Beau was shipped to a boarding school in Austin, far away from his family, so that he shouldn't be a reminder of what they had done. Beau lived in Chicago until he was 16, when he moved to Seattle. He had already got his first cyberdeck, a brand new Fuchi CDT-1000, and started to program on it. But mostly it was for playing different car and fly simulators. He always dreamt of being a pilot of some sort.
But in Seattle life was tough on him, his race made him rather unpopular, teachers didn't like him very much, and neither did any of the people he knew. So he lived isolated in his crummy little flat in the Outskirts of Redmond. After a while this got to him, he just couldn't cope with things.
No one liked him, he had no one to talk to, and everywhere he went, even to buy groceries, people talked about him behind his back. In desperate need of someone to talk to, he started to name his possessions, and talk to them. He started to feel like inanimate things really were alive, and had feelings. And their personalities were determined by what they were, but he realised soon that even though they were alive, they had a purpose to fill.
Like cans of food being opened and thrown away, but as long as it was for a good cause. He continued his solitary life, but his new companions kept him company.
After three years of Technical School he graduated second best in '45. He had already got a Helicopter Licence, and planned on working for some corporation as a pilot. But work was hard to find, even though people were starting to get more affable than before towards Orks and Trolls.
Finally he got lucky when a TV-Station had an opening. The Pilot for the weather report, not much but it was a start. By '50 he was working full position, now also being a mechanic for the Chopper he had named "Pete". Pete was rather a sad chap, and lousy for a conversation. But he had his moments.
In 2054 he got a job as a Pilot for "Willsbury's Helicopter Services Inc.". He was also a Mechanical advisor for the firm. He got paid good, and got some friends, although they didn't last long.
In early 2056 Sheykuro Corp. was planning a buyout, and they succeeded. Sadly, they demanded that everyone that belonged to the lesser races were to be relieved of their duty. Beau, as he was being called, was fired later that week. Bitter and angry he turned to the bottle, all the time cursing those "damned Sheykuro assassins", crawling into the bottom of a bottle to hide.
After some months on the bottle, living now in the Barrens after he got broke, he had to get a job. However, a 36 year old, drunken ork hasn't got job opportunities lined up for him, so it went quite a while before he found one. It was working as a car thief, then as a chop shop mechanic. He tried to hold back on his drinking, so he only got drunk 3 times a week now. The other chop shop mechanic, Wild Bil,l and Beau became good friends. As Wild Bill was also an ork, they could sit and bitch together.
After some months, a runner team of four, stopped by the shop in desperate need of a car and a driver, as their former rigger had been killed. Beau had a Vehicle Control Rig so they proposed that he could drive them. The Boss wasn't in at the time so he hesitated a bit, not sure of what to do.
But he decided on to help them, while Wild Bill stayed at the shop. One of them, dressed like a shaman told Beau where to go, and to step the pedal to the metal. Some 50 meters behind them a car was picking up speed. To his amazement Beau saw that the Ork in the team, ripped of parts of the roof, and stood to his feet.
His torso over the roof of the car, the Ork started to shoot with his Ingram SMG... Hitting the other car, actually a Van, several times. The Ork cursed as all the bullets ricocheted of the Van. One of the runners, grey hair, round glasses, slim, and a face made of stone, handed the ork a bag. Through the rear view mirrors, Beau could see that it contained a small cannon.
The Van picked up speed, out of the window a man fired a gun several times at them. The window in the back of the car was blown to pieces, and several bullets made their way through the front window as well, accompanied by blood and bone fragments from someone in the back seat.
"SHIT, SHIT, SHIT", said the smallest of them, he had a strange haircut and a Datajack.
"Son of a bitch blew off my chest, he blew off my chest.." as he said that blood started to come form his mouth, his chest was soaked in blood. Moments later he collapsed. In the front seat the Shaman said: "I knew this would happen", he handed Beau a note with an address written on it.
"Drive to this address, and make it snappy." Beau only nodded, when the car was violently pushed forward accompanied by a loud boom. Behind them the Van exploded.
"Hehe... got the foo' good" the ork said, smiling. He sat down on his seat with the 1.50 m long "rifle". He quickly saw the mess that was left of the chest of the decker, and started to curse. As Beau drove off, sirens could be heard in the distance, and the burning wreckage of the van lighted up the street. They could see someone crawl out of it, as Beau steered the car round a bend.
