Manic_Misanthrope posted:

Punch something then report back

PMush Perfect posted:

Replay up to your current point on a new file, see if it keeps happening?

IBlameRoadSuess posted:

Interesting to see the capabilities of a rigging decker. When I played I mained regular decking and shotgun/pistol combat. Interesting to see how easily the rigs can replace the fact that we can't hit poo poo.

New Wave Jose posted:

So no one is going to comment on the dildo on Coyote's bed?

TheMcD posted:

Wait, Paco has 8 Charisma? gently caress me. My elf mage with a major in Charisma had 8 Charisma after finishing the second to last part of the game! And Paco doesn't have any cool at all - he manages to keep the facade up for about a minute before it crumbles like a house of cards.

I bet that for his Etiquettes, he just picked Street four times.

Iretep posted:

The real reason to take quickness over str when you want the 3rd weapon slot is quickness increases dodge while str raises nothing useful besides damage. Which leads to me to wonder why ever even do a melee build when its so point hungry for so littler return. Like later games actually make melee a bit more useful mechanically but thats for those times. Right now im pretty sure str is pure garbage.

PMush Perfect posted:

A point or two can be nice if you use grenades regularly, at least.

Vadoc posted:

There's a certain bit of background scenery in the game in this area I think that was a backer request from an old SR GM of mine, it's a black van with a red racing stripe and clothes on lines or racks around it. The origin story for what eventually got the group dubbed (by itself) the A-Team when one of the characters stole it. Though the guy was the one to add the stripe and spoiler.

ModernMajorGeneral posted:

I'm enjoying this LP - it got me to buy Shadowrun Hong Kong which is now $5 on steam if anyone is interested.

Will I lose out on anything by playing that before the previous games?

GoneRampant posted:

I'd honestly recommend playing Returns first. Both for pragmatic (Playing in order means you appreciate the gameplay changes made and see steadily improving writing) and personal (This is a really good entry point into Shadowrun and makes getting into Dragonfall and Hong Kong a lot easier) reasons.

PMush Perfect posted:

So, time to play on Normal? Or to Ironman this poo poo?

GunnerJ posted:

This is crazy. I never noticed anything like this when I played, which was a while ago. Could it be a bug introduced since then by a patch?

Poil posted:

So the game applies the difficulty bonus when you load but it also saves the enemies stats when you save, and that's why it keeps on stacking as the game keep reapplying the bonus over and over through every save/load cycle?

FoolyCharged posted:

Just wanted to say your lp got me interested in looking at these games and they've been real fun!

On the bug talk, the only one I saw of note was hilarious and of a similar vein. Instead of a reload overriting all npc stats, it overwrote my character's info with that of a dead npc.

TildeATH posted:

Is the difficulty level something you can change in game?

Because then you have the (somewhat hassle-y) solution of switching it to normal when saving and then switching it back to Very Hard after loading.

TheMcD posted:

Can confirm Dietrich's stats match up with what you've seen on my end.

Tiggum posted:

I've never understood this perspective. If you don't want to save-scum, just don't. I don't save-scum, but I do appreciate being able to just stop playing at any time without losing any progress. Why do you need the game to force you to do something that you want to do anyway?

Tiggum posted:

Dying for a sandwich? I know that feeling.

Xander77 posted:

You've mentioned that you don't pay much attention to misplaced custom avatars, but I really feel like the non-combatant bereaved father could have had the wicked-cool katana handle removed from his portrait.

Slaan posted:

You liked that guy? I hated him and never took him on missions.

Kanfy posted:

The seventh and eighth ways to get upstairs are available with an Intelligence check of 3 or the Street etiquette (they give identical options)

TheMcD posted:

Finding that hellhound guarding the gems as a weak fledgling mage on Very Hard was not fun, let me tell you. I was entirely gambling on like four ~50% hit rate attacks all hitting, and somehow they actually did.

TheMcD posted:

Also, Blitz is worth it just for his trust mission.

FoolyCharged posted:

I really hope this lp gets to that one. Iys great

Psion posted:

Yeah, they did a better job with this in df/hk, but in this one you can safely ignore at least one person per game...forever.

e: I assume the best shopkeeper is in the second half of the update, though Buster always entertained me more than he should've.

