RPG activity in 2024 was a bit of a mixed bag.

At the start of the year the Aldershot players played a one-shot of the rather dubiously named Only Maid of War, a crossover between Maid and Only War!

Saturday night RPGing was up slightly with Kevin managing to run all 15 episodes of season 1 of Future Tales of Yesteryear a retro-futuristic pulp romp through the Solar System using Astounding Interplanetary Adventures.

The Sunday group is still completely dormant.

With regards to running RPGs, I ran 7 sessions of The Evils of Illmire, taking the count up to 12.

RPGs played:
Different RPGS:2.
New RPGs: 1.
Sessions I ran: 7
Total sessions: 23

Breakdown is as follows:

RPGs played:
Only Maid of War: 1 session.
Future Tales of Yesteryear/Astounding Interplanetary Adventures: 15 sessions.
Total 16 sessions.

RPGs run:
The Evils of Illmire: 7 sessions.

2023 was a slight improvement on 2022.

The Saturday group had a fair number of sessions, Kevin ran Pulp Hack and concluded his 12 session run. Matakishi ran short campaigns of The Dee Sanction and Edgespace.
However, the Sunday group is still not participating in any RPGs.
The Friday group which planned to play a session a month quickly faded away at the start of the year after a couple of sessions.

On the upside though, I've started running a Saturday afternoon game which should occir every 3 weeks or so, In 2023 I managed to run 5 sessions.

RPGs played:
Different RPGS:4.
New RPGs: 4.
Sessions I ran: 5
Total sessions: 25

Breakdown is as follows:

RPGs played:
Vaesen: 3 sessions.
Pulp Hack: 9 sessions.
The Dee Sanction: 4 sessions
Space Hack/Edgespace: 4 sessions.
Total 20 sessions.

RPGs run:
The Evils of Illmire: 5 sessions.

2022 turned out to be a quiet year for RPGs.

My Saturday group slowed down it's rate of play significantly due to a number obstacles and we only played 6 sessions. I concluded my Beach Patrol game and Kevin kicked of his Pulp Hack campaign.
My Sunday group had been non-existent for the entirety of 2022 and played nothing.
Meanwhile, Matt managed to complete his last adventure for Romance of the Perilous Lands, then we managed to sort out a regular once-monthly Friday RPG which was Vaesen.

Different RPGs: 4
New RPGs: 2
Sessions I ran: 3
Total sessions: 10
​
These numbers are much lower than 2021.
This breaks down as follows:

The Pulp Hack: 3
Beach Patrol (Ran.): 3
Romance of the Perilous Lands: 2
Vaesen: 3

Let's hope 2023 is better!

23rd February 2022

It's a Wednesday evening and we're round Simon's in Woking for the next session of Matt's Romance of the Perilous Land campaign.

The company had taken an uneventful journey to Camelot Castle, tasked with travelling to the village named Spindleston to investigate the appearance of a mysterious creature and their road took them through the famous stronghold.
More than its name suggested; Camelot Castle contained within the reach of its immensely thick alabaster stone walls, battlements and imposing towers a city known for its bright gleaming architecture, said by some to be lined with gold.

On their approach, the company had been awed to view Camelot’s tall ivory and glittering spires painted crimson by the day’s dying light as they loomed over a gloaming horizon and upon closing in, they had spied colourful pennants fluttering briskly on a stiff breeze against the reddening hue while Arthur’s own device hung from the tallest pole. Carrying message of their mission gave the company unimpeded entry into the city.
Passing under the colossal gatehouse led them along one of the city’s main paved white-stone thoroughfares and equally white buildings. Despite this pale lustre, the even-shadows grew longer over the brilliance that surrounded the company, casting a strangely glum pall over the otherwise gleaming city. Local folk and passerbys shifted their ways along nervously, the glint of suspicion marked out their eyes while numerous armed patrols, well armed with sword, decorated shield and tabard marched the avenues and streets diligently with a grim-eyed countenance to their faces. No amount of architectural brightness could conceal the air of gloom that hung over Camelot
The company’s way eventually led them to Camelot’s formidable, tall-walled inner keep, again their task granted them swift access through iron-shod gates into the interior.

Met by the seneschal and led through polished, curving corridors decorated with shields and various paintings to their guest chambers, the company rested a little and refreshed themselves. From their vantage they watched night blanketing Camelot City, waking a swathe of glittering lights along the streets and throughout the towers.
Later, the company was given an audience with King Arthur and invited to supper in his feasting hall. An enormous chamber, its walls were decorated with ornaments and the prizes of hunting and war, a raging fireplace bathed the room an orange glow while keeping the chill of night at bay. The company was seated at a heavy, ancient looking oak table resplendent with roasted meats, pies, bread and mead.

The company’s task was discussed at length with Arthur who while in his youth, exuded the tired worriness that came with the experience of many seasons.
A man not given to social niceties, King Arthur spoke frankly with the company and admitted to knowing of their quest, having relayed the information itself to the Iron Hawks some days ago. Arthur continued; following a two day hike from Spindleston a commoner had come into Camelot with talk of a Princess Margaret and Prince Dinadan going missing. This had been three weeks ago.
Princess Margaret was known to the king, being the daughter of an ally - King Mark of Norhaut. Word had reached Arthur of a calamity striking at the heart of Norhaut but details were fleeting.
Regardless of this, King Arthur wished the company to continue their investigation into the events at Spindleston. Talk continued into the night until the company retired.

The dawn, quiet and cool, had come as the company exited Camelot Castle’s great walls and rows of parapets, under an arching cerulean sky punctuated with drifting cotton-white cumulus clouds.
They made good time on the first leg of their two day journey and soon enough, the castle with its soaring spires and bright pennants had receded over the horizon. The company now found themselves travelling a wilderness as the trail took them beyond the various farmsteads that dotted agrarian plains which surrounded the castle and over a low rolling verdant landscape while skirting uninviting shadowy forest and babbling stream that glittered in the unfettered sunshine.
Shadows were at their shortest while the sun sat at its zenith when cheerful pipe music came floating on the air! Emerging from a nearby, dense, woody copse came a diminutive, lithe figure - a fairy!
The lithe figure was twinkle-eyed, displaying a sharp bent to their smile when they proposed playing the company a merry tune for but a gold piece. It seemed a hefty price but nonetheless, the company - suspecting some trickery - flipped him a coin and he did indeed pipe out a song as sunny as the day to entertain the company before they continued.
Travelling until dusk, the company made for the indistinct outline of a settlement they had spotted against the sky's failing reddish light. They found a remote farmstead whose occupants were happy enough to allow the company to sleep the night in their haybarn.

Another cool morning followed as the company departed. A blazing sun rising into the clear blue sky drove away dawn’s early chill as they rode deeper into the wild. The low undulating grassland that had marked out the previous day continued and soon all visible signs of civilization were swallowed by the tall, rippling stretches.
Traffic on the trail was nonexistent or at least was until the company encountered a mushroom hunter: This old woman with a wrinkled, ruddy complexion and straying grey hair carried a wicker basket brimming with all sorts of fungi and mushroom on one arm, flagging the company down with an energetic wave and yells as she hobbled from a ditch at the trailside.
Eager for company it seemed, the old woman explained that she lived in a hut some miles from Spindleston and made talk of The Copperwood, the forest that bordered the village, calling it an ancient place and warning the company of a monstrous wolf known as The Gwyllgi which at night, prowled the grounds surrounding ‘The Whistler, a gigantic standing stone said to consist entirely of jet. She also warned them of some scaled beast of sorts that had recently emerged and tended to linger in the depths of forest’s gloomy dells.
Finally, the old woman provided each of the company with a fat, red-coloured toadstool which she explained, when eaten could confer health on the eater.
A cursory examination from Hobard revealed that they would require cooking to sufficiently prepare the toadstools.
Trefor though, had already foolishly eaten his toadstool and the effect was almost immediate. Soon after we had bid the old woman good day, he found himself, while riding, vomiting noisily and worse. This would intermittently continue for the remainder of the day.

Later that day Trefor still did not have his retching under control and had been reduced to a miserable dry-heaving wreck as the company rode through the afternoon.
His predicament’s grim comedy had been almost enough to distract the company from the vicious attack of a bugbear that came lunging from a spread of dense thickets that flourished close to the trail. It charged, a twisted rage-filled countenance writ across its face.
To Hobard’s honed ranger’s eye  it was apparent the beast was clearly emaciated, he was quick to pull a ration from his haversack and lobbed in at the starving creature. It was enough to distract the bugbear, allowing the company to gallop on briskly, avoiding its ire.

The day’s heat was subsiding as lengthy shadows began sliding across the ground when the company encountered a wide but shallow river and further along its gnarly, grassy banks they spotted a distant, dark smear across the backdrop of foreboding forest - distant Spindleston village and beyond that, The Copperwood. Canting along the rapid, gurgling waters the company soon found themselves at the settlement’s outskirts.

A clamorous din welcomed them, numerous energetic voices and whoops of laughter mingled with the clang of clashing steel and a harsh, loud commanding voice. Spindleston bustled despite its small size and while riding through walled gates, the company found themselves in a short lane that led to a busy town square. A smattering of market stalls dotted the square, along with haggling traders and customers while at one end a juggler entertained children.
Further activity caught the attention of the company. In another corner of the square a young man, bearded and square-jawed, resplendent in fine armour displaying a forceful bearing was yelling at his complete opposites; a small band of poorly equipped and ill-fitted villagers brandishing spears and implements of various sorts while responding with particular ineptitude to his shouted instructions.
Being a knight himself. Trefor recognised it for what it was: A captain drilling his new recruits  - albeit fairly poor looking ones.

