As promised, here is my prologue. As mentioned, this might work into a novel, or it could just as well work into a short story. Basically it’s a piece of fan fiction and honestly I am not sure where it is going to go. The setting is certainly Shadowrun: Everett, Washington. Sit back and enjoy. And remember, if you like, hate, or feel somewhat indifferent about what you read here, be sure to say something. I welcome all comments, it can do nothing but help.
Shadowrun: Title to be determined
(btw, the graphics are not perfect, I know. Give me an artist with some time on his hands and it would be a lot more accurate. One thing at a time).
Prologue
Jack Sparks never imagined life to be quite like this. When he and his wife, Margie moved down from Canada and hoped to enlist in the UCAS Navy several years ago, he thought that the sky was the limit. A government job, a stable position, and benefits! Then they would be able to have a child, hopefully a son and live without the fear of not knowing where their next morsel was coming from. That was the plan. The problem was when he got there; the UCAS Navy ran him through a bunch of paperwork and then decided he was not fit to be part of the core. Instead, they stuck him down on the docks with a limited insurance plan, no pension and hardly any chance of a future. They swore that if he kept to his position that they would move him to the type of government job he always wanted. That was 3 and half years ago.
The City of Everett was not so bad though. It was one of the fastest growing places in the Seattle metropolis. The Naval yard had been there for over 50 years and showed no signs of going anywhere. Historically, it had always been a town that fed off of its naval affiliation with a combination of seedy clubs for the sailors and shopping malls for the wives and girlfriends who were brave enough to live in the same area. But over the last few years, things changed, the UCAS Navy started to allow mega-corporations and businesses to really populate the nearby area. With this change, it brought corruption and greed but it also brought opportunity and growth.
When Jack first got to Everett, he was considered small by the recruiters. At only five foot seven inches tall and maybe one hundred forty five pounds after a couple of soyburgers, he was hardly the muscle they needed. But Jack was incredibly smart and in the last three and half a years, he had packed onto his body the roughly thirty pounds of muscle he needed to be recognized by the top officers. Heck, he could be an officer with a little bit of luck and the right people to notice him. That’s what he kept telling himself and his wife too when she would listen. But even though his wife, Margie loved the water, she really missed Vancouver. Truth be told, so did Jack.
Jack especially missed his former home when he walked the docks on nights like this. The temperature had dipped into the low 40’s and the rain was misting on his steel gray overcoat. The coat as well as the hood was coated with a special residue that would repel anything but the harshest acidic rain. Thankfully, the rain was not particularly bad which allowed him to smell the rain and not wear some annoying chemsuit. He really loved the smell; there was a hint of sulfur but that was almost gone immediately and replaced with a bitter sweet smell. It was nothing like the Clarkias, a native wildflower named after Captain Clark of the famous Lewis and Clark in the 1800’s, but it was really close.
For living quarters, the UCAS Navy had stuck him and his wife in a gatehouse that was close to the naval yard. It was not middle class, but thankfully it was not the red light district of Casino Corner (not that either of them ever ventured that far into Everett). However, there were still one or two gangs sprinkled through this part of town. This became apparent last year when their house was robbed by a couple of young drug addicts looking for chips and nuyen. Eventually the pair was caught when they stumbled upon a dwelling with a rather unsavory character named Freddie Kashnikov. Russian mercenaries are not all that polite, especially on vacation. Hopefully this job on the docks would allow Jack to move in time. He could never hope to move to something like Beverly Park, but Nelson’s Corner might not be out of question.
The Canadian’s job at least was fairly simple. He would help out with warehousing, keep track of ships and boats that came in, and above all report anything at all that looked suspicious. In this day and age, suspicious was especially a broad term, but thankfully most of the corporations operated out of the main harbor and he only had to worry about armed forces traffic. If a corp ship did show up, which happened occasionally, he could just redirect them to the commercial port. Jack worked hard and even though he was mostly passive, he could throw around his newly muscled body around if he had to.
