July 2, 2058

Calgary, Algonkian-Manitou Council

~~~

While Leon was having his time off, Sylvia Morrow was undergoing a regular ritual she did when she was alone. She was currently naked in front of a bathroom mirror, examining herself closely. Not for bruises or bug bites or anything, just looking at herself in the nude, and wondering what on earth Leon saw in her that others didn't.

Some people, Sylvia included, were bewildered by Leon having Sylvia as a girlfriend. Leon was among the best of the best as a shadowrunner, and with the nuyen he could command for runs, he could afford all sorts of hookers and virtual reality setups and anything he could want to sexually gratify himself. Yet he had fallen hard for Sylvia almost at first sight, and saw her as a goddess of beauty.

Sure, she was tall and athletic, and had striking purple eyes. But there were many other elves who were tall and athletic, and anyone could get cybereyes more enchanting than hers. Plus Sylvia had a somewhat flat chest (B-cup would be generous), slightly off-spaced facial features, ratty red hair that never styled well, and freckles. There were elves so beautiful in the world today that even the most raging anti-metahuman racist would acknowledge their attractiveness. Sylvia was not considered one of them by anyone else.

Yet, if she disguised herself as someone more attractive with illusion magic, Leon would notice, and just tell her she was beautiful the way she was. It was cringeworthy, but Leon believed it, and Leon loved her with such a passion that it couldn't be faked, not after several years of being in this weird relationship.

Sylvia's hand drifted between her legs, as it did sometimes when she thought about Leon. For all his faults and quirks, despite the fact it unnerved Sylvia that he could go from stone-cold killer to clingy wannabe casanova in an instant...... he was kinda good looking, and very muscular, due to all that working out and all that cyberware. And those forearms...... hnnnnnnnnggggh......

But Sylvia eventually snapped out of it, and went into the shower to wash up. Today was a working day, and it was time to get ready......

~~~

Sylvia and Brandon sat outside a dressing room deep in the cavernous Calgary Saddledome arena, armed to the teeth. Despite showing up for a vacation, Leon's diligent workaholic habits in the shadowrunning game had rubbed off on the two of them. They had tried to enjoy a normal vacation, and Sylvia had fun the first couple days, attending a couple Biker Combat games in the minor leagues of play. Brandon had caught up with old friends and seemed to enjoy himself, but both felt duty calling. They needed some work to fill the void, just like Leon did, and so they took a quick run tonight to help cover hotel expenses and food.

The run was a bodyguarding job. Sylvia and Brandon were protecting the dressing room of the latest hot solo act in the musical world: A beautiful Cree woman named Sherry Songbird. Songbird was doing a cross-Native American Nations tour, and Calgary was her latest stop, coming up north after a sellout streak in the Sioux Nation. With her relic of an acoustic guitar from the 1990s, her slow rock style, and a voice that could carry a passionate tune one minute and a sorrowful tune the next, she was a growing niche player in the modern era of hard, bass-pumping electronic or metal-based music.

But with Sherry's increasing success came the usual problems. Anti-AmerIndian racists hated her for being a self-made star. Psycho stalker fans loved her uncommon beauty a little too much. Several terrorist groups and corporations felt slighted by some of her more emotional songs. Threats were coming in, some with specific times and dates attached. One poorly thought-out attempt was made on her life last year, but luckily it was within the vicinity of three Sioux Wildcats Special Forces members. That would-be assassin died feeling a mixture of pain and really bad pain, but the next time Sherry might not be so lucky......

With Sherry not being a fan of corporate police forces like Long Arms, she turned to local shadowrunners in the cities she toured to run security for her concerts. Unlike a lot of musicians hiring shadowrunners for clout though, she was serious about protection. Sylvia and Brandon were working with four other Calgary runners, all of them armed for bear. Sylvia and Brandon worked the door to Sherry's dressing room, and did a solid job putting any riffraff through the full treatment before they entered.

As they watched the chaotic backstage activities with vigilance, a friendly face jandered up to them. He was a tough dwarven decker known as Boneyard, who was also working security for this event. Sylvia and Brandon knew him well, as they had worked several runs alongside him with Leon, managing to avoid any unpleasant disagreements. Unlike some deckers, Boneyard was a crack shot in good physical shape, and carried a massive assault rifle almost half his size that had murdered more than a few men. Naturally, Boneyard jumped at this security job, despite the lack of Matrix use involved.

