand back and punched again. And again. And again.

Once finished, I put my bleding hand under the water. I used a small equation in my head to push the tiny shards of glass out of my wounds, then sealed them with a different spell. I kept my healed hand under the water.

After a while, I closed the faucet, and looked at myself in the cracked mirror.

I sniffed hard to unclog my nose, spat in the sink, thought it over, and nodded.

“Fuck it,” I said. Then, again and a little louder, “Fuck. It.”

I walked out of the bathroom and within a few footsteps saw Park walking towards me, frowning severely.

“Feyden, I hope you have an explanation,” he said in his best ‘stern’ voice as he walked up to me, eyes going up and down my body before resting on my collarbone in his best effort of treating me seriously, “Several members of the competing labs—”

“I’m using my sick day,” I interrupted him. “I’m going home for the rest of the day.”

“Wh-what?” he frowned. “You can’t do that, you’ve got work to do.”

“As a matter of fact, I can,” I corrected him. “It might surprise you to hear this, as you’ve only been part of the ‘Mitsuhama family’ for one year in comparison to my five, but employees are allowed to use their allotted sick days to deal with personal mourning, as long as they have not used them previously, which I haven’t done once this entire year. So, seeing how I still have five sick days to my name and that my brother has gone missing—as Rusty from security can tell you—I have decided to do this.”

Park blinked stupidly, before his brain latched onto one detail and he said, “You never mentioned a brother.”

“Yes. This is because we are not friends,” I explained. “In any case, this use of my sick days requires informing my immediate superior before leaving. I have just done that. So, if you’ll excuse me...”

I walked around him, feeling his eyes track me as I went to my cubicle, grabbed my jacket, and headed for the elevator.

A part of me wondered how I must’ve looked to my coworkers as they unsubtly peeked over cubicle walls and computer screens. It was probably obvious that I’d been crying, I’d just put down Park in front of all of them after five years of being put down by anyone with the slightest bit of authority over me, and the more observant among them would have noticed the pink lines on one of my hands.

I hoped I looked at least a little dignified. It was the first time I’d ever managed to talk to a boss without stuttering.

I walked into the elevator, hit the button for the ground floor, and when the doors closed I collapsed against a wall, sighing.

I just knew it was gonna be a long day.

*+*+*

Oldtown was, as you might have guessed, the first part of Ashenport that was built, meaning it was ripe full of classy old buildings with cement decorations like gargoyles, twisty thingies and balconies.

... look, I’m a mage, not an architect.

Many buildings had to be fixed with plascrete as concrete and cement failed to hold up against acid rainstorms coming from further south, gunfights, and other horrible crap, but certain concerned parties had lobbied to preserve the artistic side of the buildings, so they’d never been replaced by the more utilitarian square skyscrapers that had dominated the rest of Ashenport’s skyline.

It was also kind of a pain in the ass to navigate. The spring heat became trapped and increased between all the put-together buildings, making me keep my navy blue suit jacket off and my sleeves rolled up, and I was regularly consulting my commlink for directions to Dresden’s Bar & Grill.

It took three runs around the same block before I noticed a small staircase leading into a building’s basement, with a modest green sign on the wooden door that held the bar’s name. Next to the staircase were some barred windows that allowed me no insight as to whether was in the bar despite the early hour.

I walked down the stairs, found no doorbell, tried to open the door, found it close, and knocked on the door.

Some time went past with no sound answering me. Looking up, I spotted a security camera aimed at me, with a blinking red light. I frowned, then knocked on the door again.

More time passed with a further lack of answer.

Sighing, I sat down at the foot of the stairs and rested my chin on my hand. If no one was in, I’d just have to wait until they opened.

I had just opened the latest issue of Whispers of Atlantis, the Atlantean Foundation’s monthly electronic magazine when the sound of locks being removed came through the door before it suddenly opened.

