#corpsins

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Fang from Shadow Run Corpsins

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Seattle Street News 58, End of an Era

Announcement:

[Dear Tipster Army, I need to make a sad announcement. I’m afraid to tell you all that this is the last issue of the Seattle Street News. I have lived in Seattle for many years. I made it my chosen home and it is the place that I love with all my heart. I have served this city and its denizens in the shadows to the best of my ability for as long as I could. I have made some wonderful contacts and I love the Tipster Army. But my time in the city has unfortunately come to an end. I have never told you all my name, and I still won’t. However, I will tell you this. I am a citizen of Tir Tairngire. Yes, that’s right, I have a national SIN. But my relationship with my family’s legacy was not something I wanted. Instead, I wanted to be here with you all. And I figured I could live here with you all doing good. And I think I did that.

But I just learned that my older sister has been assassinated, leaving me the only one to carry on my family’s obligations. I was told I have a “choice.” Come home and do good for the people of Tir Tairngire voluntarily, or be kidnapped and brought back to Tir Tairngire against my will. I negotiated being able to remain here these last few weeks so I could finish up my business in the Metroplex. But now I must go back.

So farewell Emerald City, as I go on to take on the leadership position I was born into but never asked for, know that I have been forever changed by serving you all. I hope it will make me a better leader. Know that you will always have a strong advocate and ally in Tir Tairngire.

Thank you for being in my Tipster Army. I am always at your service.

--The Seattle Street News elf]

International News:

Space Station Battle

Something was launched out of that mysterious facility at Sekondi. It is now clear what that was: a space station. Whatever this space station is, it seems to be very important.

This became clear when a number of different competing corps space forces all attacked this space station at once. There was a pitched battle between a number of corporate forces and after the battle was over, Saeder-Krupp held a press conference saying that the space station was now theirs. This itself might be odd but not particularly noteworthy…except for one other element of the press conference. Without prompting, the SK press secretary stated that the space station had nothing to do with the demise of the dragon Brennus. That denial raises quite a few questions. Specifically, what exactly does that space station have to do with the death of Brennus? Note the next story.

 Dragon Council Declares the Demise of Brennus

This week, the Dragon Council put out a short press release announcing that Brennus, the dragon formerly known as Prince, who carved a swath of destruction through Seattle a few months ago and who was perhaps connected to a fringe cult known as the Hand of Dusk, met its demise. They noted that the dragon either died or was forever trapped in an unknown metaplane and that it will never be seen again. They did not take any questions.

 Corp News:

Cheer Up—(by 8)

This night was NeoNET’s annual Thank you party for its Seattle execs. DoughNET donuts were a success, NeotenIQ had managed the double feat of creating no scandals and sticking with NeoNET. Guests were welcomed at NeoNET’s Blast from the Past club by bouncers and other security staff. Their fluorescent blue wigs and formal suits adorned with BeyonZ’s signature multicolored ribbons were great for BeyonZ fans, ridiculous otherwise.

All the familiar faces were there: Gaeaca and her security detail, Donnie “Top Gun” Deckard  at his bar, the X Will “brothers”, Sagetopian retelling the events of his short-lived electoral campaign. Getting reacquainted with coworkers not seen in months, exchanging news of XOGirlWonder who’d left since last time. The excellent champagne was from 2069, the last decent year for French wines, and there was still a stack of cases in Donnie’s office.

It had been a pretty good year for NeoNET but the atmosphere at the Blast from the Past was gloomy. The arcade in the back was broken, sure, but Techiecarer was on it. The Red Gods were supposed to play music and they were late, but the reruns of the latest Matrix Competition more than made up for it. Recent rumors of a run on Pacific Rim by a dragon-led anti-corporation group could mean impending danger for NeoNET. Could even this explain the end-of-the-world mood?

The sudden grating of chairs dragged on the floor drowned the chatter. NeoNET employees were standing up and turning their heads toward BeyonZ as he climbed onstage: “Please welcome my friends, The Red Gods. Tonight we are raising funds for the wife of their lead singer Larry, whose charred body… Well, we all know what happened. It was so heartbreaking when I told Lily on our second meeting... THE RED GODS.”