DeathChicken posted:

Man but that song does sound familiar. Maybe an off-version of the dialogue music from the SNES game?

Tax Refund posted:

* Except Skyrim, where every single shopkeeper has a home (or at least a place to sleep) and when they're done with their business hours, they close up shop and go home, or sometimes to the tavern for a bite to eat and a drink before they go home. Makes the world feel more realistic and lived-in, but it's also more inconvenient for the player if fast travel landed them in town right at 6:01 PM and the shopkeeper won't do business with them until fourteen in-game hours later. Which is, of course, why most computer RPGs go for the "shopkeepers are always around day or night and don't have lives outside the shop" approach.

Psion posted:

Some of the director's commentary for HK suggests they remixed a dialogue track (the one with Dog, I think) into the safehouse themes in more than one game, but I listened and can't seem to hear it. I think it's got to be a SNES or Genesis Shadowrun inspiration, though.

LAY-ZX posted:

Basically my entire experience with Shadowrun was some friends being in a campaign a few years ago and telling me a bit about the setting and the shenanigans they got up to, and it sounded really cool but I couldn't actually join in because the guy DMing for them has some sort of weird primal loathing of me in particular. I basically just resigned myself to never getting to play it myself and forgot about it, but now that I know that I can experience the setting in video game form I might have to pick these up sometime. Looking forward to the rest of the LP!

Alacron posted:

It will never stop being surreal to me seeing the names of places I've been and lived in a game about elves, cyborgs, and magic.

Shadowrun Returns Anthology posted:

Dog Tags, part 1

Through the smoky haze and mood lighting, nearly everyone who walked into the Seamstresses Union looked like a potential threat to Jake. Techno backbeat pulsed through the house stereo at respectable levels—loud enough to discourage clientele from engaging the working girls in any kind of meaningful conversation but quiet enough not to distract customers from shelling out their hard-earned nuyen on a good time. Jake knew all of Mrs. Kubota’s girls and guys, but every time he heard the brothel’s discreet, front entrance swing open and a new face wandered in, his blood pressure spiked for a few minutes while he kept close tabs on the newcomer.

Someone posing as a john could actually be looking for him. Jake felt pretty confident that Mrs. Kubota wouldn’t sell him out, but if an agent trying to hunt him down got ahold of the wrong girl and managed to loosen her lips with money, drugs, or good old-fashioned violence, Jake knew he’d probably end up on a fragging morgue slab. Again. Only, this time, he wouldn’t wake up.

Fortunately Jake’s booth at the club tonight afforded him the perfect place to keep an eye on the entrance without being noticed. The door jingled, which his paranoia-trained ears could pick out from the thumping bass, cuing him to perk up and pay attention.

A dwarf in Amerindian-fringed leathers wandered inside, his lips already twisted and drooling from what Jake guessed was the aftereffects of a decent BTL high. Jake relaxed but didn’t completely let down his guard. Marcel came by once every few nights. The dwarf got his chip on at home—Mrs. Kubota had a strict no-BTL policy here—and then would wander into the Union to work off his comedown with one of the girls.

Been here so long I even know the regular patrons’ habits Jake thought, disgusted at himself. But he couldn’t go anywhere else, not yet. Word on the street was someone had been asking around about him lately, and it never paid to be too careful, especially when this current safehouse had served him well so far. Mrs. Kubota gave him free room and board in exchange for helping her with problem clients bothering the girls. The moment he set foot outside the Union, however, he’d have a giant laser dot painted right on his forehead.

Jake sighed and returned to perusing files on his pocket secretary. The most recent message came from Glutman, an acquaintance since his early days as a data courier. They got to Kitsune, Glutman had said. Keep your head down extra low for awhile.

The message had arrived via secure backchannels several days ago, but Jake reread it often, just to burn those words into his head. Didn’t matter whether Kitsune was still alive or had all of her fingers and toes and eyeballs and lips and tongues and tails still attached. Didn’t matter that she’d also managed to fall off the grid and remain incommunicado even via secret, plan-B channels Jake and her set up long ago.

