Chummer, not Choom 4 (Shadowrun/Cyberpunk Multicross, OC-SI, Chaos Gacha) (Patreon)

When Jack was told that Rebecca had someone in mind to teach him how to fight properly in close quarters combat, he was overjoyed. So far, the man had managed to handle himself in fights mostly through the sheer lethality that the kagune he wielded possessed. That wasn't an given forever, though.

Especially not against people who'd be trained killers, with actual trigger discipline. Or who knew how to fight in close quarters with hundreds of hours of training and exercise. Jack understood implicitly that he wasn't going to close in the distance between himself and those duelists of legend or beat some random adept kensei he ran into.

"Dorio's part of my brother's crew," she explained, as the two of them made their way to a gym some days after their first real successful job. "She's good people. Knows how to handle her ware', too."

"So she's cybered up?"

"A bit. Maine even more so."

He nodded, remembering the name. "That's the leader of that crew, right?"

"Yeah. He'll probably be there, pumping iron. Or, well, whatever cybered-up dudes do in the gym."

When they finally arrived at their destination, the gym itself wasn't all that much from the outside. Inside, though, Jack was wondering if he was about to get a complex or something. His body was in pretty good shape, all things considered. Tall, with toned abdominals and solid muscle across the board. But it was all natural.

The gym itself was filled with people who'd obviously been, perhaps, taking muscle toner or had muscle replacement ware' installed inside of them. He was, by comparison, much smaller. Small enough that all he could do was feel a little self-conscious as he glanced around.

"… I dunno if I exactly fit in with this crowd, Becca."

Rebecca scoffed at him, shooting him a sidelong look. "Don't be a bitch. How do you think I feel around these goddamn hulks?" She had a point there, and he pushed down whatever feelings he had on the matter as they stepped deeper inside of the gym.

It wasn't just exercise machines, though. There were sparring mats where people were actually in the middle of powerful combat sessions. The kind that made him wince, and feel a little trepidation for his very squishy, incredibly fleshy body.

"They know I don't have any augmentations, right?" He asked, shooting her a worried look.

"Of course. Probably. I think I told them that, at some point."

She was not inspiring him with great confidence, as the two of them came up to one of the mats. There, he got a good glimpse at Dorio with his actual eyes, and not just image-linked photos that Rebecca had shared with him on his new teachers.

For someone who was pretty obviously cybered up, she still looked proportional to how a woman would look. Mostly. If they had as much muscle as someone like Dorio was supposed to have, anyway. It wasn't particularly his type, all laden with muscle, both real and sculpted, but he could see why someone would go for it. Blonde, with short hair, she had the build of someone who was applying a lot of effort to their build.

She was in the middle of a bout with a man who he also recognized, given that the dude was a hulking behemoth of cyberware.

In Shadowrun, it was always interesting to see how much of a person you could shave down while also leaving something behind. A fun thought experiment, as you saw what quality of cyberware you'd need, while not going below zero essence. Jack didn't know everything Maine had, but just looking at him…

Someone could make the incredibly educated guess that he was riding the line between sense and senselessness on that spectrum. Adding in the fact that cyberpsychosis did in fact exist, it made the danger far more serious. Cyberware quite literally tugged at the connection between your body and soul, destroying it in the process.

Use too much, and you ran the risk of losing yourself entirely. 

Not that it seemed to stop him from boxing the blonde happily, but a smile on someone that augmented could mean a lot of different things. He'd try to give Maine the benefit of the doubt.

For now.

Watching them fight, though, was like watching two feral beasts go at it. Dorio had the superior technique, as she bobbed and weaved, but Maine was just flat out stronger than her. Tougher, able to take blows and dole them out in equal measure. Not that it was enough to break their tie, though, as they stopped when both of them noticed Rebecca and Jack approaching.

"Yo!" The short girl greeted, all smiles. "Who's winning?"

"Me," Maine immediately said, only to be met by a scoff by the blonde.

"In your dreams," she shot back, rolling her eyes at his antics, before turning to glance over at Jack. "This your boy toy?"

Just the barest hint of a flush went across Rebecca's face, but not much of one. "He's not my input," she bluntly stated. "We're just friends."

"Yeah, I remember being just friends with this lunkhead," Dorio said, smirking all the while. "It was a good time."

Like the gracious teammate he was, he chose to try and save his friend. "Listen, I'm sure we can cut through all the teasing and get to business."

"Oh?" Maine's chest rumbled out as the massive man peered down at Jack. "Gonna show us what you've got?"