The man who had accepted that I sit at his table interrupted our small talk mid sentence and told me in his French accent: “It’s funny. Ze story about zem on Kappa reminded me of something my young étudiante told me…” His student was a friend of Ma1nfram3’s and the Blast from the Past star had easily got him access to the private event. Go figure why he was curious about a NeoNET corporate night, though. “By ze way, she just passed her GED”, he added, proud.

The four musicians who were ushered into the bar and replaced BeyonZ under subdued applause were clearly recognizable from the security footage featured on BeyonZ’s show. While they kneeled down and opened their instrument cases, their leader addressed the patrons gathered in a wide semi-circle around the stage: “Thanks for inviting us tonight. This performance is brought to you by... VORACK.” The hail of bullets that followed was more heard than seen through the dense smoke of a grenade thrown at the crowd.

Light clapping turned into screams. Tables and chairs became shields. Glass shattered and a few bodies collapsed in a matter of seconds that felt like an hour. The BeyonZ lookalikes, springing into action, staved off the panic, restored order in the nascent chaos. Three of them ditched their festive attire and assisted the bleeding victims. The Red Gods, having made their bullet point in 7.62 font, disappeared into the night. They were definitely more in their element running in the shadows than singing in the spotlight. The French guy was too busy taking notes on his pad to freak out while I recorded everything with my eye, the two of us drawing bravery from the other’s behavior.

A live, eerily silent, Kappa stream replaced the Corporate motivational fare and cheesy music nobody had given attention to in a while: four guys running toward a waiting van, smokin AKs in hand; a platoon of blue-haired orks and buff humans running after them. They were led by led by Angel Mallet, the famous troll captain I had winked at when seeing him posing as a waiter.

The trid followed the ruckus, passed over half a dozen puzzled youngsters clad in black jackets adorned with a flaming pumpkin. On a sign of their leader, who was wearing a weird mask combining a skull and bunny ears, an assortment of bats and light guns went poof in a flash. By the time the van’s roars and screeching tires made all present in the bar wince and instinctively look at the stream, this Halloweener detachment, their thunder stolen from them, had dispersed and vanished. Whatever they had been up to would be left for another day.

Minutes later. The puddles of blood caused by cuts on glass shards as much as bullets had dried up. NeoNET’s top brass had regrouped. The unflappable Techiecarer had fixed the arcade in the commotion. Except for the prominent bandage on Gaeaca’s arm, none seemed injured. They were giving reassuring news to the Corporate News guy, who had just put on his emergency uniform in front of us: a formal navy blue jacket, crisp white shirt and black tie over short, light blue distressed pants. My new friend said these jorts, as he called them, were “all ze rage in France, ze summum of elegance.” Donnie emerged from his office, beaming, dancing to Galaga’s 8-bit tune. Two cases were tucked under his arms. If Saeder-Krupp was still after NeoNET, if his beloved bar could still live wild nights, then the world was not ending after all and it was time to celebrate: “This champagne will not drink itself, guys”, he said as I was leaving.

 City News:

Mysterious Battle in the Barrens; The Death of a Becky

Something odd happened yesterday. There was a large firefight in the Barrens. That itself is not so odd considering firefights happen all the time in the Barrens. What was odd this particular fight was who the combatants were. Three opposing, enemy gangs, The Red Hot Nukes, The Rusted Stilettos, and Crimson Crush all inexplicably teamed up to assault warehouse that was being guarded by a few different shadowrunning teams. The details of the fight are shrouded in mystery—no one is talking. It was clearly important, with a lot of resources being spent over this abandoned warehouse. People wanted in, and other people wanted to make sure they didn’t get in. The warehouse is now all abandoned as if nothing ever happened. I imagine whichever Corps hired those runners have moved on and no one cares anymore about this warehouse. Isn’t that always how these pitched battles take place? Mad violence that is life and death, and then when the mission is over, everyone moves on. But in matters of life and death, sometimes people die. And in this particular instance, one of our shadowrunners died.