They got to Kitsune.

If “they” could get to Kitsune, they sure as hell could get to him. It was only a matter of time.

Scratching an itch near the datajack implanted in his right temple, Jake swirled the synthahol Scotch is his glass. “They” were likely deniable assets. Until he killed enough of them for Fuchi to warrant a more personal touch, the people he’d slotted off would keep on trying, and Jake would keep picking them off one at a time until either the megacorp deemed him too expensive to pursue further or some random guttertrash, yakuza, or freelance operative got lucky and geeked him.

How much was his head worth these days?

Jake fumbled around in the pocket of his black leather trenchcoat—consciously choosing to ignore the feathered, shamanic fetish and the dog collar within—and extracted a cigarette from a silver case. He wasn’t much of a smoker, but he’d found the physical item helped with his ritual. He put the cigarette between his lips and cupped his hands around it, as though trying to shield it from the wind while lighting it with a cigarette lighter.

Jake closed his eyes and concentrated. C’mon, Jake, you can do this. Upon opening his eyes, he saw not the dark, smokiness of the Union but a world awash with colors. The nearest joygirl’s life force blazed like a bonfire in reds, yellows, and purples—she’d recently tended to one of her favorites. Marcel, on the other hand, his aura stank of dark blues and sickly greens, with a geometric patch of black at his temple revealing the datajack hidden under his long, stringy hair.

Amongst these metahuman auras, ethereal wisps flitted about—some seemingly in a rush, others lazing about like blankets of smoke drifting in a spring breeze. Jake caught the attention of one of the smaller, lazy specters with a faintly visible aura. No way in hell would he be able to hook one of the faster ones, not today.

"Hoi," Jake said, reaching out to the spirit with his will. Can I trouble you for a favor, young one?

The spirit solidified into the astral form of a lightning bug and buzzed around his head. I’m not supposed to talk to you, it replied. Go buzz.

The spirit shot off faster than a real lightning bug could. No joy there.

Jake tried another, a spirit shaped like a lounging salamander. I just need a light, he said, and I’ll let you go, I swear.

The salamander spirit blinked its amphibian eyes, flicked out its tongue at him, then vanished into windblown mist.

Gritting his teeth, Jake let go of the astral plane. All the vivid light vanished as smoke, sweat, and backbeat assaulted his consciousness all at once. "For frag’s sake," he said under his breath and slid the unlit cigarette back into his pocket.

Once, not long ago, he was among the most sought-after shadowrunners in the Seattle metroplex—the good kind of “sought-after,” that was. At the start of his career, he survived arena deathmatches, connected with a shamanic totem, killed vampires, faced down a powerful free spirit, and toppled a corporation intent on conquering the Matrix. Hell, he’d even killed a fragging dragon—in all honesty, Drake had been a young dragon— which was a claim few runners could make.

Now he was living in a brothel and couldn’t beg a light from even the lowest-Force denizens of the astral plane.

The front door jingled once more. Another regular wandered in—a pale ork named Gordo, with a tusk-filled grin for all the girls working the front of the house. Jake kept an eye on him for a few extra moments just to make sure he wasn’t packing any heat in those filthy denims. Then again, who was to say “they” hadn’t gotten to Gordo with the promise of a nice payday? Was that the outline of a pistol in his pocket?

Jake’s hand instinctively fell to the Ares Predator concealed in his coat lining. His pulse elevated.

Gordo approached the bar and pulled out a silver, pen-like tube. Not a pistol—just a credstick to establish tonight’s bar tab.

Jake exhaled and went back to his drink. The problem with being in this business was sometimes he found it hard to tell when an odd feeling meant something was truly wrong or if paranoia was simply making its regular check-in.

Get your head back in the game, he told himself.

He’d been trying for weeks, but after lying low for this long, he didn’t know how. He could only fixate on the past and analyze it to death, trying to figure out where he went wrong. Kitsune had tried to help him—Dog bless her—but hearing the truth from her hadn’t set his mind at ease.

"Even bad runs happen to good runners." she’d said before they parted ways. The dragon-slayer in him found that line really hard to swallow.