"Naturally," Jack agreed, trying to project as much confidence as he could. "If nothing else, I've got oodles of confidence in myself."

"We'll see," Dorio shrugged. "You can run off, Rebecca. We'll be putting this kid through his paces."

The short girl gave him a singular, meaningfully pitying look before making herself scarce as the two taller figures advanced on him.

It turned out that Jack did not have much. At all.

He wasn't out of shape, at least in terms of his cardio, but it was at a very basic level. Limited as he was to his bare hands, with none of his abilities in play, things got…rough. Quite quickly, as he was finding himself effectively dismantled by Dorio without much in the way of trouble for the woman.

She wasn't even malicious about it. However, she was very, very good at what she did, calling out his mistakes as the days turned into weeks in no time at all. Working on ingraining that fighting instinct that so far, Jack had barely possessed. It wasn't easy, but at least it was more constructive than sparring with Maine.

With the bigger man, it was like you were fighting an avalanche. There wasn't anything he could do, short of pulling out his [Ukaku]. So that meant he just had to endure, taking the hits, or dodging them entirely, especially since Maine struggled to pull his punches.

Nor was it just straight out sparring, though. Dorio had expected some reticence to cyberware being the 'mage' that he was. So she naturally sat down and created a workout plan for him.

Sprints, running, burpees, push-ups, anything to build muscle. And he did, while also despising each and every moment of it. But eventually, one day, all of this did end up paying off as it culminated in a new set of rolls showing up once he'd beaten another of the newbie gym members in a basic match.

-LEARN HOW TO THROW A PUNCH-

You no longer have a glass jaw. Congratulations for meeting the bare minimum level of combat capability for your average street rat.

Rolling 1x Bronze Skill Gacha Ticket…

[Aura Farming]

|Uncommon Skill|

You are skilled at presenting yourself in ways that are ""cool"" and ""badass"". You have a unique for spotting instances and timings to ""farm aura"", interjecting at just the perfect moment, making a dramatic entrance, and standing on top of a ledge with your back turned as your cape flutters majestically, producing a crisp dap. You are also skilled at not seeming ""uncool"" such as avoiding tripping and stuttering. If you mess up, you will have a better time at recovering to not lose your ""Aura"".

-WIN A SPARRING MATCH-

Beating someone even shittier than you isn't a very glorious way to begin your rise. But everyone's gotta start somewhere.

Rolling 1x Bronze Ability Gacha Ticket…

[Sprout]

|Common Ability|

You are able to communicate with and control plants in your range to a minor degree. You can order plants to start growing faster and imbue them with your energy to make them grow even faster. You can also change their general shape slightly.

The skill wasn't as uniform as the others he'd received so far. It wasn't so much the knowledge of how to do something, like sing or draw, but closer to a kind of instinct that was ingrained into him. Some preternatural push in the back of his mind, on how to act at the right moment.

When he took a tumble to the ground, now it was more graceful, more elegant, as he rolled to his feet like in an action movie. Entering into a room, there was a swagger to him that made him almost always find the most picturesque angle to let the lighting hit him from. He wasn't more charismatic, but he did automatically just appear to be cooler.

Which, honestly, probably made Dorio and Maine take more of a liking to him, if he was being honest. It just made him always make a better first entrance and impression across the board, too, considering the interactions he'd had with some other people.

[Sprout], meanwhile, was an ability of profoundly dubious use when it came to how often he'd get to use it in the Seattle sprawl. But it was another tool to add to his toolkit. So he couldn't be that upset about it, ultimately speaking.

"I'm confident you won't disgrace yourself in a fight anymore," Dorio admitted, shooting him a smile after the end of the training session. "At least, not anymore than any other mage I've met who wasn't an Adept."

He was sweaty, panting, and still managing to somehow make it look downright scenic. [Aura Farming] was such unmitigated bullshit, Jack didn't know what to say about it other than he felt like a guy in an action flick.

Maine, meanwhile, had his arms crossed and gave a grunt of assent at Dorio's approval. He wasn't quite entirely warmed up across the board to Jack, but he seemed content enough. "You can take a hit, too. Those wings of yours are tough."

Tougher than Maine knew, seeing as in their sparring bouts when Jack had dared to use them, he always held back. It wouldn't do to slice through his friend's brother's crew or let people know how tough they were in general. Holding a few aces in reserve was just good practice in general, as they’d let him know.

"Honestly, I wouldn't know jack and shit if it wasn't for you guys," he smiled, shooting them grateful looks. "Thank you."