After a while the Shaman turned to Beau and said: "I am Dances-With-NuYen, you?", Beau introduced himself, and the others did the same. The runners were Dances, the Shaman, HyPeRJacK, the Decker, Gut Rippa, the Ork Samurai, and Conrad Oppenheim, the elven Demolitions man. At that moment Beau stopped by a house. "This is it", he said.
The runners carried Hyper out of the car and bursted in through the door where the Street Doc lived. Beau sat still in the car, letting the knowledge of what had just happened slip through his mind. He couldn't believe the rush. A wild car chase and actual guns fired, he only hoped that Hyper made it. He seemed like such a nice guy. After a while he went into the house, the Doc busy binding his wounds.
"Not a single bullet inside him, and the clean entry and exit wounds suggests that APDS rounds were fired." The doc said, he looked worried. "APDS, hmm... Those foo's really wanted us dead, man. Makes me wanna crack their skulls.." Gut said angrily.
"These Sheykuro guys obviously doesn't like they're data stolen. And they have some decent resources on their hands. APDS is pretty rare round these parts", Dances said solemnly.
Sheykuro! Beau thought. He hadn't heard that name in almost half a year now. Though it seemed like yesterday that they fired him, based only on his race. If someone only told him what this APDS biz was. He could actually get an overview of the situation. He asked the Doc what APDS was.
"APDS is 'Armor Piercing Discarding Sabot'. It's a military grade ammunition, that can penetrate most types of armor. Very hard to find, and very expensive." Oh, Beau thought, sounds like these Sheykuro jokers really had it in for the runners Without giving it much further consideration he blurted out:
"If you're going against Sheykuro, I'd be most willing to help, you need a rigger don't you?" Dances nodded.
"Well, if I get an upgraded VCR then I'll be quite good. You see, I have a score to settle with Sheykuro. They once robbed me of my job, cause I was an Ork." They went into a corner and discussed, after a bit, Gut came back smilin'. "Sure thing bro'. Us orks have to stick together."
Three weeks later Beau was ready to roll. He had got a voice mod. And a SPU: Math installed, all paid for by the team. He also got the Ford Bison, and the WK-2 Stallion from the former rigger, post mortem of course. After a few personal adjustments, Beau was ready to kick some. He soon rang Wild Bill, to tell him what had happened to him. Wild Bill and the others had reckoned that Beau was killed, but were relieved to hear he was in good shape. Beau urged Wild to stop working for the Shop, but he refused.
Chopping up cars was all he could do, and had done that all his adult life. Beau was disappointed. He had hoped the Wild and he could run together but no, it seemed like he wouldn't do that. It was way too risky for his taste, Wild told him.
Dances called some of his contacts and set up some meets, where Beau could be properly introduced to the Biz. All of the meets where at either Penumbra or Dante's. The contacts apparently held back their enthusiasm, all they said was "If he is as good as the last one, we'll send our biz elsewhere." Beau and the glass he was drinking out of agreed to that they all liked him.
Soon they started to plot against Sheykuro, on how to get back at them. The wound they had caused on Hyper, gave him such pain, that he had to go on medication, all of the time to keep the pain down. They also had a peculiar side effect, the were really, I mean really quickening. The recipient got real hyperactive. And the fact that hyper used them excessively made him very, very hyper, and he started drooling to. Good thing that he was matrix backup. 'Cause he would have revealed our position at once, if he was in the field.
One night, Beau and the gang, set out on the run against Sheykuro, that would cripple them. They were to go in, and steal some data that would prove their involvement in several assassinations against the larger corporations. So even if the courts wouldn't nail them. Fuchi, Ares and Yamatetsu would. Sheykuro had played with high stakes, and were now to lose. Big time.
Beau moved the heli in over the building complex. The heli-ID they had bought was paying off. The sec. Officer he had spoken with had okayed a landing and was (hopefully) expecting no drek from us. They were cleared for landing. The helicopter, Lulu Belle, jolted a bit when it touched down onto the ground. Her door was opened. Gut, Dances and Wiley, the newest addition to the team ran out on the opposite side of the heli than the side the offloading crew came. The deck parts were taken off, and Beau took off with Lulu. He switched on his com-link. He could hear some static, then Hypers voice:
"ChaNnEL SeCurE!" he shouted. He had made our signals so twisted and jammed up that no one with anything less than a drek-hot decker could tap onto our line.
"Status?" said Beau quickly. Hoping that everything was all right. At least no one seemed to be following him. The warning systems were all nice and calm.