Scarlet Fyre has long been one of our favorite runner teams. The AAA runners who intrigue with their low profile mystique. Who doesn’t love the Twins, or Legs? Well, yesterday, the leader of Scarlet Fyre, who we’ll call Becky—because she had such great hair—died in that battle. It is unclear how she died, but the SSN learned that she died in battle high up in her sniper’s perch. Not a lot is known about her, but fixer contacts had only the best things to say about her professionalism and reliability. One thing that was said multiple times by multiple fixers: Becky was honorable in all of her dealings. She never played corps against each other just to make extra money. If her Scarlet Fyre were bought, they stayed bought and they always completed their mission with excellence and discretion. People often think of runners as criminals and trash or as menaces, but the best runners are experts and professionals. They may be doing a dirty job, but you can do it well and honorably or you can do it shoddily or in an underhanded way. Scarlet Fyre played hard, but they always were professional, much of that was down to Becky.

The SSN pours a drink out to you. The shadows will be less interesting without you in it.

[srseattlestreetnews]

Seattle Street News 57, He Lived To Serve

Shadow News:

MMFEC Loses Muscle Amidst Attack on the Rapid Rabbit

Last week the SSN reported that it looked like the Cutters and the Merlyns had teamed up for an unknown reason, though they had been seen out on the street looking for members of the Showdowrunner team, MMFEC. This conflict seemed to have come to a head with the destruction of the Merlyns’s hangout, The Wizard’s Hat, and a fight at the old military base in Discovery Park. Tipsters placed MMFEC at both locations, and it seemed as if the gangs and the runners were in a full conflict.

That conflict erupted again last night.

Initial witness tips included reports of gunshots coming from within the Rapid Rabbit, and then reports of rocket launcher attacks. This reporter arrived on the scene and was confronted with a chaotic war zone. Smoke from smoke grenades billowed out of the broken windows, shattered from the bullets being fired from within. There were screams and shouts on the inside and after a few moments, people began to stream out of the bar. The people stumbling out included a Johnson from an AA corp, street celebrity CyberDrunkly carrying the unconscious decker Bacon King, and a few different fixers we all know. The fighting inside the bar became more intense, and soon Cutters were escaping the bar. It became clear that the Cutters were the ones behind the attack, and as Magic, Firepower, Electronics, and Conversationalist rushed out it also became clear the Cutters had attacked the bar to get at the shadowrunners MMFEC.

Most of the people who read the Seattle Street News already know the code, because this is the paper of the shadows. However, there are some corp members, looky-loos slumming, and other citizens who don’t understand the rules of the shadows. So for those of you who don’t know, let me tell you: a runner’s bar is off limits. You might get into a firefight on a freeway, or you might start a fire in a storage facility, but if there is one thing you don’t do, you don’t attack runner bars. Runners often don’t have homes to speak of or places where they can feel safe and find a sense of community. Runner bars become that one place where a cohort of heavily armed, highly trained, and very violent street warriors relax…and last night the Cutters attacked one of those homes, the Rapid Rabbit. Two of the last people to make it out were Oz and Molly, the bar’s owners. And then, we all watched in horror as the Cutters exploded that bar. As per their usual MO, they had placed explosives around the bar and then they detonated them, destroying our home. Molly and Oz watched their livelihood burn, and no one moved. Everything was eerily silent, except for the sound of a home burning to the ground. And as we watched, we all knew. The Cutters are dead. That gang, and every member of them, are now marked. There is an entire metroplex of runners who will murder every one of those gangers for crossing that one line. I would not want to be a Cutter right now. And soon there will be no more Cutters anywhere.

In the aftermath of the explosion, we learned that MMFEC’s Muscle didn’t make it out of the Rabbit. Muscle, whose real name was Magnuson Cromwell, was a troll of uncommon valor and conviction. As a child, Cromwell was confined to Yumi Island where he suffered abuse until he was able to make it out. Sometime later, the troll became trained as a butler. What happened in Cromwell’s life between Yumi Island and the Metroplex is unknown to many, and not the business of others. Though, he emerged from that time with impeccable taste and a surprising grace from someone so large and muscular. His life in the Metroplex as a member of MMFEC is what most impacts us here. He was not just a runner, only out for himself or the nuyen. He was a troll of integrity, vision, and honor. The Metroplex owes a great debt to MMFEC. Cromwell fought for equality and justice for the SINless and the metahumans of the Metroplex. He battled Trollkillers. He helped escort orks and trolls to polling places and kept them safe when people tried to stop them for voting. After his ward, Ellie Hawthorne, MMFEC’s first Conversationalist, died during a run, he dedicated himself to protecting children. He created the Magnuson Cromwell Foundation, dedicated to helping the SINless children. Along with MMFEC, they exposed the Ares Squires splinter group responsible for kidnapping and doing unethical medical experimentation on our children. It is said that Cromwell died saving an innocent child at the Rapid Rabbit.