"S'all good," Dorio shrugged. "Rebecca's like a little sister to me. Wouldn't want her main squeeze to get all messed up."

Jack did his best not to flush at the presumption, because he wasn't a goddamn child. It still made him a little squirmy inside, though. "We're not together like that."

"You ain't let her climb you like a tree yet?" Maine teased, shooting a grin his way. "I'm sure she'd be all for it if you asked."

The dirty blonde was a grown man(probably) and didn't need to take this slander. "Okay, thanks for the session," he grunted, rolling his aching shoulders. "I'll see you guys later."

He left quickly, leaving their teasing claims and cries behind him, as he headed out into the city streets once more. Though outside of training and getting the stuffing beaten out of him, Jack and Rebecca had been actually engaging in Shadowruns to build up some funds.

Of course, while most people didn't end up specializing, Jack and Rebecca did end up making a name for themselves in a specific kind of work…

The Sixth World was a fairly awful place.

It wasn't wrong to say that much if they were being honest with themselves. Corporations held immense amounts of power and prestige, at times overwhelming that of traditional nation-states. Or in some areas of the world, like Aztlan, objectively being interchangeable with the government in the case of Aztechnology.

That was before you got into the minor and large crises that currently were sweeping across the globe. Ecological collapse and populations of dangerous mutants that threatened people in all sorts of areas. Ethnostates, like the Tir Na Nog and Tir Tairngire, were for Elves first and foremost, with most other peoples being an afterthought.

An apocalyptic redux of the Fourth World's strife with the Horrors, on the distant horizon. Insect spirits and Shedim as the prelude to such eldritch entities, ready and willing to corrupt and pervert metahuman society. Hell, when you got past all of the metaphysical threats, just plain human instinct and greed might be enough to make it singularly horrific on it's own merits.

When it came to the sort of person who wanted to not be someone else adding to the pile of awfulness that made up society, you really had to be built different in every way that mattered. Someone with a faint nugget of goodness inside of them and a sense of community with their fellow man. Jack hadn't thought of himself as someone with that kind of dysfunction in himself.

Apparently, though, there was a reason why he and Rebecca got along. Despite their complete and utter willingness to drop into violence at the slightest real need, they also had a pair of matched, bleeding hearts. It'd probably get them killed one day… but not that day.

There were plenty of people who needed the assistance of a Shadowrunner. Or at least someone competent enough with magic, guns, or technology, to help them out of a bind. While not all of them might have had the money to pay, they did have other means of paying it back.

Sometimes there'd be free meals, discounts, and word of mouth passing along more opportunities for him and Rebecca to get involved with. Payment in goods and services, which was nice when he needed guns cleaned or a false SIN established, after he'd helped some Decker's family clear up issues with a gang that'd be menacing them. A million little things, and only a few of them actually ended up being all that really profitable. Or even worth the name of a Shadowrun.

As far as chances to get their names out there, any publicity was good publicity.

Of course, every so often, someone could get lucky. They could head out on the right shadowrun, at the right place, and meet a choom that would make it all worthwhile.

Which was how they ended up meeting Panam Palmer.

For the job in question, Jack and Rebecca were being tasked with serving as hired guns. This wasn't that unusual, seeing as there were a myriad of dangers that came with even well-meaning Hooder runs. Corporate-pushed strongmen, gangers, and sometimes even the wildlife of the Seattle sprawl itself.

The memory of the first Devil Rat he'd seen and promptly killed brought a shudder to Jack's body. Given that they could grow up to a goddamn meter in length, including the tail, the one he'd slain wasn't that big. It was still big enough to make some dogs look small and far more aggressive than anything that size had a right being.

Regardless, the job they'd been hired for was protecting a medicine shipment with the driver who was being tasked out for it. Given that neither Jack or Rebecca had wheels, playing second fiddle stung a little, but both merely figured it'd be a reminder to eventually get wheels.

While the job should have been a milk run, moving fresh blood, insulin, and other needed materials from one point to another, that was a surefire way to jinx things. If he'd learned anything since entering the Sixth World, it was that few situations proved as simple as they seemed on the surface. Mostly because clients had a tendency to withhold things from Shadowrunners.

Sometimes it was for a perfectly good reason. While the drugs they were told about weren't that valuable, Jack wouldn't have been surprised if there were more costly things stowed in that they weren't being informed of. Remedies and concoctions derived from Awakened plants and animals, for example.

