When Kellan Colt reached the Underworld, it started to rain. Not very much, just a drizzle from the leaden clouds, lit from beneath by the neon glow of the metroplex, spattering droplets of light across the grimy windows of the Grid-Cab.
“Thank you for choosing Grid-Cab, Ms. Webley” the onboard computer chirped cheerfully as Kellan removed her credstick from the slot—a few nuyen lighter than she would have liked. The cab door hissed open automatically and she climbed out. Someone else was already waiting to climb in as the cab chirped, “Thank you for choosing, Grid-Cab, please slot your credstick and enter your desired destination…”
Kellan looked up at the kromeglow marquees that climbed up the walls, looming overhead, spelling out the name “Underworld 93.” The building was a converted warehouse: huge, blocky and made of gray plasticrete, pocked with scars and chips and liberally decorated with graffiti, which only added to its character as a fixture of the Seattle nightclub scene. The line to get into the place already extended down the block. It was made up mostly of eager young corp-babies dressed up in their latest street-wear for an exciting night of slumming, oh-so-close to the Puyallup Barrens, their idea of life on the edge. Mixed in with them were the locals, their clothes not quite so perfectly coordinated, their “look” not so practiced. Kellan spotted a number of metahumans: a couple dwarves, a few elves looking like they’d just stepped off the runway of a fashion show, even some orks and a troll, dressed in leathers and torn synthdenim.
She ignored all of it, jammed her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket, and jandered right up past the head of the line, like she belonged there, eyes straight ahead, chin up.
A massive hand grabbed her arm and almost spun her around.
“Hey, where do you think you’re going, little girl?” The deep voice
carried over the sound of the crowd and the pounding beat of the music
inside the club.
Kellan looked up into one of the ugliest faces she’d ever seen. He was an ork, which made him stand head and shoulders above Kellan, above most humans, in fact. His face was like something out of a scary children’s story: with a broad nose and jaw, sloped brow, and white tusks jutting up over his upper lip. His skin was dark and dotted with moles or warts and his brown hair hung in heavy dreadlocks, decorated with shiny bits of metal. His outfit, on the other hand, was a sharp enough to shave with. He wore a white shirt that strained to contain the bulging muscles of his arms, shoulders, and broad chest, and a close-fitting dark vest over it. His pants were tailored (they must have been to fit him well at all) and his boots were scuffed but designer style. The outfit wasn’t brand new, but it showed that the ork (or his employer) had taste, and some cred.
Kellan shook off the ork’s hand and drew herself up to her full height, which still put her face smack in the middle of his chest, and met his stare with one of her own.
"I'm going inside," she said.
“How old are you, kid?” the bouncer asked. Kellan heard a few jeers and catcalls from the line, but ignored them, not looking away from the bouncer.
“Twenty-one,” she replied without missing a beat.
“Let’s see some ID.”
Kellan produced her credstick and handed it to the bouncer, who slotted it into the portable reader clipped to his belt. Before she handed it over, Kellan keyed the stick to slip the ork some cred, if he wanted it.
“I’m here on business,” she said, just loud enough for the ork to hear. His eyes flicked from the display on the screen of the reader to her face and back without any sign of emotion, then he tapped the screen a couple times.
“Oh yeah? What kind of business?” he asked casually, not looking up.
Her initial response was to say “None of yours,” but she bit that down. There was no point in hacking off the big ork. No real point in lying to him, either.
“I’m looking for someone,” she said. “A chummer named G-Dogg.” That got him to look up.
“Why?” the ork asked with a smile. “He owe you money or something?”
“Like I said, it’s business. He around?”
The ork shrugged. “Haven’t seen him, but G-Dogg hits a lot of clubs.” He took the credstick out of the reader and handed it back to her. “If I see him I’ll let him know that you’re looking for him, Miz Webley. Have a good time.” He waved her on toward the door of the club.
“Thanks,” Kellan said. The ork turned back toward the line where a number of club-kids starting whining and protesting.
“All right, next!” he said, “Let’s see some ID.”
