He's a Time Bomb

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XmW49VTdl8

Sakedo’s Underspire

Little Japantown

White with a spot of red, the national flag of the engineers who built the South American development. Also perfectly describes the gruesome bundle in Cassus’ cryogenic backpack. Looking behind him, he could see the Yakubrava skating through the street, kabuki masks hiding the rage or glee they got kicking a spiked mag-ball at him as he fled on his bike.

This was supposed to be a Low Threat Elevated Priority job for some number cruncher–“Lucas Tanaka”–that should have been easy enough to talk through. Head-cases were usually smart enough to know putting up resistance for Neuro-gear repossession from Tsubaki was a dangerous prospect for the well-being of their gray-matter attached to it. Well, for a “mid-level” exec, this guy was packing fanatical security for reasons that the warrant details couldn’t explain.

The mag-ball hit the side of his bike as he cut a tight turn between two buildings, a couple of spikes shattering the ceramic plates on his cyberleg and delivering voltage. Luckily, insulated fibers kept the weapon from disabling his mobility long enough for Cassus to puncture the ball with his Electro-Sai. Of course, now it magnetized to his weapon instead.

“Balls!” Cassus cursed, unsure what to do with this “sticky” situation, as another mag-ball struck the wall beside him. Fucking fast, Cassus thought. He needed to lose them quickly and blend in. His bike was probably too recognizable now, damaged as it was. He hated the idea, but he might have to ditch it. It would have to be timed perfectly, however, as their cyberskates were top-of-the-line, and even attaching his own would probably eat up too much time. He needed to get them grouped up and stuck, to buy enough time to hide and cool off the heat on his tail.

Zipping through the street, he bee-lined for the ramparts. The interior of the Underspire was hollow, as most of the structure was built into the oddly vertical lava tube, providing space for one of the “tallest” structures on the moon that wasn’t a man-made mohole. That meant most of the Underspire was more or less a series of overdeveloped scaffolds… something he often made daring leaps across in his youth as a freerunner. The Yakubrava might be fast on their home-turf, but even they would have trouble moving between levels like he was about to. He could hear them laughing as they saw him approaching the development edge of the sector.

“End of the line! No overtime!” Cassus tail-whipped his bike to face them in a side profile at the edge of the platform, allowing them to encircle him. Now that they weren’t dribbling mag-balls, some of them pulled out primitive melee weapons: spiked beisebol bats, a metal hockey stick with holographic flames rolling off the head, a straight-up katana. Cassus stood up on the seat of his bike, holding his Sonic Boomstick low.

“Sorry, not feeling clever today.” Cassus pointed his weapon down, directly at the bike he was standing on, and fired a moment after his mechanical foot propelled him in the air upward like a piston. The destructive sonic blast immediately ruptured the battery chemicals and caught fire with the viciously exposed live-wires. A small chemical detonation blasted beneath him, but his upward momentum, unimpeded by the weak lunarian gravity, had him catapulting to the next level up. As his acceleration slowed, he fired the under-barrel cable launcher on the boomstick and pulled himself towards a landing on the overlook. A few passersby saw him, but he didn’t stick around long enough for an autograph…

SILKSCREEN

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Safety was a premium, but obscurity was cheap.

Cassus did something he hated doing and retracted his helmet. It would leave him flying mostly blind, and he wouldn’t be able to help much with his cryo-pack, but at least he could reconfigure the color scheme on his torso on account of the holographic rig. He didn’t want to stick around out in the open too long, in case CelSec got a public disturbance call with his bike wreck and began facial recognition scanning with the street cameras. He needed a place with chaos and plausible deniability, which meant he needed a club.

Silkscreen, an interesting name, sounded a bit too classy for his tastes, but he noticed something unusual. Headsets provided to the patrons as they stepped past the bouncer. He only saw it briefly, but it was unmistakable.

