Quicksilver Lightning
By Bull

Editors Note: We ran parts of Quicksilver Lightning in issue #1, 2, 4, and 5. Then, completely unintentionally, it got left by the wayside. With this issue we bring you the complete story, with changes and additions that have happened over the past two years.

"Drek" I muttered to myself as I dodged the sinuous black scorpion tail that lashed out at me. Before me stood the biggest damned scorpion I'd ever seen in my virtual life, and it was black. In the Matrix, black meant one thing: Black IC, the deadliest form of Intrusion Countermeasures. And this was big, even for corp IC.

My brain buzzed at speeds far greater than most norms ever achieve in a lifetime as I scanned the IC, looking for a weak spot in the program. One mistake and it could end my career for good, leaving me as a brainless vegetable, if I survive at all. Finally I managed to find a weak spot in the code. I swung back the massive ax that my Icon carried, and swung with full force at the base of the creature’s tail, my real life fingers flying over my cyberdeck’s keyboard as my attack program ripped into the coding of the IC.

The ax severed the tail, and with a flash, the IC exploded. In the same instant, the virtual reality of the Aztechnology computer system started flashing red. Drek, they knew I was there now. I had to hurry.

I flew through the nodes, stopping occasionally to scan for more IC, this time trying to rely on Stealth more than my deck’s strength. If I got dumped form the system now, I might never get the info Johnny and I needed to finish this run.

My name’s Bull. At least, that’s my name now. I’ve had others, and still have one more, but that’s the one almost everyone knows me by. I’m a decker, as well as an Ork. I know that’s odd, I’m used to it. After all, aren’t all Orks big and dumb? Right.

Anyway, I’m a Shadowrunner as well, which explains why I’m breaking into Aztechnologies computer system, trying to find some classified data on a former employee, and a top secret project. My partner is Johnny 99. He’s a spell slinger, an Amerind Shaman following Coyote. We were hired to get some data for a guy calling himself Mr. Johnson. Yeah, I’ve heard that one before. But he offered a decent amount of cash, so now I’m slogging it through one of the nastiest computer systems in the world trying to get a lowdown on some slot I’ve never met for I guy I don’t know. Ain’t life grand?

Well, I cruised down a couple of datalines, then turned left at the next data intersection, and stepped into a huge datastore. Aztech of Cleveland’s matrix was custom sculpted, and the whole fragging thing looked for all the world like one of those ancient Incan or Mayan temples, and this datastore was no exception. Row upon row of cases held scrolls, millions of them, each one representing a data file in the computers memory banks. I sighed, then started uploading Al, my search smartframe.

Several nanoseconds later, a small creature with glasses, a pickaxe tied to his back, and holding a lantern appeared before me. I’d modeled this frame to represent a Gnome, and he was programmed to scan data for me, leaving me free to deal with any problems that arose.

"Whatcha need, boss?" Al asked in a high pitched voice.

"I need some data. Find out anything you can here about Kano Serennto, and a project called Quicksilver. Pull and copy anything related to either of them. I’ll browse the files later and sort through them. It’s a quick pull today."

Al nodded, and then went to work, scanning through the scrolls faster than I could follow. I watched him work for a few seconds, then spun as I heard a sound behind me.

Running up the hallway leading to the datastore were two huge cats, possibly panthers. I’m not really up on my animal species, and this wasn’t the time to worry about that anyway. I pulled my axe as they charged, and steadied myself. More fragging black IC. Whatever it was I was looking for, Aztech certainly didn’t want anyone finding it.

I blocked the first’s charge with the haft of my virtual axe, and shoved it off my as the second leaped on me. It’s claws raked large gashes in my armor program, but didn’t quite penetrate. I kicked the cat off, and the two panthers circled me warily, looking for an opportunity to strike. I tried to keep them focused on me, hoping that they wouldn’t notice Al who was still plugging away on the data. If they decided to attack him, he’d be a sitting duck. Al had no real defensive abilities, as he was mostly made of search programs and empty memory.

I watched the two panthers for a few nanoseconds, then launched my Mirror Image program. It created a duplicate of myself, and then mimicked my movements. The two panthers looked slightly startled at this, then split up to deal with both of my icons. I sent my duplicate running back down the hallway, hoping to lead at least one of the IC constructs off, leaving me free to deal with only one of the things.

Sure enough, one of the panthers followed. One nice thing about IC is that while it may be powerful, it still is incredibly stupid. That left only one for me to tangle with, and that definitely tipped the odds in my favor. Compared to the Scorpion I’d dealt with earlier, this thing was a kitten.

The cat circled me again, and I drew back my axe, intending to go on the offensive with this thing. I stepped forward and swung my blade toward it, but in a flash, it was suddenly gone. Then I heard a "click" from both sides. I turned to the left to see what it was, and saw several darts fly from hidden alcoves in the walls. I felt several darts hit me from both sides. Drek! A trap, and I fell for it... Damned overconfidence...

I looked up and saw both the panthers re-appear in front of me. I dropped to my knees as my vision went fuzzy. My muscles felt filled with lead, and I couldn’t lift my axe.

"Boss!" Al’s voice called out from behind me. He sounded like he was a million miles away. "I got it all!"

In the Real World, I struggled to talk. Interacting with the real world while decking is difficult enough under the best circumstances. I don’t know what I got hit with, but now it was almost an impossibility. I struggled as the panthers got closer and closer, finally managing to croak out the word "Pull". Fortunately, Johnny’s watched over my meatbod enough times to know when I’m in trouble, and he pulled the jack out of my skull as soon as I said Pull.

The virtual world flickered, then vanished. I sat in the bright light of my apartment, staring at Johnny for several seconds, the collapsed on my face as darkness overtook me.


A sharp pain lanced through my head, and that was the first indication to tell me that I’d survived. God, I hate dump shock. The fraggin’ trid shows make it look so painless and easy. The decker gets in trouble, his bud pulls the plug, and off they waltz into the night with the goods, a jazzy theme song playing in the background. The only theme song playing here, though, was the pounding of my head and a slight hiss of static in the back of my head, where the datajack feeds info into my brain. That would clear up in a minute. The pounding would last the rest of the day.

