Kenji Okamura and Julian Smith - Monday, July 16th, 2074 - Seattle Metroplex, Downtown, Elliot's French Cuisine

"So yeah, I did some shadowrunning," admitted Kenji. "I figure I’d be up front about it since you asked. If I’m made I’m made. Delvers are a different breed of runner though. We don’t need to be as secretive about what we do since we work almost exclusively in the Delve."

"The Delve," said Julian, obviously humoring Kenji.

"Yeah, a delver," said Kenji, "I do guide work through the ACHE sub-basement. Nothing to thumb your nose at. It's a living, and living is better than dying. It seems like everyone wants to pick up scraps from uncle Deus' nightmare basement."

The ACHE was the name for the old Renraku arcology, which was one of the world’s largest megacorps. Nowadays the old arcology, which at one point had been the Japanese corporation’s headquarters in the UCAS was now a gigantic housing project full of one-hundred and fifty-thousand of the metroplex’s poorest people. However that number varied depending on how many people had starved to death that month and how many people the cops shoved inside, rinse and repeat.

The ACHE was just too useful and too expensive to tear down despite what had happened there. Instead they packed people in. What turned it into a housing project from a high rise corporate arcology was the fact that something had hijacked it. That something had been named Deus, a killer AI that had shut the place up for years and during that time it had experimented on all of its trapped residents. Deus had killed almost everyone inside and was gone now, but if you knew where to look you could find the remnants of those experiments. The sub-basement where much of that had taken place was called the Delve and Kenji was one of its "tour guides", called a delver.

A few years after Deus had left it had been seized by the UCAS government. Few of the original one-hundred-thousand people that had been trapped inside had survived long enough to walk out. Normally there wouldn’t have been that many people, but the first few floors had once been a mall. Christmas shoppers had been shut away along with those who lived and worked in the old archology.

However, Julian didn’t seem to take Kenji too seriously about his claim that he was a shadowrunner. He was only fifteen after all. Shadowrunners were deniable mercenaries that the corporations, governments and individuals with the right amount of money would hire to do illegal and deniable jobs. Shadowrunners worked for no one but themselves and were by their very nature expendable. Delvers on the other hand had a reputation for going down into the Delve, at least for those few who knew about delvers or the Delve at all. They were specialists and while he’d heard that the work was extremely dangerous, it wasn't exactly illegal. This was due in large part that there was no police force in the ACHE. Police that tried to enter the ACHE tended not to ever come out again.

As a precaution, Kenji had been thoroughly medically, psychologically, magically and legally screened and he’d come up clean. Now that he’d been cleared it was time for the meet and greet.

“At the risk of sounding petulant,” whispered Julian, “What is this? Shadowrun babies?”

“Yeah, you totally sound petulant,” retorted Kenji.

“Then I’m in good company,” Julian replied.

Kenji drank his soykaf with one hand and made a fencer’s salute with the index finger of his free hand.

They were at Elliot’s, a French restaurant that specialized in soy cuisine with a bias against normal humans. Not because they were humans, but because normal humans just weren’t atypical enough. If they put in the effort to distinguish themselves they’d be welcomed with open arms.

As a shaman, Julian could get away with bucking the system at Elliot's as he wore his best dumpy teacher's attire, a bit anachronistic with a tweed jacket, grey polo shirt and brown slacks and a "funny" tie sporting a cartoon character from three decaes ago. On the other hand, Kenji was dressed for the occasion, looking ghetto fabulous. His clothing and masculine jewelry were just tasteless enough to blend into the ACHE for those fortunate few who had money and the ability to defend it while also being tasteful enough to be admitted into Elliot's. It was a fine balance and he managed to strike it.

Both were elves, but both were quite different. While Julian could pass for human, Kenji couldn't. Even the starkness of the normally guant populace of the ACHE couldn't explain those high cheekbones as anything other than elven. Kenji and Julian's hair was similar at least as Kenji's hair was long and black while Julian's was blond and Kenji's eyes were a light brown compared to Julian's light blue.