"So far so good." He could hear Gut growling into his Cyber Com-link. It was kind of strange to listen to the funny edge his voice had through it.
"Your new CyberCom working all right Wart-Boy?" Beau said in a voice, trying to sound just like Gut.
"Don't talk to much on this channel foo'! Don't want them scanning us or anyfing." And Gut continued. "We are moving down the airducts. We'll report when we get to the 32nd Floor, got that sucka!?!"
Beau replied only with a formal "Ten-Four" before descending onto the rooftop of the building they had rented. Only half a mile away. He opened the door on the roof, and ran down the stairs. He absent-mindedly knocked on the door to apartment 1450, before he took his keys and unlocked the door.
Gut wasn't in so he didn't have to ask permission to enter, or risking the bones in Beaus nose. And Hyper was jacked in, so there he had it, he thought as the door suddenly slid open. The door wasn't locked. Beau examined the lock more closely, someone had been scraping on the outskirts of the lock. He drew his Roomsweeper and stood beside the door, dead quiet. Didn't he just hear something, someone talking inside? There was a loud bang, as some furniture was being thrown against the wall.
"Oh drek, oh drek, oh drek!" Beau said to himself as he kicked the door open. The lights were off. He couldn't see shit.
"Hai! Watakushi wa kobun desu!" someone shouted. Beau just realised that he was very prone to be shot as the lights in the hallway behind him was on. He jumped forward into the room. Two gunshots was fired from behind the TV. Both hit the wall behind him.
"Taishikan wa doko desu ka!" shouted the shooter, someone was coming from Guts' bedroom. Gut hated that people messed with his personal stuff. Beau scrambled towards the kitchen as more bullets flew past him. The kitchen counter faced the livingroom so it would provide excellent cover. Beau fumbled past the sink and sat still. Opening the stove, and took out the sawn off Remington 990. He heard the silent tapping of footsteps closing up behind him, on the other side of the counter. Beau set the choke to 1.
"This is for messing with Guts things!" Beau shouted as he lifted the shotgun over his head, firing all the shoots randomly into the darkness behind him. One of the Sheykuro assassins screamed "Ogenki desu ka!" before hitting the floor with a bang.
The other Sheykuro assassin shouted "O-namae wa!!" as he jumped from behind the telecom, guns blazing. Bullets ricocheted of the pots and pans in front of Beau. He reloaded the Shotgun as fast as he could possibly manage, but it wasn't fast enough.
The Sheykuro assassin was getting closee to the kitchen counter. Blasting holes through the whole apartment. "Komban WA!" shouted the Sheykuro assassin as he popped the clips from his guns. Beau seized the moment to jump onto the counter. But saw to his disappointment nothing but darkness.
"DIE SCREAMING" shouted Beau as he blasted two shoots into the dark room. Suddenly he heard the Sheykuro assassin sneaking right in under the counter, he could barely jump down before the metallic reflection of a katana of some sort was swinged through the air.
Beau rolled towards the hallway, accompanied by the sound of the floor being chopped up where he had just lain. Beau stopped to get on his feet, but a sensation of pain in his left foot wouldn't allow him to rise from the kneeling position he was in. Beau turned his head, in the eternity following his eyes managed to spot the suit clothed Sheykuro assassin behind him, with his katana thrusted through the back of his left ankle, nailing it to the floor.
Beau shoved the shotgun between his legs and fired off several shots. Some even ripping of parts of his feet. Beau cried out from the pain, accompanied by the shriek of the Sheykuro assassin as his body was ripped to shreds. With a thump both of them hit the floor. Only Beau still breathed, though heavily.
Through the throbbing in his ears he could make out the sound of someone in Hyper's room. Beau was trying desperately to find his shotgun between all the empty casing that was lying on the floor. But the pain was to grave. He could feel the cold metal in his foot, it was starting to get warmer. Someone turned on the lights. He had to shield his eyes with his wet hands. All red, all the liquid on his hands, it was all red. Beau heard the Sheykuro assassin move in behind him. He hadn't the strength to put up a fight, even if his life was at stake.
The Sheykuro assassin said "YoU aLL riGHt, bEau, aRE yOu, ArE yoU!!!" the Sheykuro assassin had the same voice as Hyper. Strange really. Beau screamed as the katana was being stirred around in the wound. In between the throbbing in his ears he thought he could hear: "sORry bOuT thAT, I rEALly aM!!"
