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Chapter 4

I sat down crosslegged, concentrating. Well, I was meditating. Although I could leave my body as an Astral Body projection, I chose to do some Assensing. Or, how I'd like to call it, Ethereal Sensing. I saw with my spiritual eyes, energy itself, well . . . kind of. Every kind of device that could be made, have been made, and will be made exists as energy here. Even money - well, the UCAS dollar.

I have been told that it was impossible to summon a complex machine from the Mana, or make one for that matter. They've been drilling this into us for as long as I can remember, why I do not know. But I see it, a very nice Lamborghini Tesla 2. Here it was as real as anything, it's almost as if I could touch it . . .

"Robert!" said Mike and I promptly woke up. "I think I may have a lead on the killer. Wait, what are you doing?"

"Meditating on breaking the summoning barrier," I said.

Mike said, "Come on, Robby, they said it was unbreakable."

I replied, "That's what they said about the speed of sound."

"All you did was summon gold," he said. "Come on, you know it's unbreakable. It's a barrier, no mage has even tried to summon a complex machine from Mana in the whole history of the world."

"Barriers were meant to be broken," I said matter of factly in Or'zet.

"Some laws were never meant to be broken," said Mike.

"But this one must be."

"What are you trying for?" asked Mike, now inquisitive.

"A Lamborghini Tesla II," I said. "It uses a high velocity Tesla Turbine and works off water. It also has state of the art Computer Nodes on each wheel, controlling the rate of turn and the rate of energy control."

"They haven't formally unveiled that yet," Mike said.

"So, as you said, you have a lead?" I asked.

Mike nodded. "So far, I deduced that we might be able to get more information at two places. One of them you're not going to like."

I picked it up and it said the Pink Bunny. I put it back down again, for a business card associated with the Pink Bunny, I wasn't all surprised that the joint was a strip joint. Like the old Southern X-Posure establishment before the Awakening, this was a place where girls danced - exotically - and exposed themselves. Some said it was the worst immoral place to be, and others say it's a place that empowers them. I never thought that the objectifying of women would be so empowering to others.

"Yes, it's a strip joint," said Mike.

"Why?"

"You said I had to see the worst of mankind, well, here's the worst."

Franz returned from the basement, finishing his workout. The advantages of being part dinosaur, a dienonychus morph, and part man are that he retains his sebaceous glands. He can sweat. And sweat he did.

"What a nice . . . workout . . . " he said. "Is that . . . a card for a . . . strip club?"

Mike nodded his head in an affirmative action. I said, "Why don't you take Franz instead."

"I need you to assense the Astral," Mike said in English. "Besides, you've seen naked humans before."

"That's beside the point," I said. "I would be the only one not affected by what they were trying to do."

"The . . . pink . . . bunny," said Franz slowly.

"Want to come?" Mike asked.

Franz answered in German, "Ich kann gehen, es klingt wie eine lustige Stelle."

"I have no idea what you just said, but the inflection in your voice would be a yes," Mike said.

Silvara came down the stairs, "Oh, hello, Master!" she said, her vestigal dog tail wagging as she said ever optimistically. "I've finished putting away your laundry! Did you know his boxers have hardly been worn?"

"That's enough, Silvara," I said. "I don't wear boxers."

Silvara was wearing, well, nothing. She figured that she might be at home all day to day, but one girl in a house full of three guys. . . . Fortunately, all of us are okay with a female naked and can act appropriately. Still, the neighbors talk and you won't believe the talk I've been getting at Church. And here, it's a day after the murder. Still, times a wasting, and the trail might grow cold.

"Silvara, get dressed," I said. "Wear something appropriate, we are going out."

"Oh, fun!" she said. She rifled through the clothes basket and took out her red thong, her shorts, and her bare midriff shirt. She put on the thong first, and pulled up her shorts over her waist and snapped it together. She then zipped herself up and then pulled over the white T-shirt that had a stylized k over the left breast. She then put on her jacket, which was also professionally cut to bare her midriff. She showed off her belly button everywhere now. Her shorts was quite short, still five inches in length and hugged her wonderful form so nicely. She then put on her shoes, almost as if they were hiking shoes. Her shorts were cargo shorts.

"I'm ready to go," said Silvara. Her tail wagged. "Where are we going, Master?"