Kenji had more in the way of muscle in comparison to Julian's average build and while Julian was handsome, Kenji could be called beautiful with fine features like his Cupid's bow lips, piercing eyes, pointed chin and dimples when he smiled. His looks, while striking and natural, didn't stand out too much in Seattle where attractiveness could be bought. If anything distinguished his looks, it's that his face didn't have that "off the rack" look of someone who'd reshaped their features in a cyberware or bioware clinic that was so popular these days.

However, what defined him most, and actually anyone from the ACHE who managed to make it past the security fence was the stench of burnt trash. It was hard to scrub away the smell that clung to its residents days, weeks or even months after they'd left. Those from the ACHE had that distinctive smell of "everyone's cooking, but on fire". Kenji had done his best with soap, water, shampoo, heavy cologne and more than one chem shower, but the smell still clung to him, though barely.

“So you’re trying to recruit me for this school of yours. That’s interesting," said Kenji, his tone businesslike. "This isn’t the first time I’ve been scouted, but it is the first time I’ve been scouted by a school.”

Julian smiled knowingly.

“Though I have to be up front and say that the pay sucks,” Kenji continued, "At least compared to what I'm used to billing for my time."

“Well, there's something to be said about stability," said Julian, "The food is high quality, your lodgings would be paid for and since it is an elite school you could make some connections that would serve you well. Also while I will say that while the pay isn’t the greatest, meaning non-existent, that education of this caliber is rarely free. Education like this makes you worth more. It opens doors and gives you options. As I understand it, while you are good at what you do, it’s niche and dangerous. It’s not going to last forever. I'm told that the Delve is eventually going to run dry.”

Kenji shrugged in response.

“Maybe, probably,” Kenji agreed, “It’s sort of like a gold rush. And yeah, it super niche, but lucrative if you know your way around, and I do know my way around. It’s been my stomping grounds since I was a kid."

Julian shuddered visibly. The ACHE had been seen such suffering and death that it polluted the astral plane, which was the realm of magic that many awakened could see and interact with. Julian had once assensed a meat packing plant for all of two seconds before fleeing back to his body on instinct and vomiting. That had just been from the suffering, fear and death of animals. The suffering of people was far worse and it was far more concentrated there. All of those people dying, being experimented on and trapped, honestly it was the perfect camouflage for Kenji. Magical talent could be recognized out in the normal world if one could see into the astral, but opening ones' senses to the astral either through the right mix of magical talent or through drugs was impossible in the ACHE without going passing out or going insane from the pain. So Julian hadn't found Kenji via the normal methods. Instead Kenji had been recommended. Kenji knew people. He knew people who knew people who knew Julian.

"I know that shudder,” said Kenji, “All you magic types wonder how an awakened can live in the ACHE."

Julian nodded begrudingly.

"Well like I tell everyone," said Kenji "We adepts are blind to the astral unless we work at it. I didn’t."

"I'm aware of that," said Julian, "But some still feel it."

Kenji shrugged.

"Not everyone does. You acclimate. Or I guess you don't," said Kenji, dismissively, "I rarely ventured out of the arcology and it wasn’t until a few months ago that I even knew I was awakened. I took the test and passed with flying colors even though I don't go to school, but honestly it didn’t change much. I am what I am. You know that adepts don’t need years of learning magic like magicians."

The awakened were divided into different specialties as not everyone could do everything. While magicians could cast spells, create alchemical compounds and summon spirits, most adepts used magic that effected the body. It wasn't a hard and fast rule. Magic was messy and there were plenty of exceptions. However, the rule of thumb for training time was that magicians learned magic slowly and refined their talents over time, adepts learned magic quickly but they needed a long time to practice and perfect their body magic.

"You don't need a lot of time to learn something new once you see it, true," said Julian, "But we teach about all of the known versions of adept magic, so you can take your time in deciding what you want to do. There's also the problem of learning certain kinds of adept magic without someone to show you how your body works."

Kenji tilted his head and thrust up his chin in a "go on" gesture.

"We had someone who perfected their balance last semester," supplied Julian, "Too perfectly in fact. They forgot how to fall."

"Doesn't sound like a problem."