The Sheykuro assassin that was in the process of torturing Beau, tread on his sore foot. Beau's screaming was intensifying. The katana was stirred again, this time he almost ripped it out of his foot. Beau's limited medical experience suggested that he might bleed to death if the katana was removed, it was just like the cork being removed from the bottle. Beau cried out in pain as the Sheykuro assassin put both of his feet on his leg, one on each side of the katana.
"HeRE GoEs!" said the Sheykuro assassin. Beau screamed as the katana was pulled out of his leg, after that he blacked out.
"HaLLo!" the ugly monster was about to swallow Beau, he punched the monster in the face, as hard as he could. Hunh, the monster flew back onto its back. Beau sat up in bed, Hyper was on the floor bleeding from his nose. Beau's leg stung like hell. He had to whimper a bit.
"LoOK Im BleaDIng AlL oVeR The PlaCe!" Beau apologised. Hyper told him what had happened. He had been unconscious for about 5 mins. They were now in the backup room, 3 floors down. Beau just wanted to relax now, lay back. Until his foot was healed. Although he would need a doc. The bandage that Hyper had wrapped around it, although effective, was probably not very hygienic. Beau lay back in the bed. But as his head hit the pillow, a thought struck his mind. Shit, the team. Beau jumped from the bed, running to the decks on the table. Before he came halfway there, he stumbled. Hyper rushed and grabbed Beau before he could fall.
"The team" Beau said. "What about the team?"
"Oh, HehEH MayBe We SHOUld ChecK ON TheM!?!?" Hyper looked confused for a moment but soon regained his not so elegant posture. "Here, take this" Beau said as he handed Hyper the jack cable. Both logged on to the matrix.
Without as much as a word, they travelled at the speed of light towards the LTG of Sheykuro's matrix system. Beau tried to contact Gut over the comm-link. Only static. They arrived at the LTG. Making their way into the Public area, they were suddenly running along traditional Japanese houses. Sheykuro system was sculpted like a village, the most important houses in the middle.
Around those parts were walls, full of guards and lookouts, ICE of every variant patrolled the walls. The houses outside were public domain. Hyper led the way to a deserted section of the wall. It was the backdoor code they had bought. Around a last bush and there it was. A hole under the wall. Hyper and Beau crept through the hole. On the other side was a guard. Watching the hole.
"ID please.." said the Probe ICE. Hyper tried to sleaze it by popping a banana in its mouth, something that usually worked, but not this time. The ICE looked disgusted at the banana and opened its mouth. But before it could shout for help, Hyper suppressed the ICE by putting a bag over its head. Something that did work. All they had to do now was finding the cameras for lvl 32.
As they passed a window, the saw a red light in it. It was flashing "Compound Security Compromised, lvl 32 compromised by terrorists" over and over again. Looked like the drek had hit the fan. Beau told Hyper that they had to help them out, rerouting security, and opening doors for them. Hyper appeared to ponder on this for a moment, and finally came to a conclusion.
"FoLLoW ME!!" Hyper shouted as he ran towards a door in the side of the centre building. Beau followed him. Beau considered Hypers icon, a clown bouncing up and down, laughing hysterically all the time. But somehow, people just fail to notice the hysterical clown bouncing up and down their paydata nodes, strange that. Hyper stopped infront of the door. A guard was standing there, with a stonecold posture it shouted.
"ID PLEASE!!" Hyper just bounced around for a bit, eventually giving the guard a banana. The guards face lit up and started to eat it. Making fuzzy noises. Beau had to marvel as the passed the heavily ICE'd node entry point, Beau hangs up a mental note to ask Hyper where he got the code to programs like that. Hyper skipped into the building.
Beau and Hyper were standing in the end of a hallway, leading straightforward past a juncture, with doors on either side. The walls appeared to be made of traditional rice paper. As Hyper led the way forward Beau translated some of the signs by the doors, mostly datastores As Hyper opened a door further down the hall, marked sec. lvl. 32 a gong was heard in the distance.
Probably a passive alert. They had to be careful now, it doesn't take much before an active alert is initiated, and they would be positively scragged by then. Inside the room was several Samurai Warriors, some icons who appeared like scholars running about. And finally, one clad like a Chief Samurai, better clothes, bigger katana and such.
