Family Reunion - 0.5

Family Reunion – 0.5

The connection toned three times before someone answered.  “Hau (1)” a sleepy female voice answered on the other end without video.

“Haha kon'nichiwa, watashi wa anata to sofu no tasuke o hitsuyō to shite imasu (2,3)”, Rain replied as politely as possible.

“Erurainon?!? (4)”, the woman replied in a surprised voice on the other end.

“Yes, i am sorry to wake you. (5)”, he replied respectfully once again.

“You have a lot of nerve calling here! (5)”

“Yes ma’am (5)” he replied.

“If it were not for my husband, we would not still be having this conversation. (5)”

“I understand mother.  Is he there? Grandfather? May I speak to him? (5)”

“He is an old man now.  You always were insolent Erurainon.” The woman replied.  “Why should I bother him at this hour? (5)”

His former foster mother’s words stung deep, but he knew them to be true.  The last time he was in their home, it did not end well.

“I’m sorry mother.  There is a man badly injured up here on I-90.  I’ve done everything I can, but he is going to need grandfather’s skill to survive. (5) “

The woman sighed heavily, but she didn’t say anything more to him.  Rain could hear indistinct talking over the line, but couldn’t make anything out.  A moment later a man’s voice came across the line.

“Erurainon?!?” he said.  “It’s good to hear your voice again. (6)”

Rain’s heart sank some more.  He foster father had always been so polite… even when he was chastising him for failing at some task, or when Rain had disappointed him… again.

“Thank you grandfather (7).  I happened to come upon a man being attacked up here on the highway.”

“Erurainon, you know how I feel about happenstance. (6)”

“Yes sir. Um… well, I have done what you taught me, but… he is still in really bad shape… and… well, I just don’t have the ability to care for him like you do. (6)”

It was the man’s turn to sigh this time.  The line remained quiet, but Rain did not want to interrupt his elder.  Finally there was some discussion on the other end, and then the man spoke up again.

“We’re coming.  Keep him safe until we can get there (6)”, and then the connection dropped.

Rain sighed, dried the Commlink, and returned it to its proper place within his pack.  Next, he double checked on his patient.  He was stable.  He did a double tap of his finger against the finger-tip clamp attached to the man’s left pointer finger, and then to the side of his thin line goggles. The display moved to an augmented readout within his field of view.  Lastly, he laid the man out on the wet ground.  He used an arm rest that had broken free as a make shift pillow, his backpack as an interim foot rest, and then removed his long coat to cover him up.  “It would not be good for shock to finish what the helicopter had started, while waiting for the ambulance”, he thought to himself.

For the next hour, Rain paced between pieces of wreckage, keeping an eye out for the helicopter that had attacked the man, and the bear that the wounded man had told him about.  He searched for tracks of the beast, but, this was a skill that he had never really studied.  He laughed at himself in a self-defacing way.   All his life he would begin something, but then his mind would wander, and he would never take the time to truly master it. 

By the time his foster, ahem, former foster parents, arrived, the storm had moved on to the east.  The lightning display was still impressive, even at this distance.  The old pickup truck was immaculate.  Rain shook his head.  Nothing changes with them.  He walked up to the passenger side to greet ‘Grandfather’, but the old man that stepped out from the truck caught him off guard… and the look on his face reflected his reaction (8).

The old man chuckled.  “You apparently keep track of time as well as you study Erurainon” he said.  “You on the other hand… time seems to have avoided you all together (6).”

Rain stammered, “I’m sorry…  (6)”

“For what”, the old man interrupted.  “Being born an elf?” he said almost cackling.  “You could no more choose what race you were born as, than you could have asked to born a woman!”  The old man had to pause and catch his breath.  (6)

Rain remained respectively quiet.

“Let’s see how you’ve done with your patient.” (6)

The pair walked over to where Rain had made the mystery driver as comfortable as possible.  The older man checked over the younger’s work, and nodded.  “Why didn’t you take him into town yourself Erurainon?”

The young elf motioned to his Yamaha Growler Scout.  “I can’t hold him upright, and drive”, he said slightly ashamed.