Muscle lived his entire life a hero. With every action he helped not only the SINless of Seattle, but also all of us. I cannot imagine how the members of MMFEC are dealing with their loss. But know that the Seattle Street News and all the Tipster Army are mourning with you right now. And know that there are people who know all the good you are responsible for, including things that have not been reported in this paper for your own safety. But we know, and we all mourn the loss of Cromwell this evening. And we all thank you. 

We pour out a glass of tea for Magnuson Cromwell, Muscle.

 City News:

Mysterious Submarines Seen Off the Coast of Seattle

A dapper tipster contacted the SSN to let us know of rumors of a number of submarines being launched from a Lursenn Mobius just off the Western Coast near Seattle. One of the SSN’s reporters made down to the area and caught a few shots of the Lursenn, but wasn’t able to see any evidence of the submarines. However, that reporter thought they saw children on the decks. They asked the Salish-Shidhe council for a comment on the maritime activity, but the council refused to answer questions and denied the existence of anything out of the ordinary. Any other tipsters have any news?

Advertisements:

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[srseattlestreetnews]

Seattle Street News 51, Green Flame Disease

Local News:

The Saeder-Krupp Screw Up:  How One Of The Largest Corps In The World Nearly Killed The Entire Seattle Metroplex—(by demmalition1)

[As a preface to these words I’m about to write, I should be clear and state that DutchTeddy and I are friends. This friendship shall not cloud my judgement at all, and no facts shall be altered or omitted in this piece out of respect for those who have died. Crimes of this magnitude cannot go unpunished.]

The sheer incompetence and ineptitude that radiate from the festering cancer known as Saeder-Krupp knows no bounds it seems. Some on the Matrix call members of this zombified corp corpse “the korrupt”, words that I cannot agree with more. The great golden dragon will not be satisfied until he has every sector of the market under his firm grasp, another thing to add to his hoard of valuables. They have a combined market value of over ¥300 billion and have two “Level 10” divisions in Heavy Industry and Robotics. They will leverage their industrial and financial might to move Heaven and Earth to accomplish their goals, no matter how many innocents they kill along the way. They are a brutal, vicious, and remorseless monster that is rampaging its way throughout Seattle and no one can stop them.

This beast of burdensome negligence employs some of the most monstrous people in the Sprawl. From one with connections with a high-powered mercenary crime syndicate to another with an information dragnet to rival the best of them (who also happened to crash the stock market for a day a few years back), they have little in the way of moral integrity. However, they employ a mass murderer as well. The personality known as DutchTeddy (real name: Henk Van Bolhuis) has now killed more people than the Mayan Cutter and will get away with it because of his corporate connections. A formal investigation into Saeder-Krupp should be launched immediately by both UCAS and the Corporate Court. Don’t let them pass off some of PeanutButterBabe’s cookies and pies as a heartfelt apology through their crocodile tears. Let them know that they must punish DutchTeddy for his crimes against the entire Seattle Metroplex. He is the source for the Green Flame incident that just ravaged the Seattle Ork community. But let’s start from the beginning.

In my earlier piece “Burned Out” (SSN-45), I personally witnessed DutchTeddy kill seven innocent civilians when he called in his “Black Saeder-Krupp Combat Bot Voltron”. He demolished the wall of a nightclub killing six innocent civilians and then inflicted fatal third degree burns upon Knight Errant Sgt. Gregory Snow.

But back to Green Flame, the disease that recently swept through the ork community. There is irrefutable proof that the bear DutchTeddy is responsible for it from leaked internal memos and comms chatter. He took a latent strain of the common influenza virus and modified it to inject a bacterium with various magically-enhanced genetic markers, vastly increasing infectivity and turning it into the highly deadly bioweapon “Green Flame Disease”. This process is known as “virus based genetic modification” and was used as far back as the Fifth World. Though he put the four individual genetic samples into their correct stoppers, he did not label them correctly, missing one that must have fallen into his hazmat suit pocket. When the suit was disposed of down the laundry chute, a worker took the vial he found in the pocket with him. This worker (who for privacy’s sake shall remain unnamed) then shared the vial with his friends over a beer, believing it to be a drug that the upper class execs would take. When it did nothing, the five went home to their friends and families, unaware that they just drank one of the deadliest bioweapons in the entire world.