Standing on the other side was a fairly old human dressed in a white button-down and a black waistcoat, black dress pants and synthleather dress shoes. He wore no tie and had the last button of his shirt undone, plus the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, revealing that his left arm was synthetic, sleek grey metal catching the light of the midday sun.

He was a pretty big guy, even if I hadn’t been looking at him from a sitting position. Wide shouldered, tall even by elf standards, but with a small waist. His black eyes and facial structure showed an Asian heritage, possibly Japanese, which made me guess he probably wasn’t the titular Dresden.

There were tattoos of black serpents winding around his right arm, and his black hair was going grey at the temples. A pair of glasses, wire-framed and squared, were perched on the tip of his nose, all the better to glare down at me with, which made the subtle wrinkling on his forehead stand out all the more.

“What,” he said, “Do you want?”

His voice sounded like it ate smaller, shriller voices. I briefly wondered if there was any part of him that didn’t scream ‘threatening old badass’, before my eyes fell and I noticed he was wearing pastel pink socks.

I shook my head, cleared my throat and made to stand up, saying, “U-Um, s-sorry, I’m looking for someone called ‘Everest’?”

If it was possible, his glare intensified.

That was all the warning I got before his synthetic arm lashed out, pulled me in by the neck and slammed me into a wall next to the door as he shut it with his free hand.

“Who told you that name, what do you want, who are you, and why shouldn’t I put my foot so far up your ass that your denture decorates my shoe?”

“I-I-I’m a-a friend of H-Hawkeye!” I said, hands wrapped around his wrist, struggling to talk with his hand around my throat and fear clogging my mind. “He l-left me a l-letter in c-case he went m-missing, and he d-did! The l-letter said that if I w-wanted to investigate his d-disappearance I sh-should come here and ask for E-Everest!”

“Stop. Saying. That. Name,” the man said, his hand pressing tighter on my throat with every word before going back to just pressing down kinda tight. “You still haven’t told me why I shouldn’t kill you.”

I swallowed as best as I could with my obstructed airway, released one hand and made it start crackling with electricity as I mustered the courage to say, “B-Because I w-won’t go down e-easy.”

He glared at me for a moment longer, letting me practically see the math running in his head, before his hand suddenly released me and I fell on my ass, coughing violently while he walked away.

By the time I recuperated, he was standing by a door next to the bar, opening it and nodding with his head to invite me to follow after before he went in.

Well, I thought to myself, rubbing at my throat. In for a penny and all that.

I walked after him, eyeing my surroundings.

Even without people, the bar looked like a nice little place, with dark green tile flooring, imitation wood panneling, a rather solid bar with some nicely-stocked shelves behind it on either side of a window into a kitchen. There was a small stage by the wall opposite to the bar, a couple standing tables spread around with two ceiling fans turned off overhead.

There was some dust gathered up by a sweep set, plus a mop in the corner that was letting off a faint, lemon-y scent. The tables and bar were recently waxed, and the stools were propped up on the bar.

It looked like a place my uni buddies would’ve dragged me to on one of the few times they managed to tear me away from my books. I could easily picture the murmur of a crowd, a live band and hushed conversations and laughs between friends come for drinks.

The office I walked into was rather cozy and private, in comparison.

Kind of a crammed space, but well utilized. A rather expensive-looking computer on the imitation wood desk, the monitor set aside so the man could look me in the eye as he sat on a plush swivel chair lined with red velvet. A ceiling fan spun lazily above us, its yellow lightbulb the only illumination.

I stepped on a red carpet over imination wood floors, and looked to the side to find a painting of a boat being ravaged by some sort of gigantic ocean creature of a cephalopodian nature.

There were two metal chairs opposite to the man, but when I gestured at one of them he made no allowance for me to sit. Instead, he reached into a box set opposite to the monitor and pulled out a long, thin cigar from it.

He reached inside his waistcoat, pulled out a cigar cutter, chopped off the tip, put the cutter back into his pocket and pulled out a lighter, lit the cigar, took a big drag out of it, and exhaled. And the whole time he kept eye contact with me, his black eyes boring holes into me through his glasses.