With a groan, I sat up and looked around, trying to clear my head and remember what the frag had happened.

"So what happened this time, Bull?" Johnny asked. He had a slight smirk on his face, and I grimaced. He’d seen this happen before, and always gave me a hard time about it.

"Got hit with some nasty Black IC, a couple different flavors." I replied, my voice still a bit shaky. Between the Black IC and the dump shock, I think that was the worst I’d ever gotten hit. "Al got the files, though. But it’ll probably take some time to decrypt ‘em all and sort through ‘em to get rid of all the junk."

Johnny nodded. "You got till Friday night. That’s when we’re supposed to meet Johnson with the data."

I sighed. "All right, done. But first, let’s grab a bite to eat. Have you gotten anything on Serrento or Quicksilver?"

"Nada." The Amerind said with a shake of his head. "No one’s heard a thing, but I think Fast Eddie might have something for me later tonight. He said to check in with him." Fast Eddie was an old contact of Johnny’s, a snitch. He specialized in collecting information. In this day and age, information of any kind can be worth a great deal of cred, and Eddie was one of the best at his job.

"All right. Let’s go see what that great smell is coming outta the kitchen, then we hit the street." With a big grin, Johnny followed me out of the rec room, and into the kitchen.

My wife, Marie, is a wonderful cook, and a wonderful woman. She’s a human, and while that always causes some head turning, as well as the occasional trouble from Humanis Policlub and their ilk, I don’t care. I love her anyways. She’s one of the reasons I want to get outta this biz someday soon. Problem is, it pays so damn well! And the fact that your enemies don’t seem to care about the concept of retirement.

I’ve been married to Marie for four years now, and have two wonderful children, Reba and Billy. I’m really proud of those kids. They’re really smart, too, despite their Ork heritage. Billy’s starting to show signs of being extremely talented with electronic equipment, and Reba’s definitely magically active. In fact, she already knows a spell. It’s extremely low powered, but it’s still a pain. "Suburban Removal" she calls it. Johnny says it’s a tooled down version of a spell he knows, Urban Renewal, but it still drills little holes in the walls, among other things.

Anyway, Johnny and I grabbed a bite to eat. Marie made delicious Lasagna, then we went to work. Johnny hit the streets, to check with fast Eddie and a couple other chummers we know. I hit the computer, intending to find out what was on that chip that Al pulled for me.

I knew the data was going to be heavily encrypted. I hated digging drek out of the major corps matrix systems for just that reason. Everything from toilet supplies to the latest high tech toy was always heavily encrypted. Made it harder to determine the drek from the gold, I guess. Oh well, nothing to do but dive right in.

I jacked back into the computer once more, but this time I didn’t log into the matrix. No real need to, and the headache that I still had despite a half dozen painkillers would distract me if I did. All I needed was some space to work, and a few top notch decoding programs that I had designed for just such occasions. I pulled out my code can opener and got to work.


A light tap on my shoulder brought my attentions out of my virtual computer world, and back to the real world. I opened my eyes and looked up to see a pair of dark, beautiful eyes and a mass of long, dark curls smiling down at me.

"Honey," Marie murmured quietly. "Are you going to come to bed?"

"What time is it?" I asked quietly, keeping my voice down since the kids would have been in bed long ago.

"After 4 in the morning. You’ve been decking all night." She smiled a little wider, and I knew that despite her annoyance that I spent hours on end hunched over a workstation in the corner of the room comatose to the real world, she was also amused by the whole thing. I’d taken her for a ride through the ‘trix a few times using a VR feedback helmet, but she usually stayed out, and settled for hassling me a little when I stayed on too long.

"Hmmm." I mumbled non-commitedly. No need to get myself in trouble. "What time did Johnny get home? He should have let me know what he found out."

She kind of frowned slightly. "He hasn’t come back yet. Xuxa went over to Tailspin’s to see if he’s heard anything. That’s why I’m awake. She got worried and woke me to see if you had mentioned anything to me. When I told her you hadn’t said anything, she went over to Tailspin and Penth’s place."

Tailspin and Penthisil were a couple friends and sometime allies of ours. Tailspin is an Amerind Coyote Shaman, like Johnny. He helped train Johnny in the so-called "mystic arts". He’s getting up there in age, though, so he’s pretty much retired from the biz, though occasionally gets involved out of necessity.

Penthisil, on the other hand, is a little harder to describe. He was a combat mage, and a chummer of Tailspin’s. He started heading down the road of the burn-out, though. According to Johnny, Burn-Out is when a mage starts losing his magic for one reason or another, and makes up with it by going with cyberware. This of course weakens his magic further, and it’s a slowly tightening circle that inevitable leaves the mage dead, or powerless. Penth, however, had sacrificed his life for us a couple years ago. That’s when things get strange.

We used to live in Chicago. In fact, we lived there until about a year and a half ago. Unfortunately, we were living there when they came. The bugs. At one point, we had to fight our way through a nasty beetle hive, and in the end, Penth sacrificed himself to buy us the time we needed to get out.

Not long after we got out and moved to Cleveland, we ran into him again. Or rather, his ghost. Penthisil is now a wraith, a spirit, whatever. Call it what you will, I sure as hell can’t explain it. But, we have a ghost on our side.

So anyways, where was I? Oh yeah, Marie was talking to me. Sorry about that, I tend to ramble a bit when I’m telling a story.

I nodded to Marie, then jacked out of the computer. I started packing up my deck, and Marie sighed.

"You’re going out to check on him, aren’t you?"

"I have to, hon. He’s my partner." I told her, giving her my best smile (The toothless one. My toothy ork grin can be kind of gruesome). "He could be in trouble."

"He’s a big boy." She said, sighing again. "But I understand. I know I’d want you coming after me if I ever turned up missing."