This was probably the decker on duty here. Beau noticed some gunfire on one of the monitors. Gut and the boys were pinned down behind a desk. One of them were bleeding, but the monitor was too far away for Beau to see who was hit. Beau's cowboy icon drew its guns, going into attack mode. The Hysterical clown drew a magical lollipop-wand. Moving slowly towards the decker. However as Hyper approached the Sheykuro decker, the decker turned its head.
"Sumimasen??" he said, activating the alarm. Hyper laughed hysterically and summoned an anvil ten feet over the decker. Seriously hurting him as it hit him square in the head. Beau moved forward, initiating his Attack 6S program, blasting holes in the icon of the Sheykuro decker as it dissolved into the datastream.
Beau examined the different monitors, while Hyper bounced towards the entrance to the room. Building a roadblock of fluffy bunnies, Beau wondered if it was a new kind of program.
One of the monitors caught Beau's attention. Gut and Dances held off an attack by several Sec. Officers in an office they had barricaded with desks. Beau tried to reach them with the com-link, still offline. What could cause it. Someone had to know which frequency they were using, and had the means to scramble it completely. How could he contact them, he had to think fast.
As he thought about this, Gut was hit by a shot to his head, but there wasn't much blood. But he was partly out of the cameras viewing angle. A computer terminal was in the way. He heard the sound of laughter behind him. Hyper was using an insanely large club, whacking ICE and Deckers in the head until they dissolved. He seemed to have a jolly good time. Beau turned his attention to the screen once again.
The terminal was still in the way. Wait a minute, if he could
just. He moved to another terminal and ran an analyse utility. One sec ..
There it was. He knew it, that terminal in front of Gut was intact, so he
could write messages on it. Only basic computer skills was needed to
write a program to do that. In the background he could hear several
>>>(You there!?!?!?!?)<<<
Beau typed. Didn't seem like they noticed. No wonder, Dances was half beaten by drain, plus he had some scratches that implied a couple of stray shots had been fired at him.
>>>SOUND ACTIVE<<<
Beau activated the sound system, which enabled the Terminal to "say" what he typed.
>>>(You there Wart-Face???)<<<
On the monitor he could see Gut sitting up. Guns blazing, looking surprised at the screen. He ripped it of the table and positioned it on the floor. Saying something to Wiley, the elven samurai.
>>>(Who is this??)<<<
Beau smiled to himself while he continued to type.
>>>SOUND INACTIVE<<<
>>>(Cavalry just arrived, fairy boy. Heh)<<<
Beau could see the elves face twist in agony as he typed on. Beau was glad that he couldn't feel his foot, while running a hot deck.
>>>(About time But glad you're here Get us out of here)<<<
>>>(Workin' on it, workin' on it Got a bit delayed in the apartment,
nothing serious )<<<
>>>(well stop talkin' and start getting u..)<<<
As he wrote that, a bullet hit Wiley in the chest. He fell and rolled over to his back. Oh drek, this wasn't good. Beau downloaded a blueprint of the floor as he started to think about how to get them out of there. Beau turned around as a "oh-oh" sound manifested itself. A counter had started a countdown over Hypers head. His laughter was really intensifying now. A friendly voice of a lady informed the surrounding deckers the following:
"15 seconds to self destruct sequence will be initiated. All will die. Thank You. Hahahahahihihiih etc ." Beau was starting to panic, so now Hyper had given him a deadline aswell, the famous bomb of his will dump all icons within the node. Including his. Though Hyper had put a line in the code, which erases it after use, so he has to rewrite it each time. Go figure.
"13 seconds to self-destruct." Beau looked franticly over the blueprint. There had to be something he could take advantage of. What could it be. The roof was the 35 floor. An elevator led all the way to the 34 floor, there was stairs from there to the roof, unless they went through the exec. lounge. Not bloody likely.
"10 seconds to self-destruct." Umm Lessee, they are in a room adjacent to the corridor leading directly to the elevator. Let's see, what is that. He zoomed in on a lamp, it had a link. He accessed it, look at this. A sentry gun, loaded with live ammo.
"7 seconds to self destruct." Hmm Beau uploaded vital data about Gut, Dances and Wiley to the sentry gun. Luck that he was designing a thermal system for the chopper, he needed their body mass and temperature for optimal results. Umm, do not fire at these. The sentry gun had excellent sensors, heh, ironic that he was to be the one using them.
"6 seconds" Floor 34, a similar sentrygun. Beau copied the orders to the other gun into this one.
"5 seconds" Upload a virus that frags up the command sequence of slave systems, no one will control these babies in the next 5 minutes.