Kellan walked through the front doors and entered the Underworld.
The first thing that struck her was the sound, a wall of noise coming from the towering amps flanking the broad stage. The flash of laser-lights accompanied it and a montage of video clips splashed across the floor-to-ceiling screens along the back wall.
Beyond the lobby a broad staircase curved around the crowded dance floor off to the side of the club’s low stage. A band was wailing out tunes that made the rafters shake and the crowd responded to the music with enthusiastic moshing and jumping around. The elven front man of the band flung a bottle of something into the crowd while the sasquatch back-up vocalist boomed out a rumbling bass beat on the sound system.
Standing in the doorway, Kellan let out a sigh as the light and the noise enveloped here. She'd made it. Of course, her attitude and a decent fake ID, along with some well-placed tips, had gotten into more than a few clubs back in Kansas City, but this was fragging Seattle. It was the big time. The Seattle Metroplex was a happening place, a little slice of the United Canadian American States out in the midst of the potentially hostile Native American Nations, right near the elven nation of Tir Tairngire and the California Free State. Gateway to the Pacific Rim, where the shadows were deep and dark, and there were chances at the big scores, not the small-time biz of Kansas City.
“Seattle…” Kellan breathed, looking around the club and just taking it all in. The place was jammed with people, all of them dressed in the latest club fashions, most gyrating to the music.
Kellan considered the contrast of the club-goers with her appearance. She wore a beat-up leather jacket over a white T-shirt that hadn’t been washed in quite some time, tucked into some old jeans that were a little too big for her, held together at the waist with a cast-off belt, heavy work-boots on her feet. She wasn’t as stylish as half of the corp-kids waiting in line outside, but what she lacked in style, she made up in attitude. After all, she was in and they were still waiting.
Unconsciously, one hand reached up to brush across the torc she wore around her neck. It was by far the most extravagant element of Kellan’s outfit. She still wasn’t quite used to its weight, but it felt so right around her neck. Ever since she’d seen it she knew that it was meant for her. She just wished she knew more about it. Hopefully, that was one of the things she would find out.
The package had just shown up at her aunt’s one day. It was lucky thing Kellan had actually been home at the time, or she was sure that her aunt would have taken it and pawned the contents without even telling her. She would have used the money to buy some cheap liquor, to make up for all the money she’d shelled out for Kellan over the years, which she was always going on about; how Kellan was nothing but a burden to her ever since her mother had left her there.
There was no return address on the package, but the postmark showed that it was shipped from Seattle. Inside, Kellan found the torc and a few other things: a stun baton, a tightly folded armored vest, some grenades, a survival kit, an amulet with a dragon design on it, a certified credstick with a few thousand nuyen, and a computer-printed note. “This stuff belonged to your mother. Thought you might want it.”
There was no signature, no indication of who might have sent it, but Kellan knew enough not to pass up an opportunity when she saw it. She took the stuff and got the hell out of her aunt’s place as soon as she could. She was tired of being reminded that she was nothing but a burden, when she was helping pay most of the bills. She was fed up with the service jobs where privileged corp kids sneered or, worse yet, treated her like nothing, beneath their notice. She swore to herself that she wasn't going to end up like her aunt; working in some dead-end job, struggling to make ends meet, and pouring what little nuyen she had left into getting drunk so she didn't have to think about what a waste her life had become.
Kellan was going to make something of herself. That mean earning some cred and for an undereducated kid with no prospects, there were only two ways to do that, selling herself on the streets, or working in the shadows. With the gear that came in the package, Kellan had enough of a stake to get a start as a shadowrunner, and she took it.
She pulled some jobs in Kansas City, enough to supplement the nuyen that she had and make some connections so she could get to Seattle, where the package had come from, where the real action was. Now she was here.