"I have, remember?" I said with a forced grin. I didn’t like thinking about the couple times she’d disappeared or been kidnapped. My shadow life didn’t always stay in the shadows.

I kissed her on the cheek, grabbed my jacket, and headed out the door, pausing long enough to grab my gun belt and promise my wife that I’d be careful.

I climbed into my modified GMC Bulldog and jacked in. Yeah, I know I said I was a decker. But, I can also rig vehicles occasionally. What can I say? Everyone needs a hobby. I opened the garage doors and gunned the Bulldog, and headed out into the night, praying that Johnny was ok.


The first place I headed was to Shark and Spill’s place. They were a couple chummers of Johnny and I, though they were a little rowdy at times. They’re a couple ganger brothers. They’re also two of the biggest trolls I’ve ever met. They run the local chapter of the Trawgs, and claimed the Flats as their turf. The Trawgs were a go-gang consisting almost entirely of Trolls and Orks. Me and Johnny were honorary members, although I doubt we ever get invited back for a rumble. We’re a little too violent. The Flats, for those of you not familiar with the Cleveland Sprawl, is a large section consisting mostly of clubs, bars, and warehouses.

While Shark and Spill weren’t necessarily the brightest pair of trolls to ever be born, they have plenty of street smarts and know just about everything that goes on in this part of town.

I pulled by van up to the abandoned warehouse where they made their headquarters, and looked up and down the long rows of motorcycles parked outside, looking for Johnny’s modified Rapier. I didn’t see it, but I climbed out of the van anyway, hoping that maybe Johnny had stopped by earlier, and maybe the troll brothers knew where he was.

I headed up to a large steel door that was the only visible entrance to the warehouse. There was a hidden back door that Shark had shown me once, but this was the only entrance that could be found from the outside. This came in very helpful when the rival gangs tried to raid the Trawgs HQ. They could only come in one way, and when you have to come in one at a time into a room full of Trolls and Orks, you’re in very big trouble.

I knocked on the door, and a small peep slot opened up, and a pair of pretty blue eyes looked out at me. I outwardly grinned, but inside I was grimacing. It was Thery, Shark’s human girlfriend. How she survived that relationship is beyond me, but she loved to tease me. She delighted in sleeping with every new member of the gang, and after Johnny and I had helped the gang out and was made members, she tried her best to seduce me. Unfortunately for Thery, I love my wife and am devoted to her, and I’m the only member of the gang that’s turned her down. Now she sees it as something of a challenge to try and get me into bed.

"Bull!" She squealed, throwing open the door. She was wearing only a pair of blue silk panties and her black leather Trawgs jacket. The jacket didn’t conceal her rather ample bosom in the least. "How ya been, big guy? Finally changed your mind?"

"Sorry Thery," I replied with a grin. "I’m still very happily married. I’m looking for Johnny. Has he been by tonight?"

"No idea, Bully. Let’s go see if Shark’s seen him."

I followed Thery into the back sections of the warehouse, where the sleeping quarters were. Actually, sleeping quarters was a generous term for it. Shark and Spill had there own rooms, and Thery slept in Shark’s room. But the rest of the gang, at least the ones that didn’t have a home, slept in a large common room, either on cots or on blankets thrown across the floor. I stepped over a couple of the gangers that were sprawled across the room.

We approached Shark’s door, and Thery knocked. We could hear loud music blasting thru the door, and after a moment, Thery shrugged and opened the door. We walked in, and I suppressed a smile as I beheld Shark playing air guitar in a pair of boxer shorts covered in hearts. That was not a sight I ever expected to see from one of the trolls.

He looked up as we walked in, then clicked off the stereo. "Hoi there, Bull. Wazzup?"

"Looking for Johnny. He been around tonight?" I said.

"Yeah..." Shark said, his brow wrinkling up as he thought. "He was by earlier asking ‘bout some dude named... Ummm... Kano, I think."

"Oh yeah? What’d you tell him?"

"I told him to check with Schmoove." was the reply.

Schmoove was a bartended at the Trolls favorite hang-out, The Gojira. Good guy, but a little bizarre. Also one of my better contacts here in Cleveland. I looked at my watch, and sighed as I saw that the display read after five in the morning. I wouldn’t be able to contact Schmoove till after noon.

I nodded to Spill. "Thanks, man. If Johnny comes back this way for anything, make sure he calls me."

Spill nodded. "No probs, Bull. Will do."

With that he clicked the speakers back on, and started jamming on his air guitar once more. I shook my head and chuckled, then turned and headed out.

"Hey Bully!" I could hear Thery shout out after me as I headed toward the front door.

I turned and Thery ran up and grabbed me, pressing her large breasts against me. She reached up to kiss me, and I jerked my head back and pushed the girl away. "Thery, no. None of that now. You know how I feel."

Thery pouted a moment, then laughed. "Go on, get outta here, ya big dumb Ork. You’ll give in one of these days."

I grinned at her, then got out while I could. That girl was damned persistent if she wanted to be, and I didn’t need trouble of that sort. Besides the fact that the Troll brothers frowned upon anyone making time with the girl, I really am happily married to Marie.

I sighed as I climbed into the cab of my Bulldog. Well, not much more I could do tonight, so I wanted to head home and catch a few more hours of sleep before noon, then I’d check with Schmoove and see where Johnny went from there. I started up the van, and pulled out into the night traffic as a light drizzle came down.

I drove along for about five minutes, lost in my thoughts, when a small light started flashing on the dashboard. I hadn’t bothered to jack in to the van this time around, wanting to drive myself, and started cursing myself. I looked up at the Heads Up Display that flashed up onto the middle of my windshield, and saw that there was some sort of projectile heading at the van at high speeds.

"Drek!" I roared, and cut the wheel to the left, hard. The projectile, a missile of some sort, narrowly missed the van and sped by me as I turned down a side street. The radar scanner picked up what appeared to be a car or small truck following me, and a large explosion down the street I’d just turned off of as the missile struck a building. I hoped that the building was empty, but this was a nice part of town. Chances were good that it wasn’t.