"4 seconds"
>>>SOUNDS ACTIVE<<<
>>>(Head for the elevator, up to 34, then the stairs to the roof. Beau
out)<<<
"3 seconds" Oh drek, he had to activate the guns. Beau starts to reroute outside the virus, he knows the code so it shouldn't be to hard, but doing it without erasing the virus.
"2 seconds" Drek, another typo. I really do not need more of those, thought Beau.
"1 second have a shitty day.." Beau hit the keyboard hard, do it! do it! Suddenly all he could see was static.
Beau opened his eyes. Drek that hurt. He was bleeding from under his fingernails, he bled from his nose, even from his eyes. Beau whimpered as he saw steam rising from his deck. He saw Hyper he was lying in pool of blood, laughing under his breath. His deck was on fire too. Beau took an improvised crutch, under one arm and hyper under the other. He was really small and fragile.
Beau ran out of the apartment, stumbling every now and then. Trying not to break down from the pain of his leg. He needed to get up the stairs, up to the heli pad. His body was aching, crying for rest. But he wouldn't give in, he was on his way to the chopper. And that's final.
After what had seemed like an eternity, he reached the roof. The cold night air made him sway. But he soon regained control. Although there were two choppers now. Lulu was the one on the left? Frag it, he would try both if necessary. Beau stumbled towards Lulu at the left. The last couple of steps he fell forward, but reached the chopper just in time to brace himself on it. Dropping both the crutch and Hyper in the effort.
He opened the door. And started to drag Hyper inside, he noticed that he bled something terrible from his leg, it had swollen badly. And he had some serious dizzy spells. Well it had to wait. He had some friends in need of assistance. His leg felt better as he sat down in the cockpit seat, taking the weight of the foot. He powered up the chopper and was soon on the way to the Sheykuro building. ETA 2 mins.
After an uneventful ride to the high Sheykuro building the comm came to life.
"This is Sheykuro Air Control, please ID yourself." The dispatcher had a dry, bored voice.
Beau didn't respond, he turned off the com. He didn't have time for drek like that. He looked at the rooftop. No sign of life. He only hoped that they made it. In the backseat, Hyper was starting to show signs of life. He started to giggle, and made funny noises with his nose.
Beau moved closer to the building, long into Sheykuro territory. He activated the Aural Masking. The sound of the rotors disappeared, revealing the sound of gunfire from the rooftop. Though he could not see any sign of them. But on the far side, he could see the door, which led down to the stairs. He accelerated towards it, suddenly lights started to flash in his cockpit, it was his ECM, he was being targeted. This was not the time for games. Beau lowered the HMG, and armed the two missile racks. He raced towards the door while keeping close watch over the Warning lights and his Radar.
Soon someone were going to launch a missile, he was not in the mood to get hit. The Plutocraft that had been on the roof took of as Beau swept past. He fired a couple of rounds into the edges of the door as he got about 10 metres away from it, trying to blast it from the hinges. One of the flashing lights got permanent, implying that a missile had been shot.
Right ahead of him, slightly left of the upspring with the door to the stairs, he could see it accelerating towards him. Beau kept cool, as the missile was fifteen metres ahead Beau released flares and banked hard left, as the missile swept past, burnmarks had formed on the side.
"Too close", Beau told himself as more lights turned bright red, the radar showed that three missiles from various directions were fired. ETA 3 secs. Beau pressed the stick down, as the chopper lost height, he nearly suffered a red out. But Hypers insane laughter kept Beau in touch with reality when the heli crashed to the ground. Several new lights indicated that the landing system had broken, and that the HMG had snapped loose. The missiles flew over him. Exploding in the air some meters away. Beau struggled to get the heli in the air again. A bit unsteady, but Lulu still had the touch.
That second, the door to the stairs was ripped of its hinges. The ugly, blood smothered face of Gut peeped through, Wiley under one arm, and his ingram in the other. They were closely followed by Dances who could merely walk.
Beau opened the doors to Lulu and lowered it to a half meter of the ground. In the doorway, several guards came running out. Their Assault Rifles firing bursts, which ricocheted of Lulu. Gut responded to the fire, but not in a very effective way. Gut had halved the distance between the chopper and himself. Beau took a quick descicion. He ascended Lulu a couple of metres and fired a ripple of missiles into the crowd of guards. However a burst of bullets from one of the guards hit Wiley in the chest. Gut dropped him and instead took Dances, who was close to fainting, under his arms and ran like hell to the chopper. Beau set the course towards the apartment and headed out.
