Clusterfrag

Doc frowns,

"Not sure I like it either, but we can do this. We'll get in through the underground access, and be in and out. There'll be security inside, but I'd imagine the bulk of it is arrayed in an outer shell around the research quarter. If we can bypass that, we might have an easier time of things," he says. He opens the rear of the rover, and grabs his pack. Palming the dragonfly drone, he tosses it into a nearby potted plant.

"Lets go find our point of entry," he says, sliding into the rover.

Max nods,

"Good call. After that we can hammer out our plan, gear up, and get to it."

The arcology's influence spreads in half a kilometer radius around the structure. Only at the far end of this zone do industrial buildings begin popping up. Doc takes the first exit after the arcology and drives along a service road, past long disused electrical transformers, warehouses and junkyards.

As the rover throttles forward, Max suggests to the team,

"Alright, the most likely place for us to find underground access will be adjacent to industrial zones. Keep your eyes peeled for manufacturing."

The elf is smoking a cigarette and thinking about how he needs to cut down.

After several minutes of driving, the Rover rolls past a rusted, hole-ridden billboard advertising Bonjour Frog's movie. The colors have lost their luster and even the perpetually happy Japanese cartoon character looks faded and forgotten. At the foot of the billboard is a power sub-station bunker. A municipal notice marked CONDEMNED is posted on the door.

Doc brings the rover to a halt.

"You mean like that?" He asks Max, looking at the substation.

Max nods,

"Looks like our victim."

Max gets out of the rover and takes a big breath of the heavy-smelling air that lingers in industrial zones. The elf approaches the door to the condemned station without much hesitation. Turning back to the team, Max asks,

"Remember playing in places like this when you were a kid?"

Max tries the door.

Doc stands against the wall, adjacent to the door. He knows it's just a condemned building in an industrial zone, but part of him expects all hell to break loose when the door opens.

Sinjin stands casually, thumbs hooked to his belt as he looks up and down the road for on-lookers.

"Hell, I remember sleeping in places like that as a kid."

Tyros gets out of the rover, sliding his backsheathed claymore into place under his greatcoat. "This looks like it should have tunnel access, but I bet we will run into at least one welded gate. Does anyone have metal eating acid or a welding torch? If not, I guess we'll just have to improvise."

Making a few intricate motions (centering), Tyros brings his battle magic to bear on the laws of physics around his body (improved reflexes, f4; invis, f4; deflection, f4; all through the appropriate sustaining foci).

The door opens with some effort, producing a noise like a box of rusty nails being rolled down a flight of metal stairs. The stench of mildew and stale air hits Max like a sucker punch, temporarily flirting with his gag reflex. Inside is darkness and a rickety utility ladder dropping into a narrow maintenance shaft. Someone has carved a message on the concrete wall, just above the opening.

bad things live in the dark

Max jerks his thumb toward the message and jokes,

"Just the kind of welcome I'm getting used to in this line of work."

The elf proceeds forward, his shotgun drawn and occasionally fanning the air in front of him to try to diffuse the stench.

Doc readies his rifle, and switches on his low-light and thermal vision.

With a slightly uneasy grin, all but invisible in the dark, he says, "yeah, they're talking about us."

Max and Doc drop the last couple of meters, boots squelching in the grime that coats the bottom of the tunnel. If they were ever in service, it was decades ago. Old plumbing emerges from the walls like skeletal fingers plunging from hallowed earth, headed nowhere in particular. The power conduit bolted to the ceiling has been split and gutted. Gathering their bearings, the pair figure the most intuitive route towards the arcology's sub-foundation.

Max steps lightly through the passage which seems damp and confined. The elf isn't looking forward to the inevitable shots fired in this tiny space-- tight quarters leave lots of room for mistakes.

Val treads slowly behind Max and Doc with his rifle, suppressor attached, at ready-low. The eyes under his sweat-beaded brow scan the darkness around him, their various enhancements doing little to lessen the constricting sensation which the closeness of the walls imposes upon him. He shakes his head silently in the blackness.

You just had to go and mention the tunnels. Great idea. Nice going, 'mano.