“So,” he finally said. “A friend of Hawkeye’s?”

I nodded.

“Figures he would bring me trouble from beyond the grave,” he said, and his eyebrow twitched upwards as I bristled at that. “Oh? You’re actually his friend? I figured that was an euphemism for debt collector.”

“I c-called him my b-brother,” I said.

“... always thought he was kinda tall for a dwarf,” the man deadpanned. “So why are you here?”

Well, he doesn’t seem to like Damien, so saying I’m in pursuit of the conspiracy that disappeared him probably won’t earn me more than a kick in the ass, I reasoned. So...

“You w-were his f-fixer, right?” I asked. The man slowly nodded. “He m-mentioned you were responsible f-for the letter. I’m the one that got it.”

“Avaeneran Feyden, then,” the man said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “Nice name.”

I winced, “Traditional parents. Big fans of Tír na nÓg.”

“Hm. So what? Did he leave you something?”

I shrugged, “M-More or less.”

“... a job?” the man asked, disbelieving. I must’ve made some face, because he scoffed and shook his head, “Unbe-fragging-lieavable. That kid was all take.”

“Th-that’s not fair,” I said. “Hawkeye gave plenty!”

“Yeah, but never to the people he took from,” the man snorted. “Talking to him was like sending your drek down the river to be picked up by people you couldn’t care less about. Too busy with causes to take care of his own house.”

I frowned, and he looked at me blandly before shrugging.

“But, I can see I’m only making you mad. So what do I have to do with this job?”

“... I’m to ask for three favors,” I said, taking a deep breath. “B-But... I’m going to ask f-for one f-first, and I’ll s-see about the others when th-that’s done.”

“Awfully presumptious to just guess that I’m going to do you a solid,” the man noted.

“I know,” I said, “So... I’ll trade.”

He rolled his eyes, “What could you possibly have—”

“I work for Mitsuhama,” I interrupted, and his eyes got a bit wide.

Mitsuhama was famous among even AAA corporations for being particularly unforgiving of shadowrunners. Where other companies were willing to let shadowrunners get away once they were out of company territory, Mitsuhama Computer Technologies made a point of hunting down and making examples out of anyone that struck against it.

Rumor said that they could spend more money than what was stolen just to get their hands on the offensive party.

Hell, it got to the point where I, as an employee capable of using combat magic, had to sign a contract stating that I would try to do harm to any shadowrunners or other criminals that I spotted and recognized as such on company grounds.

Mitsuhama did not let insults go unanswered. And the same measure that made me wary of bringing that wrath upon myself, let me know that it was the ultimate bargaining chip on my side.

I could see it in his eyes, wide and searching for any sign that I was not serious.

But I was.

Seeing that I had his attention, I said, “I’m a thaumaturgic researcher on the facility at the top of the hill. If you do m-me this f-favor, I’ll...”

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath.

This is it, I told myself. You say this and that’s five fragging years of your life—your entire career—down the drain. All for Damien.

I thought about it. Then I thought about what Fox said. Whom I wanted to be.

Worth it.

I opened my eyes, and met his unflinchingly.

“If you do me this favor, I’ll steal all the data I can get my hands on,” I promised, standing up as straight as I could. “F-Future projects, current projects. I-I’ll even add everything I know about the security.”

The man blinked slowly, cigar hanging from his mouth, before slowly standing up.

He took the cigar out of his mouth, stretched his hand forward and said, “Oda Dresden, pleasure to meet you.”

I looked at his hand, at his face, at his hand, realized what was going on and grabbed it, giving it a small and mildly firm shake as I said, “Avaeneran Feyden. F-Friends c-call me Ava.”

“Hm,” he said, sitting back down and gesturing for me to do the same on one of my chairs. “Well, Ms. Feyden, I think we have quite a bit to talk about.”

I took the hint, then I took a seat and nodded.

*+*+*

It took me two days after the meeting with Mr. Dresden to put the plan into motion.