Trefor approached this captain who identified himself as Sir Dinadan! He went on to explain that he was preparing his men for an incursion into The Copperwood on the next morning where they would attempt to vanquish the wyrm which was said to prowl the forest’s gloomy, sunstarved boundaries.

Sir Dinadan went on to explain that Princess Margaret, his bride to be and he had recently reached Spindleston. Weeks past, Margaret had been cursed by her step-mother Behoc, put into a malevolent week-long deep sleep prior to their wedding by means of poisoning. Before Margaret woke, Norhaut was attacked and fell into the clutches of Mordred and Margaret’s father, King Mark slain by The Black lance. Barely managing to rescue Margaret, the pair fled, travelling for weeks before crossing the border into the protective sanctuary provided by Camelot.
They planned to rest for a time as their coin was dwindling but then Margaret had gone missing three weeks ago. Soon after, whispered words spreading throughout Spindleston had begun speaking of a wyrm, a monstrous creature which had spotted deep within The Copperwood.
Dinadan admitted he had been driven near mad with worry that Margaret has been eaten by such a monster and has now recruited some locals with what little coin he still has in his possession and plans to find and slay the dangerous beast.
Trefor explained that the company had been tasked with investigating The Copperwood and the wyrm, they could provide aid to Sir Dinadan. The knight seemed taciturnly satisfied with this and the company bid him good luck and good day before looking for lodgings.

The company continued on and found signage for The Pooka - a pub nestling among a row of homes in Spindleston: Its weatherworn sign creaking on an old post outside a limestone brick building.
Before entering, the company diverted to the village stables. There they found a youngish burly man with tight sandy coloured curls. Introducing himself as Jevan, he was the stablemaster and was willing to stable the company’s horses. While dismounting, Hobard couldn’t help but notice the despondent countenance on Jevan’s face.
Jevan explained that while in The Copperwood he had lost his wedding ring which greatly upset his wife and was now forced to sleep in the stable until it was recovered. While in the forest, Jevan had also found ‘Brinny’, stroking the mane of an already stabled but skittish, speckled grey horse, Jevan said he was a ‘friendly but strange pony’ who spent the hours of night staring out into some distant dark place outside the walls of Spindleston.

Entering The Pooka, the company found it to be a homely place that smelt of spilt beer and old oak, a faint smokey pall lingered below the exposed rafters while a stuffed fireplace crackled energetically, spreading a comfortable warmth throughout the common room while a handful of patrons conversed cheerfully. Among their number was a slim woman strumming a well made, silver inlaid harp and whose flame hair matched the fiery tongues of flame that flickered at the hearth. Her fingers plucked at the strings casually as she watched the company enter.
The company was enthusiastically greeted by the barkeep, a rotund man with a pronounced limp and who sported an enormous bristling grey mustache on a rosy cheeked, corpulent face.
The company exchanged coin for lodging and made small talk, which turned to The Copperwood and to the wyrm. At that, the barkeep’s face darkened. Quietly he told the company that he was desperate; his two children had gone missing, taken by the monster he believed and would willingly pay sixty gold coins to anyone who returned them.
It transpired that the barkeep’s opinion was not shared by the flame-haired harpist - the bard known as Laudine who had overheard the barkeep’s words, Laudine believed the wyrm was simply a beast from the wilds beyond Spindleston and any malicious behaviour it displayed must be the work of foul witchcraft.

Later, once the shroud of dusk had settled upon Spindleston, Hobard walked the now quiet and unlit streets to the stables. Jevan’s talk of the strange horse had piqued his interest and he sought to learn more.
Hobard found that Jevan had not bed down for the night and the stables were currently empty save for the horses. He approached Brinny and could see the horse was staring out beyond Spindleston. Something about the horse’s eyes did not sit well with the ranger and he intensely scrutinised them.
Abruptly, the eyes appeared to lighten from chestnut to ochre and somehow become rounder. Then where once stood tall Brinny the horse was a small hare at the bottom of the stall!

The hare stared at Hobard for but a moment with those disquietingly intelligent eyes before bounding powerfully out of the stall. Hobard gave chase as the hare streaked out of Spindlestone and towards The Copperwood. The inky gloom of the day’s failing light enveloping Hobard and the indistinct, irregular lights of the village grew distant, soon he lost sight of the hare as it entered the forest’s murky treeline.
Frustrated, he marched back to The Pooka, telling the incredulous others of his strange encounter.

With little that could be done during the onset of night, the company ate and drank for a while before retiring for the night.

Covid-19 continued to be an issue in 2021 and significantly affected some of the roleplaying I took part in.

The Saturday RPG group, which is now played over video-chat was easily the most prolific, most of this was Matakishi running nearly 2 entire 'seasons' of his Wired Neon Cities campaign in the earlier part of the year.

Different RPGs: 4
Sessions I ran: 9
Total sessions: 41

During 2021 I participated in 41 RPG sessions over 4 different RPGs, of those I ran 9 sessions.
This is mostly down on 2020, where I participated in 74 sessions over 10 different RPGs, however, I only ran 1 session in 2020.
​
The break down is as follows.

Wired Neon Cities: 25
Beach Patrol (Ran): 9
Romance of the Perilous Lands: 5
Those Dark Places: 2

I'm also seriously running late with my blogging, being over 6 months behind and will add links when I'm able to.

14th October 2021

It's a Thursday and we're at Simon's. It's time for the next episode of Matt's Romance of the Perilous Land campaign.

​Location: The Pits

Yelling loudly, the company had raucously charged into the fray, weapons swinging: They had earlier found themselves within the confines of the tall stone walls that ringed Hykaria’s gladiatorial pits during illicit midnight combats and gambling. Infiltrating the rambunctious betting crowd, they were content to observe the situation for a time.
But matters had changed. 

The objective of their task; the disguised woman ‘Georgina’ had been dragged through a door and into one of the pits. She was nervously eying her surroundings when moments later, the opposite door slid open, a pair of bugbears came lumbering out of the darkness beyond and were released on her. With no time to lose the company realised, they gripped weapons and advanced on the pit while the hollering crowd reeled back at this sudden show of force The company pushed through and slid into it.
Hobard and Titus closed on the bugbears, the monstrous creatures with their strange snarling visages rounded on the pair, muscle squirmed beneath filthy matted fur as they lunged in response.
Above, a thunderous cheer issued forth from the baying crowd as the combatants met.

While battle was joined; Trefor had other ideas, as blows were exchanged he sidled up to the pit wall, slipping round the fight he unstoppered a small darkly coloured vial which he had pulled from the folds of his robe, downed it and grasped ‘George’.
The concoction had been a potion of flight: With unearthly movement, Trefor sped upwards becoming a murky shadow against the night’s starry patterns while gripping Georgina who gave a gasp of terror and struggled, limbs flaying erratically. Despite this protestation, Trefor steadfastly kept his grip on her as the others watched the pair move smoothly beyond the looming walls of the arena, swallowed by enveloping gloom.

Fighting continued, Titus had felled a bugbear to the mob’s approval while Garfield looked for a way out, as well as a manner to distract the mob.
Uttering an enchantment, a spell issued from Garfield, a number of the patrons were knocked into the pit! They sprawled across the hay and dirt covered floor, writhing in fear.
More blows were exchanged and soon Titus had dispatched the other monster, the yelling intensified. Titus was jubilant, raising fists to the glittering velvet-black sky while roaring his victorious demand for a prize. Coins rained, Titus went scrabbling for his reward.

Despite their martial success, Titus, Hobart and Garfield knew that their appearance would have raised suspicion, no doubt someone had gone yelling to the guard and they would soon come running.
The trio beat a hasty retreat, retreading the empty corridors with their sets of doors, into the windowless, dark study, down through glum unlit tunnels and on to the dim city streets licked by crimson light. Behind the silhouetted eastern skyline a thin rosy golden nimbus announced the arrival of dawn.

If any resident of Hykaria had been prowling those silent streets in the small hours, few would have thought of looking skyward. Thus it was that Trefor with Georgina in tow had passed over the lonely broad avenues of the city unseen. His robes fluttered slowly as the paved road rose up to meet his landing. Although still wide-eyed, Georgina had regained her wits, realising that Trefor was one to be trusted.
From there, he led her in a roundabout way through the latticework of shady alleys and backstreets that criss-crossed Hykaria to Joan’s safehouse and waited for his companions.
Elated greetings were exchanged by the reunited Joan and Georgina. For a while they spoke energetically until the exhausted Georgina retired.

​Short was Trefor’s wait fortunately, long morning shadows had begun to span the morning streets when the other trio regrouped at the safehouse.
Before the company could consider celebration, Joan appeared, telling them that their help was still needed - and without delay!

The company was to join one Prince Dinadan at some village called Spindleton. Then they would search for ‘the artefact’, some mysterious, possibly magical contraption. Joan then told them, it was suspected that it was in the possession of a dragon!

8th September 2021

It's a Wednesday evening and we're round Simon's for the next part of Matt's Romance of the Perilous Land campaign.

​Garfield Greenfingers - Played by Steven
This former owner of an apothecary with an affinity for the esoteric arts and knowledge of the supernatural had joined the company. 

​Location: The Pit

The company had found themselves in the maze of brickwork tunnels that sprawled beneath Hykaria city, eventually leading them below some sort of manhole cover and to their destination. Made of iron, the manhole cover was heavy, Trefor had to exert himself to lift it.
Upon clambering out, the company’s dim wavering light revealed what appeared to be a windowless study.
The smell of old paper distinctly emanated from a wall of books, row upon row of mutely coloured spines on a myriad of subjects could be seen glumly lit on the shelving. Central in the room was a sturdy looking table of polished oak while flush against one side was a small and apparently unused bureau. Hanging from a wall hook was a thick woollen cloak decorated with clearly royal heraldry.
Beyond the room, the company could hear muffled, indistinguishable noises.