“Do you know that those in town refer to you as the ‘old religious nut’ that lives in the old abandoned missionary?  No one wants to come near the place.”  The old man looked at his former charge, and just shook his head.  “Prolonged youth… and what have you done with it?”

Rain continued to remain quite.

“Come on, I need your help to get him up in the bed of the truck.  Not as young as I used to be.”

Rain solemnly helped the old man.  “It had only been… wait…” he thought to himself, “wow… it had been forty years…”  He hung his head in shame, as he followed the man back to the cab of the truck.

“You did good Erurainon” the old man said, patting his arm.  “We’ll see him through.”

Rain nodded, and verbalized his thanks.  He glanced hopefully across to woman who had once taught him the ways of her family from back in Japan.  She never took her eyes off of the road in front of the truck.  Once the door was shut, the truck headed back the way it had come.

He watched it disappear over a slight hill, and then gathered up the rest of his belongings to head home.

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Part 6

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            (1)     (hah-ue) // hello – in Lakota

(2)     Japanese Language test [Intuition (4) + English (1) = DP 5] – [5,3,4,1,5 – 2 hits]

(3)     母こんにちは、私はあなたと祖父の助けを必要としています。// Hello mother, I need yours, and grandfather's help. – in Japanese

(4)     (Air-oo-rye-nonn) –  God is gracious – ‘Elvish’ word, based on the works of Tolkien, who it turns out, did not ‘invent’ the Elvish language, but actually discovered it… leading up to the events re: the awakening – (note: an ‘in-game’ interpretation, NOT the truth, obviously)

(5)     The characters are speaking in Japanese

(6)     The characters are speaking in Lakota

(7)     A term of respect for a tribal elder, or another man, older than the speaker.

(8)     Composure test (Cha (3)+Will (5) = 8 DP) – (2,1,2,4,4,1,1,4 = 0 hits)

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The Path Avoided – 0.4

The path avoided – 0.4

After watching the small helicopter fly away west through the storm, the man rode his motorcycle slowly up the slight embankment to the highway.  The figure that had crawled out from the wreckage was leaning up against what was left of the car. 

“Definitely not from around here” he thought to himself as he saw the man’s business suit, now soaked with rain and blood.  The blood was coming from a pretty good head wound, as well as deep cuts in his face and arms.  That’s when the rider saw the shredded pants leg and the mangled flesh underneath. 

He put down the stand for his bike, but left the engine running, and slowly approached the injured man.

As soon as the rider stepped in the direction of the wounded man, he began screaming in a panic, desperately trying to scoot away on his three good limbs.  The rider raised both his arms, trying to calm the panicked man.  It wasn’t working, and he was now causing fresh wounds to his hands as he scraped along the shattered glass and splintered metal in a desperate attempt to escape.

The rider finally reached up, and pulled down the deep cowl of his long coat, to reveal his face.  Raising his hands back up, he said, “Inila, niye toka sni iyecetu (1)”

Another round of distant lightning illuminated the rider’s face enough for the driver to see that he was a man, an elf, and wasn’t trying to harm him he said, “Wh…who…. Whe… where did the bear go?!? (2)”

The rider drew a heavy caliber pistol from its holster on his thigh, and ducked behind the car.  “A bear?  Where?”

The driver looked very confused, “I… it was right there!” he said pointing back in the direction the rider had just come from.

The rider looks down at the driver.  His pupils were fully dilated, his skin pale and waxy.  “He’s in shock” he said to himself re-holstering his pistol.  The rider dropped his backpack on the ground, “Caje taku nitawa… cate sice (3)… uh, sorry… What is your name?”

“Wa… wha… what?”

“Your name, what is it?  I am known as magazu (4)… Rain, my friends call me Rain.”  He said as he unpacked the Medkit.  Once it was powered up, he waited for it to synchronize with the weak Matrix signals out here in the Badlands.  When the read outs began to scroll, Rain splayed the fingers of his right hand rapidly, which triggered three augmented reality screens to pop up into the elf’s view.

The driver looked up at his rescuer and started laughing.  “Rain… hahaha, because it’s raining… hahaha.”