"It is if you think about it," said Julian, "Sitting or laying down is functionally highly controlled falling for a very short distance. In her case, her balance was so perfect that she couldn't sit in a chair or lay down in bed. The best she could do was something akin to climbing them. After a week of physical therapy she could sit or lay down with the best of them, but for adepts learning powers on their own, it can take weeks or months to acclimate, if ever. Some people don't learn how to control their bodies at all and it can cause pain or damage."

"Huh," said Kenji.

He leaned back in his chair and seemed to chew on the thought.

"Had a little problem with my voice when I started using it," said Kenji, "I have a command power, but when I started out, anything that sounded like a command used my magic whether I wanted to or not. Had people doing things they didn't want to do and then I'd get yelled at, even though they didn't know why. Rubbed people the wrong way. It's how I got made as an awakened too. Took me a good long while to figure out what was happening to me. More to fix it. Awakened that work in the ACHE are rare."

"Which we could help you with at the school," said Julian, "Sure, you can learn powers quickly, but mastery is another thing. Also, we would give you time to think about what you really wanted to do with your powers. Once you choose, you're stuck with your powers."

"Time, huh?"

"Yes, Kenji. We can offer time. Four years at school to be exact. And of course, with your talent, we could push you further than you could get at any other school. You may have been courted by other schools."

"Mhm."

"Military I take it?" asked Julian, "Corporate security?

"Might be," said Kenji, neutrally, "They want to get 'em young so they can find fingers for all those triggers they have lying around."

Julian's face darkened.

"But if I wanted to do that, I could just stay in the ACHE and join a gang," said Kenji, "And before you ask, no, I don't want to. Gangs, military, corporate security, that's a life that'll chew me up. I'm looking for something more peaceful."

"That's good to hear," said Julian, "I'm glad that you're not just here for the food."

Kenji smiled at the small joke.

"Not just," said Kenji, "But I am letting you know that I have been offered prospects that to another person would look pretty damn good, but I know what I'm worth. I don't want to get out of the ACHE. I want to thrive when I do. For you, long term investment, long term payoff."

"You're forgetting the meal," joked Julian.

"Elliot's does do soy right," agreed Kenji.

A waiter sauntered up to the table, dressed so smartly that he made both Kenji and Julian look bad. These days, the service industry had been gutted by robotic drone labor. So to actually spend money on wait staff was a mark of distinction for a business because it showed that they had money to burn. Not that people working these jobs generally made a decent living. Also the wait staff existed because it was more satisfying for a certain kind of customer to yell at or creep on or generally lord over a real person instead of a serving drone.

The waiter looked dubiously at the two for a brief instant. One looked like a frumpy teacher and one looked like hoodlum who smelled bad. He plastered on his best fake smile and wondered just who had let them in.

“Gentlemen,” he said, smoothly. “Have you decided what to order?”

Julian, who'd specifically requested an actual, physical menu had started from the top left of the menu, looking at the cheapest items first and then moved his way down before arriving at his selection a few minutes ago, though he picked it back up to remind himself of what he wanted. Kenji on the other hand had started at the bottom right with the most expensive selections first. He viewed his menu in augmented reality through his smart contacts, which glowed ever so slightly. Then with a tap at his temple with his index finger, the smart contacts stopped glowing as the AR display faded out.

“I’ll have the Basque-Style Fish with Green Peppers and Manilla Clams,” said Kenji. “Also a slice of that Mocha Dacquoise Cake. Soykaf too but with real sugar. Oh, and do you have those long sticks with chocolate that go in soykaf? What are those called?”

The waiter waited politely and kept up his smile. He opened his mouth to respond, but Julian beat him to the punch.

“I think that they're called Pirouettes or Piroulines,” said Julian, “I’ll just have your seafood stew.”

“My apologies, sir, we do not have Pirouettes,” said the waiter, “However we do have a number of pastries you could select from.”

Kenji shook his head.

“I just wanted something for my soykaf. It’s fine,” he said, dismissively, "Should've gotten the tiramasu and no, don't change it."

The waiter took Julian's menu, though they only had physical menus because this was Elliot's. He strode away, having fulfilled his purpose as a callback to a time when waiters were necessary and thus enhanced the prestige of Elliot’s. He found other tables in the small restaurant full of people who were by default either interesting or at least interestingly dressed.