The slightly scraping sound that the team's boots makes on the damp concrete floor of the tunnel seems deafening to Max as he leads the way into the dark unknown. 'First in, first shot,' Max thinks to the thrumming of the blood in his skull. The elf concludes his though, '... Or stabbed, or bludgeoned, or blown up...' His lowlight eyes show the tunnel in dim relief, making Max all the more apt to startle himself with his own imagination. He can't help but return to the message-- warning-- scrawled at the entry to this underground. "Bad things live in the dark," Max whispers to himself. The utterance startles him, and he secures Marlowe against his shoulder as he presses on into oblivion.

The team reaches a four way tunnel-junction which serves as a make-shift oasis in the darkness. In the center, a single shaft of daylight ascends about 10 meters up to a grating, presumably on street level. The dull rumble of a vehicle emanates downward, prompting a flurry of dust motes in the golden beam.

A flash of movement catches the team's eye in one of the tunnels ahead, followed by a sort of inhuman hooting sound.

Max drops to a knee and aims Marlowe's mouth toward the hooting sound, readying himself to blow a leaden kiss to what or whomever comes his way.

The eerie humanoid sound stirs the most basic and ancient instincts from deep within Sinjin's genetic lineage. His skin tightens involuntarily as his hair stands on end. The world slows fractionally as his pulse quickens; the drips, knocks, and scuffles reverberate more clearly in the narrow tunnel as his brain hyper-focuses his body's fight-or-flight senses. Sinjin draws a grip of throwing knives, taking comfort in their tactile reminder of his own lethality.

"I don't think I like whatever the frag that was...."

Another hoot echoes within the junction, this time coming from a different tunnel. The scrape of rapidly moving feet follows closely.

Sinjin's head swivels as more sounds emanate from another direction.

"Form up, back to back. Buggers have us surrounded."

Max pivots on his knee and aims down one of the tunnels from which a portion of the hoots seem to emanate, forming one side of a deadly pentagon which ably accepts all comers.

Doc steps just outside the shaft of light, so as not to be blinded. His thermal and low-light rob the dark of its shrouding abilities, as he sweeps his vision across the tunnels.

"You think you're the scary monsters slinking through the dark?" He mumbles at the disembodied sounds.

"That's because you haven't met us, motherfraggers."

((Can I get the rolls for my 3 spells?))

Tyros unsheathes his claymore, thermo graphic vision scanning the darkness.

(Roll para zoology to see if I recognize the sounds).

The hooting continues, but this time, from multiple sources and from every direction.
The sound is not reminiscent of any critter that Tyros has studied.

Doc checks that the fire selector is set to a three round burst, and braces the stock against his shoulder.

Max remembers his new feature and flips Marlowe to burst fire mode.

A figure appears in Doc's sights momentarily. The IR signature looks human but the sunlight behind him distorts the low-light. It begins moving toward him, down the tunnel. Not quite charging, but moving pretty fast.

"Stop right where you are!" Doc shouts, finger moving to the trigger.

The figure continues to move forward.
Doc squints, still unable to make out what exactly the figure is. Whatever it is, it can't be much larger than a meter in height.

"Frag!" Doc hisses.

His finger completes it journey, and he fires a burst down the tunnel.

The reverberations of Doc's battle rifle daze the team members. A waft of smoke drifts off the barrel and intermingles with the shaft of light behind them. Doc's finger strays out of the trigger guard.

A young child, probably only six or seven, staggers forward into the light. His clothes are ragged and filthy, and his skin is unusually pale. He's clutching a large bullet wound on his stomach and his eyes are wide and frightened. He takes a few tentative steps and then collapses in front of Doc.

Doc's stomach leaps into his throat. "Drek!" He shouts, letting the rifle fall to his side, as he digs for a medkit.

"Frag, kid, why didn't you stop?" He asks, setting to work on the wound. Shame burns in his cheeks.

What the frag did I just do?

A woman in a tattered and grimy jumpsuit rushes from the darkness of the tunnels to grasp at the child, completely undaunted by the dangerous posse of shadowrunners with their guns drawn. She cries out in a language that none of the team recognize and begins sobbing into the little boy's shirt.
Doc's trembling fingers press down on several arteries at once, attempting to staunch the blood flow. The world melts away as his patient becomes the only thing in existence, his every conscious thought focused--laser-like--on saving the child's life.