Rain looked up at the sky to fight the rising ire within him.  Feeling the large cold drops fall on his face, he refocused his mind. 

“Um… right,” he said with a sigh, looking back down to his patient.  The leg was spurting blood.  The Medkit confirmed his suspicions that wound needed to take priority.  He started to tell the man what he was getting ready to do, but the driver’s head had sagged to his right.  “Unconscious… at least he’s not feeling the pain right now” Rain thought to himself.

Rain set his left hand on the man’s forehead, and raised his right to the heavens, “Atkuku ki Wakan Tanka, awayaye leciya le wicasa. (5,6,7)” He felt the familiar sensation of mana collecting, and flowing through him, and into the man.  When the sensation eased, he re-examined the man’s leg.  The blood had ceased gushing from the severed artery, but just to make sure, he took off the man’s belt, and fashioned a tourniquet just above the shredded flesh.

Now that he had more time, he dressed the rest of the man’s wounds (8).  When he could, he would sit up higher to try and see if the helicopter was going to return, or if anyone else might be driving along the isolated highway.  Once he had dressed the wounds he could see, he sat back on his heels and raised his face and hands to the sky, and began to pray, “Atkuku ki Wakan Tanka, canl waste kage le wicasa zaniya”. (9)(10)(11)

Once he finished his prayer, he remained with his face to the sky so that he could enjoy the sensation of the thunder storm on his face for a while longer.  After several moments he lowered his arms, “Pilamayaye Atkuku ki Wakan Tanka”. (12)

After he finished putting all of the loose kit away, he returned the medkit to his backpack.  Reaching under his long coat, he withdrew a thirty by twenty centimeter tablet.  With practiced ease, he taped the sequence in.

“It’s been a while… I hope they will take my call” he said to himself.

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Part - 5

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(1)     (ee-nee-lah), (nee-yea) (toh-kahn shnee) ee-yea-chay-due) (ee-yea-chay-due) // Quiet, you are going to be alright. – in the Lakota language

(2)     English Language test [Intuition (4) + English (1) = DP 5] – [6,6,3,3,5 – 3 hits]

(3)     (chah-zjay)(dah-kue)(nee-dah-wah)… (chahn-day shee-chay) // What is your name?  Sorry…

(4)     (ma-gh-as-zue)

(5)     Casting Stabilize Spell, level 4 – [Spell Casting 4 + Magic 2 = 6 DP] – [4,5,6,2,2,5 – 3 hits]

(6)     Resist Drain, Shaman – [Cha 3 + Will 5 = 8 DP [2]] – [4,6,5,3,2,1,6,2  = 3 hits, no drain (note: drain would have been physical, because the number of hits, exceeded his magic ability)

(7)     (ah-dkue-kue kee) (wah-kahn dahn-kah) (ah-wahn-yahn-yea) (lay-chee-yah) (lay) (wee-chah-shah)  // Father (his/her)  God watch over this man

(8)     First Aid check [Skill Level (1) + Logic (5) + PQ, Quick Healer (2) = 8 DP] – (6,3,1,4,2,6,2,3 = 3 hits)

(9)     Casting Heal Spell, level 4 – [Spell Casting 4 + Magic 2 + PQ, Quick Healer (2) = 8 DP] – [5,4,6,1,2,4,4,1 – 2 hits]

(10) Resist Drain, Shaman – [Cha 3 + Will 5 = 8 DP [2]] – [1,2,6,6,1,5,1,6  = 4 hits, no drain

(11) (ah-dkue-kue kee) (wah-kahn dahn-kah) (chanl wah-shday) (kah-ghay) (lay) (wee-chah-shah) (zah-nee-yah) // Father God, please make this man well (in health)

(12) (pee-lah-mah-yah-yea) (ah-dkue-kue kee) (wah-kahn dahn-kah) // Thank You father God.

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If You Want Something Done Right – 0.3

If you want something done right – 0.3

Normally, he would have just hired a team of Shadowrunners, the disposable assets of the sixth world.  Mostly SINless, ne'er do wells, with the best qualities… they all wanted Nuyen, and they didn’t care how they earned it.  But this run, this one was special. 

