Announcing Shadowrun: Off Beat!
My first Shadowrun novella is releasing this Friday! It’s the first in a series of four, and channels powerful, chaotic found family energy, rock and roll style. It’s the first Shadowrun story to be set in Ottawa, too, and I can’t begin to tell you how much fun I had!
You don’t need to be familiar with the setting to enjoy this story, so read what it’s about, leap into chapter 1, and make this glitter bomb’s day by ordering your copy today.
ALWAYS READY TO ROCK…AND RUN!
It was supposed to be a Top Drek gig like any other: Play some tunes, have a fight, get wasted. How was I supposed to know the guy I cracked in two over a table was some corp bigwig? Like, not our usual crowd, y’know? (And look, I may be a bass player named Twinkle Toes, but I’m also a tall, red-skinned ork with a love for shouting, so there’s not way he didn’t see me coming.)
So the corp gave us a choice: Do a job for them, or die. How the frag can I say no? I got my bandmates to look out for, including my adopted daughter (and amazing singer), Ametheest, her maybe-lover Silver, my best mate, Bleeding Blossom, and our loser keyboardist, Lance.
But our spotlight is growing, dispelling the shadows we desperately need to hide in. Rock and roll might not jive with the corps…and Ottawa’s gonna get caught in the crossfire.
In the end, only one question remains for all of us, chummer: You gonna be SINless…or soulless?
Chapter 1
Ametheest’s head tipped back, practically swallowing her dark purple mic as she hollered into it. Silver’s tall and thin frame folded as she strummed dazzlingly fast chords, Blossom’s “Drum Crack”—her drums’ crackling holo effects—shining blue against the silver guitar. Lance jumped up and down impressively high for his dwarven frame, fingers dancing on the blue bolt keyboard strapped in front of him.
Me? I maintained that steady, background heartbeat on my bass. A great gig, until that suit-wearing idiot at a table near the floor space the black-walled dive bar had cleared for our instruments—a.k.a. the stage, I guess—hollered something rather insulting to Ametheest (pronounced “Amethyst.” Look chummer, spellin’ ain’t my thing, okay?).
I glared at him, Lance’s bobbing form hiding some of my withering stare. I was tall, being ork and all, plus I was red-skinned, so damn hard to ignore. But I was the bass player. Nobody ever fraggin’ paid attention to the bass player.
Eyes that see all but me,
Well I ain’t blind, and you I see.
He kept hollering, probably drunk, definitely stupid, making little sense. First, she was elven, even if her puffed up purple hair hid her ears, you could cut glass with those cheeks. Second, she wouldn’t be interested in anything he had to offer, because she liked girls, and anyway, I doubted he could follow through on his boast. Third, no one could bend that way.
He kept ignoring my glares, chugging amber liquid from a glass that looked like it’d never been washed. Then he hollered again, even louder, and I figured: let’s see if he can bend that way.
Lance jumped up again and I threw myself under him (he was really good at jumping), and almost cleared him before he landed partly on my back, flying backward into Blossom’s drums. Silver shifted sideways without missing a beat, Ametheest’s voice hurling those lyrics out like a battle cry.
“Our love ain’t a song, it ain’t a legend,
“It’s a grainy trid, sound all broken,
“Don’t care, frag that, blurry’s fine by me,
“My fight ain’t for hearts, it’s for anarchy…”
I threw myself into the idiot’s midsection, pushing him over the dirty, scarred, black table as it (perhaps unexpectedly, definitely unfortunately) tipped back.
Well, look at that. Turned out he could bend that way.
Well, mostly, before the cracking I felt through his bones.
Frag.
He slumped to the ground and gurgled something, which I couldn’t hear over Ametheest and Silver’s music, but I could see it on his face, eyes rolling back. Ah well. That’s rock and roll for you.
“You were right about the bending, mate.”
You don’t see me, I see you,
Ain’t gonna go great for you.
Strong arms pulled me up, not in a friendly way. Looked like drooling suit boy had friends.
The drums stopped and I grinned, spitting in the second idiot’s face even as the first punch landed on my gut. He scowled, leaned back for a stronger punch, but Bleeding Blossom picked him up over her shoulders, like a sack of potatoes, and threw him, hard, toward the wood-paneled bar.