Boneyard looked rather jovial and relaxed as he walked over to Sylvia and Brandon, and he had a pink envelope in his hand.

"We got a message for our client, just came in."

Brandon took the envelope by the corner, and checked it suspiciously.

"No letter bomb? No powder or anything?"

Boneyard laughed. "No, no powder, and if there is some small microscopic bomb there, it would be lucky to blow off a fingernail. Besides, the letter was given to me by some slim-jim with a staff badge."

Sylvia looked at the letter carefully and used a basic scanning spell, but found nothing wrong with it. Sylvia nodded her thanks at Boneyard as he walked off, taking the letter into Sherry's dressing room.

~~~

"I can't keep going on like this!!!"

Sherry Songbird was in hysterics in her dressing room. The contents of the envelope had proved to be pretty frightening, a sort of creepy, vaguely poetic love letter demanding that Sherry Songbird contact him to arrange a tryst, otherwise he would take her away so "no one else could have her". Of course, the real frightening thing was that this love letter author seemed to know the exact hotel and planned check-in time for Sherry's next tour stop in Edmonton, details that should not have been known to the average fan. The letter was signed by someone named Markus Mansen, and included a vidphone number to contact him with.

"You're absolutely sure no one else knew the hotel?"

"I hadn't even told the staff yet, I hadn't told my manager, I even registered for that hotel under a false name! How could this guy have known!?"

Sherry's manager, an affable, slightly overweight man named Harvey Lanicks, tried comforting his client. It was 2 hours to showtime, and she was a wreck. The threats had been coming in steady ever since her first big tour, and this one seemed really bad. Maybe it was a lucky guess, maybe the stalker was part of hotel staff, maybe it was something else, but this was a real problem.

"Look, calm down Sherry, we can fix this. I can contact the police, we'll get extra security in Edmonton-"

"Bad idea." piped up Brandon from the back. "Law enforcement in the Athabaskan Council is not good. Smugglers use their cities as pipelines right under their noses, and they're slow to respond to anything."

This was true, but there was something unsaid that was equally important: Sherry had sung several songs touching on policing controversies, and thus would be unlikely to get reliable help from Edmonton's finest, even if they were competent.

"We've gotta cancel the tour after tonight. I can't live like this......"

"You can't do that Sherry!" said her manager, with a hint of panic in his voice. "There's millions of nuyen at stake here! If you let these people control you now, they'll run your whole life!"

Sherry was shaking her head while crying. Her manager sighed and pressed on.

"Look, all the songs you've sung about perseverance, about people overcoming their difficulties, that all becomes worthless now if you fold to them! Every famous artist I've ever worked with has dealt with stalkers and crazy fans, it's part of the business. When they get threatening to someone's career, it gets taken care of! We will figure out a plan to deal with this guy. You have my word Sherry."

"But what do we do?" Sherry wailed.

"I'll handle it."

Sylvia piped up for the first time since the letter was delivered. She had been staring at the letter with a dangerous glint in her purple eyes for a few minutes now, and her voice carried a rare edge to it.

"How?"

"I'll talk to him politely and tell him to stop."

"......And if it doesn't work?"

"I'll make him."

"......How?"

"It's a trade secret. Don't worry, I can be very persuasive."

The air around Sylvia was crackling with magical energy, to the point where even non-mages could see some of the particles in the air. While Sylvia's attitude about murder was closer to a civilian's than a shadowrunner's, and while she could never understand how Brandon and Leon could kill a roomful of people, and then sit down and eat soup afterwards like nothing happened, she did have buttons that could be pressed, issues that could set her off.

Aspiring rapists were one of those hot-button issues. And this button was pressed.

"How much?"

"10,000 nuyen plus expenses. That's the going rate for...... business like this."

Harvey and Sherry could see the magic slowly stop radiating around Sylvia, but there was still a dangerous glint in her eyes. Neither felt like saying no to anything she asked for at the moment. Sherry was staring at Sylvia in a trance, with vague inspiration for a song forming in her head as she stared at Sylvia's purple eyes.

"......Also, that's on top of the bodyguarding fee for tonight."

"......10,000 it is......"

Sylvia smiled, and shook hands with Harvey. Sylvia had some vague plans formulated in her head already. Working with Leon over the past few years, she could sorta think like him too, and think about how she could use the means at hand to accomplish things in the shadows. If Brandon would help, and if Sylvia could get an illusion spell just right, they could trap this stalker.

......What's more, they could honey trap him......