The fog was also particularly thick, coming in dense patches as the dock wanted to disappear under the sizable clouds. Jack tried to whistle but nothing came out as he parted his lips. His footsteps barely made a noise as he tried to remember the schedule of incoming ships. Well actually, there was not much to remember. There was one naval ship coming in at about 3:30am with a small platoon going on weekend shore leave. His watch blinked 2:29am, the dull rusted color Casio timepiece that his wife Margie had got for him several years ago still kept time perfectly. It actually synced up to a satellite in outer space every 24 hours but Jack often wondered if these adverse conditions could throw it off.
The dock wrapped around the water in a primarily U shape with a couple of planks jutting out in left and right directions for the smaller boats when they came in. The larger boats such as the upcoming naval one would land at the end where the deepest part of the water laid. Jack stood on one of the smaller planks and through the patch of fog could see a ship in the distance. It might be the naval ship; it was only a little bit early and would probably hit the dock in the next twenty minutes. Jack grabbed his binoculars off his belt and removed the cracked lens cap from the end as he held it to his eyes with no benefit. “Let’s wipe this sucker off, shall we?” Jack asked the open air as if expecting a response. But rather than grabbing a handkerchief from inside his overcoat, he merely touched a button and paused for a brief few seconds.
The binoculars cleaned themselves almost instantly and refocused to allow Jack to look out to sea. The Canadian found the ship again through the lens and then was able to zoom in to find an identifying symbol. The viewing device was exceptionally high powered, able to pick out details even in conditions and distances like these. Standard issue, military grade, got to love it. “There we go, we got a match”, as Jack looked down onto his readout to compare the two numbers. He started the walk towards the long pier, knowing that he had a little less time than usual to make sure things were in order to dock.
Jack picked up the pace and moved to the end of the dock. There was a family of ducks nesting in the shallow waters that required Jack to shoo them away quickly but carefully. Some sailor also decided to keep their fishing poles directly on the end of the pier; he was not sure what exactly they hoped to catch out here. Most of the fish in these waters was not even safe to eat and had to be treated with a special agent. But it was probably just for sport. There was also a large crate here that had to be moved, at least out of the way. On the side of the crate read, “Property of Schering Pharma AG”. Schering Pharma AG produced pharmaceuticals and were deep into viral and genetic research. Jack really was not sure what was inside the crate but doubted it was simple medication. He pushed the crate until he got it to its desired spot, at least for now.
All of this activity unfortunately took longer than desired and it was now five after three am. After all of this rush, one would have thought that the boat would be in plain sight. Well, as plain as could be given the conditions. The Canadian raised his binoculars again on instinct but the boat was nearly at the dock. “But there was nothing on the communications”, Jack thought. The boat lay in the water, probably five-ten minutes from the dock, but it was drifting with no push or pull to either side. Jack brought the binoculars to his face again, he could plainly see the boat without them but he was looking for one small detail, people.
The binoculars were now in infrared view, looking for any sense of a heat signature. It was probably not going to happen in this weather, but something just was not right. “Drek”, Jack muttered. There was nothing out there. However, there was something even worse than the possibility of there being no people on board. It was now really evident that the boat was not going to stop at the large pier that Jack had prepared only minutes ago. It actually was not going to stop at all.
At this point, the boat was moving towards a smaller pier on the side of the massive dock. Jack probably would not have to jump in the water at this point, but he would have to react quickly. But then he noticed something as the boat started to come in from the fog and directly into plain view, it was slowing down. It was not going fast at all to begin with, after all its only speed was a result of the water around it. But now there seemed to be pressure applied to slow down the water vehicle so that it could at least attempt to make a landing at the pier it was naturally inclined to reach.