***


Compared to taking down Drake, breaking into Fuchi’s Seattle offices had been child’s play. One of his contacts, a disgruntled ex-Fuchi employee, had provided Jake, Kitsune, Spatter, Hamfist, and Anders with security badges. A quick flash of them to the bored receptionist at the front desk granted them access to the building. Further into the lobby, Kitsune, her shapeshifter’s foxtail hidden beneath a snappy pantsuit, flirted with a young wageslave long enough to pickpocket his maglock passkey. Spatter, the team’s mage, cast an invisibility spell that allowed them to pile into an elevator with an oblivious sarariman who kept looking over his shoulder and scrunching his forehead. Off the elevator, Anders had to use his Defiance Super Shock to tase an employee who bumped into Hamfist’s invisible, orkish bulk. Another employee stumbled upon Jake dragging the tased wageslave into a supply closet; Hamfist rabbit-punched her before she could scream and shoved her in the closet alongside the first.

“Coast is clear,” Kitsune said to Jake with a vulpine smirk. “Now, let’s get you a terminal.”

The Mr. Johnson who’d hired Jake was interested in a rumored Fuchi project considered illegal under most legal jurisdictions, but the datastore housing the files allowed no offsite access. Jake needed to be inside the
building to pull this off.

Finding an empty terminal was easy. To protect Jake while he was jacked in, Kitsune held a summoned spirit in astral space, beneath Spatter’s invisibility spell, while Anders and Hamfist kept their guns pointed down the hall to watch for signs of trouble. Jake shrugged off his trenchcoat just enough to retrieve the Fuchi Cyber-6 cyberdeck strapped between his shoulder blades, and in moments he was gliding through the system’s Matrix defenses like a monofilament blade through flesh.

Though flaunting red-level security, the system presented very little challenge to a veteran decker like Jake. Within moments of nabbing the file, replacing it with a dummy file, and jacking out, he’d already forgotten the system’s unremarkable architecture.

Just as Jake was reorienting himself from the slightly dizzying transition between cyberspace and meatspace, something moved in his peripheral vision.

A dog. A brown, nondescript dog about the size of a terrier. Kind but determined eyes weighted with age and wisdom stared at him. Not just any dog. This was capital d Dog. His shamanic totem. His mentor in the way of magic and spirits.

Been a long time, Jake, Dog said, its tongue hanging out of its mouth.

I’m sorry, Jake said. He couldn’t stop thinking about the precious file stored on his cyberdeck; he only had to get it out of the building intact.

I’ve… been a little preoccupied lately.

Too preoccupied dabbling in technology, I see, Dog said, lips curling into a snarl. Relying on all that cyberware you had installed.

I was the only one who could deck into this system. And we already have Kitsune’s spirits for this job.

Dog said nothing.

I’ll make it up to you, Jake said. I swear.

That is what you said last time we spoke. Have you forgotten your way, whelp?

Jake glanced back at Anders and Hamfist on lookout down the hall. Now isn’t really the best time for this.

Then when? Dog asked.

“I’ve got someone coming,” Anders said, adjusting his mirrored sunglasses. “Correction: a lot of someones coming. You need to hurry it up, Jake.”

Jake faced the terminal again; Dog had already vanished.

“Null sheen,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.” Stuffing the cyberdeck under his arm, he pulled out his Ares Predator.

Spatter was lost in concentration. “I can’t sustain this spell much longer… We should go. Now.”

Anders and Hamfist, still under the invisibility spell, moved into the hall. Jake followed and stopped dead in his tracks. At the end of the hall, in front of the sec guards armed with security pistols and body armor, crouched a leashed pair of angry barghests. The massive, paranormal guard dogs’ eyes glowed with seething, crimson fury.

Drek.

The barghests saw right through Spatter’s invisibility spell: on the astral plane the team’s auras showed up as blinding torches to the creatures. The lead barghest howled a sound so horrid Jake wanted to curl up into a ball and die in a dark, empty room.