Julian waited for Kenji to talk. He figured that Kenji wanted to talk, wanted to brag, to be noticed and appreciated. Occasionally Julian would explore with a light social jab here and there to keep him on his toes. Not too much though. Too much and he'd risk pushing him away. Too little and he’d get bored. He fired off a text and waited for Kenji to make the next move.

“The seafood isn’t real you know,” sighed Kenji. “Elliot's is good, but I like the real thing. That stew you ordered? Not a shred of the real stuff in it if you're ordering off the left side of the menu. Maybe the green peppers are real, but the fish, clams, even the cake are all soy and krill. I've even had coffee a few times, but it's harder to find soykaf.”

"Have you ever had real coffee?" asked Julian.

Kenji held up his thumb and index finger about an inch apart.

"Had a shot of the real stuff a couple times," said Kenji, "My cousin has parties on weekends. Sometimes we get realmeals mixed in with the regular stuff. So one time he ground up real coffee and I got a taste. Honestly, I like soykaf better."

“I suppose that makes sense," said Julian, "It is Seattle and it used to be a coffee town. I suppose we’ve at least gotten a whiff and maybe even a taste of the real thing at some point. And if you're looking for enticement, the school food isn’t fantastic, but every meal is a realmeal. We only offer soy as a vegetarian option and occasionally as fries.”

“Realmeals everyday?" asked Kenji, impressed.

"For breakfast, lunch and dinner," said Julian, "Most of the students are corporate elite, so they tend to complain, but yes, each and every meal is real."

Julian mirrored Kenji’s earlier fencing salute with the same index finger. Kenji smirked. Julian for his part used a technique called "mirroring" on Kenji. Not magical at all, but mundane. The small shifts in posture, the way he folded his hands, even down to what he focused his eyes on if he could look at it without appearing obvious, each were done in order to get in the head of the other person. Julian had read Kenji’s file. His power was bent towards his voice, though his file marked him as charismatic and somewhat manipulative.

Kenji read Julian's attempt as a blatant way to understand his emotions and manipulate. So Julian pretended he was doing so and in the doing accomplished his goal without giving away the game. Otherwise he risked Kenji sending false tells to lead him astray. In Julian's opinion it was better to be underestimated. So he pretended to be negligently twirling the glass of water in his hand, ice clinking against the side. He pretended to look bored while paying rapt attention. And Julian did the same, which kept Kenji's interest.

The game ended when Kenji's posture became increasingly terrible, almost sliding off his chair as he got Julian to do the same. They both began to laugh without either explaining to the other what they were doing and sat up. It was a terrible display of manners and this was a good place for terrible manners so long as you remained interesting. There were also silent expectations around them, as a badly dressed teacher and a teen who smelled faintly of the ACHE trash fires, they were expected to have terrible manners. So they'd receive a table the next time they came and would continue to do so as long as they remained interesting.

“Well that was fun,” said Julian, "And for my next trick..."

Just then a courier stepped into view, nodded to Julian, then to Kenji, and deposited a small, metal cylinder in the middle of the table. It was what Julian had ordered, and it'd been quick too. He nodded back to the man, wirelessly sent him a tip for the prompt delivery. Then he physiucally tipped the cylinder over on its side and rolled the box of Pirouettes with a finger.

“Oh, that’s cheating,” complained Kenji, but he was smiling.

“There’s another word for cheating. It’s called craft,” said Julian. “I’m crafty.”

He kept it rolling this way and that.

“Good point. All right, what do you want for it?” asked Kenji, his voice resigned. "I love those things."

Julian thought about it for a few seconds.

"Tell me a story about the Delve," said Julian, "I just learned about it and all I've heard are rumors."

“I didn’t think you wanted to hear about baby shadowrunners,” scoffed Kenji.

“Humor me,” said Julian.

“That’s not how this works. I’ll take fifteen percent up front as retainer," joked Kenji.

Julian let out a real belly laugh. For Kenji's audacity, he pulled out three of the long, thin, chocolate filled cookies with the delicate, crunchy outside and handed them to him. Kenji received them happily, stuck one in his soykaf, which had been placed while they'd been mirroring one another, ate one and left the other to the side. He stirred with the straw shaped cookie and thought.