"The Pink Bunny."

"Oh, how fun!" she said. She was skipping out the door in happy fashion. Something tells me that Silvara thought that stripping would be fun. Well, she tried to strip tease me, and I had to indulge her to make her feel good. Sometimes I wonder who was really in control, the Master or the slave? I've been trying to see what was going on in her head, and all I get is pure love and devotion towards me.

And the others were dragging me out towards the car, and I protested. "Hey, let me stay here!"

"Ein shadowrunner muss gehen, wohin er die Kleinarbeit, Master machen kann," said Franz. "Dies ist das Leben eines shadowrunner, und jetzt wissen Sie, warum ich nicht möchte, dass meine Söhne noch Töchter mit einbezogen werden."

"Why me?" I asked. I remembered my promise to my mother and now I broke it. I'm such an oath breaker, and now this is what I get in order to pay for it. Both of them pushed me in the front passenger's seat and closed the door. Franz got himself into the rear driver's passenger's side while Silvara closed her eyes. She began to ride the matrix. I looked on as my innocence was taken away.

The Pink Bunny was bounced by an ork in what else? A pink bunny suit. He wore pink plush fur all over his body except his face, and from the top of the bunny suit came two ears. Mike was stopped by him, "Hey, you're not allowed in there. College kids only."

"They cater to the college set," Mike said to me. "My good man, let me past."

"Why should I?" said the bouncer.

He grinned. "We are from the Better Business Bureau."

"Oh, the Better Business Bureau," said the bunny-clad bouncer.

"Yes, I'm Mr. Green, and this is Mister Black," said Mike. I looked at him like is he labeling me something. "Don't mind the furry and the scaly. One's happy the other is cranky."

Franz growled to help the act, apparently it was convincing. Or too convincing, apparently there was a wet spot forming at the bouncer's loins. Some yellow fluid leaked from the zipper front.

"Of course," said the bunny-clad bouncer. "Right this way, I suppose you want to talk to Mr. Watson."

"Precisely," said Mike.

The bouncer asked, "What is wrong with our business?"

"We had many customer complaints," he said. "Your customers have complained about the service they have been getting. Over charging and that sort of thing." Mike said that as he entered. That sharpened tongue of his, just amazing.

I entered a new world. The world of seediness, and immorality called a strip joint or living pornography. People were stripping, and dancing about on the poles. And apparently, there were two scalies here, but they looked like they had beak like snouts -the sort you find on a pteradactyl, and fins on their head, three of them. Behind the frills was an unmistakable, scaly ear. Not a human ear, but an ear nonetheless. Whats more, they were blue and had four fingers and a thumb. They also had a long, sinewy tail. Most scalies had a tail.

They were moving about on the poles like they were in control. And many of the men watched, amazed and some of them cheered. I couldn't bare to watch. "Stop that, Robby," Mike whispered to me. "Remember, you're assensing."

Mr. Watson, a troll, appeared soon and approached Mike. At least I assumed he's Mister Watson. He had one horn, the other broke off. He had a full beard, and dozens of blaines around his skin. His skin was blue, and his hair was messy and uncontrolled. The troll wore a double breasted pinstriped suit and had a forty inch waist. He had a red carnation in his suit and wore an old-fashioned tie with a pearl tie clip. He also had an handkerchief in his breast pocket. When he talked, he talked through his nose. "Welcome to the Pink Bunny, sir," he said. "Can I assist you?"

I looked at Franz, who was staring at one of the two lizard girls. Both lizard girls looked similar, to me I don't see the appeal. The stripping was supposed to raise one's emotions, and act on one's sex drive.

"Yes, we are from the Better Business Bureau," Mike said. "Is there someplace more private we can talk?"

I sat down and closed my eyes, and started to see with my spiritual eyes with astral sensing, or assensing as the world called it. Every human being: whether Elf, Changeling, troll, ork, human, or dwarf has an aura. Those that are infected, the vampires, the ghouls, the goblins, wendigos, and so forth - have no aura. Despite that some of them are magically active. Many so called magicians swear by assensing, I used them to judge auras. Every aura is different, although most were weighted to the color light scarlet, which means lust. I was looking for blood crimson, or any type of deviation. I did notice something strange, though. One of the men viewing the show was a dragon, a western dragon by the look of it.