Perfect. A silent rave was the ideal place, lots of people, movement, but also a relative quiet to monitor for loudmouths looking for him while he blended in with the ravers…

“How much to get in?” The bouncer looked at his backpack skeptically.

@Daiya

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Headphones piped the essence of Silkscreen right into her ears. Without them, she would have found the whole scene inside the former warehouse bizarre. Frenzied, undulating bodies moved to sounds unheard without the aid of headphones, and otherwise they might have all seemed to be on drugs. Daiya was fairly sure some of them were anyway. The young shadowrunner, herself, was sober tonight, not a drop or drip in her bloodstream yet. That was for later, when she’d do her best to catch up for delaying her own gratification.

For now, Daiya had a business to run.

She let the music take her across the room, flowing with the beat pulsing between her ears. The crowd pressed in on her with elbows and hips, but the music knew the secret patterns of moving through unimpeded. Daiya let it move in her, flowing her through the press of bodies as nimbly as a breeze. She slipped through cracks unseen between bodies, her head leaning aside to keep from being hit, a hand raising to deflect a lock of whipping hair. Once upon a time, a crew had called the teen Pink Panther for her easy manner in slipping away unseen. For all that most Silkscreen patrons would be aware, another dancer had been nearby and then no longer.

As she pulled aside one of the headphone cups from her ear, Daiya stepped into the low chatter around the bar. The music dimmed here anyway, leaving her only a fleeting connection with the crowd thrumming around it. Liquor and conversations flowed more easily here in the club’s island of calm. Sometimes the teen sat here, watching the sea of bodies in the club move as one. Today she leaned her elbows against a free spot on the bar, catching sight of her barkeep until he made his way over.

“Ryo’s on fire tonight,” she remarked, tipping her head back toward the DJ at the far end of the floor. Even without the sound, his light shows could keep her eyes dancing to the unheard beat. Daiya fixed them on Abhinav, watching the man’s swift hands fix and fidget with the organization behind the bar counter. She stayed on this side of it, wary of hands that could get caught up in her just as easily. “He’s banging out all the old favorites, too.”

“Playing them all again before he quits,” Abhi said casually, like he was only reciting the ingredients of a drink. He knew them all somehow, despite having only worked the bar for a month. Daiya suspected he’d slotted in a mixology chip, but as far as she could ever tell his ports were clear. She still stared at him with enough intensity that the man looked elsewhere, finding a glass above him with enough of a smudge to distract. Abhi held it up defensively between them, polishing it with a white cloth that never seemed to grow damp, “I thought you knew, boss. Said he’s boarding one of the tricones for Earth next week.”

Thinking about Ryo-Luis going up one of the bigger rockets, its trio of exhaust plumes drawing an arc up toward the stars, made the teen shake out the pink ends of her blonde locks. “He can’t leave!” It was maybe a bit too loud for the muted atmosphere near the bar, and the eyebrow Abhi cocked her way was briefly joined by a few glances from seated and leaning patrons nearby. Daiya only paid him mind. “Ryo’s my best DJ, just look at the crowds he brings in here.”

And Silkscreen wasn’t exactly in the hot nightclub district of Celeste 7, either. Daiya was standing upright again, and she’d hardly noticed pushing away from the bar until Abhi’s hand shot across to touch her arm. She noticed it now, a half-step away from the thrashing crowds, with her headphones askew, her blood pulsing with more choice words than the beat only vaguely ringing in one ear…she’d never make it. Eaten alive by her own silent rave crowds was not the best way for the young shadowrunner to go out. The thought of it was written all over her face as she looked back at Abhi, then at the contrast where his hand met her moon-pale skin.

She breathed out a silent thanks, stepping back toward the bar. For a moment, a thought flickered in her head, that being behind the bar would be safer yet. Daiya stopped in her own tracks that time and pulled her headphones down to her neck, a signal that she wasn’t about to let anything else distract her now. Her brow furrowed after a moment, waiting long enough for the barkeep to notice her change in demeanor, and was prying his fingers off her arm when she followed his eyes to the door of the club.