Sec guards opened fire right as the barghests pounced with snapping jaws. Jake’s boosted reflexes kicked in, and he shoved Kitsune to the ground as he hit the dirt alongside her. He felt something break when he landed, but there was no time to worry about that. Machine pistols chattered lead right over Jake’s head. Anders went down. Hamfist ducked back into the room and returned fire with three-round bursts from his HK227.

“Kitsune,” Jake whispered, “now would be a good time to do your—”

His hand felt wet. Blood from Kitsune’s prone form stained his fingers. She was down for the count, which meant the spirit she’d summoned was also gone. A quick astral check let him know she was still alive—barely. Magical energy and bullets crackled over Jake’s head as Spatter tossed spells at the charging barghests and Hamfist traded fire with the sec guards. Seconds later, Spatter took a round to the face and spiraled to the floor. Anders’s aura was fading; unless Jake could do something, both Kitsune and he weren’t going to make it.

Jake turned his perception to the astral plane, where time seemed to slow both bullets and barghests to a gelatinous crawl. Astral denizens of all kinds darted every which way, all of them seemingly in a hurry.

Spirits, Jake called out, I beseech you: lend me your aid in this time of crisis!

A towering, high-Force spirit slowed down long enough to lock eyes with him. By whose authority do you entreat my succor?

By my authority, Jake answered.

You have no authority here, mortal, the spirit said, and with a malicious sound Jake took for laughter, it departed for the metaplanes.

The next spirit refused to acknowledge his presence. Still, Jake reached out for it with his will, clawing at it in a desperate attempt to bring it to heel. He couldn’t grab hold. It felt like trying to capture smoke with his bare hands.

Despair kicked him square in the gut. In anguish he released his astral form and fired his Predator at the incoming barghest. The oversized mutt yelped and collapsed. Hamfist ducked into the hall. Firing his submachine gun at the sec guards with one hand, the massive ork dragged Jake and Kitsune to safety one at a time with the other.

“What about Anders?” Jake said. The merc had fallen much further down the hall.

From the blood slick running down Hamfist’s leg, he’d already taken a nice hit. “Too risky,” he grunted. “Plus, I never liked the son of a slitch to begin with. We need to get outta here 'fore it’s too late. You got the file, right?”

The cyberdeck, Jake remembered. Where is it?

He glanced out into the hallway, still crawling with security. The Cyber-6 lay in pieces on the floor. The casing and optical chips inside had snapped in half when he’d dove for cover and fell on top of it.

GhostStalker posted:

TheMcD posted:

Man, Jake. Just get a party face. Things get so much easier when people actually think you're supposed to be there. Just look at Johnny Clean, he knows how to do it. Nobody suspects the janitor, and with a bit of smooth talk, nobody suspects the "outside contractor troubleshooters" either.

Shadowrun Returns Anthology posted:

Dog Tags, part 2

After getting Kitsune and Hamfist patched up at a street clinic, Jake had returned to his doss to find the place trashed. Every item of importance had either been stolen or destroyed—everything except two articles normal thugs would’ve assumed were just garbage. An ordinary dog collar with a jingly set of ID tags had been tossed into a corner alongside the magical fetish that first started him on his shamanic journey.

Finding those tags made Jake wonder what he was doing. What was he? A decker? A shaman? Both? It seemed the more he stepped foot in one world, the further he became detached from the other. But the cyberdeck had allowed him to get the damning file; his boosted reflexes had allowed him to save Kitsune’s life; and his dermal armor implants had saved his own life on the way out of the corp building. If he had forgone any of those, would he still be alive? What spirit could guarantee him that kind of assurance?

Jake had half expected Dog to show up with an I-told-you-so speech upon him finding the dog collar, but his totem spirit was a no-show, just like every spirit he tried to conjure. Still, before permanently bidding his doss farewell, Jake tucked the collar and tags into his coat pocket. For old time’s sake.

“Y’know,” said a coy, feminine voice at the fringes of Jake’s reverie, “I’ve seen that look before.”