I looked into the rearview mirror to see what looked like an armored Dodge Ram with a pop-up missile rack following me. I increased my speed, and cut a corner as tightly as I could. I wished that I could jack into the van’s piloting system, as I was much better rigging than straight driving, but that would be suicide, as it takes a few critical seconds to orient yourself to the systems, and jacking in at high speeds was more than likely to get me killed, especially if the bastards following me took that moment to fire off another rocket.

I was coming up at an intersection, and two large Honda Vikings driven by a couple massive trolls pulled out in front of me, heading toward my van. They both had machine guns of some kind mounted on the front bumpers of the cycles. Both opened fire as they came to bear on my van. Bullets bounced off the armor plating of my van, and I gunned the motor and cut left, smashing into one of the cycles. The van shuddered as it crushed the smaller vehicle and tossed it and the troll aside, but didn’t slow down.

I reached over to the dashboard, and flipped on the automated defense system, targeting the Dodge. The turret gun popped up, and the auto-cannon spewed bullets as the Dodge swerved to avoid getting shot up. My warning system beeped again as another rocket was fired, and I swerved to the side again, hoping to avoid the missile again. This time, though, the rocket slammed into the back end of the van, rocking the vehicle with a massive explosion.

I screamed as the van flipped over onto it side and slid into the side of a building. Despite crash bars and airbags, I slammed into the dashboard rather hard, and stars flashed through my head. I could feel blood gushing from my nose and from a gash on my forehead.

I crawled through the shattered windshield, feeling for my Ruger Warhawk as I did so, but the gun was gone, tossed from the holster in the crash. I looked up to see a large pair of combat boots standing in front of me, worn by the Troll that I hadn’t crushed during the chase. One of the boots was pulled back, poised to kick, then everything went mercifully black.


For the second time in 24 hours, I opened my eyes with a groan. This time, however, I wasn’t lying in my bed at home, with friends and family worrying over me. As pain lanced through my head, and then through every nerve in my body, I really wished I was at home. With a grunt of pain, I forced myself to look around.

Flat gray walls. That’s all that surrounded me, on three sides... I couldn’t turn and look behind me, because I was suspended in mid air, my arms and legs chained to the side walls, forcing me to hang in a large X shape. My arms ached from supporting my bulk, and I could feel dried, crusty blood covering my face. Every bone and muscle in my body ached from being slammed around in the accident. Considering I’d just been blown up, it could have been worse.

I must have twisted a muscle in my neck during the explosion, or during whatever beating that troll gave me for running over his buddy. Either way, though, I could barely move my head.

The room seemed to be about ten to twelve feet wide, and the wall I was facing was maybe five or six feet in front of me. Thick metal chains held me suspended to the walls. Despite my somewhat artificially enhanced strength (Hey, runners these days need every edge they can get), there was no way I could bust my way out of this one.

There was a metallic clang behind me as the door opened, and with a loud growl, something struck me hard in the back. I let out a grunt as yet more pain shot through my body.

"So, this is the Ork that’s been meddling in my affairs." A deep, quiet voice said from behind me. Slowly, the owner of the voice walked around in front of me, followed by an enormous troll holding a metal baseball bat.

The man was tall and thin, with short, well-groomed dark hair and an expensive, tailored suit. The troll was likewise wearing a suit, but the nasty grin on his face and the bat in his hand made it quite obvious that he was the muscle, and that he truly enjoyed his job.

"I believe your name is Bull, is it not?" The man said. He talked slow and leisurely, obviously used to being in charge and having everyone obeying him. When I didn’t reply, he motioned to the troll, who swung the bat into my gut. This time I screamed and spit up some blood and bile.

"Now, cooperate with me, Ork, or I allow Smith here to continue his work. Now, are you the Ork known as Bull?" He had a slight smile on his face as he talked. He was enjoying seeing me in pain. I glared daggers at him, but nodded.

"Good, that’s better." His grin sickened me. "Now, tell me, where is your partner, the Shaman known as Johnny 99?"

Good, that meant Johnny was alive, and that this mad man didn’t have him. "Go to hell, you bastard."

Stars exploded in my field of vision as the bat struck me in the side of the head. Vaguely, through the pounding of my skull, I could hear the Troll laughing. The vision in my right eye turned a filmy red as blood poured down my face. I felt sick, and it was all I could do to stay conscious.

"You are really pissing me off, you wretched scum!" The man roared. It seemed my refusal to cooperate was really getting to him. I felt a grim satisfaction at that. "Now tell me what you know of Quicksilver Lightning! Tell me!"

I summoned all of my remaining strength to raise my head up and glare at him. I spit a stream of saliva and blood at him, spattering the collar of his white silk shirt. With a snarl he motioned to the troll again and stalked out of the room.

Mercifully, I passed out after the first blow.


I have no idea how long I was unconscious, but when I came to, I wished I hadn’t. Every breath was torture, and my lungs burned with the effort. I knew I had several broken ribs, and from the searing pain in my right shoulder, it felt like the joint was out of socket. That damned troll had worked me over but good.

I heard the door behind me open again, and I winced. All I could think of was Marie and the kids. With a sigh, a very painful sigh, I prepared myself to deal with the suit and his pet troll again.

"So Bull, how’s it hanging?" A grinning, familiar Amerind face appeared in front of me, an annoying smirk on his face.

"Johnny!" I gasped, wondering if the pain was making me hallucinate. "What? How did you...?"

"Shhh." He said, motioning for me to be quiet. He pulled out his enchanted blade and sliced through the chains holding me up. I immediately collapsed in a painful heap on the floor.

The Shaman helped me to a sitting position, then placed his hand on my forehead. With what he claimed was an ancient Indian chant passed down by his ancestors (I suspected it was just gibberish), he cast a spell and a warm sensation passed through me as my body was healed. Well, kinda healed. My ribs still ached and I was sore from head to foot, but I could move.