Runners were not saints. They were, definitionally, freelance operatives hired usually for illegal activities. Waving any real payday in front of them had a tendency to make them start acting a little quirky.

Whatever the real package was, they ended up meeting with their ride in the parking lot of the distribution center. Jack, looking a specific kind of out of place and ready for action. Rebecca, armed, small, and exceedingly dangerous.

And one woman sitting on the hood of her car, waiting for them to approach.

The best way he could describe her was ethnically ambiguous. With dusky skin and features that weren't quite anything he could pinpoint with ease, she continued the strange trend of women in cyberpunk settings wearing leotards. Actually, wait, Jack actually really liked the look, so what was he complaining about?

Continue on giving the hint of exposed hips, ladies. Men like him would continue to look respectfully.

"You two the hired guns riding along with me?" She asked.

"Yep!" Jack confirmed. "That's us."

"Good," the woman nodded. "The name's Panam. But y'all can call me Outrider, if you need a Runner handle."

He nodded. "Wojtek."

Rebecca frowned. "Uh. Just call me Becca. Haven't come up with a handle yet."

"After you hounded me for one, too…"

"Shut it!"

There was an amused glint in her eyes as she watched the two of them banter with each other. It was a bit of bickering that they'd fallen into out of habit, rather than any real hostility.

"Ready to ride out?" Panam asked, interrupting their little back and forth. "Actually, what can you both do?"

"I can send bullets in a general direction," Jack explained. "Shooting isn't really my forte, rather than Becca's."

Becca beamed at the praise, which had the benefit of being categorically correct. Jack was scarier up close and personal, but his weird, wing-protrusions weren't that useful unless he was in the bed of a truck. In a vehicle, her own marksmanship skills would end up being more useful.

"Naturally I’m the better shot. I’ve seen you at the range.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You can’t hit the broadside of a barn!”

Which… wasn’t untrue. Jack had a very basic understanding of firearms and knew enough not to shoot himself with the pistol he had. That didn’t mean he was the type of person who could pull off the shots that Becca could. Each of them had different strengths, which was why they worked well to shore up those weaknesses.

Either way, the two of them were heading into the car at that moment, Rebecca into the passenger side, and Jack settling his bulk into the rear of the car, seated behind Rebecca. “Should be a simple convoy job.”

“Isn’t that what everyone says?" Jack asked, glancing up at Panam in the rearview window.

“Yeah. Which means I fully expect things to get pear-shaped. Hope you two can pull your weight.”

“We’re not just all bluster,” he assured her. “Just drive, and let us handle the rest.”

She didn’t respond as she started up her car. A big, heavy, Thornton Mackinaw, popular with nomads, or anyone that had to go off-road a lot. There were a lot of modifications that had been made to it, though, and his familiarity with most vehicles in this new, mixed age he’d entered left a lot to be desired.

Still, she seemed to know what she was doing at least when it came to the actual driving, as they headed out onto the road. From Renton to Redmond, the route wasn’t going to take them, ideally, all that long. Nor was he thinking that there’d be actual danger from the information of whatever they were carrying getting leaked.

The roads weren’t the safe, secure, normal highways and streets of the past, though. Go-Gangs, youths, and criminals on anything that could weave through the congested roads of Seattle and beyond. A lesson that they were about to discover firsthand, when the first bikes began to roar with high-pitched whines through traffic.

If he had to describe the riders, they were in rough biking leathers, with black and red coloring that seemed nigh-universal amongst them. All human or orc-sized, and with a conspicuous lack of helmets. They were riding their crotch rockets without a care, though he did notice the weapons that were holstered on many of them.

That, and a large, very worrisome van trailing after them. He’d noticed it, with the same paranoid, hyper-focus that he’d been bringing to these jobs so far. Most of the things that had come up didn’t actually bear an ounce of worry, admittedly. It wasn’t that uncommon to find people armed in a sprawl. Apparently in Aztlan, you could open-carry a shotgun without a permit required at all. Mostly because the cops always rolled around with body armor and heavier weapons, but still.

This convoy seemed to be the exception to the norm, though. Especially as they began to draw weapons.

“WE’VE GOT COMPANY!” Rebecca yelled as one bike tried to cut in front of Panam’s truck, the rider wielding a pistol of their own and trying to aim it behind them.

They never got the chance to take a shot. Not when the Nomad slammed her foot on the gas, the roar of the engine presaging the forward burst in speed as they slammed straight into the biker. Whoever it was, they barely got a moment to try and react as Panam’s truck rammed them.