In theory or from what Jack had learned in his few years here, the boat was still not going to come away from this landing intact. It was not going to crash per say, but it was sure the heck going to make a hard whack as it hit. The Canadian steadied himself as he would be certain to feel shockwaves despite his distance from the craft. As the boat attempted to slow that last bit, it hit the cleat on the dock squarely and went through the bow but only barely advancing beyond it. That was going to require some massive repair. Meanwhile, Jack despite bracing himself had found his body in the sitting position with his hands out to prevent a hard fall.
The boat was stopped, gently chucking in the water and no longer being damaged in anyway. Jack got up and started to call out to the boat as he ran towards the craft. “Can anybody hear me…Is anybody hurt…Are you okay?” Nothing, and Jack repeated the calls as he got closer. There was still nothing but silence. After three or four iterations of the same questions, he found himself at the bow with its body resting comfortably with the cleat quietly smacking against it from the waves. Jack looked around the boat for signs of life or at least a light or two and found nothing.
There was nothing but silence. At this point, Jack called out one more time. He was not expecting a response but perhaps movement, somewhere. The only thing he could really make out was that there was a rope ladder that had been laid out on the side of the boat. It looked incredibly ragged as if it had been out a long time. But thankfully, it was still climbable. Jack was not sure that he wanted to climb the vessel but he did not see any way around it to find out what was going on.
Jack moved to the side of the pier where the rope ladder stood. It looked firmly fastened to the hull and all it would probably require is a good foothold in order to make it to the top. There was little fear of landing in the water but regardless he did not want to miss and waste time. Jack counted to three and jumped for the ladder. He grasped it easily in his hands but did not compensate for the fact that the rope was extremely slimy and moist to the touch. His hands slid down a rung or so before Jack was able to apply enough pressure to steady him. After that, it was simply a matter of getting himself in the boat.
The size nine and a half steel toed dark blue boots of the Navy pier-man landed on the deck and made a hard sound as if they were the only thing making noise within a 5 mile radius. Jack looked around closer and everything seemed to be in place minus the shift from the impact the vessel had made only minutes earlier. He made the move to starboard or the right side of the ship and continued to inspect various pieces of debris. Parts of a sail (mostly kept for decoration and hardly used) were strung about but only held damage in simple wear and tear. The ship’s movement had slowed considerably by this time and Jack could move around more easily. Satisfied but still on edge, Jack moved towards the stern.
At the back of the boat, Jack found more of the same. There were more pieces of debris, mostly from the jostling impact of the watercraft hitting the cleat on the dock. But the boat was fairly clean on the deck and there were no bodies, alive or otherwise that he could find traces of. Unfortunately, Jack got the sense that the place he really needed to go was underneath the deck and into the sailor’s quarters or electronics room. He soon located the hatch close to where he started and lifted up the cover. The darkness was thick and one could hardly make out even the rungs to climb down. Luckily, Jack had a pair of night-vision glasses in his pants pocket that he often used for typical nights at the dock when he could not use his binoculars. This was certainly anything but typical.
The pier-man started his descent down the long rung of steps towards the floor of the boat. He had enough light now to make the proper footing but he was still concerned that he was going to find himself slipping at some point. All of the sudden the boat made a large crashing sound behind him as he swung his head around to look into the darkness. A faint flash of light at the opposite end of the corridor faded in and out with no further movement. Jack started to hurry down the steps to get to the bottom and three steps from the floor, his foot crunched on something significant which made him loose his footing and his night vision glasses. Luckily, his body only had to go so far, but his legs needed more area to brace the impact. As Jack’s legs hanged in the bottom rung of the ladder with the rest of his torso seated on the floor, he fumbled around for his special glasses. He found the glasses quickly, they were relatively undamaged and thankfully still useable. But Jack also found right next to the glasses what made him trip in the first place. It was a human hand.
The hand was no longer attached to the body or arm that once claimed it. In fact, there was no body at all; just a hand that appeared bluish and heavily wrinkled like it had been sitting there for days waiting to be noticed. Jack picked up the hand carefully and examined it further. What was even more curious was that the hand didn’t appear to be ripped off (by cybernetic strength) or sliced off (by some street samurai). The wound where it would be attached was completely cauterized. It was not like it was burned, but rather sealed off from the inside. It could be confused as a prop had it not felt completely lifelike in every fiber of its being.