"C’mon, Bull. We need to get out of here. Now." Johnny said, helping me to my feet. He ran out the door, and I stumbled out after him.

In the hallway outside my prison, there was an unconscious Ork with an Uzi lying next to him. He must have been guarding the cell when Johnny showed up. I grinned and we paused long enough for me to grab the Uzi and strip off the guard’s armored long coat. I felt a little better with some clothing on. Running around naked doesn’t do well for your self esteem.

"What the hell is going on?" I whispered to Johnny as we crept down the hallway.

"Did you see a dark-haired man and a hulking troll?" He asked me.

"Yeah. And I owe those bastards some payback." I snarled. Just the thought of that Troll beating me made me wince.

"Well, the man was Kano Sorennto, the man we were hired to find. The troll’s name is Smith. He’s Kano’s bodyguard." He whispered back at me. We ducked around the corner as two men wearing lab coats walked by. We crouched, and I saw Johnny set to cast a spell should one of them look around the corner.

I couldn’t really catch much of what they were saying. They were talking in hushed tones, but I did catch the word Quicksilver. This immediately piqued my interest. After all, this is what we were getting paid the big money to find out about. Though compared to the cost of that van, what we were getting paid was pocket change. Yet something else to talk to the Johnson about.

"Bull, you coming?" I started and looked up to see Johnny waiting for me.

"Sorry John... Was thinking. "

"Well, let’s get going." He said, and we moved down the hall. When we got near the exit, Johnny cast an invisibility spell on the two of us, and we slipped out past a couple more unconscious guards. I paused long enough to look over the guard’s uniform, and noted the Aztech Logo on the collar and the sleeve.

And then we were gone from that cursed building, but I planned to be back. I owed someone big time.

"So how the hell did you ever find me, Johnny? And what did you find out on the streets?" I asked once we were at our safehouse. We have three apartments in the low rent section of Cleveland that we used as hidey-holes when the heat came down. We got ahold of Marie and Xuxa, and they and the kids were fine, and once we warned them, they took off for Tailspin’s place. While our house was fairly heavily guarded, they would be a lot safer with the Old Coyote Shaman and the ghost if we weren’t around. Tailspin had more than a few tricks up his old sleeve.

Johnny gave me that irritating grin again. "Actually, I didn’t find drek on the streets. Nobody had ever heard of this slag Sorrento, nor this Quicksilver Lightning."

"However, I got a call from Joey about 10 minutes after your van was blown to pieces. He recognized it, and snagged a couple things out of the wreckage before the rest of the Star got there." With that, he pulled out a battered case with a familiar red and black camo pattern on it. My cyberdeck! Joey is a Detective with Lone Star, and one of Johnny best buds. Johnny supplies plenty of donuts, as well as a few other things, and Joey sends us some useful data, as well as the occasional pulling our asses out of the fire with the Star. It’s a nice little arrangement, and for saving my Deck, Joey was getting a huge fragging reward.

"Great. I figured I’d lost this too. Thank God for miracles. I’m surprised it survived that crash." I muttered, opening the case and running a quick diagnostic on the deck. All the systems were in one piece, and the memory with the stole Azzie data was intact. "So, if you didn’t find anything, how did you know who Sorrento is, and how did you find me."

Johnny 99 chuckled. "Well, finding you was easy. Remember that tissue sample I asked you for? Me and Penth had you tracked in less than 5 minutes with it. As for Sorrento, I almost ran into him in the hallway while I was looking for you. I managed to turn invisible and hide, and got to eavesdrop a little."

"Seems he was talking to his boss. I never caught the name of the boss, but they were talking about you. You’re lucky I found you when I did. Bossman told Sorrento to wax you if you didn’t talk. Anyways, they didn’t say much about Quicksilver, but apparently it has something to do with computers. I couldn’t make most of it out, you know how I am with that techie crap. But he did mention something about a double speed processor, or something like that."

"Hmmmm... OK, cool. Mind watching out for me while I deck again. I need to check a couple contacts in the matrix, and see how my decrypt program’s doing with that data I snagged from Aztechnology." Johnny nodded once, and I moved over to a corner to jack in and got back to doing what I do best.


Three hours later, I pulled the datajack out of my head and looked around, my head throbbing. You know, decking with a concussion is really not a healthy thing to do, but unfortunately, I didn’t have time for several days of bed rest. I looked over to see Johnny opening up a steaming pizza box.

"Yo Bull! Hungry? Got some Papa Joe’s. Extra Cheese." He said around a mouthful of pizza.

Rubbing my temples I nodded and shuffled over to the table, my body feeling like a giant bruise as I moved. Johnny tossed me a cold cola, and settled down to eat a few slices.

Johnny let me eat for a few minutes, then asked "So what did you get?"

I set down the crust on my sixth slice of Pizza, and sighed. "Well, you were right. This is definitely something computer related. Looks like it’s pre-production designs for a new Cyberdeck processor, and from the performance readouts, it moves twice as fast as anything on the market. Looks like it could be a prototype for an 8th Generation Cyberdeck."

Johnny nodded, not quite understanding. "OK, speed. Can’t you buy programs and such to speed up your deck already? Is this something similar, just a little faster?"

"No, not really. What this does is makes everything in a Cyberdeck move faster. OK, look at it like this. Imagine an engine in a car. If you make one part of that engine work better and faster, while it improves how the car works, and makes it go a little faster, it’s not going to make all that big of an impact." I replied, trying to explain it in simple terms for Johnny.

"Now, imagine being able to replace something on the car that made everything on it move twice as fast, and twice as efficient. You would have a car that could travel twice the speed of the old one, with half as much gas, and being able to travel twice as far before needing a tune up or such because it was that much more efficient."

Johnny nodded and I could tell he at least understood the basics. And fortunately, knew enough not to ask anymore questions about how it worked. "So, the question is, what do we do about it?"

"Well, I figure this is why we’ve gotten hired. Aztechnology has this tech now, and is ready to put it in production. If they do, they’ll have all the patents and such, and no one else will be able to produce a version of it for a couple of years, until they find a way to design one that works the same way, only different." I could tell I lost Johnny again, but I just pushed on.