Keeping control of a bike could be a finicky thing, especially with the speeds that they were cruising at. Doing so when there was a big, heavy vehicle hitting you at the same time…? It was impossible, basically, and they ended up veering off to the side, crashing in a sprawl of limbs, steel, and carbon fiber.

Jack was already turning his attention from them to the others that were doing the very same thing to the first biker. On instinct, his [Ukaku] sprung forth, sliding out of the cuts that he’d made his clothing with ease. Red, crystalline wings crowded the back of the truck even further, but that was fine. Even better when bullets threatened to break the windows, slamming against the rear of the vehicle.

“Goddamnit!” Panam snarled, teeth grit as she swerved wildly to dodge the bullets, still jacked into the vehicle from her port. “I just replaced the paint!”

Jack didn’t need to tell Becca to start firing. She already had enough sense to do that much, practically hanging halfway out of the truck as she did so, one of her M-76e Omahas firing while she used the other to keep herself stable. If nothing else, she was a much better shot than her partner was.

He’d mostly been training himself physically, but she’d sprung for being a better markswoman. It showed in how the crack of her pistol came right before one of the four remaining bikers found themselves getting riddled with bullets. A spray of blood and an alarmed expression were all they got after destabilizing, swerving off, and crashing behind them.

The dirty-blonde man didn’t trust his own capacity with a gun. He did trust his ability to shoot his 'feathers,' though, a little more. Leaning his bulk out much like her, one of his oddly fluid wings whipped out to immediately block the retaliatory burst of bullets that should have riddled his torso. Instead, they flattened against the crystalline surface, falling uselessly after.

God, did he love having kagune. They’d saved his life no small number of times by this point, and chances were they’d continue to do so.

Whatever cyclist had thought to take out one of the Shadowrunners in their way got a very unfortunate surprise, as a rain of red feathers ripped through the air. Whatever [Tepes] had done to him, some of it came in the form of making his feathers hit faster and further than ever before. Made evident when someone promptly found themselves ripped apart by the hail of his wings, going down onto the road.

All the while, Panam was doing her best evasive maneuvers that she could. It would have turned his guts if he’d bothered to eat anything. Jack had learned his lesson about going on potentially messy jobs with a full stomach. With the kind of experience that only came from an experienced driver, deeply connected with their rig, Panam was bringing them through cars and any obstacles in their way.

Though, it wasn’t enough, even as they removed the other cyclists from harassing them. Not when he spotted the long barrel of what appeared to be an assault cannon beginning to stick out from the van trailing them. That was a weapon more appropriately used to dismantle engine blocks and borgs, and frankly, he wasn’t in a rush to see what it did to Panam’s rig.

“... Oh fuck,” Jack breathed out. “Move, move, move!”

“What?” Panam asked before her expression flinched. “Those maniacs are using one of those in public?!”

“Gangers are idiots! News at eleven!” Becca shouted back, eyebrows furrowing together as she tried to think. It was a cute expression, not that Jack could take the time to appreciate it in that moment. “What do we do, what have I got…”

As the world felt like it was moving in slow motion, an idea struck Jack. Not a very good one, mind you, but he felt like it’d work. It’d require a lot of things going just right, but he’d always been a gambling man.

There were many, many dumb things that people could say about what he was about to do. How unwise it was, how profoundly stupid it was to leap from a moving car. One thing that nobody would ever tell Jack, though, was that he didn't look cool doing it.

[Aura Farmer] ensured that much.

So what if he couldn't reach these assholes with the current range of his [Ukaku]? That just meant he had to close the distance between them.

“What are you doing?” Panam asked, something hectic and alarmed in her voice as she spun the wheel, turning on a dime. “Why are you opening the door?”

“I’m taking care of our problem!” Jack exclaimed, feeling a singularly feral delight rise up in him. Something wild and untamed, violent and dangerous. “Don’t go too far, now!”

“Jack!” “Wojetk!” Panam and Becca yelled in tandem with one another.

Neither of them was enough to stop him as he leapt from the truck and tried to focus on using his ‘wings’ for landing on the ground. He barely managed it, skidding a few feet while rolling to his feet, a massive vehicle barreling down toward him at sixty, seventy miles an hour. The gangers inside likely see him as an insane, maddened Shadowrunner, overestimating himself.

Maybe he was. That much Jack wouldn’t deny if someone put the question to him. But he’d shoot back that in this line of work, you had to be a little crazy to make it. Besides… What sort of Edgerunner, Shadowrunner, Solo, Samurai, or whatever you wanted to call him, didn’t do their best to push the boundaries every now and then?