Jake glanced up from the booth. The Union’s bartender, a caramel-skinned, dreadlocked girl named Coyote Ugly, waited with a tray laden with empty glasses. Most of the regulars called her “Coyote” for short, but not Jake. “Coyote” sounded too much like Dog’s cousin for his own comfort, so he shortened it to “Ugly” instead, which was unfortunate, considering she was anything but. Him calling out “Hey, Ugly” across the Union to catch her attention had gotten him more than a few stares from first-timers who didn’t know her whole name.

“That’s the look of nostalgia, Army,” Ugly said. Ever since Jake had first holed up in the Seamstresses Union, she’d taken to calling him by his shortened surname, and she was the only one he let get away with it.

“So what if it is?” he replied.

“You be careful ‘bout nostalgia, or it’ll come ‘round and bite you on the hoop.”

He looked away from her. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

With eyes and chin, she gestured to his now empty glass. “You want another one?”

Jake held a hand over the glass. “I shouldn’t. I’m technically on the clock.”

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” Ugly said with a wink. “Just make sure that freak Gordo actually pays his bar tab tonight, and I’ll call it a win.”

Jake relented.

Ugly poured him another two fingers of whiskey, neat. “You know what you need, Army?” she said, poking him with an elbow while recapping the whiskey bottle. “You need a SOTA upgrade. On life, that is.”

SOTA. State-of-the-art. Deckers and chromed-out street samurai like Hamfist talked about it all the time. Lag behind on the SOTA curve in this business, and you wouldn’t stay alive for long. Early in their relationship, Dog said Jake’s datajack and head computer were “thrust upon him” because they’d been implanted against Jake’s will. But to stay alive, he’d had to keep up with SOTA like everyone else, which meant trading a small portion of his humanity for an edge he believed not even magic could give him. SOTA…that was what got Jake in trouble with Dog in the first place.

But a SOTA upgrade on life? How could he do that here, living on the lam, acting as a glorified bouncer for a house of ill repute?

“I know you’re slumming,” Ugly said, “but do you really want to live in a whorehouse for the rest of your life?” She shook her head as two joygirls walked by wearing only bikinis and high heels. “Nevermind. Don’t answer that. But seriously: Buck up, soldier. That’s an order.” With a smile, she punched him in the shoulder and wandered off to serve Gordo, who seemed intent on getting seriously drekfaced tonight.

Jake spent the next several minutes watching Coyote Ugly clean glasses and mix drinks. Business seemed to slow. By the time the front door jingled again, Marcel had gone upstairs with one of the elven joygirls, and Gordo was four sheets to the wind. Jake perked up, his hand resting on his hidden Predator.

A human shape shambled into the Union. Jake’s fingers tensed until he recognized another of the club’s regulars. In another life, Sam Watts would’ve probably been a corp exec, with his stylish pinstripes and conservative haircut, but when he swayed into the Union, his hair was ruffled, and his disheveled, unbuttoned suit jacket already had stains down the front. From the shape of Sam’s walk, Jake could tell he was already blitzed out of his gourd.

Sam plunked himself down at the bar and nearly missed the stool entirely. “Hey, beautiful,” he said in a drunken drawl to Ugly, “you got any bunraku girls here? I’m in the mood for shomethin’…weird.”

Ugly’s eyes narrowed. Meat puppets. Even Jake knew Mrs. Kubota wouldn’t stoop that low. “Sam, you know we don’t—”

“There a ‘random’ shetting on those bunraku things, I wonder?” Sam went on, oblivious. “Or mebbe I can get me a girl programmed t’think she’s a man who’s convinced she’s a woman trapped in a man’s body. That’s weird enough, right? Bet the yaksh do that kinda thing alla time … Twishted motherfraggers …”

“Sam,” Ugly insisted. “You know we don’t condone that sort of thing here.”

Sam ignored her. “Mebbe I could program one o’ yer bunraku dolls to act like my ungrateful shishter, so’s I could beat the drek outta her, heh. And don’t you ever tell her I shaid that. Fragging slitch…”

Glancing at Jake, Ugly opened her eyes wider as she nodded at Sam. A little help here? she seemed to say.

Jake let go of his pistol, not realizing he’d still been gripping it despite recognizing Sam, and took an empty barstool. “Everything wiz here, chummer?” he said to Sam.

