DECKING AROUND
Ghostly images dance in the light of the flickering bulb as it fights between life and death. The rustling of a unseen rodent through the pile of papers and garbage in one corner is the only sound other than soft breathing.
Twenty three and fourth fifths of an inch wide.
The rat squeals for some unseen reason as it scampers unbothered about the room, all but unaware of the bright yellow eyes watching it from atop an empty bookcase. Whiskers twitch as the cat patiently waits for its prey to make that one fatal appearance.
Two and a half inches thick.
The cold from the alleyway beyond the window has long ago seeped into the rundown single room apartment. Frost covers what little glass is left in the window, and the errant breezes stir the line of cigarette smoke from a half forgotten Marb. The cats tail twitches.
Nine inches exactly from the bottow to the top.
The cats eyes shift momentarily to the man dressed in black sitting at a makeshift desk. The human moves no more than to breathe silent shallow breaths. He seems all but asleep except for his open eyes.
One hundred twenty four keys of dense black plastic reflect back brightly from their use shined surfaces. Two hands rest lightly on it at rest seeming to have been there almost indefinitely and with no sign of moving in sight.
Click sounds out a key from the board as the man moves for the first time in nearly an hour. The cat leaps from its perch and drops like a whisper to the pile of old newspapers and fliers mounded high in one corner. The unseen mouse squeals as the monster cat lands on it from seemingly nowhere.
Silence.
A single drop of sweat rolls from the slightly receding hairline of the Caucasian sitting at his make shift table. The drop slowly descends his slightly wrinkled brow towards his temple. It catches on the base housing of a computer jack and trickles down the cord to it’s lowest hanging point before continuing on to the floor.
The dying bulb finally succumbs to the temptations of peace and the room is plunged into a semidarkness that is only broken by the shifting light of many neon bulbs flashing in the city beyond his room. He blinks into the darkness unseeing. The hunting cat shuffles silently across the room and out through an ungrated ventilation duct in the floor in search of prey elsewhere.
The humans face breaks into a large grin and his hands suddenly come alive with a vengence as he begins to type furiously on his keyboard. His fingers flying across the one hundred and twenty four keys. For twenty seconds the room is filled with the click and clack of keys being hit with a familiar firmness by eight friendly fingers and two thumbs.
Silence.
A moment of stillness passes then the man’s hand lifts to the jack sticking slightly out from his temple and pulls the long probe from its datajack in his skull. His eyes glitter with delight for an unknown reason as he pulls a heavy nylon bag from a pocket and slips his keyboard into it. He tosses the strap over his head and across one shoulder that sets his precious cyberdeck sitting diagonal across his chest.
Checking that the katana hilt at his waist is unhindered he pushes the two magnetic strips that serve as a single button to hold his long coat closed and heads from the room.
The hallway outside is lit by a single halogen far down the hall towards the front doors, so Bear turns towards the rear of the building and heads for the antiquated fire escape. Down in the alley as he turns down a connecting passage he hears the sounds of screeching tires and boot feet. In his mind he can almost smell the scent of gun oil from god knows what kind of automatic machine guns.
Cosmo, a small gnome from somewhere in the Emerald Isles of Ireland, sits behind his antique oak desk and stares at his computer screen as lines and lines of code and data scroll up it. His black top hat sits off to one corner on a carved wooden likeness of his own head. Virgin white ruffles sneak out past the v neck of his silk vest as he reviews the information given him.
“Well, laddie, looks like you went through a bit o’ trouble to get your wee hands on this.”
“Some,” the figure sitting in a corner chair says as he sips at the cognac poured for him when he had entered.
Cosmo looks across the room at the white painted mask that serves as his associates face in all their business meetings. The carving is a simple one. Its lines and curves seem to find the middle ground of a merging between man and Ursus maritimus, the white polar bear of the arctic.
The young man’s clothes are plain to the point that he could be lost in a crowd even as you watched him. His unadorned dark gray slacks and tight white t shirt are covered by an ankle length navy blue long coat of finely woven thin wool. His boots are polished to the point of newness but without a single reflection of light.
“So what do you think you got here anyways, my young bear?”