“If I die doing this,” Jack huffed. “I’m gonna look so stupid.”

The truck came toward him. Closer, closer, inching, almost there… and then his [Ukaku] moved. They could block bullets, cut through steel, and move with the speed of a whip. So when he would have rightfully been smashed flat, they carved a singular continuous cutting motion right down the center of the truck, as his eyes were alight with something feverish in that moment.

Metal, carbon fiber, oil, blood, a few limbs, and more went flying. But he didn't; he stood his ground, even as the two halves of the truck continued on, momentum ensuring that they couldn’t stop their flight. On either side of him, they crashed, gangers in awe well before they hit buildings, or dumpers, bodies flying in shock, from the sheer insanity of the gambit.

And Jack couldn’t stop smiling.

[Tepes] awoke something inside of him. A brutal aspect that seemed… fit for the level of mayhem that he could inflict these days. Yet at the same time, he didn’t think he minded that much. That didn’t stop his hands from shaking at the very near-death experience he’d just had.

Turning around, though, he began to jog back to Panam’s truck, a smile on his face. Climbing back inside, he was treated to the sight of their absolutely gobsmacked faces. Panam’s mostly confused, as if she couldn’t understand what she’d just seen. And in the case of Becca, one of begrudging shock and wonder.

“Awakened are such bullshit,” Becca groaned, looking quietly angry.

“It’s not my fault I’m built different,” Jack grinned. “Now hit the gas. I don’t want to have to answer any questions if the cops show up.”

There weren’t any complaints there, especially as the rest of the job was blissfully hazard-free. Whether their opposition, crude and brutish as they were, just decided not to send anyone else after them, or they’d just taken out anyone who could possibly be interested, who could say? What was nice, however, was the payment that came from a completed run, and the boost to their rep.

The three of them stood outside of the clinic, Panam resting her hindquarters against the front of her truck. While Becca and Jack tried not to look too proud at their modest payouts, they failed immediately.

“Shots are on me tonight, baby!” Becca beamed.

“Kind of expensive,” Jack grumbled.

“You’re such a goddamn curmudgeon! Literal old man methodology.”

He scowled down at her. “Better an old man than a goddamn runt that’s awful with money.”

“Come down here and say it to my face, fuckin’ stupidly tall bastard…”

Panam couldn’t help but laugh as she tucked away her own credstick after confirming the nuyen present. “You two are crazy, you guys know that, right?”

“Crazy good, or crazy bad?” Jack asked, shooting her a crooked, toothy grin.

“A little bit of both,” the Nomad admitted. “But maybe that’s what you need to make it in this business. Just being a little nuts.”

“The crazy ones are always the most fun,” Becca smiled.

“Certainly the most entertaining,” Panam said, rolling her eyes at the two of them. “And you’re good at your job, which is more than I can say about most of the runners I’ve dealt with.”

The dirty-blonde man glanced away, kicking away a broken piece of concrete at his feet. “Aw shucks, Panam. You’re gonna make me blush.”

She snorted. “I wouldn’t mind working with you two again if you were down for it.”

“Just name a time and a place,” Becca assured her, with her most winsome smile. “We’re good for it.”

“It’s not every day you meet a kickass Rigger,” Jack added. “We’d have to be a special kind of stupid to burn that bridge.”

Panam gave them a smile back, and it was the kind of warm, open thing that made people sit up and take notice. “I’ll hold you to that then. Who can I send my number…?”

“Me,” Becca stated. “This gonk obviously doesn’t have any ‘ware, and barely has a decent commlink.”

“It’s called being frugal! I’m generationally poor, genetically poverty-stricken. You know this!” Jack exclaimed.

The two women could only roll their eyes at his antics as they traded numbers and contact information. Before long she was driving off, leaving the two of them alone. Though not for long, as something came to mind for the taller of the two.

“Becca.”

“Yeah, Jack?”

“We probably should have asked her for a ride back home.”

“... SHIT!”

Author's Notes

Why is this here? Because I ran Chummer, Not Choom, and needed to clean up the posts, and post them. Everything else that people expect like ASO or GTG is still on the docket for the week. Just consider this a delightful extra for your trouble. This story will not be exposed to QQ probably until I've hit WELL over the normal amount of chapters, just so I can have a nice backlog to steadily post from, since I post the quest so irregularly. Comeback Kid is being ran this weekend.