“Mind yer own fraggin’ biz,” Sam said, bleary eyes not truly acknowledging Jake’s intrusion. “I’m talkin’ to the li’l lady here.”

“Sam,” Jake said. The tinge of a growl crept into the name. “You’re drunk. Go home. Want me to call you a cab?”

“Negatory, chummo,” Sam said, stabbing a finger toward Jake with his eyes closed. “I ain’t leavin’ ‘til I get me shome bunraku.”

“Fine,” Ugly said with contempt. “You want some bunraku? Head to the yakuza parlor twelve blocks down. If some Halloweener freaks don’t geek you on your way, I’m sure the yaks will when you show up.”

“No,” Sam said waving off the idea. “No yaks. Howzabout you be my meat puppet for tonight?” He ran a fingertip along Ugly’s wrist.

She immediately wrenched her arm away from him. “Not a chance.”

“Hey, Ugly,” Sam said. “Give a guy a break.”

Jake frowned. No one called her that but him. “All right, chummer. I think it’s time for you to leave.”

“Back off!” Sam barked. “Can’tcha shee me’n the lady’re havin’ a convershation here?”

Sam grabbed Ugly by the arm, and she instantly backhanded him across the jaw.

“Don’t ever touch me again,” she snapped.

“That’s it,” Jake growled, snatching up a fistful of Sam’s collar and hoisting him to his feet. “You’re coming with me.”

“Why I oughtta—”

Jake yanked up on Sam’s collar to force him onto his tiptoes, then twisted Sam’s right arm up behind his back. “Save it. You’ll live longer.”

“All right, all right! Geez!”

Rather than make a scene outside the front door, Jake escorted Sam out the back. The alley reeked of garbage, urine, and some acrid, gagging stink that was probably devil rat droppings. Yellowed streetlights from around the corner filtered through fire escapes, dappling trash bags and dumpsters with crisscrossing zebra patterns. For a moment Jake basked in Seattle’s myriad sounds—distant Lone Star sirens probably running down a gogang, the low level growl of street traffic, suborbitals and helos coming in for landings at Sea-Tac…

Felt good to be back outside again, even if it was just an alley in Redmond’s relatively tame Touristville district.

“Go home, Sam,” Jake said, prodding the drunk a few staggering steps down the alley.

Sam waved him off. “All right, all right already.”

“You want me to call you a cab?”

A shadow shifted further down the alley. “The only cab yer gonna be callin’, spugface,” a deep, thrumming voice said with a sinister hiss, “is a fraggin’ hearse.”

By instinct, Jake drew his Predator and aimed at the hunched silhouette. Another shadow joined the first, then another, and another. From above, a clatter on the fire escapes betrayed even more shadows.

The largest shadow, a troll with a broken horn and dressed in black leathers and browns the color of dried blood, muscled forward to step into the zebra patterned light. “Well, well, well,” the ganger said, the blocky shape of a heavy pistol in his oversized hand. “The mutt finally decided ta crawl outta his den.”

The ganger stepped further into the light, and Jake saw a crude insignia on the troll’s jacket: a black flaming Jack O’Lantern on an orange backgrond.

Jake cursed under his breath and thumbed off his Predator’s safety. Halloweeners. One of the craziests thrill gangs in all of the Seattle metroplex. What the frag were they doing this deep into Touristville? A quick dip into astral perception confirmed a count of at least half a dozen of them with guns already trained on him.

“Get behind me,” Jake said to Sam.

Instead, Sam’s drunken brain made him turn tail and run. He didn’t get far. Two Taser darts sank into his back. His whole body seized up, and he face-planted into a mound of garbage, twitching and retching all over himself.

Sweat beaded on Jake’s palm as he renewed his grip on the Predator. The back door had already swung shut, and the nearest dumpster was too far away to dive behind. His cybered reflexes could let him get off one shot on the troll and maybe two more before the gangers tore into him. Drums throbbed in his head. Had he felt like this facing down Drake? No, he’d had magic on his side then. What did he have going for him now?

“Do you know who I am?” he said with false bravado.