There, spilling out into her club, parting the seas of the silent rave with ripples that sent elbows and hips jarring into the soft places of dancing neighbors, was a squad of CelSec operators.

“Aw shit,” Daiya said, and any volume was loud enough to be heard by those nearby. Few of the well-lubricated patrons were paying much mind to anything but the entrance of Celeste 7’s security forces arriving to cause an even bigger distraction. “These guys are never here to party.”

@Cassus

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It was a hassle getting past the bouncer, mysterious backpacks never bode well for clubs, and for some reason his cybernetic leg was apparently cause for alarm. Or rather, it was clearly cause for alarm by the owner, the Bouncer merely following a directive he didn’t seem to fully get either. Cybernetic prosthetics were standard fare on Celeste 7, and even if his model was off-brand and highly modified, scanners existed that were algorithmically sophisticated at detecting concealed weapons. There was no need for the bouncer to personally check each of his storage compartments.

“Listen, I understand, just your job. I’m just trying to do mine. Here, I got dataport mid-thigh, just link a datapad and scan, save us all some time. The bag is equipment, very sensitive, superconductive laser refractor. Next-gen holographic, does not agree with open air. Looking to sell inside if the owner is amenable.” He passed a flyer he prepared for exactly this line of questioning that detailed the (exaggerated) conditions he needed to transport what he was lying about. The dataport on his thigh? A duplicate port with phantom data providing convincing interior signal data which excluded his integrated concealed firearm. It might still show up in a crowd scan, but it would hopefully at least get him through the door.

It cost Cassus a few Mohs for the bouncer to look the other way and comply with the dataport scan. He was clearly unenthusiastic about stopping every person with more than a Neuroport on Celeste 7, and Cassus’ alibi regarding his luggage seemed convincing enough to allow some complacency in the interest of improving the business. What’s good for business, is good for the worker, right?

Inside was a writhing torrent of bodies, the smell of sweat and alcohol unobstructed by filtration, but aside from laughter, murmuring, and quiet talk at the bar, silent under the muffle of his headset. Headset turned on and tuned to the first channel, but volume at zero, Cassus picked a rhythm in his head and bobbed and weaved awkwardly through the crowd his dancing appropriate but generically bland. Gradually, he made his way further into the crowd, looking for a back exit or a way in to backstage.

“Identification please,” Even muffled through the soundless headset, the rhythm and cadence of that phrase was unmistakable. Shit. Was Cassus’ first thought, Well, not the worst, could be Yakubrava. Being his second thought, as he feigned “changing tunes” and took a more aggressive route towards backstage that appeared oblivious. The crowd continued to part to the operatives advancing through them, stopping the rare few individuals with cybernetics. Not good, got my partial profile. Suddenly, a pair of hands grabbed his bicep and his headset, pulling the latter down to be heard clearly (unaware that it isn’t playing anyway).

“Hey buddy, boss wants ya.” A tall, broad-shouldered woman with a fighter’s build handled him in a commanding grip, faint subdermal contours hinting at cybernetics she didn’t advertise. He looked up to see short dark hair shaved unevenly at the sides and left unkempt, a disbelieving smile crinkling faded facial scars across a crooked nose and drawing the eye away from a disfigured, cauliflowered ear. All signs pointed to someone who solved problems physically, and wouldn’t be shy about making it clear that questions were largely unnecessary.

Without waiting on his response, Cassus was dragged out of the crowd towards the bar, where an officer spoke with an animated woman. Alibis and exit plans danced through his mind, this could get ugly if played wrong…

@Daiya

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No matter what the pressers and the 'nets tried to depict, it was well known on the moon that Celeste 7 didn’t have laws.

It had cops.