"Anyways, chances are our employer works for one of the Big 10, probably Fuchi or Renraku, but maybe even Ares. This tech here" I held up a chip with the data on it "Is worth Billions to the corp that can market it first, and not only that, but before hand, their deckers will be able to slice through pretty much anything sent their way. When you’re moving that fast, there ain’t much that can keep up with you."

"Of course, the IC SOTA will catch up pretty quick, and things will settle down, but for awhile deckers with this tech will be kings of the datalines."

Johnny nodded again. "And we’re getting paid how much for this gig?"

"Ummm, 10K each, I believe. Though with my van blown to hell and myself getting tortured, I think the price just went up." I replied.

"Think we should try taking this to the highest bidder?" Johnny asked, a twinkle in his eye. I always got worried when he decided to get mischievous. Sometimes he took the whole Coyote Shaman thing a little too far for our own safety.

"As much as I’d like to... No. You should know better than to ask that." I gave him a stern look. "Remember last time?"

Johnny grunted and nodded. He remembered all too well the last run that we tried that. We ended up with four different corps and a pissed off Yakuza clan on our asses for nearly a year. I think the only reason they stopped looking for us is that most of the primary players in that little drama were in Chicago like us when the bugs came to town.

"Yeah, OK. I know, we stick with the original deal." He said. "Besides, last thing we need is to get our rep blown to hell by double crossing our Johnson."

"Right. But we can and will ask for a good deal more for this info. Provided we can stay alive for the next few days. When is our Johnson supposed to contact us?"

Johnny glanced at his watch. "Friday afternoon, around 1:00. It’s Wednesday now. So we got 2 days. Besides, don’t we need to dig a little more on this Sorennto character?"

I nodded grimly. "Yeah, and if I get my way, it’ll be dirt on his grave."

"So, where do we start?" Johnny asked.

"Where do you think? Same place we just came from. Itlan Industries, where Sorrento apparently has his headquarters, and definitely has his private little torture chamber. It’s time for a little payback."

What can I say? I get a little cranky, vindictive, and melodramatic when I get tortured. You should see me when you threaten my family.


I had a few hours before nightfall, and we planned our raid for 3 AM. That’s long enough after midnight, but still a few hours before dawn, the two most common times for breaking into an installation like this. That gave me about 8 hours, so I slept. The bed was little more than a board with some worn out padding, but with everything I’d been through the last couple days, I slept like a rock.

Johnny woke me a couple hours before the run was planned, and I looked up to see a couple of semi-familiar faces. Johnny apparently decided that we needed some backup on this one.

One was an enormous female troll named Sally. Sally ran with Shark and Spill’s gang, but wanted to "break into" the biz, so to speak. She’d been pestering Johnny and me for a chance to go on a run with us, and I guess he finally decided that it was time. I hoped that nothing would happen to her, she was a nice kid, and I really wouldn’t want to have to explain things to Spill.

The other was a hard-faced cyberdude that we’d worked with a couple times before named Angel. Angel wasn’t the ideal partner for a team like ours. He was in the biz solely for the money, and I didn’t trust him any further than I trusted my Johnson’s to tell me the entire truth about a run. Plus, he killed far too casually. Johnny and I always try to keep the body count to a minimum, but Angel never even considered non-lethal tactics.

Johnny must have figured that we would need some heavy hitters if he was bringing in Angel. Of course, Johnny said he found me on the first floor. He said that he knew there was at least one basement level to the complex, and it was guarded by a heavy-duty ward. Chances are, that’s where we need to go.

Besides, on this mission I wasn’t feeling overly merciful. We’d run into trouble with Aztechnology before, and this Sorrento joker hadn’t exactly made me his bosom buddy. I fully intended to pull no punches.

"You feeling better, Bull?" Johnny asked, helping me stand up.

"I’ve been worse." I muttered, stretching the kinks out. I nodded to Angel, who silently returned the nod. I looked over at Sally, and she immediately started talking a mile a minute.

"Isn’t this really fragging cool, Bull? I mean, a real shadowrun! Wizzer! The gang’ll never believe me when I tell them!" She babbled. I inwardly sighed, but tried to keep a cheerful face. Working with newbies was always such a trying experience. I made a mental note to keep her close by and try and keep her alive.

Sally kept talking, but I mentally tuned her out and gathered up my gear. Looking up at Johnny I said, "You got anymore surprises, chummer? Or is this it?"

"This is it. Couldn’t get ahold of anyone else on such short notice."

"That’s kinda a shame. I’d really like to have a little more punch, but... I suppose this will have to do." I grumbled with a sigh. "So, you figure out exactly how you want to run this one, John?"

Normally I make the plans, and then Johnny screws them up. However, since I needed time to recuperate from all the drek I went through, and Johnny was at least familiar with the layout of the first floor, I let him do the planning for once. Plus, it annoyed him to no end to be put in charge.

"Yeah." Johnny said with a grin. "Basically, we break in and find what we want. We do it quietly as possible, and if the drek hits the fan, we open up hard and blow the roof off the place."

I sighed, but didn’t argue. I was still far too tired to even think about convincing him to plan a little better. ‘Besides,’ I thought, more than a little anger welling inside him again. ‘I owe these jokers and would love to blow the wretched place to kingdom come.’

"OK Johnny. We need to dip into the stores and get these guys outfitted. We need to go in heavy." I sighed. "I hate to do things this way, but there’s no other way. And I need to get inside the building if I’m gonna be able to hack their system."

Johnny nodded, "Yeah, there ain’t no sneaking into this one. After they find you gone, they’ll be waiting for us to come back anyways. I figure we’ll need to get you inside, probably into the lower levels of the place. That way you can get into any isolated system they might have. Angel here will cover you while you do the decking."

"Then me and Sally will locate the prototype, and then we bail. Anything that gets in our way, we drop."