“You’re Jake Armitage,” the troll said. “Someone paid us some real good money to take you out.” From his pocket he pulled a rusted knife and licked the blade with his large tongue. A manic flash lit his eyes. “I wouldn’t put up a fuss if I was you. It’d be a shame if we had ta go in there an frag up yer girlfriend.”

Jake knew he was a decent shot, but there was not a chance in hell he could singlehandedly protect the Seamstresses Union from these scumbags. Not unless—

Without even thinking, he dove into the astral plane. Even if he could somehow convince one of the lowly spirits to help him, what good would a spark small enough to light a cigarette do against so many gangers? Jake ground his teeth and clawed out in desperation.

Suddenly his astral self caught something. He expected the essence of a low- or medium-Force spirit but was sorely mistaken. The burning-coal eyes of the most powerful spirit Jake had even seen bore holes right into his soul.

How dare you touch me! the spirit boomed, turning Jake’s brain into mush. Let me go!

No, Jake said. You will do as I ask.

By whose authority?

Jake was about to respond the same way he’d tried summoning all of the cigarette-lighter spirits, but here, in this life-and-death moment, with several guns pointed at him and his temporary home, that answer evaporated on his astral lips.

By Dog’s authority! Jake shouted. Instantly he could feel his own will exerting upon the ethereal flame, compelling it to obey him not as a slave, but as a partner. An extension of who Jake was.

The spirit hesitated. Then its coal eyes closed. As you wish.

Jake let go of the astral and witnessed the alley light up with blinding yellow and orange flame. Like living magma, the fire spirit manifested on the physical plane and exploded tongues of flame into the Halloweeners. The troll ganger caught on fire and ran out of the alley, shrieking in terror. The smell of untold heat and burnt flesh curled Jake’s nose hairs. While the spirit set the rest of the gangers on fire, Jake shot down those who tried to run. A few managed to flee into the street, but he didn’t bother pursuing them. It was a good bet the 'weeners wouldn’t be bothering the Union again for quite some time.

So much for keeping a low profile.

Thank you, Jake said to the hovering cloud of living fire. I owe you my life.

You owe me nothing, the spirit replied. But your totem, on the other hand…

Standing in the middle of smoking, flash-fried ganger corpses, Jake watched the spirit wander down the alley and disappear back into the astral plane. Near where the spirit vanished, he saw the unmistakable silhouette of a small dog staring at him from the shadows. Jake blinked, and the dog vanished.


***


“Name’s Dresden,” the dwarven chop shop owner said to Jake over a handshake. “Coyote Ugly sent you?”

“Yeah,” Jake said, trying to ignore all of the bone saws and other disturbing surgical implements scattered about the place. “My safehouse’s been compromised. Just need a place to lie low for awhile.”

“I’ve got just the thing, Mr. Armitage.” Dresden beckoned Jake further into the street clinic—Organ Grinders, the neon sign out front said. “Right this way. We’ll get you set up nice and easy. I just hope you’re not claustrophobic.”

Jake followed the dwarf down some poorly lit stairs that led into, of all places, a morgue. One of the slabs was already open; a blue-tinged corpse missing a couple of limbs was lying on it.

Oh, great, Jake thought. Here we go again.

“It’s not much,” Dresden said, rolling out the nearest slab, “but no one’ll think to look for you here. Just hop on in, and I’ll leave you to it.”

“Thanks,” Jake said.

He settled down onto the cold metal slab, trying not to fixate on how familiar the scene felt. Dresden rolled him inside and closed him away into darkness. Only the screen of Jake’s pocket secretary provided him light.

As he lay there trying to get comfortable in the too-cold cubby, Jake heard a quiet jingle in his coat pocket. He pulled out the dog collar and tags—in all the craziness of the night, he’d forgotten they were there—and stared at them in the pocket secretary’s glow for a good long while.

Jake laced the collar around his neck and fastened it closed. The cold dog tags settled into the hollow of his neck. It felt…comforting to wear after all this time.

Turning off his pocket secretary, he finally tried to get some rest, but that was harder done than said. His new, little world was just too drat cold. As he drifted off to sleep, he wondered if the dwarf had remembered to switch off the refrigeration for this unit.