Searching the books revealed a series of ledgers documenting detailed listings of fights which had taken place in the pits as well as their participants. Further searching revealed details of ‘George’, the date of their arrival at the pits and where they were being held captive.
The company knew this was the pseudonym of Georgina, whom they had been tasked with rescuing from the pits.
Continued rummaging through the bureau found a ream of loose vellum letterheaded sheets and a wax stamp. The leafs were blank save for one among them which spoke vaguely of the indiscretions of some unnamed nobleman.

With nothing else to be found in this chamber, the company exited and found themselves in an empty gently curving grey-painted brick corridor lined with doors. One stood out among them; a larger, bulkier door.
Through the large door was a curiously long room and equally empty room. Running along one wall was a series of wooden booths. They were, the company surmised, some sort of gambling booths, no doubt used during the pit fights.
Returning to the corridor, the company continued searching.

While they went on, the dull, distant, muffled growl of a roaring crowd could be heard.
No fights would be scheduled for this hour as the company knew? No gambling either, the booths were unoccupied.
The company travelled the corridor, following the noise. It led past all other doors, eventually sloping downwards. Unveiling into a wider, wider space. It was a circular roofless room with the starry dome of night providing a ceiling. Carpeted in a layer of dirt, the circular space was populated with numerous pits. A mob of perhaps a hundred had congregated around one such pit. Bustling and hollering, the well-appointed crowd was entirely fixated on whatever was occurring in that pit.
As the company approached, they saw coin changing hands. Illicit combats and gambling were underway. Cautiously, they managed to insinuate themselves into the crowd and bustle to the pit. It was hosting a fight!
Below, a man displaying several bloody streaks through rips in clothing and brandishing a sword was ruggedly battling some vicious bearlike creature which sported a bizarre visage. It was, Garfield told them, a bugbear. The company had heard tales of such creatures, baleful, malignant and hateful of man.
As the fight continued, so did the gambling. Soon though, fortune favoured the man who managed to land the bugbear a telling blow - it was defeated. A cheer broke out of the gathered crowd.
Without delay, a heavy looking door in the side of the pit swung open, the man was led out and in his place came a smallish, thin man, slight of build. He was introduced as ‘George’.
From a second door, a pair of bugbears were pushed out. This would be a much harder fight.

It was then that the company chose to interfere. 

14th August 2021

​It's a Saturday night and we're logged into video chat for session 30 of Matakishi's Wired Neon Cities campaign which is also the final session of season 2!

Location: Neon City

“Bring your guns,” Porter Sladek had said over a message six hours ago. Had to meet him at Goji Tower, ready to go at seven AM.
No time for sleep.

First though, Koko powered the flier back to Hikage through the downpours. I watched wind blasted water beads slide horizontally off the rain hammered viewports as they caught the glint of the looming arrays of a million city lights that rolled by. Soon she put the flier down on a roof and we were out and went our own ways.
Briefly under the deluge then through the roof access, half jumping down flights of dull concrete steps that echoed distinctly while I descended the mostly empty stairwell until I reached my one-bed.
Rain splattered loudly against the tarp that secured one wall of the apartment against the elements. I ignored it, instead hitting up all my supplies.

Double checked the loadout for my .45 ACPs and took a full reload too.
Also packed a Konseye K4 backup. The stub nosed SMG wouldn’t hinder me, folded the stock and slung it in the small poly-nylon weaved holdall that held my Nonohiki. Grabbed all the stims I had at hand, ingests, drinks, dermals - whatever and dumped them in the holdall.
Finally as I left, I jammed a multipack of Savka sticks into the pockets on my Verskeit.

Caught up with the others on the rooftop again, curt nods all around meant we were ready for business. Nothing else to say.

​Short flight over to Rokkaku Expo Stadium, even so, it never deterred Neon City from piling it on.

Urus Konicek had pinged us. The Wilderness scavenger had news from The Enclave: Numerous fliers tagged with PGDF transponders had been detected overnight. Tracking data indicated activity was concentrated over the neck of the woods where we had previously found the old lab.
Urus wasn’t sure what was going down but he sent Neidzwiedz to investigate and would ping us again when something turned up.

​Coords provided by Porter Sladek led to the exclusive roof pad of a pricey penthouse on some local highrise east of the adjacent Goji Tower.
Rain had thinned; a slender band of burnt orange stretched across the silhouetted eastern skyline was driving night away. Through the retreating precipitous haze the enormous structure had been reduced to a vague behemothic shape outlined black against the diminishing night sky.
Dawn was not far.

Rooftop access led directly to the penthouse. A replica oak facsimile covered the ferro-carbon reinforced door auto-granted us access into a goldenly lit hallway decorated in cream and rose coloured fixtures. Our boots sank into the thick carpeting as we strode in to the sounds of voices.

Porter Sladek could be found standing in an exceptionally well appointed reception room at the balcony. Along with his customary denim slacks and Breach black turtleneck he also wore a Korean replica Keolmo branded icy white ten-gallon cowboy hat. Wasn’t hard to guess how he felt about his situation.
He may have had the ten-gallon on backwards?
Gripping a slim pair of obsidian black with silver trim Chanjueb binoculars, Porter Sladek was scoping out the Goji Tower, glancing only briefly at us as we entered.
“We need to get into the tower and kill Goji Rokkaku,” he told us matter-of-factly, turning back to the Chanjuebs. “He sent his zero beasts to try and rub me out last night. Would’ve worked, except for Dominic.”
Dominic 6-14, Porter Sladek’s personal robotic bodyguard was accompanying him. Servos buzzed almost imperceptibly as the robot turned to face us, I imagined his sensor arrays twitch, no doubt running a mandatory threat assessment protocol.

Porter Sladek wasn’t alone.
He was flanked by Oni Tokugawa, Michael Leander’s lean, cool-eyed, Uchike katana wielding master strategist and Oni’s own emotionless homicidal apprentice - Gemini Benedict.
There was serious political beef between Micheal Leander and Barnabas Heywood who were on opposing, warring factions on the Glitterband.
Goji Rokkaku had in some way aligned with Heywood and it had put Rokkaku squarely in Leander’s sights.
Made sense that Leander would send his top samurai against Goji. The enemy of my enemy.

Finally, there was someone who introduced herself as Seryy with an unsettling voice while staring intently at Koko with bottomless eyes.
Clothed in sandals, a red-and-white patterned trapeze dress and an obvious wig. Seryy had a strangely ashen complexion. Her large-headed frame and oversized coal-black, seemingly pupiless irises lent her a peculiar child-like but somewhat inhuman quality.
We’d seen her or perhaps someone like her before. Was she in some way an ally of Porter Sladek or just another enemy of Goji Rokakku?
Didn’t matter, took whatever we could get.
Porter Sladek’s binoculars were pushing a vid-feed to a local slate grey Karfseakk desk-slab propped up on a faux cherry wood side table. It was a fuzzy visual; range, distant rain and night did not help. Despite this, we could clearly see a number of four-metre high steel reinforced concrete barriers had been circled around the tower’s base.
It would make an already risky frontal assault much harder.

“We need to initiate a full-on frontal assault!” Porter Sladek informed us.

Before our approach could be discussed, a door swung open and there was Binary Johnny, the chin straps on his trademark goggles and imitation flying cap dancing merrily as he strode in carrying a grey stiffened card tray stacked with Tandredo Sinatti branded paper coffee cups. Bitter, pungent aromas floated across the room as Johnny handed out steaming drinks.

Was likely the Goji Tower would have some kind of serious anti-air defensive measures that could be quickly deployed. An approach on an aircraft, even the flier with its stealth tech was not viable.
No way of getting over the concrete coated barriers either: Earlier, looking for a way to scale the barriers, Oni Tokugawa had hit them with caltrops and pitons. The feed was showing they had melted into glinting ferrous silvery smears across the barrier’s surface. Sure sign that a localised but massively concentrated electrical field had been extended over the barriers.

Seryy seemed to have an idea on a way in though. She turned to Koko, explaining it might be dangerous and then held out a slender, weirdly overlong fingered hand.
Koko did not hesitate and took it.
The air surrounding the pair inexplicably wavered acutely like Neon City’s distant blue-white sky on a hot noon. The contortion continued, intensifying, eventually collapsing in on itself. Then, Koko and Seryy were gone - as was the distortion.

Immediately, over comms, Koko could be heard puking.
“We’re up in the Goji Tower,” came Koko’s voice after gathering her composure. “I’m not sure Seryy can do that again,” Koko added.
“I can maybe teleport one more,” explained Seryy.
“Send me,” I replied.

The suite squirmed into impossible shapes around me, light radiated through the room like an old overexposed photo while it simultaneously receded into an endless darkness, detail fading.
Realty then, untangled itself, normal light levels were restored.
Not dissimilar to lurching out of the GLOWNET, I was forced to shake off disorientation and nausea.
A cubicle surrounded me, white ceiling punctuated by a humming panel light hung above ash grey carpeting and perimetering it all were cream walls. Adjacent to a door was a frosted window while flush to one wall was an unused beige topped, laminated chipwood desk.
Koko and Seryy were also here, crouching

Koko pressed a finger to her lips, gesturing downwards and I dropped. For a second we were motionless, a distorted apparition passed the frosted glass, the indistinct figure obliviously walking along the outside corridor.

Time to get to work, grabbed a handful of carpet tuft in the corner and yanked hard. It rolled back to uncover various lines of cabling which ran along the wall including a networking cable.
Rummaging around the poly-nylon holdall I pulled a Maiulava microtool from a side pocket. It buzzed slightly as it cut through the cable’s vinyl insulation, exposing optics.
After that I daisy-chained a hard wire through my Nonohiki into the local network, through a jury-rigged port I’d spliced to it.