Jack was completely absorbed in the hand when he suddenly realized that he was forgetting why he was down in the hatch to begin with. He placed the hand on a nearby trunk, noting the location for further investigation and started to walk down the corridor. The walls echoed heavily here and even though he attempted to be quiet, it was in complete futility. The glasses were working pretty well and while he was not able to see full color, he could see enough distinct hues to make out the various passageways as he traveled down them. He made his way to the electronics room. Jack really was not all that technological savvy, only being taught enough by the UCAS Navy to make use of his personal gadgets needed for his vocation. The Vancouver native looked at the room as a socialite female would look under the hood of a Ferrari 770 Spider.
After giving it the once-over and little more, he proceeded down the corridor again and quickly found the mess hall which was given away by its foul odor as soon as he shoved open the double doors. A mess of trays littered the hall with half-eaten soy products and had a stench reminiscent of a Stuffer Shack that had forgotten to pay its light bill. Jack tried his best to make it through the half a dozen assorted rows only to find the same continuing trend, no people alive or dead. The kitchen behind the mess hall was more of the same minus the half-eaten plates. There was evidence of use, but very little else, except maybe a few containers where it appeared that food was being prepared.
After about twenty minutes of scrounging through the appliances and various electronics, Jack’s search had come up empty once again. He re-circled his steps back to the main corridor and closed the double doors. The smell was mostly gone or perhaps Jack had gotten used to it but he continued down the hall. He looked briefly down at his watch, 4:47, it was almost 5 and the regular morning crew would be here soon. “Maybe I should just head back on up and let the morning crew clean this up. Drek, I am going to have to do a ton of paperwork too.” Jack thought. He also did not want to be late for Margie’s breakfast which was always something special. That’s when he heard a faint noise ahead of him that sounded like it came from the naval soldier’s quarters. The sound had the distinct qualities of a baby crying.
It made no sense and Jack stopped. A minute passed when the crying came again, this time slightly louder. Jack could not resist the temptation and took steps towards the back part of the boat. As he got closer, the cries became more frequent and Jack’s legs sped up. He reached the door to the quarters and went to turn the handle when he was alarmed when he saw that the door’s handle was covered in green sticky ectoplasm. The sound of the baby crying reached a fevered pitch. Jack’s alarms turned into deadly fear as he realized the screams were not attached to a baby at all. Instead, the sound was coming from a seven foot tall mass who walked in front of the glass ahead of him. It was covered in the same ectoplasm found on the door handle from head to toe and made a sloshing sound as it walked. It wailed as the being moved, looking for something in the quarters.
Jack watched intently, his fear had paralyzed him and he was unable to move. That is when the large mass sensing a sentient being turned towards his fresh prey. Jack’s face turned a pale white as the view of the seven foot monster took shape. His body was the same ectoplasm he had seen before, but his face was completely human. What was even more horrifying was that the face started to change right before his eyes. The face changed shape as lips grew, a nose became more enhanced and even the eyes changed color from black to hazel. Before Jack knew it, the face had turned into his own. Jack was looking at himself in the face, except it wasn’t him. It was a monster.
Suddenly as soon as the monster’s eyes met his, Jack’s head became cloudy. Green pillowing smoke emitted from underneath the door and started to envelope the navy pier-man. Thoughts of his job, his house, and his wife all swirled in Jack’s head as he tried to keep consciousness. The ectoplasmic creature walked up to the door and started to turn the handle. His face, now taking on the full transformation of Jack’s, curved into a thin smile. Jack started to put up his hands to defend himself but the efforts were futile as Jack slowly descended into darkness.
-end of prologue-
Let me know what you kids think, I hope at the very least that it was an enjoyable way to spend fifteen minutes. Take care and hopefully much more later.