She laughed—a delightful, almost whimsical sound—then threw her drumsticks sideways into his other friend’s face. Lance unleashed four taser darts from the side of his keyboard (which shot out like blue bolts, of course—blue lightning, like on his keyboard, his clothing, and his beard—Lance had a dumb name and no freaking imagination), and took out two other dolts sitting at a table.
Why? Because they were there, and it was time to punch people, rock-and-roll style!
Rachèle, our faithful roadie who never seemed to question her life choices, even though she probably should have, grabbed a guy by the neck and kneed him in the small of the back, smashing him down. Human, but cyber-enhanced for more than just being a rigger. She liked to throw a punch, too.
Patrons where either leaving or joining the fray. The whole place reeked even more of stale alcohol and shower-adverse patrons, and I hooted and breathed it in.
We were the best fraggin’ gig in town right now, Ametheest and Silver picking up the beat, as we ended the last few remaining patrons. The bar boss—Slammer, or something like that—left through the back door.
Smart man. I punched some dull-looking dude just for sitting there, and leaned over the bar and grabbed a few bottles, didn’t care what kind.
Blossom was now making out with a human with skinny legs. He looked intrigued and out of breath. She was a lot to keep up with, not that I knew from experience. Booze was a demanding enough mistress for me.
“He’s too chicken-legged for you,” I said, and offered her a bottle of dark brew with a slapped-on, crooked label that read Maudite-Galerie. She shrugged, threw the guy behind the bar and sucked down half the booze. That girl could swig back like nobody else, even giving other trolls a run for their money. I’d never managed to match her drink for drink, but I certainly was willing to lose trying.
“Someone called security on us!” Rachèle appeared, dark braids still kempt but face looking a bit darker on her already dark left cheek. “We need to split.”
She motioned to the two still performing members of the band—no PANs on stage, only music. And brawling, I suppose. Ametheest and Silver stopped, with style, closing the song halfway through in perfect unison. Frag, we were a good band, though.
Bit rowdy, sure—I grinned as I looked at the destroyed bar—but fraggin’ good.
“Who the drek calls security in this part of town?” I grumbled, helping Blossom gather her drums as Lance picked up pieces of his smashed keyboard. I glanced around, having no clue where the hell my bass had vanished.
When did I last see it...oh, right. I spotted it, broken, under the first guy, who still gurgled.
Ah well. I had another one on the bus.
Sirens. Really?
“Fraggin’ boring losers,” Blossom mumbled, not even swaying despite the whole rather large bottle she’d just chugged. Even she’d feel that soon, though, and I didn’t want to haul her to the bus (again). My back would be as bad as “mister holler” laying in a heap over there.
“Let’s go,” Rachèle said as Silver helped Ametheest step gingerly off the stage, sweat lining both their faces. They’d spent as much energy as we had, but they’d actually done the job we’d been hired to do. Silver’s short hair dripped with sweat, a slight flush on her pale skin as she took the elf’s darker hand.
“Those two should just shag and get it over with,” Blossom mumbled as she stumbled by, another bottle in one hand, large drum over her other shoulder. That swaying would only get worse.
“Time to go,” I agreed with Rachèle, and we all stumbled out, laughing, hollering, and getting into the bus as the sirens grew louder.
Rachèle jumped behind the wheel and pulled us out of the alley we’d parked in, removing all security measures and heading down the small road. Okay, technically it was a pedestrian mall, but whatever, people could move pretty quick when an old, modified, rusty school bus defaced with the words “Top Drek” hurtled toward them.
Once on the actual road, Rachèle drove us away from the gig, the bar, the fight, and the incoming security, not even bothering with GridGuide because she liked driving old school (unless the situation called for it, and a few sirens didn’t exactly worry her). The rest of us? Well, Lance hadn’t found all his keyboard bits, but he’d found some half-empty booze bottles, hot but drinkable.
“This time, I beat you,” I slurred to Blossom, who grinned. Lance laughed and was asleep within a minute. It took two bottles before her victory was well and truly secured, and within another five minutes, I was puking my guts out in our small and not-so-clean toilet.
Again.
Life ain’t a journey, it’s a broken highway,
Go slow, go fast, you’re dead anyway…
Before I passed out, I leaned back on the bathroom wall, grinning. Bit of music, bit of fighting, lots of mayhem...tonight couldn’t have been better.
This is the life.
So much more chaos coming….order Shadowrun: Off Beat today!