Jacking into the Nonohiki data-slab, the dull cubicle evaporated into nothingness while the Rokkaku private corporate network compiled about me.
Absent were the familiar colourful neonic constructs which public GLOWNET users would be accustomed to interacting with, instead replaced with a workmanlike monochrome networked file map encompassed by void.
Interfacing locally meant that the data-vault’s primary security measures had been already bypassed. Observing the stack on my Nonohiki showed an autonomous ICE presence in the network though.
It was passive but would become active if it detected non-typical code movement in the data-vault..
Had to move fast to deal with it and get it right the first time.

Quickly punched in a local recurring, mathematically expressed exponentially increasing query, then pushed it at the climate control diagnostic management protocol.
The protocol would respond by questioning the query which would - in turn respond with a new more complex query snaring the protocol in a loop.
It would take the ICE a few seconds to detect the unallotted increase in cycle usage and a few more seconds to kill the query. Enough time to relocate into the personnel files, stacks of data rolled by, found an offline high level user, cloned their network credentials over the bio-image data file on the Nonhiki, then switched to a wireless connection.
Worked, I was a ghost.

Even so, the clock was now ticking.
Once the query was shut down, the ICE would ping its changelog to a security user who would then follow the standard operating procedure for security users and personally come online to inspect the incident.
While I was invisible, the user I was piggybacking was not, they could be tracked.
Quickly I hit up the defence directory in the security partition. Activated a system update cycle for the anti-air measures, then pinged instructions to the others to get here.

The anti-air system would be out of reboot fairly quickly but it was enough time to allow Koko to remotely bring the others over in the flier and put down on a nearly featureless asphalt grey ancillary helipad at ground level while we rushed to meet them.
Got off the pad as quick as possible, the flier was out range for the defences here but was still an unauthorised vehicle, it might get flagged once the reboot had concluded.
Now, had to move fast.

Checked the network’s stack. Looked like the rogue query had been dealt with.
The ICE was now prowling the registry archive and looking for historical data inconsistencies, was also certain a security user had an online presence somewhere on the local network with a masked bio-image.

Found ourselves in a hallway decorated with polished granite tiling that glimmered in the diffused wall lighting. No one was about at this hour, no security either. So far, so good.

Encountered a row of silvery elevator doors set in the granite. Each one had a crystalline looking‘ call elevator’ stud that winked crimson when pressed.
Before we rode it, I spoofed an instruction line into the elevator management protocol to throw off any security response. Protocol would think we were going to floor forty. Real destination would be top of the tower; one-sixty.
The elevator interior with its white and silver decor and beige carpeting was typically pristine for a Rokkaku facility. An oblong console embedded in one elevator wall was populated by an elaborate looking grid of octagonally shaped faux crystal studs with numbers that ran one through to one-sixty. Punched the stud for one-sixty and sent the code for forty, doors slid shut and for a few seconds there was a tug on my guts as the elevator accelerated upwards in express mode.
Then, everything went wrong.

The crimson glint that had been hopping from stud to stud reached sixty and a sharp retort abruptly came from outside the car, followed by the harsh shriek of distorn metal, then, the car slowed, then, it stopped and then, we were in freefall.

Catastrophic failure on this magnitude just didn’t occur spontaneously; a deathtrap built into the elevator sounded just like Goji Rokkaku’s style.
As I felt my insides shift during downward acceleration, I watched the crimson glint backtrack at immense speed, the thought occurred to me that whatever security user was on the network had been good enough to had somehow made us.

During the plummet, Roderick and Dominc took a second to react. At impossible speed, each robot took an opposite wall in the elevator, braced against their chosen side and punched at it. The ferro-poly composite folded inwards under the immense blows, shunting panels from their housing. Almost immediately, both of them had gotten through the elevator walls and were driving their toughened steel fingers into the wall of the exterior shaft.

With a monstrous grinding roar, the elevator came to a halt enveloped in a shower of dust that had thinly streamed through the holes. On the panel, intermittent flickering came from the studs for floors twenty and twenty one.

Unused to these situations, Porter Sladek had panicked, pacing the car and protesting loudly, ironically fearing the noise of the drop would bring Rokkaku security.
“Take this, it’ll take the edge off,” Trigger offered, waving an adrenaline injector at him. Didn’t help, he then handed Porter Sladek a small tub from his personal stash of White Lotus liniment.
Before Porter Sladek responded, he was abruptly struck by Dominic with a free appendage, the robot impassively watched the billionaire senselessly flop to the elevator floor.
At least the yelling had stopped.
Needed a way out - quick!
Roderick and Dominic could only hold the car for so long. The rest of us worked at the elevator doors, prising them apart with effort.
What was on the other side surprised us.

The panel indicated the car had come to a stop between two floors. Instead of exposing the elevator shaft walls, the doors opened partway into a hidden floor between twenty and twenty-one.
How many secrets did the Goji Tower have?

Dragging the unconscious Porter Sladek with us, we clambered on to the hidden floor, followed by the two robots who simultaneously leapt out, allowing the elevator car to plunge into darkness below, impacting a few seconds later with a boom that reverbed throughout the shaft.

The hidden floor was workmanlike. Dangling strips of humming, flickering fluorescents inadequately lit small rooms and corridors of exposed grey concrete floors and ceiling that sandwiched long strips of some kind of large wall panels while being underpinned by unpainted steel jointing.
Footsteps echoed distinctly as we advanced through this sparse environment.
Threads of thick black rubbery cabling loosely pinned to undecorated cornices on each panel ran seemingly along the entire floor.
The cabling connected to square mechanisms that were attached to alternating panels and consisted of strengthened polyferro plating, power cells and hydraulic pumps linked to articulated piston actuators which were bolted between wall panels.
Johnny seemed to think that pistons were there to move the panelling. It was something that had been encountered during our last interdiction into the Goji Tower - moving walls. Only now we were looking at the guts of the system.
Further along we also came across regularly placed red coloured cylindrical tanks screwed to the ceiling, topped with nozzles and were labelled ‘fire suppressant’.
Otherwise the floor was empty.

Soon we came across another elevator, some kind of maintenance elevator this time that lacked the well appointed veneer of the previous one. The plain grey doors opened into an interior of more unpainted steel and panelling, along with a console of plain buttons. From those buttons it had become apparent that there was a hidden floor between every floor in the Goji Tower, this elevator only stopped at those hidden floors and went as high as the hidden floor between one-fifty-six and one-fifty-seven.
This time we got to the top without problem.

Continued exploring, same as the other floor, filled with moving wall panels, more fire suppression systems, another maintenance elevator.
It only led to more hidden floors. They would be the same. Needed to get back on to the normal floors.

Binary Johnny took his own microtool and wrenched apart the panel that housed the call elevator button, revealing a dense mess of connections behind it. He observed the cabling for a moment before plucking one free from its input.
He then rummaged around a pocket in his replica flight jacket and produced a connector that would remotely daisy-chain his data-slab into the exposed input port. Seconds later he had direct control of the elevator.

On Johnny’s instructions, the rest of us heaved the elevator doors open to an empty shaft. Johnny had made the elevator car stop just before our current floor with its roof almost flush with our floor.
Following Johnny’s lead we hopped on the roof and he instructed the car to slide up a few meters which took us to one-fifty-seven.
Without any doors here, Roderick and Dominic would have to break through the interior divide.

The pair of robots were reaching for the wall panel when Koto unexpectedly flared in my cerebrum, colour, sound, all exploding behind my eyes. During a liminal instance that manifested between photonic beats the sentient dubstep song increased in intensity. I knew Koto was warning me; danger!
No hesitation, no confusion, I ate the top of the elevator roof as a widening swathe of bullet holes blossomed across the wall, flinging chips of plaster over us.
Taken unawares, Johnny caught a round and went down soundlessly.

Weapon pods on Roderick and Dominic’s limb’s flicked opened, armaments popping out as they immediately returned fire, advanced threat detection able to extrapolate targets from bullet hole patterning.
“Drones,” Roderick’s harsh metallic voice warned us between bursts.
Koko brought our own drones; Felix and Sylvester online, the pair of Suayo gun-drones networked with tactical telemetry feeds from the robots and opened fire. Combined, focussed  firepower from the four soon did for the other drones. Smell of cordite hung in the air as silence and dust descended.
No more threats detected, the robots proceeded to knock down what remained of the partition while Koko got Tonakatsu to stabilise Johnny with nanite loaded dermal sealants, hit him with some hardcore stims and he was up.

Stepping out of the elevator shaft we were surprised to find ourselves in what seemed to be a hotel grand lobby.
A soft orange-gold glow radiated from buzzing replica filament lighting units fixed to walls painted apricot and lit an expansive, unoccupied area. Our boots squeaked distinctly on a polished floor of grey-marbling threaded with silvery veins while we inched forward. A number of well upholstered tangerine wingbacks were clustered around low, circular coffee tables in one corner, while in the opposite was an unmanned reception desk topped in a darkly stained cherry desk top. Adjacent was an equally empty hotel bar.

“There’s something ‘above’ us,” Noodles offered, ears twitching. There was more, Noodles seemed to think that ‘whoever’ was above were Seryy they were hunting.
Seryy seemed to shrug, admitting it was possible. Much of her memory prior to the orbital attack on The Bay was missing. Serry recalled being restrained in a container that had busted open during the attack. Escaping into the bay, she had nearly drowned before the Hop Sing gang had rescued and sheltered her from her pursuers.

Roderick confirmed there were no immediate threats on this floor, searching got nothing. The decision was made to take the stairs for the last three floors.
Got to the door which led to the square stairwell, concrete steps wound their course through an undecorated steel-reinforced shaft.