Not because it was a particularly complicated plan. More because I figured since I was dooming my career anyways, I might as well go all in and use more of my sick days for the first time since I started working.

(Having access to magic healing always made taking an actual sick day feel kinda cheap.)

The only reason I didn’t use the other three days off was that I was bored out of my skull the whole day. I listened to music, I watched mindnumbing show after show in the trid, I tried to cook, I ordered takeout when I burnt everything I tried to cook, I did yoga, I pulled a muscle and spent a while writhing in pain, I read, and I napped.

Nothing served to distract me.

So, on the second day after the meeting I got dressed, locked the door to my apartment behind me and walked down to the bus station, just in time to see it roll up and open the doors.

For the second time in four days, I managed to get a seat. Before this whole ordeal, I would’ve seen this as the high point of my week, depressing as that sounds.

I waited until Rusty got on, and then I gestured for him to get closer.

“Hoi, Ms. Feyden,” he greeted me, with a slightly tense smile. “Are you feeling better?”

I shrugged, “M-More or less. C’mon.”

I started to get up, keeping an eye out, and when someone made for the seat I stuck my hand out, stopping a blonde human by the chest.

“I-I was o-offering that seat to Rusty,” I said. It probably would’ve been a lot more firm if not for the fragging stutter.

The human made to scoff, when his face suddenly got a little pale while I heard the sound of Rusty’s cybernetics whirring behind me. Looking over my shoulder, I found Rusty standing as tall as the bus allowed, glaring down at the human.

“You’re not giving Ms. Feyden a hard time, are you?” he growled.

The human swallowed, then stepped back as much as he could and looked away, muttering something about ‘fragging uppity trogs’ through grit teeth. Almost absentmindedly, I used a spell to glue his shoes to the floor while I turned to look at Rusty, who gave a careless shrug as he sat with a pleased sigh.

“Just right,” he said, grinning. “Thank you, Ms. Feyden.”

“My p-pleasure,” I said, returning with a small smile of my own.

I’d wanted to do something like that a hundred times over the years, but had always chickened out at the last minute because ‘what if I offended someone I had to work with?’. There came a kind of relief with burning everything and dancing on the ashes, if I managed to ignore what it’d mean for me on the long run.

The rest of the trip was spent in a comfortable silence.

*+*+*

The weirdest urge welled up in me.

“—irresponsible, immature, completely out of line—”

Almost an intrusive thought. An unrealistic and counterproductive desire that was tempting solely because of how out of line it was.

“Looks like trouble in paradise,” someone whispered.

“Maybe Park decided to chase after an elf that’s less of a frigid bitch,” someone else answered.

Like thinking about throwing your food off the table to see the plate smash into the floor. Like seeing someone running and thinking about putting out your foot to trip them.

“—honestly, if this is the kind of behaviour you’re going to bring to the table then I don’t know why we keep you around—!”

“Been wondering the same thing from day one,” someone that had been with the company for half the time I had muttered, to suppressed laughter.

“Yeah, maybe we could transfer in that short elf chick from the Shinto lab. The one that’s always wearing those skirts.”

In that moment, in the midst of all the noise, a thought so deceitfully calm that it seemed to quiet the world came into my mind.

What if I just tell them I’m about to steal from Mitsuhama? I asked myself. What if I stand on my desk, call them all a bunch of fragging cunts, cover them all in lightning and steal the data from Park after that?

Obviously, I wasn’t going to do it. But the thought was amusing enough that I had to struggle to keep a smile off my face while Park tore a strip out of my hind.

Eventually, he ran out of things to said. Upon seeing a lack of reaction from me, not even my usual cowering and fidgeting, he huffed and growled out something about a meeting later and how we should all get back to work.

I turned on my computer, opened a file, and started doing the bare minimum. Or, well, I tried to do the bare minimum, and it rankled me so much that I went back to putting in an actual effort.

But I like to think I put an effort into my job in a very cool and rebellious manner.