Over the next five days nothing major happened. No severe symptoms outside of a bad headache. Little did they know that the virus was mutating within them to piggyback on “ghilani vrykolakiviridae”, also known as HMHVV Strain I. This might be why their symptoms were less severe than later cases since their bodies acted as the factories for the original strain and not the mutated one. Later, they only expressed the end-stage symptom of the disease’s namesake when they began to projectile vomit magic-based green flames from their mouths. Subsequent cases after these would feature more telltale symptoms of:

Headache, fever, chills, coughing, green vomit  (after initial 72 hours)

Converts essence to pure energy (more essence = longer time to die)  (72-84 hours)

Veins glow green, hard to breathe (bronchospasms), chest pain  (84-96     hours)

Breathe/vomit magical green fire  (96 hours +)

Death (~96-100 hours)

This would be the end of it were it not for the fact that the disease was contagious. These 5 friends (Patient Zero group) each passed it onto their families and friends who then passed it on themselves. This process repeated itself for seven days, and a sizeable segment of the ork populace was infected with GFD by then.

At this point SKHQ is notified of a potential breach, and DutchTeddy, along with Saeder-Krupp’s entire biological research division begins to work on a cure for a disease that they themselves have made. William “Security” Masters, head of SKHQ Matrix division, shuts down all reports of the incident for a few days. Saeder-Krupp will probably claim that it was meant to contain hysteria, but in reality it was no different than the VITAS outbreak in Hermosillo. This action prevented an informed populace from knowing the truth of what’s going on, needlessly exacerbating the problem and costing more lives in the process. Some, like Saruhashi Kogane of MCT tried to organize a coalition of other corps to combat the disease, but nothing materialized. It is likely at this point that various high level officials are notified of the L3/L4 biological hazard outbreak. This could have had the potential to turn into a small-scale outbreak mimicking the VITAS outbreaks of 2010 and 2022 which claimed a combined 2.9 billion people were it not for the quick actions of Saeder-Krupp.

After 26 hours with rapidly accelerated human/metahuman trials, the vaccine was ready for mass production. They pinned down the exact symptoms and began a distribution campaign to various ork hospitals, community centers, and other public places. 48 hours later GFD-IV was contained with no new cases reported. A noted uptick of HMHVV I turned metatypes has appeared around the ork community following the outbreak, probably people who haven’t died from the flames nor lost their essence entirely. It is speculated that the original group of Patient Zero is among them due to having a delayed reaction and no bodies having been recovered from the ashes of their houses. Furthermore, any awakened individuals with the disease are noted to have supercharged magical abilities. They have a much easier time controlling the flow of mana and spirits, with the disease seemingly slowing to a crawl and no visible symptoms besides the ability to breathe fire. The disease still progresses, but might take months to fully consume the person as compared to days.

DutchTeddy’s final body count will likely tally in the low hundreds as the ashes and bodies keep piling up. He got away with it too with a relatively light sentence compared to the immense magnitude of the crime. He still has his job, he still has his pay, he is not in jail for his crimes. Any sense of satisfaction that he may receive from curing the disease that he created must be countered with the ever growing list of casualties.

A few days later he was at a “free pie and pictures day” at a local restaurant near the Ork Underground—had a promotion for kids too. This obvious ploy of marketing whitewash placated the locals there, possibility because they had no idea of the person they were meeting. Those kids were standing right next to a mass murderer who will likely walk away from this scott-free.

A few things I want to note here as I wrap this up:

Why the hell was the head of aerospace allowed into a BSL-4 containment area without supervision, let alone allowed in there at all?  He was in there for SEVERAL HOURS ALONE even though he was still on probation for his previous screw-ups. He just waltzed on in there with no one stopping him at all. No guards to shock him and subdue him, no cameras reporting the breach to security, no technicians logging his actions. Nothing!

Why was the cure also not created at the same time?

How was there no pat-down of the employee to spot the vial of death he had on his person?

How can they complete “human/metahuman level” clinical trials in under 12 hours? Were SINless forcefully pulled from the streets for     vaccinations? What if the vaccines didn’t work or had other side     effects?