The man known on the world encompassing network of computers known as the Matrix as the arctic beast named Polar sits unmoving for a moment before speaking. As he opens his mouth he leans forward causing the heavily wrinkled leather of his chair to creak softly.
“What you have there is the incomplete list of addys to any number of profitable grids. Not to mention a list of backdoor passwords put on those grids by yours truly. Also any number of basic override codes for the Tacoma delivery service. With that you could have Ares Macrotechnology’s newest inventory on your doorstep and they’d think it was all a shipping error.” Cosmo blinks as the mask shifts on the youngs mans face slightly as he smiles.
“Incomplete tho.”
“No. Only your copy, Cosmo. You don’t want the rest I’ll fence it somewhere else.”
Thus starts the age old process of offer and counter offer that burns in the blood of a salesman of any kind, be he legal or illegal. Cosmo knows that should he save a single percent of the value he’d make thousands, but he’d rather keep more than one point. Polar knows that the wrinkly old gnome can sell the data for a lot more than he could and twice as fast at least. End the end Polar walks away with a few thousand Nuyen on his credstick and Cosmo is calling all of his wealthier contacts to find the highest bidder.
The General Motors Bulldog van rumbles to life after a fast thumbprint scan and a turn of the key. A navy blue long coat is tossed across the cab to the passenger seat quickly followed by an ivory mask carved in the likeness of a polar bear as the hand of a young man shifts the car into drive and heads off into the Seattle night to find more relaxing forms of entertainment.
A few blocks into his drive he pulls to a halt at a red light and his mind wanders as he waits. A practice that could be deadlier than Russian roulette in certain areas of the metroplex, this being one of him.
A knock on his driver side window brings him from his reverie and he finds himself staring into the faces of two trolls. Each wears the ragtag ensemble of stolen clothes patched up with whatever garbage would hold them together. The larger of the two, an ugly brute with a broken horn and rotting tusks, hefts a wooden cudgel rapped in razor wire.
Simple being his best be Berenger Gaston rolls down his window with his left arm and aims his trusty Ares Alpha assault rifle out of the window and pulls the trigger letting out two staccato bursts of rounds. The light turns green as the two low life gangers find somewhere more pressing to be.
“I do so love the city,” Berenger chuckles to himself in total honesty as he restarts his interrupted trip.
MELTED WAX WINGS
Ickarus Descending is one of the top clubs in the metroplex, and one of the many local spots that will never turn up on the tourist pamplets that litter the streets and dance about on errant breezes. The large troll sporting more chrome than natural skin is a statement that unwanted patrons will find another place to go whether they want to or not.
Berenger straightens his tie and smoothes the lapels of his jacket as he steps from his small Windspire 311 onto the sidewalk in front of Ickarus Descending. He smiles at the familiar face of Tank, the troll bouncer who gaurds the simple velvet rope that holds the many posers and wannabe’s of the upper upper class at bay.
“Eenen, Mistuh Gassin.” The troll says around his large chrome covered tusks.
“Evenin, Tank.” Berenger says as the bouncer pulls back the red velvet to allow him access to the front door. A soft grumble sounds from the crowd stuck standing outside.
Through the first door nothing changes as Berenger proceeds down a short hallway towards an apparent dead end. At the end of the hall he stops in a half circular recess and waits. In seconds a set of probes extend and scan the human for any concealed firearms. A soft buzz sounds and the recess rotates exposing Berenger to the loud techno beat of the club inside.
He smiles at the familiar scene of adrenalin and drug induced happiness of the club and heads to a simple table far back in a corner. His eyes drift from face to face as he moves through the crowd, his wandering cyber eyes adjusting silently to give him perfect vision in the darkened club even through his heavy reflective sunglasses.
“Who wants to party!!!!!!!” the d.j. shouts as he lowers the music. The dancer floor answers back in unintelligible howls and screams. “I can’t hear you!!!!!” the very noise this time is nearly deafening, then the music is raised and the people on the dance floor once again start their body grinding routines.
my first decker (SR3)
well, don't put your boy's pc into a game as an npc and expect it to go unmentioned. specially into the intro for a character into your game. but sense you want to be so sensitive about it i'll remove it. so you can go back to your tea party happy now. 
There are those of us that dance on IC and prosper. Then there are all others. Can you stand the chill?????