Time passed, I made some suggestions for experiments, modified some foci blueprints, did the usual business. I knew that Park wouldn’t be able to let my ‘insubordination’ pass without further comment, even after berating me in front of the whole office, so it was just a matter of time before we had another meeting.

And, like clockwork, Park came out of his office about fifteen minutes before my smoke break and ‘invited’ us to step into the conference room for ‘a quick pow-wow to make sure we’re all on the same wavelength’.

I blanked out about five seconds into the meeting out of habit, going through the motions of nodding and looking suitably inspired whenever Park’s voice got to the right pitch or tone, but I couldn’t tell you what he said with a gun to my head. I’m pretty sure he compared our lab to a womb and the products to babies, but I might’ve just nodded off and had a distinctly Freudian nightmare.

Eventually, we were all clapping as he smiled in the ritualistic worship of nepotism, and everyone got up to leave and actually get some work done. I noticed that most were slightly twitchy, as was I, given that we’d all missed our smoke break. I expected that if I went to the bathroom in the next forty-five minutes, I’d notice a strong scent of tobacco, which would continue to linger in subtle ways for the rest of the bathroom’s natural lifespan.

And though I itched to join my addicted kin, I had a job to do.

Park looked up to call out to me, and was surprised to find me standing there, looking at him with what could be called a smile, if one were to analyze it carefully and compare it to less famished members of its race.

Once he went back to talking with his dedicated cast of brown-nosers, I pulled out my commlink and opened the camera, before switching tabs to that damn issue of Whispers of Atlantis I kept meaning to read.

I was only halfway through an article regarding a recent dig in Egypt that turned up a few animated corpses, a trap that miraculously worked a couple millenia after its creation and a crown of gold that’d turned the archeologist stupid enough to wear it into a pile of ash and sun-bleached bones when the brown-nosers went away, leaving me along with Park.

I switched back to the camera and locked my commlink as he walked around the table, fingers resting on its surface.

“So... this is rare,” he said. “Is there something you need to say to me?”

Yes. Go frag yourself.

“I-I j-just... I wanted to apologize,” I managed to say, eyes glued to his shoes. If there’s one bright side to being constantly anxious and stuttery, it’s that people can’t tell when you’re stuttering because you’re planning to screw them over. “F-For my conduct a few days ago. S-Something h-happened to a m-member of m-my family, a-and it m-made me r-reconsider s-some things.”

“... oh?” when my eyes flicked up to his, I saw poorly-veiled excitement shining in them even as he tried to look suave by leaning on the conference table. “Such as?”

“S-Such as y-your offer,” I said, eyes falling down to his neckline, wringing my commlink between my hands. “I... I w-was hoping... the offer was still standing?”

He grinned, and the windows that connected the conference room to the cubicles started tinting, turning darker without so much as a twitch from him.

He had cyberware, I realized.

Anger bloomed in my chest.

This absolute bastard had cyberware! He had crippled his skill with magic, and he was the head of a fragging magical research lab?!

But of course he did! I thought, looking down to help me hide my frown. When is he ever going to need magic, right?!

Any doubts I had about my plan faded.

I looked up, hoping he hadn’t read my expression and realized just how much I wanted to apply a flamethrower spell to his privates. I needn’t have bothered, he was too busy struggling against his belt to pay me any mind.

I unlocked my commlink discreetly, waited until his pants and boxers went down around his ankles, and took a picture.

The sound imitating an ancient 20thcentury camera rang in the conference room, and his head snapped up.

I looked down at my photo. My commlink was a sturdy Renraku Sensei model, not cutting-edge but damned decent and sturdy, and the camera was nothing to turn your nose at. This was displayed in the image on the screen, a wonderfully rendered 3D picture of Park, my boss and harasser, with a perverted grin on his face and his shame exposed.

I nodded at myself, locked the phone, put it in my pocket and looked him dead in the eye as I said, “I quit.”

“... w-w-what?” Park stuttered, blinking. He shook his head, blinked harder, and said, “What are you talking about? Did—Did you just take a picture?!”