Got to one-fifty-eight. Stairwell opened into a silent corridor carpeted in thick crimson shag with rows of subdued spot lighting along apricot walls that led to numerous intersections. Lines of doors ran along both the corridors. One-fifty-eight also looked unoccupied. Zero threats detected.
Tried a door; led to an unlit room, lights auto-flicked on. A guestroom; fresh multi-blended egg-shell cotton sheets were smoothly draped over a double bed, obviously unused.
Adjacent was an equally unused steel and glass sideboard and opposite was a large dormant wall-slab.
Along one wall, fully drawn floor-to-ceiling vertical blinds masked the city beyond, thin slats of gold the only evidence of the dawn outside.
An adjoining door led to a replica porcelain and gold fitted ensuite.
Next to the door, on the interior, a small wall-slab embedded into the wall was waiting for some sort of check in code.
Returned to the corridor.
Another door, another guest room. Was time to move on.

One-fifty-nine was next.
The stairwell opened on to an open plan room stretching out ahead. Stark, overbright square light panels set in the ceiling above shone over a white with grey speckled epoxy-resin floor sparsely populated with minimalist steel workbenches littered with an array of scientific apparatus. Centrifuges, magnifiers, rows of glassware, medically branded desk-slabs and more.
Temperature was definitely a couple of degrees lower and a sharp chloric smell intruded into my nostrils from this seemingly empty laboratory.

I saw Roderick go weapons-hot; threat detected. The robot opened up, tabletop equipment buckled and spun off workbenches, shards of shattered glassware showered us as deafening gunfire raked across the room. Something was hit, but what? Nothing we could see as we dived for cover.
Return fire erupted from the far side of the room a moment later.  Behind a workbench, I flinched as it shuddered under sustained fire.Dominic joined the fight, as did Seryy in her own way.

Felt like altitude had suddenly changed during the fight; a rapid increase in pressure on my ears occurred, so intense my vision dimmed. The air somehow seemed to whip me as I felt something extrude from Seryy.
Whatever it was, it had been directed at the opposite end of the room luckily.
Furniture was sent crashing against the far wall, workbenches crumpled under some force, everything else was flattened.
Seryy keeled over, breathing was laboured, whatever she had done, wasn’t going to happen any time soon.
Whatever had been over there attacking us had stopped, apart from the buzzling of broken electricals, a silence descended.

Roderick bounded across the room. Driven by his robotic legs, he leapt on something that wasn’t visible to me and brought his polyferro booted foot down with distinct thud.
A spray of blood seemed to emerge from nowhere, splattering across the speckled floor. The air then wavered and something appeared under his boot.
With a thin-limbed frame and oversized head, was some sort of smallish man lifelessly sprawled out, his pallid ashen complexion and bottomless eyes resembled Seryy. Were these extraterrestrials from the old lab we found in the wilderness?
Had to press on, no time to speculate. Took stock, No serious injury sustained and Seryy was able to walk, gathered our wits and moved on.

Finally! We had hit one-sixty.
Stairs opened into a typically drab but also empty office. Grey carpeting, beige walls, panel ceiling lights, we’d seen it on the lower floors. A row of desk-filled glass walled cubicles ringed a central open area containing a labyrinth of grey office dividers that delineated between dozens of more desks, an active unmanned corporate Ravine branded data-slab on each one.
Along one side was a massive embedded Senonable wall-slab that took up most of that space.
“No threats detected,” came an announcement from Roderick.

Despite being unused, screens on the desk-slabs showed a variety of endlessly updating data on the desk-slabs. Rows of numerical values on readout arrays were constantly recalculating, stacks were rocketing off screen on some displays while others showed some kind of orbital profile solutions tracking numerous satellites..

Before Johnny or I could check out the desk-slabs, the Senonable winked into life.
Larger than life, Goji Rokkkau appeared on the enormous display against a featureless hazy background that contrasted with his almost silhouetted Gaongha carbon black suit and cream coloured scarf. Middle-aged with a firm square face and completely bald, his eyes glittered while a thin smile cracked his greying goatee, revealing a row of perfect teeth.
Looks like he’s been tracking us all along.
Set to full volume, the speakers crackled sharply, 
“I welcome you to join me in an adventure,” blared a voice through the speakers, then the Senonable went dead.

Without warning, the office began to tremble, the whole building shook.
Displays on the jittering desk-slabs had changed. Many were showing a countdown that was seconds from reaching zero. Others showed outside vid feeds of Goji Tower.
Feeds showed parts of the external cladding were shed, tumbling down in heaps while the tower continued to vibrate. As the countdown hit zero, a blinding yellow-white glare burst from the base of the tower followed by a violent eruption of flame and billowing smoke.
The concrete barriers erected earlier contained the flame, redirecting it along a previously hidden channel to the Neon City bay at a tremendous speed. Other displays showed the bay’s waters boiling.

I felt upward movement as the base of the tower detached itself from the ground, rising and  leaving a gout of fire in its wake.
It was a rocket, Goji Tower was a rocket, launching something into space?
Upward acceleration continued, immense weight pinned me to the floor, barely able to look, I could the others also slumped to the floor.
The pressure grew too much, struggling to breathe, I watched the ceiling panel lights seem to dim, oblivion crawled into the edges of my vision and the lights failed altogether.

Later, the others would tell me that the Goji Tower rocket had continued its trajectory. The sprawl of Neon City’s conurbation had fallen away, contracting into a single diminutive speck on the landscape that rolled towards an horizon which eventually revealed the curvature of the Earth backlit by a solar nimbus while spreading night seeped into the blue-white day.
The rocket then banked, adjusting to a new heading and through a viewport they saw the Earth rotate while a colossal orbital structure also slid into sight, almost filling the viewport.
Our destination; The Glitterband.

11th August 2021

It's a Wednesday and we're round Simon's for the 3rd session of Matt's Romance of the Perilous Land TTRPG.

​Location: Hykaria - Ascalon

Hykaria; Ascalon’s vibrant capital, well known for its industrious sea trade and commerce, sat upon a glittering coastline and was the jewel of The Summerland, the city welcomed a cosmopolitan population behind its resolute walls and soaring alabaster towers that watched over a sun-soaked ocean approach.

Narrow, shady alleyways cut through urban and mercantile neighbourhoods, criss-crossing wide thrumming white-paved avenues that ran the length of the capital and in one such shady alley was ‘The Hairy Fig’, a grimy wood and dirty glass fronted inn that nestled in an out of the way cobblestoned courtyard through an old archway.
It was here Colan, Titus, Trefor and Hobard had found themselves for the past week, nursing cheap beers in the small inn while sat at worn, old oak tables in a smoky common room poorly lit by dusty slats of weak light that streamed through shutters and was populated by perpetually inebriated patrons who scoured at distrusted outsiders.

While pondering their next action, our company was approached by a woman of middling years with drab brown hair, in a grey woollen frock, a look of  recognition across her face.
Introducing herself as Joan, she explained that the company had once in the past helped a friend of hers and now she went on, it was she who needed help.

Joan continued; Georgina was a friend of hers and had been taken to the ‘battle pits’ and was due to fight in four days. 

The battle pits were known to the company.
Extensive use of the battle pits were made by King Vortimer as harsh punishment; forcing criminals to fight to the death. The barbarism was a popular form of paid entertainment among the elite class of Hykaria who found it sufficiently cruel to slake their baying taste for blood.
The entire affair was managed by the king’s own gold cloaked guards.

Joan went on: Georgina, disguised as ‘George’ had been caught stealing some documentation from the residence of Baronet Philip, a distant cousin of Vortimer and considered to be minor royalty.
George had been accused of stealing information with the intent of harming the city and then slung into the pits.

Intrigued, the company agreed to help Joan.

​The task would require some degrees of subtlety, Joan explained. It would be wise to avoid the watch, she added.
For some time, the company and Joan waited. The gloomy mote filled sunlight that lit the common room lessened before fading altogether as day darkened, replaced by tallow candle light.
Only then did they vacate The Hairy Fig when night had settled over Hykaria They headed into dimly lit streets draped in the blanket of night which were mostly empty, only the bars and major thoroughfares presented any activity which the company deftly circumvented.
The battle pits’ venue was well known to most but more importantly; the location of the holding cells were known to Joan.
She took the company closer to the capital’s centre and as they strode in, they saw spluttering fiery braziers give way to gas lighting which in turn eventually gave way to magical lighting!
Their journey ended in some tightly clustered neighbourhood of timber-framed townhouses that gave the appearance of leaning over them.

Behind shutters, a hundred eyes seemed to pierce the company as Joan gave a coded knock at one particular door while they waited. Swiftly, it swung open, she entered and equally swiftly it shut. The company was alone.
Two minutes and the door opened again, the company was waved in by an old man dressed in some sort of nightgown, consternation written in the creases which decorated the face of his balding visage.
Geis was his name, Joan told the company and he could get them into the pits. Geis warned them that their task would be a dangerous one.

​Once Geis had dressed and pulled on a smock and boots, he led Joan and the company into a twisting warren of narrow and mostly unlit alleys, the moon was nearing its zenith in a cloudless starry sky as they reached a large rust-licked iron disc embedded in the paved ground at a junction.
The company knew enough of cities to know this was a manhole cover that would lead to Kykaria’s sewage network.

With some effort and the correct tools, the manhole cover was wrenched open with a metallic screech.
The company was surprised to find no smell emanating from the opened way. Before they descended, Geis handed a piece of vellum to Joan who in return nodded.

​To the surprise of the company, the tunnel was exceptionally well constructed and was both wide and free of effluence. Whatever this tunnel was, it was not connected to the sewers, at least not directly.
Trefor uttered the words of a blessing and gesticulated, a soft but cold light radiated from his hand. The company marched onwards.