"Sounds good," I said, surprised that Johnny had thought ahead that far, or that he even knew what an isolated system was. "But...?"

Johnny 99 chuckled. "And you thought I didn’t pay attention when you talk to me."

I laughed lightly, especially at the bewildered looks we got from Sally. Angel, of course, looked on stoically. I stood up, and we led the way out, and we headed over to a warehouse to suit up. Dread balled up in my stomach for about the tenth time since this damned mission started.


Sally stood up, stretching, testing out her suit of armor. In hopes of keeping her alive, and knowing that she was strong enough to run full tilt with even the weight of such massive gear, we’d outfitted the big Troll ganger with a full suit of heavy armor. Angel, on the other hand, stuck with a suit of light security armor, and both our new partners were outfitted with Ares Combat Guns.

"Won’t we have probs with the Star, Bull?" Sally asked, hefting the Combat gun for emphasis. "I mean, this much heavy ordinance is bound to get noticed."

"I think we’ll be OK for a little while Sally." I replied, pulling my own armor on and double checking my deck. "The installation is outside the city, out near the toxic zone. The Star rarely goes out there. And I’ve got some Matrix pals running interference, so any calls to the Star should get slowed down some."

Ahh, the toxic zone, such fun. Back a few dozen years ago, The cities of Cleveland, Ohio, and Erie, Pennsylvania got together and decided they needed a new Nuclear Power Plant. The old one, in Perry, really wasn’t large enough to power both the city of Cleveland, a metropolis in it’s own right, and the growing cities of Ashtabula, on the Ohio side of the border, and Erie, on Pennsylvania’s side of the border. They were already close to growing together into a sprawl back then.

The job of building a new, and very large nuke plant was contracted out to the lowest bidder, of course, and that proved to be a major problem. The contractor decided to skim money off the project. Lots of money. And that meant that the building suffered in a lot of areas.

Three days after the plant went online full time, it suffered a major meltdown, the worst since the Chernobyl Plant in Russia in the late 20th century, and irradiated the surrounding area. There is now a 25 square mile radius that used to be the city of Ashtabula that’s now mostly an unlivable toxic hell-hole, and for miles around the TZ everyone refuses to live there except the dregs of society. It’s mostly wilderness, so it’s also a haven for criminals, shadowrunners, and others who’d like o be left alone, and with the land cheap as it is, there’s more than one corp installation hidden out there, working on projects they don’t want anyone to see.

Sally nodded, but still looked dubious. I smiled reassuringly and hefted a Panther Assault Cannon, after checking to see if my pair of Ruger Warhawks were secured to my waist. Her eyes goggled at the sight of the huge anti-tank weapon, but I ignored her and turned to Johnny.

"The van is fragged, dude. We’re going to have to take the Landrover, and that things not armored or modded up at all." I told him.

Johnny 99 nodded. "That’s OK. We shouldn’t have any problems getting in, but on our way out we may run into problems. These are the Azzies, after all. You know how they get when you take their toys away."

I sighed and nodded back at him. "I know, Johnny. But Sorrento’s got our number now, and he knows we’re after him. And, he knows that I have data on Quicksilver Lightning. Until that info is no longer worth anything, which will be anywhere from one to six months from now, he’ll be on our asses. We have to get in there and get this info, and get it into someone else’s hands, fast. That way, they’ll have bigger fish to fry, and hopefully, we’ll no longer be that big of a threat to them."

That was always a shadowrunners worst fear. That the corp would decide that this time, they were worth the effort of hunting down and killing. And if a corp decides to do you in, then you’re done. No matter how good you are, there’s no way you can survive for long against the kind of manpower and money they have to bring against you. With a half million nuyen bounty on your head, even your mother will turn your ass in.

"What’s our time frame, Johnny?" I asked.

"45 minutes, Bull." He replied, looking at his watch. "We need to get going if we’re gonna hit the place on schedule."

With a sigh, I motioned to Angel and Sally, then we loaded into a somewhat battered Landrover and headed off into the night.


What came next was a blur, for the most part. They say that Street Samurai and other combat recall very little between the time we left the warehouse and when we limped back. It was a nasty little fight, I remember that much. And poor Sally, who so wanted to be a runner, didn’t survive. She got fragged by a sentry gun on the third sub-basement of the damned place. The only consolation is that Kano Sorennto died on his knees, begging for his life. And we got the data. But at what cost?

I was not looking forward to telling Shark and Spill what happened.


The bar was your typical dark, seedy dive, the kind of place that all of these meets take place in. Roaches and Devil Rats crawled in the dark corners, and several even lower forms of life sat on battered stools, slumped over the bar drinking their troubles away with cheap sythahol.

I could spot our Mr. Johnson and his high priced suit immediately in the gloom of the Sal’s Den, and I stepped towards that corner of the bar. Johnny 99 silently followed behind me, his Amerind features grim. Normally I play the "big dumb ork" and let Johnny talk during these meets, but not tonight. After the botched run that we had just barely survived, I was not in the mood for games.

The front door crashed open behind us, but I didn’t even look back. From the gasps from a couple of patrons and the brief flicker of surprise and fear from Johnson and his two thug bodyguards let me know that Shark and Spill had entered. The two trolls always had that kind of impression when they walked into a place. And tonight, they were pissed.

I walked up to the table and sat down in an empty chair across from Mr. J and his pet trolls. Johnny and the twin troll gangers grabbed chairs from a nearby booth and dropped into them beside me. Mr. Johnson did his best to look impassive, but the trolls next to him fidgeted nervously in their seats as they sized up our merry little band. Mr. Johnson’s eyes betrayed his doubts about the situation. He was in way over his head.

We sat looking at one another for several long minutes, and finally the Johnson cleared his throat and began to speak.

"So, Bull... Did you get the, ummm... data?" He asked, his voice stammering slightly. I nodded once, saying nothing.

"Good, good. Now, if you’ll hand over the item," He reached into his jacket and pulled out a couple of credsticks. "I have your money and we can be done with this business." And away from us scummy, dangerous Shadowrunners, I’m sure he wanted to add.