“Yes,” I said, focusing on a point slightly above his head to mantain the illusion of eye contact as my nerve quickly faded. “C-Call it i-insurance. I-I’m quitting, a-and I want a full severance. A-A-And a recommendation.”

Okay, so I probably wasn’t going to use the second one if I did end up becoming a criminal mercenary, but I figured I may as well cover all my bases.

“Y—That’s—You can’t just—” Park’s brain took a moment to reboot, and he very angrily took as much of a step forward as he could with his pants down as he said, “Delete that photo right—”

I extended a hand out to the side and held a ball of furious red fire within it, mathematically-perfectly round and hot enough that the whole room immediately got just a bit stuffier, though my hand was unharmed thanks to some quick editing of the spell. Usually you’re just supposed to make it and throw it, but I’d spent a couple minutes the day before modifying it for intimidation.

It worked. Park came to a sudden stop, eyeing my hand very nervously.

“Y-You have cyberware,” I said, some of my early anger returning. “Y-You h-have cyberware, and y-you barely d-do any magic. I-In f-fact, I d-don’t think y-you’re a-any good a-at it. B-But I a-am. I-I’m a d-doormat, a-and y-you g-got used to w-walking all o-over me. B-But you f-forgot that I w-was good enough to g-get hired out of college.”

Park swallowed thickly. I dismissed the ball of fire, and before he could draw a breath to sigh in relief, I covered my hand in crackling electricity.

“I-If y-you t-try a-anything,” I said, before taking a big breath and slowly grinding out the words to erase my stutter, “I. Will. Fry. You.”

Park’s hands raised in a gesture of surrender, and he started nodding repeatedly. “O-Okay, we’re cool. No need to do anything drastic. Just... just tell me what you want, Feyden.”

“Y-You’re g-going to go to your uncle’s o-office,” I said. “Y-You’re g-going to tell him what h-happened, and y-you’re g-going to tell him to m-meet me in your office. Or else, w-when I get f-fired, I-I’ll m-make s-sure this photo ends up in the hands of e-every employee i-in this lab.”

Park’s face got even paler, if that was possible. In truth, even a relative pariah like me knew that nobody really liked Park, not even his brown-nosers. But I’d been suffering through narcissistic meeting after narcissistic meeting for the better part of two years, usually with barely as much as three days of separation between each one, and I’d gotten a feel for how Park’s head worked.

Nothing—not the stupid artificial competition between labs, nor his salary, nor getting laid and certainly not the actual job itself—none of that mattered to him as much as knowing that people thought he was important. And if he thought that image would be broken by people seeing a scandalous picture of him...

He waited for a moment, and when I tilted my head at the door, he started running for the door, only remembering to pull up his pants when he was almost through it.

I walked after him, and when he was exciting the office, I power-walked to his office, pulling out my commlink and unlocking it as I strode forward, ignoring the pointed looks and comments as Park and I exited his office after the windows tinted.

I made it in, walked to his computer, and prayed to every possible spirit, deity and saint that could possibly be looking out for me that Park was as stupid as I thought he was.

The computer came out of powersaving mode....

And a wallpaper of an elf model that looked a lot like me greeted me, making me smile at the unlocked computer.

I immediately activated the wireless connection to my commlink and started opening folders while it set up. There was a solid chance that the Research Division’s Director would be busy with something or the other, and even Park had enough braincells not to interrupt his uncle, if only to avoid making a scene and risking his imaginary reputation.

But that still left the chance that Director Park was totally free to deal with his cousin’s idiocy, and I just couldn’t take the chance. Mitsuhama would not be forgiving if I got caught redhanded.

I scanned through folder after folder. Park’s school of organization was simple, but chaotic. Everything was clearly labeled, but the way they were organized baffled mere mortal minds. Not to mention it was a little redundant. I found five folders of elf-on-elf porn, six of elf-on-human porn, three of elf-on-ork porn, one of ork-on-dwarf porn, and one that had photos of girls from the office taken without their knowledge.

