What's In a Name?

[pringerbeam]

   "Sorry about this... Steve?"  Roland whispered as he pulled the sleeping/dead hobo over his head as he lay prone in a pile of filth.  He looked out across the street to his car and the two Ancients walking around it.  One of them raised the shotgun in his hands and then sent the butt through the driver's side window.  "Aw come on it's not even my car, why would you do that?"  Hissed morgan as the Ancient cleared the remaining glass from the window and opened the car.  How did I end up in this situation?

   "Hey wake him up."  What is that sensation?  "Well I would like to wait longer but things need to get initialized." Roland's arm felt cold.  "Two weeks doc, as much as I enjoy your company I'm getting a bit tired of paying for bed-space."  "Well looks like you are in luck because I think he is coming out of it on his own."  Roland opened his eyes... or did he?  Everything was black.  It dawned on him: the crash, the explosion, the grenade going off. "OH SHIT I'M BLIND."  "Oh right, hold up there cowboy need to turn on the new blinkers."  Suddenly a bright light flooded Roland's gaze.  Large red letters materialized in the middle of his view.  FUCHI MUGEN SYSTEM v5.65 - Initializing.  The bright white light changed to black, then blue, then red, then yellow, and then finally things materialized.  He was in a room and lying on small bed as two men looked at him.  One of them, a old troll hunched over on a stool, held a small comlink in his hand that trailed a datacord into Roland's datajack.  He tapped away on the comlink as the other, an Asian human about the same age as Roland, sat at ease in a folding chair.  "Alright the eyes should be setup" said the troll as he pulled a datachip out of the comlink.  He reached over to a small table over to his side and put the chip down before picking up a different one off the table.  He connected another datacord to the comlink before connecting the other end to Roland's right arm which was, to Roland's great surprise, now red chrome.  "Heads up kid this is gonna be a ride."  Fire coursed through Roland's arm from the tips of his fingers and rolled in a wave all the way into his shoulder where it streaked up his neck and along his spine.  "HURG" was the closest thing to a scream that Ronald could manage as he became acutely aware of the fact that it felt like he had just fallen out of orbit onto the pavement.  "Oh, no screaming, that's a good sign" remarked the Asian man.  "Or something is fucked."  The troll spoke as he quickly pulled a light from his pocket and began shining it in Roland's eyes.  Roland was about to squint but suddenly the light wasn't as bright.  "Uh... I think you need to charge that light."  The troll shined the light onto his hand.  "Guess that means the additional functions for the eye are working. Can you move your hand?  Touch your nose with your right hand then touch my palm."  The troll raised his hand and Roland obliged.  "Well looks like he's good.  He's all your problem now Shinji.  Now if you don't mind I need to go see to another patient now if you could just get out of here once he can walk I need the bed space."  The troll took his leave and walked out of the room.
   "Well, guess it's introduction time.  My name is Shinji and you owe me big time."  Shinji stood and extended his hand which Ronald took up.  "What happened?  Where did the chrome come from?  Last I remember we were going down over the barrens."  "Oh you went down alright.  In fire and flames you came crashing down in our territory.  Actually pretty conveniently since you came down on a pack of Halloweeners.  As for the chrome, well you were pretty fucked up in the crash, had to cut you out of the wreckage myself.  How do you like the 'ware?  I went top of the line.  The arm is the newest Renraku Bushi, same model the red samurai use."  "That is awfully generous of you..."  Roland took stock of Shinji's attire which was a comfortable suit that was probably armored and then he saw it: the edge of a tattoo around his collar.  "Uh... are you..."  "Yakuza?  Yeah you bet I am."  "So that means..."  "You are in debt to the clan my friend.  Well technically you are in debt to me but I had to put my fingers on the line to get the higher ups to agree to let me take you in.  So I am definitely going to need to get you to pay me back."  "And how much is that going to be?"  "Fifty thousand"  "FIFTY THOUSAND?"  "Yup, it's going to be a lot of work to get our asses out of the fire on this."

TBC

[pringerbeam]