Her gut twisted as the teen proprietor watched them spill into her club, their focus like a throng of children in a store, hunting down something they didn’t yet know would appeal to them. These were the dangerous variety, just as opportunistic but with a badge to let them do it. Daiya’s eyes met Abhi’s, who had pulled his wiry arm back across the counter by now. Leaving her, and her alone, to deal with this incursion of Celeste 7’s mercurial enforcers.

“Soooo, looks like you boys missed the ID verification…” As Daiya stepped up to the foremost operator of the squad, she glanced toward the bouncer at the door. He gave her a shrug, going back to holding off the thinning line from coming in now. She took a deep breath around the knot in her stomach, at least that part was under control. “But that’s fine, we’re always open to Celeste’s finest.”

Finest disruptors, finest extortioners, finest thugs. The list could go on, and from what Daiya knew and could hear from the businesses around Silkscreen, the local security forces had a touch that was anything but fine. She would have imagined they would benefit from a woman’s touch, if it wasn’t a woman’s face looking out at her from within the uniformed visage.

“You know we’re not required to wait to be let in,” came the clipped answer of the weak-jawed woman. The hat tied off her features well enough to look official, but it only did so much. The cop looked her over, taking particular note of the pink tips of Daiya’s hair. “We’re conducting an investigation.”

And that was supposed to be it for her. Daiya knew how this game was played, she had two years of personal experience with Corpo double-talk. Her job was to submit, pretend they were just doing their jobs, and play the host, like this was nothing but a dinner party among friends or coworkers. As the words filtered through her ears, unconnected to the headphones that kept everyone else dancing, ignorant of what was going down at the door, the stakes of an investigation played over in her mind.

“I also know this is a pretty bold move from Miss February,” Daiya answered, making mention of the local security precinct’s annual calendar. The one CelSec had made sure to come around to her newly-opened club to offer, for an inflated introductory rate. The rebuttal passing over the oddly-proportioned woman like salt water. Just enough to sting. That, and the cop’s lingering conversation with her, was enough to suggest they weren’t actually here to tear apart her club. Looking for someone, maybe. One of hers?

The response came with a shrug. “If you got it, work it.”

“And if you don’t, get some work done?” The young shadowrunner could see the hackles rising, but somehow Miss February stayed still. Conversing, like they were just any old discretes having an exchange of words and ideas. Dangerous notions on the moon for some, depending on the subject matter, of course. Daiya knew she probably was pushing back a little more than she should. Miss February could knock her teeth out against the bar counter and not miss a beat, or hear a whisper from above.

The Pink Widow didn’t get protection like that anymore.

“Something like that.”

“Speaking of work, I’ve got loads myself, so…” If Miss February had gotten any work done, an implant or something more, she wasn’t about to give that up to the likes of Daiya. Which was just fine by her, the teen had seen everything she needed to from the February page of that calendar already. As the cop’s attention wandered away, Daiya did as well, stepping back to the bar to whisper across to Abhi. “They’re sniffing for someone, make sure ours are tucked away and get Trace to find whoever their target is first.”

She reached over the counter, her dancer’s arms sorting through the bottles tucked underneath by touch alone. This was not a night Daiya had planned to get through by the glass, but neither was she someone who always acted according to some plan. Plans could change, and usually the young shadowrunner liked that. A thumb popped off the counting topper from the bottle, letting her pour freehand. She was going to need plenty in her already to stomach whoever, or whatever, was drawing undue attention to her club. And the only attention that Daiya wanted for Silkscreen was up on the raised stage, flipping switches and mixing tracks for her crowd’s entertainment.

A commotion in the crowd found Daiya halfway through her drink, watching Trace part the raver seas like water. She drew in a breath, holding it until the figure following her emerged from the crowd. As her eyes traced over the unfamiliar stranger, they darted over to Trace, who only gave the young shadowrunner a hapless shrug alongside her response. “He seemed like the sort.”

So much indifference tonight made her want to scream, a sound that would definitely draw some undue attention.