Lost in thought, Kellan nearly walked right into the guy standing alongside the railing above the dance floor. She turned, prepared to apologize or defend herself, but it wasn’t necessary. She saw the vacant stare and the thin cable that snaked from the chrome jack behind the guy’s ear down to the little box he wore at his belt. He was a chip-head, living in a virtual world of recorded simsense played directly into his brain. He swayed and shuffled in a slow sort of dance that had nothing to do with the music, lost in his digital fantasy. Kellan jammed her hands back into her pockets and resolved to pay attention. Enough thinking about the past, Kansas City was behind her. She was in Seattle now, and it was time to get down to business.
Off to the side of the dance floor was a crowded cluster of tiny tables and chairs made by dwarves with a sense of humor. Club goers were pressed in all around them, and Kellan carefully wove her way through the crowd toward the bar that curved along the side wall. In the corner, near one end of the bar, she saw a strange figure.
It was a statue, ten meters tall, done out in chromed metal, that looked vaguely like a sort of Buddha, with a bald, bullet-shaped head and a big belly, swathed in a long, belted robe, with sandals on its bare feet. Loops of neolux tubing were wrapped around the statue’s arms and legs and a speaker in its belly blasted out the sound from the stage. The look on the statue’s face wasn’t the serene face Kellan associated with Buddha statues, though. It was simultaneously sly and stern, as if the fellow was in one some secret joke. As Kellan watched, puffs of smoke jetted from around the statue’s feet, catching the laser-light from the scaffolding above. Glowing words played across the chrome surface, appearing for just a moment. They slid across the shining metal, and then vanished. They proclaimed “Question Authority,” “93,” and “Love is the Law.”
“Don’t stare for too long,” a voice said over the noise. “The Beast has been known to hypnotize newbies that stare.”
Kellan turned toward the bar and realized she was standing right next to it. She had wandered over while entranced by the sight of the statue. An elf stood behind the bar, leaning down a bit toward her, hands resting on the countertop, one holding a rag he was using to wipe it down. Like every elf Kellan had seen, he looked like a sim-star: tall and handsome, with black hair worn shoulder-length, although still showing his pointed ears. He gave her a dazzling smile and tapped the bar in front of him.
“What’ll it be?” he asked with a nod of his pointed chin in her direction.
Kellan slid her credstick into the reader on the bar and tapped the display screen.
“How about a beer and something on the side?” she asked.
The elf kept smiling and raised one delicate eyebrow. “Sure thing. The beer is five nuyen, but the chaser will cost you fifty.”
Kellan tapped the screen. “Done. You know a chummer called G-Dogg?”
Up went the eyebrow again. “Yeah, I know him. Why are you looking for him?”
“Business,” Kellan replied curtly. “Is he here?”
He shrugged expressively. “I don’t know. Haven’t seen him around tonight, but G-Dogg is a busy guy, you know? He works a lot of clubs: the Penumbra, Dante’s Inferno. He might show up later on, or he might not.”
Kellan suppressed a sigh. “Okay, well can you tell him that I’m looking for him?” she asked. She tapped a few more keys on the screen, shooting her contact info to the bar’s comp. “That’s my number.”
“Sure thing,” the bartender said. He set an open bottle on the bar and popped a chip into the comp’s port, tapping the screen with practiced ease. Kellan withdrew her credstick and the elf removed the data-chip and slipped it into his pocket as Kellan took her drink.
“If you need anything else,” he said, “just holler."
“Thanks,” Kellan said sullenly, picking up her drink and sipping at it. It wasn’t bad beer, but Kellan wasn’t in the mood for a drink and she definitely didn’t want to get drunk. She was there on business, but how was she supposed to get anything done if she couldn’t even make a decent contact? She’d heard that G-Dogg was the man to talk to for a new shadowrunners in the Seattle scene, that he knew things, and people, that could get someone set up. Kellan’s hand closed around the credstick in her pocket. The balance was getting pretty low. She needed to score some work, and soon, or else she was going to be back out on the streets. She didn’t even have enough money left for a return trip to Kansas City, not that she ever planned on going back there. No, she was going to make it in Seattle no matter what, but to do that she needed to hook up with the right people.
That was when a troll emerged from the crowd around the tables and zeroed in on Kellan like a heat-seeker.