He always understood his role within the organization.  He was only a low level ‘project manager’ with a special focus on ‘additional tasks, not otherwise assigned’, but when the ‘Big Man’ calls you… himself, you best make sure it’s done right.  Besides, it was just the retrieval of a minor corp asset.  If it got too real, he could hire local talent.

For the third time in the past thirty minutes, he pulled up the tracking program, which displayed the RFID, and found it right where it had been for most of the night.

~*CRACK*~

The windshield had instantly polarized when the bolt of lightning landed so close to the speeding Bently, the flash of light and the crack of thunder were united.  It might have even struck the car. 

“Drek that was close!” He said, yelling to himself.

He held both of his hands up in front of him, “look at that!  Steady as a rock!” he said proudly. “Still got it.”

Another flash from a streaking bolt of lightning from further down the road outlined something.  He only caught a flash of an outline.  He placed both of his hands back on the steering wheel now, and began squinting out into the gloom.  At this speed, the thick drops of rain just peeled up and away, but it was so dark.

It was then his world erupted.  Another flash of lightning revealed the single man Wasp helicopter.  Hanging underneath the nose was slung an Ogre Hammer Assault Cannon, already spewing high velocity death.  It chewed up a clean line of cement right at him.  There was no time to think, and he instinctively jerked the wheel to the left, but it was too late.  The 360 gram rounds, impacting at over six hundred and fifty rounds per second it etched a vicious wound from the right fender, through the front tire and engine compartment, shredded the passenger door, and then stitched its path complete through the trunk.

When the front tire disintegrated under the assault, the rim slammed down and dug into the asphalt covered cement, causing the Bentley to vault lazily into the air.  For a few moments, he felt weightless, the tumult of the storm and attack had passed, and he was free.  But when the broken machine returned to earth, it began to tumble violently. Over and over, spewing pieces of metal and plastic over one hundred meters away, until it finally came to a rest on what was left of the roof. Over a half a kilometer from where it first took flight.

For several long moments, he couldn’t tell which way was up.  Not until he saw the small streams of water flowing along the roof above his head, did it click.   Slowly, painfully, he pulled himself out from under the wires and broken glass, and out into the pouring down rain.  The incessant pounding of large drops of cold water, and the oft repeated thunder, frustrated his attempts to find out where his attacker had gone off to. 

It wasn’t until he tried to stand, to try and make a run for it, that he realized that his right leg would not support his weight.  The first time, he went down hard, pushing his face along the debris of the accident, ripping deep lines of fresh cuts into his face and arms.  The second time, he just ended up in a heap.  As he lay there, he heard the angry little bird come screaming in, spitting more death and destruction.  The eruption of asphalt and concrete, and the insanely cacophony of shredding of steel, all around him caused his ears to ring.  He curled up into a fetal position, desperately trying to make himself smaller while waiting for the fatal round to fall.  Somehow, as the sound of the screaming engine and blades faded into the storm, he found himself still alive.  For all the good that did him.

Looking around, there were no city lights on the horizon, not another set of headlights coming or going, just the pouring rain and his destroyed vehicle.  That was when something wore off inside of him.  Intense, searing pain came crashing down on him, especially on his right leg.  Looking down, he saw something that his mind could not immediately grasp.  The lower half of his thigh, to the knee, there was barely anything left.  There were strips of skin and sinew connecting the top and the bottom, but not much else.  His head began to swim.  He unbuckled his belt, and tugged, but all his effort did was to cause him to fall over onto his side.  Sitting up again, he rested against the side of his car.  If it were not for shock settling in, he would have begun to realize the hopelessness of his situation.

That’s when he heard the throaty growl of something approaching.  Wiping the dripping rain out of his eyes he saw what had made such a disturbing sound… in the strobes of the flashes of lightning, he felt fear rise into his throat and as he saw the silhouette of a bear.