Gut had a miserable expression on his face, Dances didn't look very happy either. But both of them thanked Beau for his rescue operation. They were in serious drek back there.
The little chat was stopped by the ECM. The radar pinpointed two helicopters in hot pursuit. Drek, what did they want. Beau steered Lulu downtown, in between the skyscrapers. They had to be mad to follow him there, and he to go there. However the tail didn't seem to rub of. Beau turned Lulu's nose further down, until it was a mere 30 metres of the ground, twisting and turning around street corners. But the pursuing choppers gained on him, arming their weapons. Beau looked out of the windows of his chopper for a solution, where to run now.
There was a dead end straight ahead, with high rise buildings on all sides. Beau made up his mind, he pushed the throttle forward and rocketed towards the glass wall that the building was made of. An alarm went of as machine guns were fired from the chopper behind, a WK-2 Stallion. They still followed him. As Beau was a couple of metres from the glass wall, he pulled the stick backwards, making the heli go straight up. If only he had calculated the stall correctly. The choppers following him, obviously had more power under their hoods than his had, so this better had to work.
Both of the pursuing choppers went after him, probably some skilled kamikaze pilots after all. Dances and Gut started to yell in horror as they understood what Beau was up to. Beau had flown a couple of hundred metres up the side of the building as he was starting to loose height. He managed to keep his chopper vertical, with nose up as he started to rush against the ground. Soon both the Stallions that were in pursuit of him roared past on each side. Beau fine tuned his aiming, then fired the remaining ripple straight up at them. As they burst out in flames, Beau turned the heli around. The ground looked awfully close as he started to gain speed.
50 metres above ground and still not enough speed, this was staring to look bad, luckily there was a vacant parking space underneath him. So hopefully he wouldn't have to crash into anybody that had nothing to do with this.
25 metres and looking bad, Beau had no choice. He had to go in for a rough landing. He levelled the chopper and set full speed up to slow him down. The screams from the backseat stopped as they were about 5 metres of the ground. Transforming into a mute silence, broken by the crash against ground. Shockwaves threw the inventory of the chopper everywhere. But the armor didn't breach. No smell of smoke, or any signs of fire. Debris from the two Sheykuro choppers started to rain, making crashing noises outside.
"Everyone all right. Dances said from under his breath." Both Gut, and Beau replied after a little while. Hyper giggled in his own vomit, smiling an italic smile. Sirens was turned on some distance from where Beau had "parked" Lulu Belle.
"Let's see if she can get us out of here " Beau said as he jacked in to the controls. Both Gut, and Dances moaned loudly. After a couple of goes the rotors started to spin, slowly at first, but gaining speed relatively quickly. Coughing now and then, Lulu started to rise from the ground. Slowly Beau headed Lulu out of there, in a very unelegant fashion. Steam rising from her overheated engines.
One month later. The group had come to the decision of splitting up the group some time ago. Several attempts on their lives by oriental assassins and such had made life miserable to them. So they figured that if they split up now, and only contacted eachother through secure lines, Sheykuro would have a harder time following them.
Dances and Gut decided to retire from the running Biz. Instead they would start to get other professions in the shadows.
Gut would start to use his doctoring skills from med. school, patching up runners who caught some drek. He would set up shop with, "Knife Barnes", the regular Doc of the group. He had never actually worked in any hospital, at least that he would tell. He obviously had some very personal reasons for why he hadn't started to work as a doc before this day.
Dances decided to start working as a fixer, utilizing the wide array of contacts he had collected all these years running. He agreed on being fixer for Hyper and Beau, since both were deckers, and thereby fully able to secure lines when need be. Dances was also fully aware of the abilities and disabilities of both Hyper and Beau, which could also prove to be a big advantage to relay jobs that had demands that suited them.
Hyper was going to rebuild his deck, since his last self-destruct-code had completely erased the whole deck, but the MPCP and Masking. Bod, Evasion, all the programs, Hardening was all wiped out. Either from the fires or the code.
Beau decided to cool down on his decking side, since it would cost too much to rebuild after Hypers SD program had wiped out the whole fragging deck. Instead he would concentrate on rigging, which he found much more satisfying than decking. But as soon as he got some serious NuYen, he would save up for a new deck.
But for now Dances was in the progress of finding Beau a new group, which whom he could run with, and use as cover against Sheykuro assassins.