And so it begins.

"Sorry pal, but it’s not quite that simple." I said, my arms crossed in front of me. I leaned back in my chair slightly, tipping it back on two legs, and propped one heavy, booted foot up against the table.

"Excuse me?" He asked. Why do they always seem so surprised when complications arise?

"You heard me." I growled, watching carefully as his bodyguards tensed up slightly. Johnny had already done some magical astral recon of the place and our Johnson, and he could tell these two were mundane thugs with some cyberware to make them faster, stronger, and meaner. However, we weren’t impressed. I slowly pulled an optical chip from my pocket.

"This little baby caused us a lot of problems. It cost me and Johnny a lot of money, and it cost them" I jerked my thumb at Shark and Spill "a friend. This job turned out to be a lot more difficult than you told us it would be, but I expected that. However, the Azzies really wanted to protect this info, and it’s worth a hell of a lot more than 10K."

At the mention of money, the Johnson’s face immediately became a mask as his business demeanor overtook him. Apparently negotiation and haggling were areas he was prepared to deal with, not the hard edged reality of dealing with Shadowrunners. I chuckled inwardly, wondering if this was his first time playing Mr. Johnson, and wondered how he’d react to someone as mercenary as Angel, or some of the more bloodthirsty and insane runners I’d met. I reached into a second pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper and laid it on the table.

"Between having to hire additional personnel, the loss of an operative, the loss of a very expensive van, myself getting tortured, equipment, time, and the fact that I don’t like you very much, our fee has gone up considerably." I said as I recited a list of expenses. The Johnson at least had the good graces to blanch slightly when I mentioned Sally’s death and my own torture.

Mr. Johnson picked up the paper and skimmed it over, his eyes widening as he came to the final cost. "One Million Nuyen!?! Are you crazy?"

I snorted slightly, a technique I had worked on ever since getting the nickname Bull in High School shortly after I goblinized. "You don’t even know what’s on this chip, do you?"

"Some kind of new software." He shrugged. "Not that it matters. You were hired to do a job for a certain fee. After all the problems you had, we could see fit to at least double your fee. But this is ridiculous!"

I shrugged and pulled out another optical chip and tossed it to Mr. J. "Here, slot that for a second, ‘Mr. Johnson’."

He pulled out a high priced Pocket Secretary and inserted the chip. He was silent for a minute as he read, then his eyes widened as he read the material on the chip.

"Let’s see if I can remember the important stuff" I said as he read. "Mr. Jonathan Nagy, 42 years old. Worked for Renraku for 8 years, after defecting from Ares and changing your name. You have a wife named Alyssa, and a 4 year old daughter named Jessica. You live at—"

"Enough!" Jonathan Nagy roared, leaping up from the table. His eyes held a mixture of fear and anger as he looked down at us. Behind me the trolls tensed slightly as Nagy’s two bodyguards stood up, flanking the man. "You... You’re not supposed to be able to find out who I am! Don’t you runners live by some kind of honor code or something??"

I laughed coldly at him. "Believe it or not, we do. But we don’t appreciate getting screwed over by some newbie, two-bit corp dork who can’t even bother to find out what information he’s after. And who then tells us it’ll be an easy mission. Sorry pal, but you have our updated fee. Pay it, or this little baby goes to the highest bidder, and that info about you gets posted to every BBS and Trash Tabloid this side of Amazonia."

Nagy stood staring at us for a second, shock apparent on his face as he absorbed this information. "Kill them!" He yelled to his trolls.

They were fast, I’ll give them that, a hell of a lot faster than me. And had the trolls punch landed, I’d have been in a world of hurt. It never did though.

The first troll was a blur of motion as he drew his fist back, his cyber-augmented muscles tensed to deliver a blow that could probably have crushed plasticrete. Then his head vanished in a spray of red mist that blew back onto Nagy and his second troll body guard. I glanced sideways, and Johnny’s eyes were glowing slightly and his head was cocked to the side slightly. I gave him a quick nod, then stepped back as Shark and Spill tackled the second troll with a bone crunching thud. In the blink of an eye, Nagy stood alone, both his bodyguards lying on the ground next to him, and with almost a ton of angry Troll, Ork, and Amerind staring at him. He blinked in shock, then fainted.

I glanced around the bar as the last patron bolted out the door. The bartender, a grizzled old Troll named Drok, stood behind the bar with a dirty cloth in his hand, watching us, his expression a mixture of frustration and tired expectancy. He saw this kind of thing happen far too often, most likely.

Shark grabbed Nagy, and I tossed one of the certified credsticks that Nagy had brought over to Drok. "Sorry about the mess."

Then we headed out.


In the end, Nagy managed to scrounge up the money to pay us. Turned out he had been skimming money off the Renraku "Shadow Ops" budget for a couple years now. He’d offer very low pay, and hire low-end runners to do the job. This time he had to hire a little higher up the ladder (that, or Renraku had even less data on us than I suspected), and the job turned out a lot tougher than he expected. I gave him all the data I had on him and his family, and warned him that if I ever saw him again, or had any trouble I could trace back to him, he’d wish for a quick death. And I described several fun little tortured in detail to him, just to emphasize the point. Had Sorrento survived our run on Itlan Industries, he’d have been envious of those tortures, to be sure.

Of course, I also gave him my word that I gave him every copy of the data that I had. And I did. However, mysteriously enough, several weeks later, that info got posted to every major BBS on Shadowland, and then to every BBS in the world within an hour. Every hack with some technical skills and the right equipment could make themselves the Quicksilver Lightning chip. And all this appeared to be released as free info by Aztechnology themselves. Rumor goes that if they couldn’t have it to themselves, everyone could have it.

Of course, the fact that I killed all technical data on the Quicksilver project that Aztechnology had made that reasoning very false. But I had nothing to do with it. I was on vacation in the Bahamas with Marie, the kids, Johnny, and Xuxa.

It’s nice to have friends with talent.