“I specialize in sections K through Q. Mid to lower parts of the Delve. Not the lowest. At least the lowest explored," said Kenji, "Down there’s it a death trap."

"That a fact?" asked Julian.

"A lot of people bite it down there," said Kenji, "Or worse. You know the ACHE went down on Christmas all those years ago? I mean, back when it was the Renraku arcology. Anyway, some rooms haven’t been visited since all those people got trapped down there. People look at the ACHE and think it’s enormous and they know about the nuclear reactors underneath that power the place. That's the basement, but the sub-basement is massive. It just goes hundreds and hundreds of feet into the bedrock. Almost as far down as it is up, and it's two-hundred stories up, you know?"

Julian noded. It was true. You could see the ACHE from nearly anywhere in the Seattle metroplex and that included Blake Island. The flat topped, black pyrmaid was by far the largest structure in the entire metroplex.

"We're years into the gold rush," said Kenji, "And we’re still finding untouched rooms. So now and again you find presents, dead guy in a Santa suit, artificial Christmas trees, tinsel, Christmas lights, and you know it's a time capsule from when shit went down. People in the ACHE don’t celebrate Christmas, or at least it’s bad manners. Well, we sort of do, but it's complicated and no one would admit it within earshot of anyone else."

"What do you do then?" asked Julian.

"We make a big trash santa in the main atrium, tall as we can, then we burn it and have an arcology wide party," said Kenji, "The Christimas Truce. It's where everyone chills out for a day. Anyway, that's an ACHE story though, not a Delve story."

Kenji sipped his soykaf, smacked his lips and continued.

"Anyway, so sometimes you open up this room and everyone is dead as fuck and it's like Christmas every day," said Kenji, "I went down to this middle section with this team lead by this guy named Razorboi. Not with a Y, but an OI. He wanted to be clear about that. Showed off those cyber-razors that stick out from under the fingernails, you know? Gangers love them. They make confetti out of flesh. And here I am thinking they're the dumbest thing you could have down in the Delve because you don't want to touch anything unless you have to, but Razorboi gotta razor."

Kenji rolled his eyes to the sky.

“They were a totally green team," said Kenji, "They walked away from a few milk runs like they're hot shit and they think they can tackle the Delve. They were way over their heads, but I needed the money. I was barely past section M. Not even really testing myself, you know? Avoid the traps, test for rads or biologicals, pop turrets that may or may not have bullets, that sort of stuff. You know ghouls are down near the lowest levels? They're totally nuts too. I hear some ghouls can talk, but the ACHE just drives every single one of them insane for some reason. It's all gibberish and screams between trying to eat you."

Kenji pulled his Pirouette out of his soykaf and munched appreciatively on it.

"Ghouls are blind to the mundane world," said Julian, "And they only see the astral. Being forced to stare into the astral of the ACHE probably isn't good for their sanity."

Kenji nodded in appreciation at Julian.

"Learn something new every day," said Kenji, "Well we didn’t even have to deal with them that time. So I’m playing pathfinder and making sure these idiots don’t get killed because I'm more likely to get tips if everyone comes back alive. At least normally, though I’m not expecting it from this crowd. They think since they’re all chromed out with used gear and feeling kickass that they can tackle this place. That’s how it gets you. Long periods of boredom before wham, you get caught in a trap or you're drowning in ghouls."

Kenji stared into the middle distance for a moment, but only a moment before he continued.

"So we get the place," continued Kenji, "Clear out the trash in front of the room, bust out the mini welder and in we go. So what sets me off immediately is that there are Christmas lights and that they’re on. Fourteen years later after Deus takes over and every single one of them is working. They toss the place for artifacts and I’m on edge. I feel it in my teeth. I’m telling them that they should scrub the mission and I’m telling them that from outside the room, because I’m two seconds from noping the fuck out, with or without them. Then this idiot, Razorboi, this dumbass chromejob, unwraps a present. Why? I don’t know. Because he can. Chromejobs like him usually aren't paid to think so I'm not sure why he felt like he deserved a present. Anyway, inside of it he finds this concrete brick and everyone starts looking at it. The room gets bad fast. I see that brick and I start thinking about how when I was a kid. Like a little kid.”

