Your Friendly Neighborhood Shadowrunner

[wheyoftheadept]

Who: Saturday… and you?
What: Open prompts
Where: Locations noted in title
When: in the period between the intro and the next big event
Warnings/Notes: Second prompt may lead to discussing disturbing events in Saturday’s past. No sexual assault, but warnings for violence, child abuse, and eldritch horrors.


1. Free Tickets to the Gun Show [location: communal bathrooms]

Saturday looks at herself in the mirror and nods, satisfied. Even Maggie couldn’t argue the rightness of this; these uniforms were hideous, and too long, and she didn’t like them. Therefore…

She picks a thread out of her newly-created sleeveless jumper. It won’t stop unraveling, so she yanks and breaks it. Her former sleeves lie limply on the sink before her as she admires herself. The room is empty (to the best of her knowledge); her dignity is safe. She starts striking poses.

In her defense, those muscles are pretty impressive.


2. Let Sleeping Adepts Lie? [location: gardens]

The gardens aren’t really gardens, except for the patch that Bunny and Gadget have taken over, but they’re green and they’re quiet and it’s easy to avoid people. These qualities are why Saturday is kneeling in a remote corner of them, hands cupped open in her lap the way her father taught her. Holding emptiness. Control is an illusion. Go with the flow.

Keep your distance, and she looks peaceful. Come closer, and you can see her jaw is tight and trembling, and tears are trickling out from under her closed eyes.


3. Come Fly Away (Or Dream You Can) [location: rig exterior]

The rain never actually stops, but sometimes it lessens into a misty drizzle, the kind of thing a true Seattleite scoffs at. Saturday, being one of those, is out on the deck. It’s evening, going on full dark; the western horizon in orange fading into pink, and the sky above is clouded velvet. She’s tied cloth around her hands and feet for grip, and is running the pipes. Her shoes are sitting neatly at the base of a large beam. She has no destination in mind, no particular purpose; she isn’t in the training area because she wants to be outside, unrecorded, unmeasured, moving for the sheer glory of it. It almost feels like freedom.

Comments

[wheyoftheadept]

"I'd say fighting for Jorg's bottom line, more than that." Saturday stretches now, glad of the distraction for all she'll still have to finish her internal grooming later. "I'll bet you half a dollar the people behind this operation are the same people who caused this mess. Jorg might be the only option, but I wonder if that's not because they arranged it that way."

A corp would absolutely destroy the world to get a monopoly - or just exploit the destruction of it. Saturday has no doubts about this.

[greyerrant]

"It strikes me with time and organization, we may then be able to provide our own option."

Not that he'll say more than that, but leading a guerilla action is something he's done before so successfully that they gave up fighting him entirely and just bombed the planet from orbit to deal with him.

[wheyoftheadept]

"Been thinking along the same lines." This is good. This is something Saturday can focus on. It's business: planning, logistics. Movement. "What have you been ruminating?"

[greyerrant]

"We must first know our enemies, and our allies. Gather information, act obedient, see who else chafes under the rules here, and who can be trusted with operational security. Once we have a who can help, who to avoid, we can make a plan to act."

He looks marginally more comfortable planning a military action than he did in all that talk about feelings and failure. This is something he knows well.

[wheyoftheadept]

"I already have a few people in mind - I think we all chafe like a motherfucker under their rules. What we need is a better sense of where people's expertise lies. Once we know what we've got, we'll know how to use it."

She's thinking of her little chat with Cayde, and the run they're putting out feelers for.

"Gonna need intel on the Jorg, too. Test runs. You know the cameras don't work?"

[greyerrant]

"I did not know that. Unfortunately, while I can manage battlefield and operational stealth, it is rather hard for someone of my bulk without a falsehood, tech I do not have access to here."

He nods, "I'll speak with whoever you have in mind, I assume the network system is monitored heavily?"

[wheyoftheadept]

"It is, but if you drop him a subtle message he'll arrange a meet." Saturday nods. If nothing else, Loken is muscle and expertise; those are two things any run needs when it goes sideways. And every run goes sideways.

"It's monitored out the ass. There's this anonymous guy who claims to be on our side who set up a private subnetwork, but - dunno, I need to ask someone I trust who knows tech better. Or see if anyone posting on it gets rounded up and shot," she says, somewhat grimly.

[greyerrant]

"Who is this Him, so I know who I contacting?" He is quiet for a moment, "Unless you are keeping the identity quiet for security reasons, I'll understand that as well."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Nah, just lost in my own thoughts. You wanna talk to Cayde. Tallish fellow, made of metal, can't miss him. He's run crews before, same as me, knows his stuff."

She smirks a little. "He's the guy who told me the cameras don't work."

[greyerrant]

"Made of metal. Is... is he... is he a robot?" Loken can't hide the distaste in his words. AI are bad, bad news in the Imperium. Then again, AI are pretty awful in shadowrun as well.

[wheyoftheadept]

"No, he's like that cool russian dude, a human in a robot body? I'm kinda fuzzy on the details, but he's more like a cyborg, I think." Saturday is super unclear on the details, but her understanding of AI is god-computers, not sarcastic shooty men. Cayde doesn't fit.

Although god, she would have liked to see Jorg vs. Deus, from a safe distance.

[greyerrant]

"I see." Loken he looks visibly relieved that hasn't encountered an abominable intelligence. "We have those where I am from. The astartes, if mortally wounded, are often given an augmetic shell and made into war machines called dreadnoughts. I assume the principle is similar." Though apparently on a much smaller scale if she refers to him as a cyborg.

[wheyoftheadept]

"Uh - maybe?" Every new fact she learns about this Imperium of Man place is slightly concerning. But Cayde and Saint seem fine with their conditions, so maybe dreadnoughts are the same. "Anyway, he seems a decent operator."

[greyerrant]

Most dreadnaughts are when they aren't in terrible amounts of agony or asleep or in violent bouts of murderous insanity. You know. Like you do. "Stealth and infiltration specialist?" Loken guesses, picking up on the subtext.

[wheyoftheadept]

"Far as I can tell. Which is what we need at first, stuck in the house of the enemy an' all. Test limits, gather intel, figure out what Jorg knows that they ain't telling us. Develop a plan once we know the territory." She stretches. "That's me an Cayde's thinking, anyhow."

[greyerrant]

"It is in agreement with my own."

He looks directly at Saturday. "Will you be all right? Emotionally, I mean. I don't imagine there is much in the way of camraderie or counsel here."

[wheyoftheadept]

" - yeah, sure." Again, his straightforwardness startles bare truth from her. "I mean - no, but like. I can keep on top."

There's been way too much for her to ever be okay again. But it's horrified her to realize - she was trained for this. This was what 'jisan had meant, all those years.

"That's what the meditation is for, right?" she adds, with a touch of humour to disguise how tired she is.

[greyerrant]

"Yes, that is what it's for. I will say you might want to try gardening as well."

He is quiet, and moves to leave, before stopping, and says, "Don't let your loss swallow you, don't become only a soldier and a machine for revenge. You are young, and still have a chance to become something other than a weapon."

As for himself, well, that choice was made well before the heresy began. He is a weapon, though his humanity comes from being a weapon that still questions its' purpose.

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday blinks, uncertain what to make of it - the man barely knows her, but -

She's touched, nonetheless.

"I'll keep it in mind. Thanks."