“What’s so special about you?” Daiya asked, while narrowed eyes searched him, trying to suss out an answer on their own. The only thing she could spot immediately was his leg, the metal painted a dazzling red that only slightly made up for the glaring announcement it made to all. She guessed it would make for a pretty heavy footfall, too, if her head wasn’t throbbing already from the liquor and a budding ache. All that fuss for an easy clanker to pinch? “Besides the obvious.”

She waved off any immediate answer with her hand, and took another drink. More like a gulp. She swore it made a beeline right for the knot in her gut, sitting there alongside to make more of the unwanted overtures Daiya couldn’t handle right now. “CelSec must be losing their touch if they can’t pick you out of a crowd.”

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While he was dragged forward towards “the boss,” the pit in his stomach dissipated slightly when it seemed they broke off from their conversation with the officer. Enough of the crowd blocked any immediate line of sight with the officer; otherwise, he was sure he’d already be spotted. It was clear his current captor didn’t field many questions, but maybe they could take requests.

“Listen, you got me, but–” He started.
“Nah,”
“Excuse–?”
“Nah man, just nah. Boss first, then we can talk.”

Well, that was pretty definitive, at least her grip was leading him away from the cops, for now. No immediate compliance to the local authorities was promising, even in the face of his current taciturn companion. Quickly, he was seated at the bar besides a woman giving herself a long pour, while the tough lady seemed to use her own body as a barrier to potential onlookers behind him.

“Breaking things, mostly.” Cassus responded casually, but in an honest self-deprecating tone. It was kind of his literal job, evidenced by his cryogenically preserved ‘paycheck’ in his backpack, but also true of his life in general. Home life, his body, his relationships, the list went on, but it didn’t stop him from trying to build something for himself.

“CelSec wouldn’t know how to dance out of a brightly lit ballroom.” Cassus dismissed them casually, They’re not even the worst guys after me. A beat passed as he tried to figure out the angle here so as to not get immediately turned in, which, judging by her gaze right now, was about the only conclusion this woman probably had right now.

“Listen, I bluffed past your bouncer by talking shop about AV equipment, said I would offer you NextGen tech for your club. If Seccers question him he’d say as much, and I can deliver… just, not right now. I never bluff something I can’t back up later, I just need time and eyes off my back.” He meant that in a literal sense, the weight of his current cargo was burning a hole through his back despite it’s ultra-low temperature on the inside. Tsubaki Collateral would disavow hiring him given how tits up this operation has gone between the Yakubrava and the public disturbance he caused. While repossession was well within the purview of the owning corporations, collateral incidents were definitely prosecutable for the agents tasked out by the contracting firms without liability to the companies themselves.

@Daiya

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As the stranger tried to explain himself, he seemed to be doing a better job of twisting himself into more knots. Daiya kept one eye on Miss February looking completely out of place on the sidelines of her club, and she had half a mind to offer her a pair of headphones to see if there was any beauty in that soul after all. The real beauty at the moment was the cop’s loss of interest in the teen’s business, though the knowledge did little for that knot in her stomach. Nor did the man’s hard-wrought story about just how poor of a card player he’d make.

“Oh my stars, that is a metric ton of bullshit. Here,” she pointed with a thrust of her finger straight down at the seat next to her, making it clear his butt needed to be occupying that space in the next few seconds. “Pop a squat.” That would at least make him look less conspicuous for hanging around the bar without a pair of headphones or a drink. Acting like a creep would definitely attract the Seccers’ attentions. Daiya stepped slightly to the side, putting herself in Miss February’s line of sight so the squad commander couldn’t get as clear a read on her target. And if there was going to be one butt standing out enough to be noticed around here, Daiya was going to make it hers.

She was no February, that was for damn sure.

