A Shadowrun Story

This is a short story I wrote based on a side-side quest offered by the GM of my Shadowrun game. As such, there are details that my gaming group is aware of that add to the story, but I feel it stands alone well enough to be posted here, especially since I haven't put up anything since the Watchmen rant back in February.

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Bad Acid

Seattle. Late October. 2070. A teenage girl gets a call while walking home from school.
“Hello, this is Liz~” she answers with a smile.
“Melissa? This is Zeke. From the book signing.” The voice on the other end of the line has been worn away by years of too much whiskey and harsh living.
“Oh! I remember you! What’s up?”
“You remember what we talked about? Heavenly Star?”
“Of course. You wanted to talk to my brother, right?”
“Yeah. Like I said, I’m looking to expand my conscious and understand the astral.”
“Totally! Tell you what, meet me and Ben outside the café on 3rd street. Lightning?”
“I know the place. You’re going to be there?”
“Yeah! I’ll introduce you two.”
“…okay. What time?”
“Oh, around five. That okay?”
“That’s fine. See you there.”
“Bye bye!”

* * *

At 4:57 PM, a man with jet black eyes and a shotgun slung over the back of his coat pulls his motorcycle to a stop in front of Lightning, a café barely out of the Barrens. There’s a girl of about 14, with nails painted like obsidian and silky hair, dyed to match. Sitting at the table with her is an older boy, hair dyed red and spiked. He has the same eyes as her, except his lack the heavy black makeup smeared across them. The girl waves at the biker and smiles.
“Zeke! Over here!” She gestures at a chair. When he sits, she leans in close. “This is my brother Ben. He’s the one who started me on this spiritual enlightenment. He’s really great.” The boy, Ben, looks to be about 19. He leans forward as well.
“Lizzy tells me you have an interest in expanding your mind and seeing what reality has to offer.” Zeke, the man with the long black coat, turns to face him.
“Yeah. I’ve sort of got this feeling, this connection with something greater than myself. I wanted to explore that. I talked to Melissa, at the book signing the other day, and she told me you could give me something that would help with that.” The scars around his blank eyes crinkle. “You can help, right?”
“Of course man. I’ve got just what you need. It’ll take you right to the heavens. Follow me.”
Ben leads the two into an alley across the street. Ducking behind a rusting staircase, he gives Zeke a quick upward nod.
“Heavenly Star, yeah?” Zeke nods.
“20 nuyen for your first hit.” Ben pulls out a small bag with pills in it. “I’m… not entirely sure how this will react with your cyberware, but if you’re not too teched-out I think you’ll be okay.”
Zeke reaches into his jacket as if to pull out a credstick, but when his hand reappears it’s holding a large handgun with Japanese characters etched in the side.
“Good. Now we’re gonna have a talk.” He levels the gun at Ben’s head, but when Melissa lets out a small, frightened shriek, he turns his head to her.
“Oh god. Oh god. No. Don’t kill us! Please!” Her tears leave black streaks of cheap makeup on her face.
“Melissa, go home. If your brother behaves, I won’t hurt him. I wish you hadn’t been here, but I promise, I don’t want to hurt either of you. Go home, and Benjamin will be along shortly.” After she backs away down the alley and runs out of sight, Zeke focuses on Ben again.
“Oh shit, man. Listen, I’m- I’m small-time! I-“
“Shut up. You’re lucky. A couple of days ago, I would have gotten the info I needed and then blown your goddamned head off. But recently, I learned that some guilty men should get second chances. So if you cooperate, I’ll let you go, so long as you stop this drug shit and do something with your life. Got it?” Ben nods, keeping his quivering eyes on the barrel of the gun. “Who’s your supplier?”
“A m-man named RedFlower. He operates out of a w-warehouse by the Sound. I-I’ll give you the coordinates.” A series of digits pop into the edge of Zeke’s vision, and he lowers the gun.
“Go home, Benjamin. Stop selling this shit, and get your sister off of it too. Don’t waste your second chance.” Ben nods quickly and runs out of the alley. Zeke holsters the pistol, climbs back on his bike, and sets off to find the supplier named RedFlower.