Corp News:

Top NeoNET Exec Gone Missing

Word on the street is that a top NeoNET exec named GaeaCa has gone missing. A witness, a homeless dwarf, noted the exec walking down an alley late last Monday night with two bodyguards. An expensive black corp car pulled up and the exec got in. That was the last time anyone saw GaeaCa. I was able to get some info on the tangled web around this kidnapping (?) from a contact sent in this message:

"My contact there has just told me that a task force of top notch NeoNET intelligence officers has been investigating the intense, puzzling chatter of Saeder-Krupp executives in the Matrix. What seemed innocuous, if not nonsensical, may turn out to be coded language related to the apparent abduction of GaeaCa. Just look at this message by S-K’s DutchTeddy as Exhibit A: Seasoning my life with his words, Killing me softly with his breath, Roasting me softly with his breath, Grilling my whole bod' with his breath, Eating me crunchy with his maw… NeoNET’s crack team has also been investigating the communications between Loofoel E. Will and an entity calling itself only GaeaCa. The latter apparently just came from nowhere last year and has been a very discreet presence on the NeoNET Corporate Matrix ever since. Would it be surprising if Loofoel Eugene Will had resented being passed over for the top job at NeotenIQ by his clone Alpha and sharing the board with Beta and Gamma? He could certainly have joined an internal conspiracy against a NeoNET exec. The irony if clones actually had nothing to do with this abduction... The other lead NeoNET seems to pursue is a Halloweener known as Trixter. She was seen talking with Deckard at Blast from the Past just a few weeks ago. Who knows what the Halloweeners are up to these days? Sometimes you have to wonder, these corps what wouldn't they do to be in the news?"

My contact points to a flurry of activity over at NeoNET to get their exec back. Could this be connected to the Hand of Dusk? Or could it be something more? Anyone with tips, contact the SSN!

Reflections on the Medicine and Pharma Market

The article is one of a series looking at the current state of individual corporate subsidiaries in the Seattle Metroplex. This particular issue focuses on the Metroplex Medicine and Pharma market. This may be the last market analysis article in the Seattle Street News, stay tuned for larger developments.

The Medicine and Pharma market is the lower half of the markets in the Metroplex by size with a value of 118.2¥B shared by four megacorps. The market is led by Shiawase with 34.5% of the market followed by Evo (28.3%), Wuxing (25%) and Aztechnology (12.3%). Medicine and Pharma can cover a wide variety of technologies and medications. It is an industry desperately important to all of us, even though SINless tend to be forced to interact with this market through illegal back alley docs or veterinarians. Not everyone has access to a DocWagon contract, but everyone needs health care.

SSN reached out to the four corps with a Medicine and Pharma presence, we got comments from Shiawase, who have been excellent in their public relations and media outreach:

“Shiawase Omnicare, our Medicine & Pharma subsidiary, is comprised of many different companies resulting in a vast global network of healthcare available to each individual. In the fields of personal healthcare and elderly care our Reblossom Centers and Shady Pines Retirement Homes are top of the line. Thanks to our swift medical services, in the form of Shiawase Medical Response & Rescue, our company saved over a billion lives to date.

Together with our Diagnostics branches, euroGenetix, myGene and Senpaitek, Shiawase is a major player on the front of gene therapy and diagnosing and combatting viruses, bacteria and numerous other potential outbreaks.

As Shiawase, we continue to develop new technologies advocating cooperation within the corporation. Therefor Omnicare has worked together with our different Biotech branches to enhance our dominance in the sector. Last year we announced, in a partnership with Vasocon, a division of Shiawase Laboratories, that we’ve managed to enhance and speed up the Type O System used to grow cultured and non-allergenic organ transplants using the individuals own genetic code to completely prevent organ rejection. The same enhanced system is now also used for bioware thanks to further development.

Through another cooperation with Shiawase Biotech we’ve recently launched a brand new medical device that speeds up the recovery time for a broken spine. This has been on the market for the past two weeks and, while its usage isn’t as high as our medication, it has already been deemed a success in growing our market share.

We are currently looking into ways to enhance our presence in the Medicine & Pharma field, where we continue to dominate over our direct competitors.”

SSN is happy to have our regular market analyst Vorack back for his take on the vital statistics of the Medical and Pharma market.