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Part - 4

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Thundering Rain - 0.2

Thundering Rain - 0.2

The storm raged full bore.  Sheets of wind driven rain, and the thick cloud cover, blocked any possible chance of moon light penetrating enough to see more than a meter in front of your face.  The thick blanket of darkness was only penetrated by the frequent spasms of lightning all around.  Out of one lingering flash of lightning, and the guttural roll of thunder that immediately followed, a man was revealed within the storm.  He wore a deeply hooded, shin length, duster.  He climbed the knoll with a deliberate stride, like he had nowhere else to be.  Over his right shoulder was slung a lever action rifle with a mounted scope, the muzzle pointing towards the ground.  As the brief illumination faded, the man disappeared back into the anonymity of the night and storm.

The occasional flash of lightning and roll of thunder marked the figure’s progress up towards a small century old church.  It stood defiantly against the storm, just as it had since the late twentieth century.  As the man neared the portico of the venerable building, he paused.  Reached up with his right hand, he pulled down his hood and tilted his head slightly toward the angry sky.  This revealed what looked to be a young man, maybe in his mid-twenties, with a dark ruddy complexion and prominent, high cheek bones. His thick black hair was pulled back into a single braided ponytail that was tucked into the back of his jacket.  With his hair pulled back in this way, it revealed a set of pointed ears, swept up and back, extending gracefully adjacent to his hair. He remained still like that and just allowed the water to wash over his face, and drip down his neck, soaking the shirt underneath.  He remained silhouetted against the storm and sky for several long moments before he took a deep breath of the moisture filled air, and then slowly exhaled.  He took a brief look around, and then entered the hallowed building.

As he shut the heavy oak doors behind him, he was greeted by the fire he had left smoldering in the center of the cleared out sanctuary’s tiled floor.  Approaching its inviting warmth, he picked up three small logs from a neat pile, and gently laid them within the embers.  The radiant heat from the leftovers, and the tile floor below, quickly ignited the new source of fuel.  With the flames now renewed, the elf stood and opened his jacket to allow the heat to reach a dark blue heavy duty shirt beneath.  Once the heat penetrated through to his skin, he turned, removed the long coat, and draped it over a nearby wooden bench, and remained with his back to the fire to warm that up too.  As he stood there, he reached back and squeezed some of the water out of his shoulder blade length ponytail.  Just as steam began to rise from his back, he turned back and set about preparing his dinner.

He was cautious as he knelt next to the fire, keeping his right thigh away from the flames.  This was because of the heavy pistol strapped to it over the heavy duty military utilities.  He rounded out his look with a pair of well-worn military boots.  They looked like they might once have been a solid black.

Once he stirred in the fresh meat, he remained squatting on the balls of his feet.  Suddenly he felt tired and began staring aimlessly into the flames.  Within the flames, the wispy image of a bear appeared.  It was roaming the grasslands not far north.  It quickly came upon an overturned car on a divided highway.  There was steam coming up from the now exposed engine compartment, as a heavy rain poured down on the scene.   It stopped, over-watching the scene, and then raised its head to the sky before letting out a bellowing growl. Then, just as suddenly, Rain’s attention was back to the here and now and he quickly realized just how warm the fire was.  He stood, and stepped back away from the fire.

As he paced behind a row of old pews, he shook his head.  “What was that all about?” he asked himself.  “I wonder if that was old route I-90?”

A soft rumble of thunder rolled through the building.

He went back to stirring the pot of improvised stew.  “I don’t recognize the car,” another soft rumble of thunder.  “Not so sure I should go rushing out into a storm with a… bear on the prowl though.”  This time, the crack of lightning preceded the roll of thunder.

He got up, and wandered over to where he kept his Winchester 2066, and his field pack.  “Still… maybe I should head up….” ***CRACK*** this time the blaring flash of light and the peal of thunder rumbled the foundation of the old Christian shrine simultaneously.   Silently, Rain acknowledged what he was supposed to do.  He threw on his damp hooded duster, and then secured his pack.  He glanced at the lever action rifle, then reached down to remove the scope, and left the weapon behind.