The tunnel led the company north-west, various branches and junctions materialised out of the darkness ahead, branching off into darkness. Joan ignored them, seeming to know her way. For ten minutes they marched without incident; then they saw glittering eyes in Trefor’s light, malevolently staring at them.

Rats were ahead, enormous ones too, which also had little fear of man. With animalistic pace the rats lunged. It was a short fight though, enormous or not, the rats could not withstand the onslaught of the company and soon they were defeated.

Pressing on, the company soon encountered the sprawled remains of some poor solitary soul who had not fared so well against the vermin.
Dead for some time, the cadaver had in part been consumed and what remained had decomposed beyond recognition. Even so, the company could identify the torn uniform of the city watch on the dead man. Whatever had possessed the soldier to enter these tunnels?
With little else of interest, the company continued, soon stopping at what Joan told them; was their destination.
A ladder led an iron manhole above.

Trefor climbed up and with a laborious grunt managed to lift and slide the heavy disc aside a little from his precarious position. Beyond the cover, it was unlit.
Peering inside, Hobard could make out the carved wooden legs, a table directly above the manhole. Further on, he could see some sort of bookcase lined with tomes. Was this some sort of workroom, Hobard thought.

To be continued.

7th August 2021

It's a Saturday and we're logged for some video chat and session 29 of Matakishi's Wired Neon Cities campaign.

​Location: Neon City.

Most of last night had been spent knocking back shots of Obzlo and mainlining Woanqie Xingfa stims in some half lit thumping backstreet Hikage nightclub. Eventually the bassline died, the club wound down for the night and rain had begun to dry out as I got back to my one-bed. Unable to sleep, I propped myself up at the edge of the futon while hugging a steaming poly-pot of self-heating Niaiwo Noodles and watched the unending barrage of insurance and med promotionals swim across the wall-slab’s surface.
Night’s final black rain clouds boiled into oblivion under the onslaught of dawn, morning light slowly crawled across the beige coloured walls of the one-bed, lighting it the golden hue of the sunlit urine coloured tarp that blanketed one side of the room.

Noodles were long empty by the time my media slab pinged, no video, screen logged an unknown contact looking to initiate an audio only team call to all of us. We took the call: Reon Slatern was someone we’d never heard of? Whoever he was, his voice wavered just enough to register fear, something had got him agitated.
Told us he was a groundskeeper employed at the Botanical Gardens in Itabashi-cho and yesterday, he’d heard voices coming from the old church telling him he’d get rewarded if he contacted us.
“Come and get us,” the voices had instructed him to pass on.

Wasn’t much to go on but someone was wanting our attention.
Once Reon Slatern had logged off, it was decided to investigate whatever this was and it would be good to get ahead of it if possible. Mixing this up with supposed extraterrestrial attacks was not good.

The corporate monorail would get us to Itabashi-cho, required riding the tram to Rokkaku Expo Stadium and making the transfer. Luckily our exec passes were still valid.
The monorail was always a pleasant experience with a well maintained interior. Brightly lit, clean and mostly unused carriages welcomed us. Soundproofing and climate control kept Neon City’s most uncomfortable aspects at bay as we sank into generously sized, luxuriantly upholstered faux leather seating.
Acceleration tugged us deeper into those seats as the train powered away and we watched Rokkaku Expo Stadium shrink into The City of Electric Dream’s urban miasma.
Jorengi Temple was situated at the city’s periphery and was the next stop. Even though districts and neighbourhoods blurred past as we flew over, the dense conurbation of central Neon City noticeably lessened as we continued. High-rises and towers became less prevalent, as did grey industrial estates and business parks.
Eventually the skyline flattened, the horizon thickened as the implacable city wall began coalescing into view. Soon the monorail decelerated into Jorengi.

We exited and made for the tram network. Here the Itabashi-cho tram system lacked the neglected facade found on the central networks, much smaller and less travelled, generally, only tourists came this far out.
We rode into the Botanical Gardens district. Neon City’s urban sprawl had not encroached so heavily here, buildings were spaced apart accordingly, giving way to abundant open stretches and verdant spaces beneath a mostly unimpeded vista.

The Botanical Gardens for which the district was named were situated in one such grass and tree ringed open space.
A series of eight huge octagonally positioned geodesic domes, their external surfaces decorated by a latticework of white painted aluminium structs that glinted in the midday sun and criss-crossed over convex panels of transparent reinforced acrylic sheets which glimmered with a blue-white hue of cloudless reflected sky.
Each dome was dedicated to a different biome and at the centre was a gift shop and visitor centre; both relatively empty. Lacking the noisy electronic thrill of pachinko or neon saturated seedy lure of the city’s nightlife, much of the citizenry gave it a distrustful wide berth.

Reon Slatern was waiting for us, the octogenarian was employed here as a gardener. Olive coloured Alicid branded overalls draped over an aged frame while thick soled replica earthy leather brown Harbiefs encapsulated his feet. Sharp Kuaijing replacement eye-lenses stared at us from a creased, browned face topped by thinning wispy steel grey hair. An elaborate tool-filled webbed belt hung from his hip.
A gravelly voice betrayed Reon’s age, he greeted us and took us along one of the Botanical Garden’s paved paths that run beneath a cluster of north European oaks and beeches which had been transplanted to the gardens.
A couple of minutes passed, Reon Slatern halted and pointed off the path. We peered through the trees, while foliage was sparse, the woods were dense enough to create a shady canopy between expansive leaves that tapered off into gloom.
“The voices came from there. They told me of finding bones,” he said, adding. “But I didn’t hear everything and I didn’t want to go in there.”
We thanked Reon and turned off the path
“Strange things happen at night,” he warned as we left.

Trees muffled Neon City’s droning grey noise and shaded us from the afternoon sun as the path shrank away and we became aware of the intangible stillness we were walking into. Grass crunched distinctly underfoot, with movement, clothing crumpled loudly and the cycle of breathing filled our ears as we navigated through the woods.
Half a kilometre in and we began to see rude graffiti sprayed in garish colours across the trees.
Recognised the ganger tags, were for the Bubblegum Loa, a violent street crew known for their affiliation to voodoo and trance music. Multiple disappearances had also been attributed to them.

A little further in and we began to hear music, thumping bass, repetitive electronica melodies at a hundred and fifty beats per minute with soft breakdowns meant we were listening to trance-techno fusion; staple nightclub music.

I could feel Koto tingling, the endlessly playing sentient song that inhabited my brain and haunted my synapses was piqued by what it heard.

Trees began to thin somewhat, revealing a reddening sky slipping through the canopy’s gaps. Soon we arrived at an open grassy clearing.
Stopping at the treeline, we scoped the situation. At the centre was a church, the old-world kind according to vids I’d seen. Maybe relocated here or maybe just a replica?
Regardless, it was a tall, grey, stone bricked edifice with a dull reddish slate topped gable roof that ended in a rising stoney steeple.
Outlined in garish primary colours that stood out even in the late afternoon, neonic tubing trimmed the church while sheets of LED fairy lights had been spread over the church like some polychromatic spider’s web. Rotating spots which had been installed at ground level played their beams across the uneven surfaces. Also decorating the walls were numerous voodoo symbols that had been scrawled over the exterior in uneven paint strokes. Here was the origin of the music.

Koko’s face darkened and she turned to us.
“There’s the smell of some kind of drug here,” Koko said, flicking on her internal rebreather..
Trigger ran a scan on the building with thermals; nothing, blocked due to shielding on the church. I guess it answered whether it was a replica.
A voice rose above clamour, chanting rhythmically in some kind of patois. More voices joined.

Despite the lack of presence in the surroundings, there would be maximum resistance if we mounted a frontal incursion. We needed to go sideways.
Four smallish unlit windows were located near the top of the replica steeple which was a good storey taller than the main church. That was our ‘in’.

Hustled closer to the church, music intensified, chanting increased, bassline thumped harder. Felt waves of it in our guts as we pressed up against the uneven wall. The voice was louder now, shrill and piercing, it began to needle our brains.

Trigger braced himself, a quiet click could be heard and then a hiss as his Shiaosha Robotics Leg Pak activated. Hurled vertically, Trigger managed to get a firm hand on the steeple ledge. Quickly securing himself, he dropped a line down and soon we were all crammed into the belltower.
The way was narrow, clambered down until we encountered the ladder into the ringing room. 

Subdued, unused and featureless save for a number of frayed old bell ringing cords that hung motionless in the centre of the dim ringing room. It was only lit by a thin strip of iridescent-like light blazing through a door left open a crack.
Any noise we might make was drowned by booming music outside.
The door led more or less into the centre of the church. the chancel to one side and the nave to the other

A laser projector punctured the gloom with rows of harshly bright spears of light that shifted across the smoky interior with mechanical precision. Lights strobed and flashed, a kaleidoscopic hue of changing colours swam across the interior and vaulted ceiling.
Revellers here appeared to be paired off. Half naked and coated in neon body paint, they brandished fluorescent glow sticks wildly as they whirled and danced in a chemically fuelled slavish frenzy to the beat; ephemeral, incandescent light trails left in their wakes.

To our surprise, in the chancel, we saw the Muscle Gurlz; wasn’t going well for them, the pair of weight-training guns-for-hire had been restrained and lashed up to the ceiling, having been stripped of everything. They swung there slowly, looks of irritation and disgust across their faces.
Also in the chancel was some kind of slickly gleaming altar that caught the garish light while several revellers adorned in clearly religious garments were in the process of slaughtering chickens. The Muscle Gurlz had at some point been caked in blood while the gore was also the source of the altar’s gleam.

Maybe fifty or sixty pairs of revellers occupied the church, some were tooled up with various shotguns while many also carried machetes. A throwdown in this constricted environment could quickly go south. Needed to make our moves quietly. 