He was even bigger and uglier than the bouncer out front. His head was low and squat, almost football shaped, with downward curving horns on either side and one protruding tusk broken and capped with chrome. His domed head was shaved down to dark stubble and his big, pointed ears held numerous heavy metal rings. So did his bushy eyebrows and his broad, flat nose, which had a ring through it, like a bull. He wore a heavy leather jacket draped with chains from the shoulders.
“Hey, baby, haven’t seen you around here before,” he said in a deep, gravely voice. He stood nearly three meters tall. Kellan's face looked him square in his stomach, a slight paunch that protruded over a thick black leather belt. Even with the distance between them, his breath was strong enough to knock over a wall. He reeked like a brewery and staggered slightly like he’d just drunk one.
“And you won’t again,” Kellan said, pushing away from the bar and leaving her beer there, barely touched. A massive, leather-clad arm blocked her way.
“Where you goin’?” the troll said. “You haven’t even told me your name yet. I’m Horse.” He smiled, showing yellowed, broken teeth and bobbed his head in an exaggerated nod, winking at her. “That’s right, honey, it means just what you think.”
“Yeah?” Kellan asked. “Well maybe you should find yourself a nice centaur or something.”
“Huh?” the troll grunted, pawing at her again. “Don’t be that way, baby. I just wanna… urk!” He stopped short when Kellan snapped her stun baton up between his legs.
“That big enough for you, baby?” she said, “’cause I’m betting that it’s more than what you’ve got. Now unless you take your hand off me right now, drekwad, they’re going to change your name from Horse to Mare.”
“You fraggin’ norm bitch…” the troll muttered, one hand balling up into a fist. Kellan squeezed the trigger. There was a sizzling crack and the troll howled on an impossibly high note, barely audible above the pounding music, then fell like a massive tree and hit the floor. He lay there, twitching, as Kellan backed a few steps away. Some people in the crowd looked over at them. Kellan turned and stalked back toward the entrance of the club. The few people who even noticed her altercation with Horse cleared out of her way. A few even applauded or hooted their approval of Kellan's handling of the situation. Most of the club-goers were oblivious to the noise and the big troll rolling around on the floor groaning.
The ork bouncer at the door noticed Kellan as she headed out.
“Hey,” he said. “Have any luck?”
“Yeah, all bad,” Kellan replied, jamming her hands into her pockets. The drizzle had turned into a steady rain, drumming on the street, dampening the spirits of many of the would-be club-kids. Kellan stalked past the line, pulling her phone out of her pocket to call another Grid-Cab. Maybe should she hit another club, she thought, although she really just wanted to give it up and go somewhere warm and dry to crash.
Then she heard some commotion back toward the club and looked back to see Horse and two other trolls come outside, looking around the darkened street. Horse spotted Kellan, grabbed his buddy’s arm and pointed.
“Oh, drek,” Kellan said. Then she turned and ran as the three of them came charging after her.
She ran, dodging around people on the street, as quickly as she could, but the three metahumans coming after her moved fast despite their massive size, and they clearly knew the area better than she did. She took a turn down an alley, hoping to get out of sight and lose them, only to discover that a heavy chain-link fence closed off the end of it. She hit the fence at a run and started to climb, but it was slick from the rain and her boots weren't suited for climbing. She slipped about halfway up, and a heavy hand grabbed the back of her jacket, dragging her down.
Kellan slipped out of the jacket and dropped to the ground, leaving the big troll holding nothing but a handful of synthetic leather. Horse slammed into her, pinning her back against the cold, wet metal mesh of the fence, his reeking breath in her face, his bulk pressing against her. Kellan’s stun baton was in the pocket of her jacket, out of reach, along with anything else she could use as a weapon.
The troll smiled evilly and grabbed Kellan’s chin with one massive paw, twisting her head so their faces were mere centimeters apart. Rain dripped from his bushy brows and face as he ran his tongue along one of his tusks.
“You’re not going to be so pretty after we’re done with you, baby,” he purred, “but if you just relax, you might even enjoy it.”