“And I’m pretty sure you need this far more than I do.” The declaration accompanied her glass as she slid it over to the place chosen for him. It wasn’t like the alcohol was doing her many favors right now, not that it was her kind of drink anyway. Tip an ounce of some fruity extract into a fermented mushroom distillation, and Daiya could let her freak flag fly through the night on glasses of that swill. If there was one thing she’d learned in a year spent topside, it was that richer wasn’t always better. So for whatever bounty she might get for turning over this particular freak to the Seccers, the young shadowrunner was far more interested in knowing why they cared in the first place.

“'Cause what it sounds like what I’m 'sposed to believe, and on the eve of Ryo bouncing off to Earth, is that you landed in my lap like a great gift from the Great Disk Jockey above.” Daiya let out a wry chuckle, tapping the counter by the glass with her finger. Maybe this guy was a fan of what Abhi insisted patrons would demand for a sipping whisky, poured neat, no ice. The kind of thing she’d tip back fast on a normal pour, just to get it over with. There was still somewhat less than a double in the glass, plenty for her to be impressed if the stranger tried the same. That would be a first. “More like you’re a talker blowing nothing but hot air at me, but I happen to like talkers.”

Her lips parted, with the gleam of the teeth behind them becoming a canvas for the neon lights Ryo had circling the club. From his booth at the far end, her soon-to-be-former DJ was giving it his all, dropping a hit that the teen would be far happier to dance to. Daiya would be far happier to be doing just about anything besides interrogating some stranger bringing heat onto her club. And one she hoped was as good at improvising as he was at bullshitting. If the cops decided today was the day to uncover Silkscreen’s dirty little rumored secret had more than a sliver of truth to it, things were going to go sideways, and fast.

“I tend to think my tongue has a bit of a silver glint to it myself, but I’m always keen to find someone who could best me. A little challenge to keep me on my toes, y’know?” Daiya leaned forward, standing on her tiptoes as she did so. Her eyes flicked from the glass to his face, as if her meaning hadn’t already been clear enough. Eyebrows danced as she put her face a breath’s span from his, enough so that anyone observing from a distance —such as the exact distance between herself and a particular local Seccer featuring poorly on the February her precinct’s fundraising calendar— would think the teen only had interest in the stranger for his many masculine qualities. Abhi certainly had the look of someone with the same thought, from the flicker of meaning she spied in his glance from the corner of her eyes. She didn’t care, her goal was to let the drink and a little charm do the work that CelSec plainly couldn’t by just looking meaty and tough while they sorted through a club of dancing bodies.

“So talk.”

7

A faint scent of whiskey danced through his nostrils as she leaned in close, and slid the pour in front him. There was an adage about accepting drinks from strangers appropriate to this scenario–or was it tea from diplomats?–he was certain of it, but in his present position he was not equipped to refuse. Her intentions were clear enough between her posture and her glances, appearance was everything, after all. Cassus’ hand clasped around the glass, raising it high.

“За нас.” // To us. In a quiet toast, true to his Slavic roots, Cassus kept his eyes on his host, before kicking back the offering. The burn fell to his gut in a steady, controlled stream. Once finished, he set the glass gently back on the counter, pushed it toward the edge, and tapped the rim gently with a soft clink clink.

Cassus was not a stranger to feminine attention, but largely ignored it whenever possible. Facade or not, Cassus would have difficulty in completely stonewalling @Daiya’s performative lean, especially since he knew now opportunity existed for him to get something out of her if he played his cards right. Cassus halved the distance, almost playing chicken with his host, but careful not to touch in anyway. He was a stranger here, in a hostile situation; physical contact would only ask for trouble with little benefit to the performance.

“Place a hand on my back, and I will talk like hand puppet.” Cassus whispered in a conspiratorial tone. A touch on the pack he was carrying would leave a hand frigid to the icy steel, perhaps even slightly damp from condensation built up in this hot room.

“I carry valuable cargo. It is my collateral, while I play your fool. If I satisfy, I get it back and I owe you. If I fail… turn it and myself in for Mohs. I have nothing else to offer.”