In the chancel Senonable speakers could be seen mounted to walls. Thick rubberised cabling led under the edge of a side door.
Poor lighting, loud music, feverish behaviour from the revellers meant Koko and I, crouching as we moved, could get through the side door unnoticed while Trigger retreated back into the ringing room.
As expected, the cabling led to a standard issue Senonable Sostor server slab. With no enhanced security protocols and the default standard encryption strings, it was a quick hack. Passed control of the server over to Bill.

Trigger was now tapped into the sound system and in the ringing room had grabbed some of the bell ringing lines and pulled hard.

Bill meanwhile used a mental command to activate his Mannikten nanites, his face and skin somehow bubbled, undulating and settling into a new form, allowing him to temporarily alter his appearance while his Buryayi chip implant would adjust his vocal chords.
As the amplified pealing bells cut through clamour like a Wanametosu gunblade. Bill swaggered into the room in the guise of Baron Samedi and now in command of the sound system announced himself with a thunderous room through the speakers.

Had to be fast, the revellers might not stay transfixed in their hallucinogenic stupor too long. Gripping our Intiging stun-batons, we made our move.

Trigger pounced on the three priest-like individuals, enhanced reflexes meant he was immediately amongst them, they toppled noiselessly, unaware they’d been stuck by a swirling, shadowy half-lit blur.
Koko and I rushed for the Muscle Gurlz. Despite being impressed to see us and fatigued from their capture, they flopped into our arms as we cut them down. A couple of taps and swipes on Koko’s control slab meant the flier was inbound. Wasted no time in dragging them out of a back door in the chancel. Trigger not far behind.

Bill kept the enthralled revellers distracted for a minute longer until he flipped a smoke grenade into the church. Churning grey-white smoke rapidly expanded into the nave, engulfing Bill who couldn’t resist a parting shot as he exited into the ringing room.
“Professor Longhair bids you goodnight,” the altered voice blasted out of the sound system.

Bill didn’t dawdle, despite his cockiness, he knew the situation could quickly turn south if he delayed. Pounding up steps, squeezing through a small belltower window, scrambling on to the roof, Bill found a dancing cord waiting for him in the flier’s blustery downdraft.

A minute later, the church was shrinking away on the flier’s screens as it powered away, surrounding trees seemingly closing in.
Once the Muscle Gurlz had gotten second wind, told us their latest gig had them investigating sightings of wild chickens in the woods surrounding The Botanical Gardens. They were getting a payout for every one they recovered.
That was when the Bubblegum Loa had snatched them, the Muscle Gurlz had stumbled into the clandestine chicken farm maintained by the Bubblegum Loa in the woods’ deepest recesses.
Taken to the church, stripped down and strapped up. The Muscle Gurlz had zero chance to free themselves and waited until last night’s drug fuelled debauchery had left the gangers wasted, managed to access the P.A system and sent out a message, hoping it would reach us.

Minutes later and the flier was put down in a clearing close to the farm, a ramshackle combination of wooden and polymer panels, corrugated sheets and planking held together by twisted up chicken wire.
We waited while the Gurlz went and got their dollar.
Koko was not happy with ‘all those damn chickens’ messing up the flier’s interior as Jorengi was left behind.

​Koko banked the flier in the direction of Hikage 
During the flight, an item came down the newsvine: Word had gotten out that Goji Rokkaku was constructing more towers. Crowds had inexplicably gathered at the Rokkaku Tower, angry even if they did even know quite why. Gripping placards and banners while chanting protests condemning The Rokakku Group. 
In response, security teams had promptly driven the activists back while ringing the entire tower with concrete reinforced fencing.
Whatever Goji Rokkaku was doing, he was making a move.

​Next morning and our slabs pinged again, woken from my intoxicant fueled slumber by its insistently cheerful chirp, I listened in on the chat. They were familiar voices.

Tomac Khan, Moroccan Tom and Big Man Arthur Ardley were a trio of building contractors we’d encountered a couple of times, we were solid with them.

The trio had been working a gig contract to demolish The Maria Huang Orphanage For Displaced Children, some unused orphanage in Johoku-Chuo Park.
Had found something ‘awful’ at the site. Rentacop weren’t interested, so they’d called us.
Sounded bad, meant going back to Itabashi-Cho, decided to take the flier this time.

Washed down the last of the Woanqie Xingfa pills with an iced Bevizzo latte knock-off from a Hikage street vendor, betting on the mix of stimulants getting me through the morning. On the flier I watched the city roll by through the screens as we powered away from Hikage. Up here Neon City could’ve passed as clean, unrelenting sunlight seemed to burn grime off the seething, broiling streets and glimmered off glass-walled towers. Just a mirage though, never this clean. Just the city of electric dreams turned nightmare.

Incandescent poly-structural architecture that marked Neon City’s info-vista instantly compiled as I jacked into the GLOWNET. Descending into the data-flows which pulsated through the morphing landscape as bio-images busied themselves at connected nodes.

Didn’t take long to source relevant data.

The Maria Huang Orphanage For Displaced Children had been built to house orphans left homeless by a wayward missile strike on their original orphanage in Rokkaku Dai Heights not long ago.

This kind of public relations stunt which would have involved building and maintaining the new orphanage wouldn’t scratch resources available to Maria Huang, one of the conurbation’s wealthiest residents.
So why, only months later was it being demolished?

Municipal records tracked ownership of all Neon City buildings, the geo-node for its data-image was well known to me, had the lowest possible budget security provisions provided by city finances which made it an easy hack.
Something I’d exploited more than once.
The Iridescent landscapes that inhabited the GLOWNET were reduced to blurs flying past as I transposed directly to the data-image. Launched the back-door routine I’d coded the first time I went into the records, got through the data-images outer shell.and into its vault and files.

Sifting through those files I quickly found a string of records detailing a sale of the orphanage property to a developer a week ago. No name of the new owner listed though?
Nothing to find; no deleted or removed data, no encryption or security walls, nothing to crack, just nothing there.
Kept digging, ran a checker protocol, looking for inconsistencies in file structure indexing and found a numerical gap.
Something was in the nothing. Something someone wanted to hide.
Removing the file’s indexing value had not deleted it, only removed it from visibility. Didn’t take long for a predictive algorithm to calculate the hidden file’s index value, punched the filing data into my Nonohiki, then I was in.
The stealthed file showed that Protobase Global had acquired the building.

Nearly stacked when I emerged from the GLOWNET, barely managed to stay upright and not puke.

Checked with the others, still on route: Johoko-Chuo Park expanded into view soon enough. Like much of the prefecture, the district benefitted from a lower urban density compared to most of the city. Expanses of asphalt and concrete intermittently giving way to verdant flat grassy stretches and clumps of evenly spaced trees 

Coords provided by the trio led to a dour grey, boxy and utilitarian structure with several lesser annexes and wings surrounded by numerous flat concrete spaces and yards.
Having seen better days, it was in the process of being demolished. One wing had been reduced to piles of split grey cladding and broken brick. Several fluorescent yellow building robots stood adjacent, silent and unmoving. Later the trio told us work had stopped when they’d made the discovery.
‘Maria Huang Orphanage For Displaced Children’ read an unlatched sign propped up against a featureless exterior wall that faced the street.

Putting the flier down we found the trio waiting for us, stoney-faced expressions across their faces. Led us behind the orphanage to a rear facing recreational ground dominated by a central swimming pool. Despite being covered by a navy blue polyethylene tarp, the day’s harsh sunlight visibly gleaned off the water beneath in weird rippling patterns.
They threw back the tarp and we saw what was in the water.

There were perhaps forty of them; weighted down with bricks were bodies of children, forty of them, silent contorted forms flattened by the sunlit pool.
Neon City never disappointed when it came to the embrace of darkness.

No wonder rentacop didn’t want to know, levelling this kind of accusation at one of the city’s richest daughters would bring serious heat on them. Maria Huang had too much juice for them to put the finger on.
Instead, it was left to us.

Cursory examinations showed signs of repeated faint scarring across their skin, indicating that they had been subjected to blood removal and organ harvesting. Hard to gauge a timescale without closer examination but it must have occurred before the sale to Protobase.
The entire exercise of the charity event had been a front.

Astiek Steva was a mortuary worker at the Ohkubo Hospital. We were ttght  him and he had the skills needed for this.
Pinged him, he was happy to get the bodies picked up in a wagon, kept on ice and examined.
Less than ten minutes later and a discreetly branded Ohkubo Hospital Perayu Kruskop flier in charcoal grey with blacked windows put down close to our flier. A boiler suit and facemask wearing crew quickly disembarked and briskly loaded up the bodies, momentarily acknowledging our presence as they worked and were gone in minutes.

Time to start at the top. Finding Maria Huang’s address was easy, she lived in Johoko-Chuo Park, barely minutes away in the flier.
Her home grew into view as approached, it was what could only be described as palatial, a bloated edifice to wealth. Several storeys high, the oblong building was clad in eggshell white with sloped ash grey tiled roofs that spanned over two expansive wings, all of which were decorated in gold-coated embellishments, window frames and doors.
Two rows of greek columns met at a central portico at a sturdy pair of what seemed to be real wood doors.
An obsidian asphalt road curved to a broad paved driveway that ended at the portico. The house sat in a lush garden of mown lawns, rows of colourful flower beds and gently spraying fountains that glittered in the merciless sun.
The entire affair was ringed by a tall, iron spike topped white wall.
Circling slowly at a distance, the flier’s thermals and spook-tech showed no activity other than some automated systems, not even staff or servants.