Julian couldn’t help himself. His mirroring tactic which he'd been practicing in a much subtler way was unraveled by the story. He leaned in closer as Kenji got quieter and quieter, but at the same time more animated.

“So I look at this brick. It reminds me of something,” whispered Kenji, “You know what it reminds me of? My little brother. I remember this time in the park where he held a bunch of blue balloons in his hand. So many that he might float up into the sky and he's looking all adorable in his overalls that little kids have that perfectly match the color of the balloons. He had this smile that could warm your heart. And I knew this was weird because it’s a brick, you know? It’s just this concrete building brick plucked out of Christmas present in the middle of Deus' murder basement. Everything is screaming that this is weird, but I want to go in the room because I want that brick. You know why all of this is weird? You glomming onto it yet? Because you read my file.”

Julian didn’t speak. He only shrugged, but stayed focused and interested. It was because despite himself, he was.

“See, my brother didn’t smile like that," said Kenji, "He didn't have those blue balloons. No cute little overalls. See, I don’t even have a brother. Not dead, not alive, I don’t even remember my birth parents, but this brick is telling me these things and I think I’m not getting it full blast. These newbie shadowrunners are drawing down on Razorboi and his hand razors come out. This ACHE acclimated mage starts conjuring, freaks out, there’s gunfire, Razorboi screams and I’m fighting not to go in there and fight them to steal the thing. I run as far away as I can to the top level. No caution, I just book it and manage not to get killed. Don't even remember how I got back. I just did."

Kenji took another calming sip of his soykaf.

"So down there is probably a nice payday in gear and scrap cyberware," said Kenji, "I know exactly where it is, but that brick is there and it’s a fucking deathtrap. Now and again I wonder how my brother is doing before I remember that I don’t have one and that it’s the echo of some deathtrap set up by this psycho AI named Deus, and that it’s not the Renraku Arcology anymore. It’s the ACHE, arcology and commercial housing enclave, because someone in government has a sick sense of humor when they renamed it. I didn’t even go that deep. You just get fooled sometimes. Shit creeps up on you. It's Christmas every day.”

“Damn,” said Julian, meaning it.

Kenji took the cylinder of candy from Julian’s unresisting hand, gave it a toss, heard the rattle of the candy and smiled.

“Nice,” he said, with a smile, “Now you get to decide if that’s true or not.”

Forced out of his reverie, Julian smirked. It was hard to remember that Kenji was only fifteen, but easier to remember when he smiled like a kid just like he was now, big and broad. Life is hard on ACHE kids, Julian knew that much. Kenji had found his niche and he’d survived. Even if that story wasn’t true, it probably had enough truth to it hidden somewhere among the lies, if there were lies at all. That was when his smirk turned sour.

Their meal came and they ate in silence. With his acquisition of the Pirouettes, Kenji had managed to get not one, but two desserts, and shamelessly tasted Julian’s stew despite knowing it was a faux pax. He ate his own food with gusto and they didn’t resume talking until they were done. Though he had the telltale signs of someone who had to protect his food, as he leaned over it protectively when he ate.

“So about this school?” prodded Kenji.

“You’re going to attend," said Julian.

“You got it,” he said, cheerily.

“And you already knew you were going to," said Julian, wryly.

“Mhm,” he agreed.

“You were just hungry," said Julian, his tone mildly exasperated.

Kenji grinned and Julian shook his head.

“Expense accounts are great, aren’t they?" joked Kenji, "Besides, I’m doing you a solid by pretending to be wined and dined. That stew of yours wasn’t too bad and I’m going to order something to go. If I’m not going to be as active anymore that means I need to take my meals when I can get them."

“No. My food wasn’t bad at all,” said Julian, “The stew tastes like the real thing.”

"You sure?" asked Kenji.

Julian shrugged.

"I eat the school food," said Kenji, "So yes, I know what a realmeal tastes like."

"Looking forward to it."

Kenji smiled big and broad, satisfied by the meal and already ordering more food to go. Not only had he had his cake and eaten it too, but he was also filthy rich in Pirouettes.

---

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