Mike had passed into the office upstairs to do his investigation with the owner, Mister Watson. My spiritual eyes showed me several ghosts, who were looking for a cheep thrill. Many of them were dressed as soldiers, who were seeking a break down in some of the patrons' auras. I never thought that people with addiction could be looking for a cheep thrill. Even after they were dead. I wonder how many people would like to know that ghosts were trying to feel the emotional high of being drunk, or in the case of many of the other ghostly patrons, feeling high from arousal and then orgasm? I found one in particular that was radiating the same feelings.

I stopped sensing the spiritual and returned to seeing with my own, natural eyes. The roughened, corrupt state of the mortal, flesh and blood body. Back when Magic returned to the Earth, most people did not believe in the Soul. However, through Astral Projection and Astral Sensing, many people have, indeed, reported seeing souls. I wonder how many people still doubt it.

I got up and walked over to the girl that had the aura of Timothy. "Hi there," I said. "I am Jay D. Black. You looked like you could use some comfort."

The girl turned her head to me, a human. "Yes, I mean no, I mean, I'm sorry."

"Yeah, we all feel that way, at times," I said. I quickly scanned the thoughts of my protector, he was more interested in the scaly girl than I. I quickly shot a suggestion to his mind that I'll be all right and he should get to know the girl.

"So, I'm investigating your boy's death," I said. "His name was Timothy, right? Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"

The girl just looked at me. "My name is Mary, and yes I knew Timothy," Mary said. "We went to Utah State Valley University together. But then he went to Yale later and I waited for him. To find him dead, I just want to know why."

"Where were you before the murder?" I asked. I recorded just her voice.

She replied, "I was with Tim before the murder. He came back from Yale, a bit shaken as to what he had witnessed while there. He said he joined some secret society that he couldn't tell about.

"He said that he saw what became of American Government before the Awakening and that Howling Daniel Coyote gave our land a blessing by turning back our Manifest Destiny."

"Go on," I prodded.

And she continued, "Over the past few weeks, he became distant, and paranoid. He was writing everything that happened to him in his journal, and he let me read it. 'I have to tell, at least one person, what goes on,' he said. He started to fear for his life. He took me here frequently to hide from those trying to kill him."

"Alright. What happened on the day of the murder?" I asked.

"I last saw him, it was the day before the murder," she said. "We were having what felt like a last night. He gave me something in case anything happens to him." She fished through her handbag and took out a key inlaid with three rubies. An old styled key.

She explained, "The key opens a safe deposit box at Goldman and Sachs. Inside, he kept documents that would save the UCAS from itself and possibly the Pueblo Corporate Council."

She handed me the key and I examined it. Yes, it was an old fashioned key. I never thought that Goldman and Sachs would do such a thing. And wasn't Goldman and Sachs a subsidiary of Saeder-Krupp? Hmm, time to ask Silvara to do a little fact checking, even if she is surfing the matrix node of the Pink Bunny.

"Master," said Silvara's voice as it came over my left earplug. "There are some disagreeable men coming into the pink bunny. Black suits, black sunglasses."

"Understood, Silvara," I said. "How is Matrix Security?"

"I got past the ice here, but the security node software is a little outdated," said Silvara. "I can hack the node so as to alert security against the Men in Black - wait, there's another hacker trying to get in."

"Understood," I said. I started to look into the minds of everyone in the Pink Bunny and weaved an invisibility suggestion. As long as they aren't looking for us, we might as well be invisible. Pretty soon, Silvara, Mary, Franz, and I were invisible to the crowd.

Mary looked around and said, "We aren't being looked at."

"This is because the sheep aren't looking for us," I explained. "We need to get you out. I think the MiBs are looking for this key." I pocketed the key and grabbed Mary by the hand. I turned to Franz and shot a telepathic thought. There are some Men in Black that are looking for us. If they see us, do what you have to do.

"Richtig!" Franz replied in a low whisper. He removed an Ares Predator from his gun harness and started pointing at one of the Men in Black. I took Mary away, heading backstage. BLAMM! Off went Hanz's gun and one of the MiBs fell down, his skull bleeding. Another shot a stun bolt our way, but his targeting was off as he hit a Yakuza. The MiB gritted his teeth as he knew his mistake. He started looking for us, as Franz tore into him with hand to hand combat. The sound of gunfire had the joint screaming and emptying. The girls ran off their stages.