​Astiek Steva came online, pinging our media-slabs.Told us an initial autopsy had indicated that the children were ‘not quite human’, results showed they had been spliced with what appeared to be very specific strands of crocodile DNA. It had given them incredible regenerative capabilities allowing them to endure multiple organ harvesting.
Astiek explained that’s why they were drowned. Told us that it was unlikely they could not be killed any other way.

​Leads were thin on the ground. Closest precinct was in the Jorengi Temple district, they wouldn’t be any help. Our tightest contact in rentacop was Captain Ocano at the Shinjuku precinct.
I turned down the gain on my meda-slabs volume when we hit him up. Even so, his voice somehow still deafened me on the group call! I imagined him gesticulating wildly in his ill fitting and creased chocolate brown polyester three-piece as he spoke to us. 

Ocano had ready access to documentation regarding the orphanage, I could hear irritation in his voice as he gave us the lowdown, including the name; Octavia Raske, the orphanage’s principal.
Also told us the records listed the attending physician as a Doctor Hsu Rou-Tai. The name was known to us.
Other than that nothing we didn’t already know, Ocano added that the public records had somehow been scrubbed.

Hsu Rou-Tai was a fringe, off-the-books scientist clandestinely bankrolled by Protobase Global for black-lab research into longevity treatments.
All this involved the conglomerate, how?

Now with Protobase Global thrown into the mix, ran another search on the newsvines, got a new hit.
Maria Huang’s had thrown a fundraiser for the Rokkaku Dai Heights orphanage that had been co-backed by Annabel Twistom, late wife of Protobase CEO Benedict Twistom. Annabel Twistom had also sat on the Protobase ethics oversight committee.

Got the fundraiser details and ran a hack on it. Looked like the fundraiser had brought in a sizable amount of revenue. No records of appropriation or where the money had gone.

​It was time for an incursion into the Maria Huang mansion.
Jacked into the GLOWNET and quickly located the mansion's data-image; a gleaming elaborately detailed angular stronghold with soaring fluorescent towers topped by fluttering flags.
Like many wealthy Neon City residents, it had extensive but standardised off-the-rack security protocols. I had just the algorithm for that and soon I was past the image and into the data-vault. .
Was pretty lacking, a sift through the directories found no significant documentation or data records. Last thing I did before jacking out was deactivate all security systems.

Put the flier down on the driveway. No one would question this kind of vehicle in place like this. Hustled over to the double doors under the portico’s shade, Koko leant against them, working the locks. Moments later and we were in.

The aircon sat inactive but even so, the interior with its tall airy eggshell coloured ceilings was spacious enough to provide cool respite from the heat.
Neon City’s harsh sunlight had been tamed into a gentle hue streaming through adaptive autoreactive window panes which lit the interior while the mansion’s soundproofing drove Neon City’s guttural drone into a distant, almost forgotten place.
The exterior’s opulence continued inside; the foyer walls were lined with elaborately detailed wallpaper trimmed in gold foil and adorned with various portraits and landscapes. Our grimy boots sank into the lush, generous shagpile of a light grey carpet.

Despite knowing it was unoccupied, we advanced through white and gold panelled corridors with weapons in hand.
The silence verging on oppressive., breathing boomed in my ears, 
There were a number ornately furnished reception rooms furnished with darkly stained cherrywood seating topped by grey-white upholstery that contrasted the pale decorations, several bathrooms adorned in cerulean and white porcelain with gold fittings, an expansive kitchen lined with discreet fixtures and dominated by an impossibly smooth off-white corian central worktop threaded with meandering veins of silver-grey to finally, a study.

Deep in the mansion’s warren, the study was lit by a single diminutive square window that overlooked a small grassy courtyard lined with well trimmed bushes, an auto-gardener buzzing about as it slavishly adhered to its maintenance protocols. The study was a rather sparse room and lacked any kind of data-slab.
Instead a sturdy looking oak desk bristling with drawers was situated along one wall, behind it was a Tanner-Ryse branded real leather office chair.

Drawers that opened smoothly on oiled, well made rollers, brimmed with paper documentation: Diaries, notebooks, invoices and more - someone didn’t trust infotech.
Amongst the paperwork was a hardcopy album, contained photos of Maria Huang that seemed to date back a hundred and twenty years.
Further searching found evidence that she was at least one hundred and forty years old. An example of early longevity tech at work.
We also discovered the printout of a travel manifesto which seemed to indicate that Maria Huang had made a one-way flight to the Glitterband; it listed two large items of luggage as her only additions.
Guess that now she was up there, she didn’t care what was down here. Wasn’t much to help us either. Getting to her would be impossible in the Glitterband.

​The flier was accelerating out of Johoko-Chuo Park, its green sanctuary shrinking when a feed hit the newsvines: Ocano had gone missing.

Feed updated by the time we caught sight of Hikage’s grey residential highrises rolling over the urban horizon.
Ocano was dead. Gunned down at a sandwich vendor on some Shinjuku Station district street food court. Maybe he’d been careless or someone was sharp eyed enough to flag him but whoever had gotten to him was going to have to pay. We changed heading for Shinjuku.

A short flight over, rentacop was already on the murder scene when we arrived. One of their own had been rubbed out, they weren’t happy and they weren’t going to give us anything. Was personal for them but rentacop didn’t have the chops to get a handle on the killer.

Flickering frames constructed themselves out of neonic materials while I jacked back into the GLOWNET as the city’s iridescent, angular info-vista settled about me. With Ocano’s media-slab ID to hand I launched a tracer algorithm, got details of his provider’s server-vaults and node-navvied there.
Like most providers, it had adequate security but its encryption keys hadn’t been set up to deal with the kind of incursions we pulled; my cracking algorithm had us in their system quick.
The provider’s vapidly cheerful data-image peeled away and I dropped into the business like drab grey on black environment that were the file directories. Quickly found logs for Ocano’s media-slab activity.
Showed his last contact was with a Zimak Bukhuoko.

Plenty of public records on Zimak Bukhuoko: He had been voted into the position of Acting Police Commissioner after a recent surprise win following his demand for a recount - a recount which had experienced a dramatic turnabout in results as what appeared to be a sizable number of previously uncounted votes for Zimak Bukhuokohad inexplicably surfaced.

Dug deeper: Turned out Zimak Bukhuoko was a cousin to Yennav Rybasei; our insider and mid-level enforcer for the Armenian Mob.
Koko pinged Yennav, got a brief response; he was busy on a job for someone else. No help there.

Zimak Bukhuoko’s address was trivial to find, decided to scope him out.
Apart from his housekeeper, he lived alone in a governmentally secured penthouse in the Skyscraper district. That kind of security was bad news, not easy to crack, it would also have proactive anti-invasion deterrents. Meant we would have to find a different vector to get at him.
Needed to wait, chilled until midnight.

Neon City became gloomily clad in lengthening shadows during the day’s end as night crept up. Rows of street lights lazily blinked into existence while grids of city windows across scrapers and high-rises auto-activated. Soon, remaining daylight retreated over the western horizon in a thin band of vanishing crimson light. Starless, black cloud filled sky followed from the east as did the nightly downpours, its deluge drumming of the fliers hull.

The flier had been put into stealth, interior lighting and instrumentation was dimmed, turbines ran silently. We were hovering just a hundred metres off of Zimak Bukhuoko’s apartment when we powered the spook tech. Thermals showed he was alone and had retired for the night.
It was time.

Sinking back into the recognisable incandescent reality of the GLOWNET, I returned to the service provider of Ocano’s media-slab. Filtered through his logs again, went deeper this time. Found what I needed - Ocano’s security profile and decrypter protocols, then cloned them.

Exited the provider’s server-vault, back into the city’s info-vista and remote connected through some node-bounces to rentacop’s Shinjuku bunker. Ocano’s credentials hadn’t been rescinded yet, rentacop was always slow so their system thought I was Ocano.
Worse for them, rentacop internal security was always lax, now that I was inside their network, a cracking algorithm quickly got me where I needed to go.
Data-vaults opened up, found the logons for some Neon City judge, used them to run the data systems which issued warrants and directed one towards Ocano’s profile.

Koko put the flier down on the skyscraper’s pad. Locked roof access provided no obstacle to us as we got to Zimak Bukhuoko’s penthouse and pushed the warrant data via the clone to the extensive door security provisions. It went into immediate shutdown, thinking Ocano was here to resolve a warrant.
Didn’t see the need for subtilty, Trigger rushed in, had him stunned and black-bagged in seconds. Dragged him to the roof and on to the flier, he barely struggled.

Zimak Bukhuoko shared his cousin’s stocky frame and receding hairline but unlike Yennav, there was no hard edge under that bulk. A soft man, Zimak Bukhuoko squirmed like the politician he was and tried to evade our questions with a nasally voice.
After taking a tough line, wasn’t hard for Bill to get him singing.

Once Zimak Bukhuoko had taken up his newly appointed position as Acting Police Commissioner, he’d gotten a briefing from Goji Rokkaku and Benedict Twistom.
No one was to investigate the Robot Factory came the edict, along with several other places which would also be off limits.
Hours ago, he’d also received instructions to take care of Ocano. Not only that, he admitted to having footage of the hit happening.
Couldn’t get a name from him though, whoever was pulling Zimak Bukhuoko’s strings was someone that scared him more than we did!
Did manage to get the security protocols for his media-slab though, gave us access to his private data-vault. It didn’t take long to get the footage.

We seriously considered executing and dumping Zimak Bukhuoko. Ocano had been a genuine citizen and solid contact, he didn’t deserve what went down but ultimately, that wasn’t how we ran with it.
Instead, we hit Zimak Bukhuoko with a heavy sedative and kicked him back to his penthouse, left him sprawled uncomfortably on the carpeted hallway.

​It was gone one AM and we were considering our next move when our media-slabs chirped loudly.
Porter Sladek was online. Told us to meet him close to the Rokkaku Tower at seven.