* * *

About half an hour later, Zeke stops in front of an aging warehouse, indistinguishable from the dozens around but for the two massive trolls standing in front of the side door. He walks up calmly, but they still level their shotguns at his chest.
“Who d’fuck,” growled the one on the right, “are you?”
“Just looking for RedFlower. Wanna talk to him.” Zeke attempts a comforting smile, an effect marred by the two pistols under his open jacket and the mangled skin by his eyes.
“Leave yer pieces wif us, ‘n’ we tink ‘bout it.”
“That’s not gonna happen, friends, because I intend to let these ‘pieces’ do the talking.” As he finishes his line, Zeke drops to the ground and draws his two pistols. Before the guards can even fully squeeze off their shots, he’s put a round into one of their kneecaps, sending their buckshot flying to the sky. As the trolls drop, Zeke kicks off to his right and lands another round into each guard’s head. He slams open the door, now painted with the contents of the former trolls’ heads. Four men are in the warehouse, just turning to the sounds of gunfire. He switches on the smartlinks on his pistols, allowing him to see the world through his guns as well as he could through his own eyes.
“Which of you is RedFlower?” he asks the stunned occupants.
The man to the back of the warehouse turns and runs as the other three reach for their own guns. Zeke closes his eyes and squeezes both triggers, shattering the hands of the two men closest to him. The third manages to fire at Zeke, but the bullet simply glances off the armor plates in his jacket. Zeke rolls forward and shoots again, leaving crimson craters in the chests of the two one-handed misfortunates. When the third man sees his comrades collapse, his nerves waver, giving Zeke the split second he needs to adjust his aim and end the final shooter’s life before bolting off after the fleeing RedFlower. Zeke tackles the supplier with a grunt, then rolls to his feet and aims both guns at the prone man.
“I assume you’re RedFlower?”
“Oh fuck! I didn’t do nothin’ man! What do you want?”
“Oh, you did something alright. You make drugs, don’t you RedFlower? Bad hallucinogens. Then you sold them to dumb kids, promising to improve their lives.”
“Fuck, dude, you mean that Heavenly Star shit? Do you realize how popular that got after that damn Astral Projection for the Mundane book came out? Was I suppose to ignore that opportunity?”
“Destroying minds for profit. Bastard. Who else makes that shit?”
“I’m the only one! Nobody wanted it, it gives shitty trips, but I had a couple dozen hits left over, and after I told those spacey astral kids it’d help them see beyond the world, they ate it up! I was gonna sell the formula to the Halloweeners, but that’s all! I didn’t even do that yet!”
“So this stuff ends with you?”
“Yeah! I promise, let me go and I’ll flush everything I’ve got left and wipe the discs with the formula! It’s all here in the ‘house! I can do it now if you want!”
“I think I’ll just guarantee it’s gone myself,” growled Zeke as he pulled the triggers and let RedFlowers blood spatter his clothes, “and save you the trouble of ever ruining a kid again.”
Zeke turned his back on the supplier’s ruined corpse and walked back to the production tables. Pouring out the vials and dumping the pills and datadiscs onto the concrete floor of the warehouse, he ground all the pills under his boots and shot the discs to pieces.
“I still think most of these people used up their second chance years ago,” he said to the smoking guns in his hands, “Wouldn’t you agree, guys?”

* * *

Seattle. Late October. 2070. In a middle-class house, a young man and his sister talk about understanding life and about second chances, and both agree to try a different approach to living. In a warehouse by the water, six corpses without any more chances grow cold in the salty air. And in a half-decayed apartment on the edge of the Barrens, a man with jet-black eyes tells a pair of guns that he’s decided an Irishman from a mansion across town should probably be given the first chance that a broken man with scars on his face was too blinded by grief to offer when it should have been.