"Ich werde dich beschützen, Veridian Scale, und mein Meister! Go, Sicherheit zu bringen, schnell!" Franz said as he started using roundhouse kicks. His sharp toe claws ripped through the MiB mage's abdominal wall, exposing intestines. One of the lizard girls, the one he was staring at, left her stage and backstage. The bouncers, dressed in bunny suits, joined the fray to break it up. I ferried Mary backstage even as Mike jumped through the glass with his pistols blazing.

***???? ****

Silvara was riding the matrix. She found the main node and entered the Matrix through VR. Surfing the matrix for her was the best thing ever, and her icon was that of a surfing silver husky. Female, her icon was a naked chromed and shiny furry husky morph, like well polished silver. She was in the Pink Bunny's node, and her Masking program allowed her to get past the IC here, for that she was grateful. The IC looked like fluffy pink bunnies, all wearing AK-47s.

Now in control of the Security Node, she used the Node for quick communication with Mike and Robert. Being in control of the security system had its advantages. When the MiBs came near the Pink Bunny, she opened a channel.

"Mike, there are Men in Black coming into the Pink Bunny, how is it going with Mr. Watson?" She asked.

"Pretty good, but he's gotten nervous about the MiBs. Apparently, he was in the same society as Timothy," Mike answered back.

"Okay, warning Master Robby," she said with a smile. "You take care of yourself."

"We have an ex-Jannisary from the New German Republic Army," said Mike back. "I think we will be safe against a couple of UCAS government types."

Silvara turned from channeling to Michael Drake and then opened a channel to Robert. As she was warning him, she noticed an MiB agent - obiviously a hacker - battling the Pink Bunny's IC. The Agent wore black, had the white wire from his left ear, and wore black shades. The only thing different from him and a certain character in an oldie movie about the Matrix was that he had blond hair. Silvara started constructing a sprite from Code, appearing as a barbarian with a chest plate that had a German cross on it.

"Protect me, from the hacker," she said. The barbarian nodded, and drew his sword and advanced on the hacker's icon. Silvara didn't want to jack out yet, she still needed to bring her admin account on the security node to its full potential.

As the hacker shot the AK-47 pink fluffy bunnies, Silvara worked hard to bring the killer bunny online. Made of Black IC code, the killer bunny was an albino. The program was termed, "Vorpal Bunny."

The vorpal bunny looked cute. Real cute, but most monsters inspired by Monty Python were either terribly cute or badly made cartoons. The vorpal bunny followed its instructions and hopped gracefully towards the hacker as the hacker was blowing Silvara's Paladin Sprite into code.

There was a few swings, but the hacker was faster than the sprite, which meant that the enemy hacker had a node that was a screaming monster. The Paladin managed to disarm the hacker, but he pulled another gun from his harness and shoot the paladin's head to smithereens of code. The spirit dissolved into the matrix. Sure about himself, he looked up at Silvara, whos matrix body was lithe except for her breasts. He moved towards her, running on the matrix.

However he stopped to see the Vorpal bunny. "Awwee, what a cute bunny!" he said. Then the bunny jumped up the impossible height and bit his head clean off through the neck. Satisfied by the digital blood everywhere on the cute innocent bunny's mouth, Silvara logged off her admin account and erased it before jacking out.

She awoke to a firefight between Franz, Mike, the bouncers, and the MiBs, with two MiBs dead on the floor. She carefully sneaked behind the bar and made it to the side door. She silently opened it and was behind that door and in the alley way in a flash. She found a dumpster and a vend-o-matic and hid behind those as the MiB's were being taken careof. She went back into the matrix.

She created a sleuth sprite, forming the image of a Roman patrician. "Okay, Finder," she said. "Follow the data trail of the Men in Black. I want to know why and which UCAS alphabet soup agency is trying to get us."

The Roman patrician, dressed in a tunic, saluted and ran down a data trail. She then activated a Masking complex form and became like a quicksilver pool of data as she entered the Vend-o-Matic machine. She made it spit out some plastic clothing along with socks and underwear. She jacked out of the matrix and proceeded to change her clothes in the alleyway.