I shuddered and moved on.

I found what I wanted soon enough. A couple folders with the latest efforts of my coworkers, a messaging service with a few months worth of memos from superiors and messages from the security team, the minutes of a couple dozen meetings with the other heads of labs and their superiors, and some payments directed to several female elves in the office attributed to ‘services rendered’, which was an innuendo so transparent he may as well have written ‘for not telling anyone about my harassment’.

Hopefully adding that last bit would lead to whoever bought the information getting him fired somehow.

I moved all that information to my commlink. I’d had to erase a lot of music from my comm to make sure I had space for the, uh, what did trids call it? The paydata.

I was pissed about it, if you must know. Some of those albums were downloaded from sites that no longer existed, and I doubted I was going to find any copies of Maria Mercurial’s only foray into country music if I went looking. Or any MESSERKAMPF! concert recordings.

Ugh. Damien better be okay, or else I was going to learn Black Magic just to resucitate him and kill him again.

The humoristic thought serves as just barely a distraction while the data slowly transfered. As soon as it did, I closed the last open folder, turned off the monitor and disconnected my commlink.

My heartbeat had barely slowed down when Park and his uncle stepped into the office.

Park’s uncle was slightly similar to his nephew, if only in the face and hair. He was significantly heaftier, and he radiated a genuine confidence that Park always seemed to fail to imitate. He had the same puffy lips as his nephew, crossed with a scar at the corner.

He gave me a pretty intense glare as he saw me, and I swallowed nervously.

It’s done, I told myself. You got the most important part over and done with. Everything that comes now is just you keeping your options open in case this can be solved without becoming a shadowrunner.

“I take it you’re Ms. Feyden?” Director Park asked, not waiting for a reply as he strode in, followed closely by Park The Lesser. “I hope you don’t actually believe you’re getting out of this with anything less than a lawsuit.”

“W-We’ll have t-to see,” I said. “W-What d-did Park say h-happened?”

His eyes narrowed a bit, “... not much, aside that you were blackmailing him.”

“D-Did he m-mention that I’m d-doing this after t-two years of harassment?” I asked. Seeing he was unmoved, I appealed to his pragmatism, “W-Which I have recorded?”

This was a lie. I’d never even thought of making a record of Park’s actions, out of fear of the consequences of being found out. But they didn’t need to know that.

Park got a lot paler. Director Park’s frown got even deeper, and he looked over his shoulder to glare with disdain at his nephew, before looking back to me.

“No. U-Jin neglected to mention this.”

“I-It wasn’t harassment!” ‘U-Jin’ (was that his name?) shouted, “I just asked her for some fun, and she acted like a total bitch about it!”

Director Park and I traded a look.

“K-Kinda wish I’d h-had my comm r-recording just now,” I said.

“U-Jin, please shut your trap,” said Director Park, eyes glued on me, “The adults are talking.”

U-Jin made to complain, but the slightest turning of his uncle’s head made his mouth snap shut.

“... alright,” Director Park said, focus back on me, “What exactly are your demands?”

“Severance p-pay, recommendation letter... a-and an apology from him,” I added at the last minute, since I’d started the sentence like I was going to say three things without thinking of a third. “N-Nothing big.”

“Employees are only entitled to severance pay after ten years with the company,” Director Park noted.

“I-I’m willing to t-take a reduced pay reflective of m-my short t-time with the c-company,” I said. “B-But I’m u-unwilling to b-bend on the r-recommendation a-and a-apology.”

“Implying you’ll get anything,” Director Park noted. “What you’re doing is ilegal, young lady, and it would behoove you not to forget that.”

“I-I am aware. B-But so w-were your n-nephew’s a-actions.”

“Hardly a major crime, compared to extortion.”

“A c-crime is a c-crime, a-and... P-Park’s actions reflect on you,” I pointed out. “M-Maybe I d-don’t win this. M-Maybe I g-get buried in d-defamation l-lawsuits—”

“Mitsuhama would never be so crude,” Director Park cut in.