   Roland and Shinji were in backroom of one of the clan's many establishments.  "Alright Roland lets get started on some work."  Shinji walked over to a plasteel weapons crate and opened it up.  He pulled out a pistol.  "Definately going to need a gun.  Here, these things never sold and we don't really know what to do with them so we just use them as disposables when we need something to throw away."  He handed the gun to Roland.  "Uh... I don't know how to use this."  "Seriously?  Weren't you a smuggler?"  "Yeah but I never needed to shoot anyone.  I only had a gun to scare off punks." "Oooooookay...  Well hopefully you don't need to use it before you get a chance to practice up.  Well worst case scenario at least you can stick them with that spur in your arm."  "Spur?" With that idle thought a 30 cm blade came out of Roland's wrist and stuck itself into the back of the chair he was standing next to.  The gun he was holding fell to the ground as he dropped it.  "HOLY SHIT! Why didn't you mention that earlier?"  Roland gripped the back of the chair with his flesh hand and then jerked his arm free.  "I didn't?  Must have slipped my mind.  Ah, here we go."  Shinji grabbed a gym bag.  "OK so here you go, first job.  I need you to take this bag to its buyers.  It's already paid for so you just need to go to the drop point and give it to the buyer."  "Who is the buyer?"  Roland walked over to Shinji and opened up the bag revealing it to be full of plastic bags of small pale crystals.  "Damn that is a lot of... betameth?  How much is in here?" "The Cutters are the buyers and that is actually their standard order.  It's worth probably forty grand on the street.  Don't worry you will get a nice thousand for the trouble and two off your debt."  "What? But that's peanuts.  Standard courrier fee is ten percent."  "Well you aren't a standard courier."  Shinji pulled up an AR window with an address on it.  "So here is the drop point, you have to be there in three hours.  I need to go put in some hours at one of the clubs so just call me when you are done."  Roland zipped the bag back up and slung it over his shoulder.  "Uh going to need some wheels unless you think I should just go down to a drug deal on public transit."  Roland picked the gun off the floor and stuck it in his waistband.  "Hmm good point.  Uh... take mine.  I can get a ride from one of the other guys when they head to the club."  "Wow man, your car?  What is with you?"  "I have a lot of faith in you.  Besides, you haven't fucked up yet and I believe in first chances."  "What about second chances?"  "Oh well that depends on how many fingers you have left.  Oh sweet, new Raidens just got in.  Wish I had enough pull to get dibs on one of these puppies..."

[pringerbeam]

   Roland pulled up to the warehouse.  He was in a desolate place.  Only one of the warehouses in the neighborhood seemed to be used for anything.  Roland grabbed the gym bag and got out of the car.  He took a quick look around but there didn't seem to be anyone around.  He walked up to the warehouse that Shinji gave him an address to.  He banged on the old steel door.  "Hey special delivery!"  He didn't hear anything inside.  He pounded again on the door.  Still nothing.  He tried the door handle and it opened with ease.  "Guess I'm the first one here."  Roland walked into the warehouse.  There were no lights but it seemed plenty light as everything seemed to glow slightly.  "Huh, nifty.  Thanks Shinji."  He wandered around a pile of crates to see a dwarf sitting propped up in a folding chair apparently picking at his nails with a switchblade.  The dwarf looked up at him.  "You the delivery boy?"  Roland wandered closer and took a look at the dwarf's many tattoos.  Across the dwarf's left forearm was splashed a pair of crossed knives, the signature of the Cutters.  "Yeah that would be me.  Got your stuff right here."  He patted the bag.  "Alright my car is out back."  The dwarf got up but then stiffened up and tilted his head.  "You uh didn't come with an escort of bikers did you?"  "Huh?"  Roland craned his head as well and heard the roar of several motorcycles quickly growing louder.  "Shit it's gotta be the fucking treefuckers."  The dwarf pulled out a pistol.  "Shits going down.  I hope you came strapped."  Roland heard the door he came through slam open and four elves came bursting into the warehouse.  Their leather jackets bearing the acid green anarchy symbol of the Ancients.  "Shit RUN!"  The dwarf sprinted for a door on the opposite side of the  room from the elves, ducking behind the few piles of crates as he went.  Roland followed him but a gunshot rang out and clipped him in the right shoulder.  He was spun around by the heavy slug and fell to the ground.  He scrambled to his feet and ran as fast as he could to the door, no longer sure if it was the same door the cutter had ran for.  He busted through the door only to find a fire escape stairwell.  He ran to the fire door but the handle would not budge.  He slammed into the door with his shoulder but it still refused to move.  He heard the elves yelling something in the warehouse and turned to dash up the stairs.  He reached the end of the stairs and burst out through door at the top of the stairs onto the roof of the warehouse.  He paused to catch his breath.  He checked his shoulder for the bullet wound to find his shoulder dented but painless. As he paused though the door behind him slammed open and one of the elves, metal bat raised high, yelled as he charged Roland.  Roland raised his arms in defense and the metal bat rang out as it collided with his metal arm.  As the bat deflected off of his arm he lunged and tackled the elf and the two fell to the floor.  They struggled as the elf tried to scramble to grab his bat which had fallen to the ground a short distance away.  Roland gripped as hard as he could with his left hand while trying to bludgeon with his right all while trying to push the two of them away from the bat.  They continued for what felt like an eternity to Roland but eventually the elf was able to kick Roland square in the forehead and ran to his bat.  Knowing that he would not get the same stroke of luck that he did before Roland sprinted after him.  The elf swiftly picked up the bat and spun to find Roland once again leaping straight for him, this time though Roland lead with his fist and with it the spur released from its housing and plunged deep into the elf's chest.  Their momentum carried the two over the edge of the roof which was now quite a bit closer to the two than they realized.  They soared down into the alleyway and crashed into a dumpster.  Roland sat up wearily and tugged his spur out of the chest of the elf whose face was frozen in a horrified expression.  He crawled out of the dumpster but then reflexively dived into a pile of filth as he heard a nearby door crash open and  two of the other elves came ran out into the street ahead.