Once outside, the man threw a heavy tarp off of an early model Yamaha Growler, configured for military use, and hopped on.  Once the engine roared to life, he dropped it into gear, and set off for the old interstate just ten kilometers to the north.

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Part - 3

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The Long Unwinding Road - 0.1

The Long Unwinding Road - 0.1

Like an asphalt and concrete ribbon slicing through lightly rolling grasslands, I-90 went on as far as the eye could see. Paralleling this man made scar were parallel lines of obsolete telephone and electrical wires. Behind the wheel of a lone vehicle crossing the Badlands of the Sioux Nation, was a man with a single minded purpose, to get to New York as fast as he could.  He did not rate high enough in Evo Corp to warrant a suborbital flight.  Well, officially, he did not even work for them, so.  He was the one the 'suits' came to when they needed something taken care of... "off the books".  He was only ever referred to as, "Mr Johnson".  Definitely no glory or fame, but the pay was good.  Especially when there were no records of expenses to be kept.  Normally, something like this, the retrieval of a corporate "asset", he would just put a word on the street, and the rabble crawled out of the shadows for the work.  But when an exec comes to you directly, you make sure you see to it personally. If the 'asset' proves too difficult to regain on  his own, he would just hire some local talent.

Yawning, the man shook his head and lowered the windows to try and wake himself up as he accelerated to two hundred kilometers per hour. He looked to be maybe in his mid-thirties, with a slightly thinning rumpled crop of hair.  His beard was growing thick having gone unshaven for four days now. Although he had gone nose-deaf to his situation, he sat in a crumpled casual business suit that had not been taken off of his body for longer than the beard was old. He pulled out his last pack of cigarettes, took the last one from the packet with his teeth, then crumpled up the pack and tossed it on the passenger side floorboard. It fell alongside the growing pile of empty soykaf cups, and containers from Stuffer Shack that were mostly empty.

It didn’t help that the only thing that the headlights on his SK Bentley could reflect off of were the lines along the highway, and the rumble strips along the shoulders to let you know that you’d fallen asleep. But, even in the early morning hours, the driver could tell he was coming up on a storm, and fast. To his left, right, and rear view mirror, there was the dim illumination of moonlight, but the view out his windshield was only a wall of black, punctuated with frequent brilliant flashes of cloud to ground lighting.

With a blink and twitch of his right eye to the left, he checked his tracking readout within his field of vision of his cybernetic eye.  The target marker was still solidly locked in New York, “The City that never sleeps”’, he chuckled to himself. With another twitch of the eye, he switched to the MapSoft display, and then another blink and and a flip of his right hand, he switched the display to the windshield HUD. “If I keep to just fuel and essential pit stops… I should roll into New York in just under... twenty hours”, he says aloud to the empty cabin.

Another ten kilometers down the road, and the wall of black now filled the entire view to his front, and most of the side windows. The wind wasn’t doing it for him as he fought with having gone over four days without sleep. He reached into an interior pocket of his out of date suit jacket, and pulled out a hard case, the size of a long cigarette pack. Cracking it open, it revealed five thin metallic cylinders. He pulled one out and placed it between his lips.  Once he closed the case, and returned it to his pocket he reached up to grasp the cylinder, which he was now clenched between his teeth and with a swift tug, he pulled the cylinder free from its lid. With practiced ease, he simultaneously turned his head to the left and spit the lid out through the open window, while, with his right hand he fliped the cylinder over with his fingers and then jammed the open end into his upper thigh. He was used to the sting of the spring injected needle, and didn’t flinch. He just relaxed and enjoyed the slow spread of coolness through the muscles in his leg, as the dose of ‘Long Haul’ spread throughout his blood stream. When it finally began to wind its way into his brain, the fatigue induced mental fog just melted away. With a smile crossing his lips, he tossed the empty injector vial to follow its lid and then put the windows back up.   Leaning forward he retrieved the smoldering cigarette from the small ashtray in the console, sat back to let his head lean against the head-rest, took a long drag of the cigarette, held the smoke briefly, and then let it slowly exhale from his mouth and nose. He was only twenty four hours from the biggest payday in his life, and nothing was going to stop him now.

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Part - 2
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