“—b-but I don’t g-go out alone,” I continued as if he hadn’t interrupted. “I-If I go, I go loud. I c-can’t m-make sure that I g-get what I w-want, b-but I c-can make it c-costly a-and embarrassing f-for you b-both. I’ll m-make sure everyone k-knows what h-happened. A-And that P-Park g-got his job through you. S-Sir.”

“... my nephew got his position through his own merits.”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “He has c-cyberware. Th-That he uses f-for his o-office. N-Not one m-mage w-worth their s-salt w-would g-get an implant that they d-don’t need t-to live.”

Director Park sighed, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them. He looked at me searchingly for a moment.

“... Diminished severance pay, an apology, no referral, you never breathe a word of this to anyone,” he said. “Final offer.”

“... d-deal.”

We shook on it. Park made to say something. His uncle slapped him across the face halfway through him calling me a cunt.

As arranged, I would work the rest of the week, and then I’d be expected to clear out my apartment and desk and leave like I had the security team after me.

The way things went, I probably had nothing to look forward to in terms of lawful employment. Without a recommendation, no AAA company would pick me up, and while AA companies and below might want to pick me up, it’d probably be a significantly lesser job than the one I’d had with Mitsuhama.

Producing foci after foci in a factory line. Going to rich folks’ homes as a consultant to make sure no imaginary magical criminals broke in with hoodoo and youdo. Menial work, a waste of a degree.

All things said, it went a lot better than I expected.

*+*+*

Next time I knocked on Dresden’s door, he opened on the second knock and caught the third with his shoulder.

I pulled my hand back as if I’d been burnt and stepped back, grimacing and sayign, “S-Sorry.”

“Mm,” he replied, stepping aside and walking back into the bar. I followed after a moment, walking into his office again and standing while he sat behind his desk. Once he was in place, he raised an eyebrow. “You got it?”

I pulled my commlink out of my pocket.

He gestured for me to sit, and when I did, he gestured for me to hand it over.

I hesitated at the last moment, but gave it over without comment.

He looked at me for a moment.

“... a piece of free advice, Feyden? You know that little voice in your head that told you to ask for payment first just now?” My face got hot, but he carried on without paying heed, “That’s the voice you listen to. Common decency is dead and buried, and you’ll do well to dance on its grave instead of counting on it to carry you through.”

I swallowed. Before I could even dwell on my worries, though, Dresden opened a cabinet and pulled out a ring with two small keys on it, both small and metal but one had a plastic grip.

“But, a fixer is only as good as their word,” he finished, pressing the keys down on the table while he inspected my comm in his other hand. “If you fulfilled your part, you get the keys. If you’d been smarter, it’d be the other way around. Take it as a lesson.”

I hesitated, but nodded.

Without further comment, he reached for a cable behind his monitor and plugged it into my commlink, then he started clicking around in my files.

I felt a little uncomfortable with it, watching a violation of my privacy in real time, but most of the stuff I really cared about had been erased to make space for U-Jin Park’s files, so it was a meaningless feeling that I tried to push away.

Dresden’s face revealed no hint of his inner thoughts as he clicked through the files. I could see on the reflective lenses of his glasses as he opened a folder, opened a few files and perused them, then closed the folder and moved on to the next.

After a few repetitions of this process, he grabbed the keys and tossed them at me without looking, where I barely caught them after they smacked me in the face.

“Plastic one is for the street, metal one is for the apartment. Hawk stayed on 404,” he said, using his freed hand to start moving files from my commlink to his computer. “I’ll give you your commlink back after I’m done.”

“U-Um, w-what building—?”

“The one over the bar, Feyden.”

“Right,” I nodded, got up, walked to the door, turned around and said, “Th-Thank you again, Mr. Dresden.”

He didn’t react, one hand going up to stroke his chin as he worked.

Guess I did good work, I thought.