"Time for me to inform the masses about Medicine and Pharma eh? Being healthy sounds great, who doesn’t want that? Medicine and Pharma will help you with that. You get injured or maybe just have a sickness, you go and get treated. Sadly it’s not that easy and even as a "Wageslave" or "Corpy" as I have been called in the past, I can say that I’m not a fan of this industry at all. If it all worked how you originally thought it would, then it would be great. Sadly, it does not. Even being in SK, a massive corporation, if I am feeling a bit out of it and head to the local clinic, I have to sit there for hours at most times and wait for the most basic service just because it’s a Wuxing clinic and they always seem to help other executives first—even if I had been there for forty-seven minutes already and they arrived there all of two minutes ago. (I swear I get refused proper treatment because they dislike us here at SK and so they make us wait as punishment) And don’t even get me started at the amount of blood samples I have to give whenever I go to an Aztec center, you don’t need 6 vials of my blood just because I have the sniffles! As a non corp member, I have no idea how bad it must be for those who are looking for treatment. People like you Seattle, or even demm and all the others who might slip through the cracks, it must be so much harder. The prices are insane and I have no idea how you all can cover it, and I can only imagine wait times are so much worse. So all in all, I think this industry is a joke, it’s around to make corporations look like they care about everyone and how much they are willing to help and take care of everyone's well being but its all just a sham. It is just another way to control the people but it’s sadly something we have to deal with.

So now to talk about the actual market and how it’s doing. It’s a strong four corp market, with no real leader in the pack. Officially Shia is ahead, Evo in second, Wuxing coming in strong at third and then poor little Aztec in last (I think people realize the amount of blood they take is weird and refuse to keep going there). Wuxing actually joined the segment a ways back and looks to be trying to push EVO back and take that second position and personally, even with the biased treatment I get from Wuxing, I would go to them every single time compared to EVO so I can see why it looks like they are gonna overtake them. The entire Medicine and Pharma division hasn’t seen to much aggression with only a few notable attacks against EVO. They said one was against a children's hospital or something, but I never really believed them. My personal guess is it was probably some lab where they were trying to weaponize some sort of disease. EVO seems the type who would do that, I hear they are "evil". Other than that, the entire segment seems to continue to grow even if it is rather slowly. Shia and Wuxing are always coming out with some new product that will help us out in some way or another so I can’t complain about that whatsoever. As a final statement, I will say that all corps and maybe even the unaffiliated, if able, should head to your nearest clinic and do some tests. Ask for what SK got done as we made it overly public. With this clone epidemic going on, it’s never too late to just check to see if everyone is who they say they are."

What say you readers with SINs, have you found Aztech’s clinics take too much blood? What are your experiences with wait times? For the SINless, if you don’t have a doctor, talk to the virtual flower seller in the private network you can access from the housing block in the Barrens where 1EyedJack had that epic fail with the block party last year.

 Features:

Once More 11--(by Breach)

In the aftermath of Crash 2.0, the world changed.

An assassin’s bullet made Nadja Daviar President of UCAS as a coup attempt by the terrorist group Alamos 20,000 was bloodily thwarted. The Tsmishian nation fell in a civil war and Sioux forces were required to stabilize the country, which became a protectorate of the Salish-Sidhe Council. Tir Tairngire’s government capitulated before collapsing into full anarchy, making the Council of Princes elected positions for the first time; Larry Zincan, a Tir Ork, was the first elected High Prince.

At a corporate level, Novatech merged with Transys-Erika to become NeoNET - once again, despite decades of disaster surrounding him, Villiers managed to save his seat on the Corporate Court. The Great Dragon Celedyr, major shareholder of Transys Neuronet, was named head of R&D at the new megacorp. NeoNET even managed to secure the bulk of the work to set up the Wireless Matrix Initiative, whose need was hastened by Crash 2.0.

Lucien Cross, CEO of Cross Applied Technologies - at the time a member of the Corporate Court - died in Crash 2.0, and his death sent ripples that destroyed the company; by March of 2065, CAT had lost its AAA status and his Court seat. Months later, Horizon, a media group formed after PCC’s takeover of Los Angeles, was granted the tenth and final seat on the Corporate Court. Two years later, Yamatetsu restructured, renaming itself Evo and giving us the Corporate Court we all know and loathe today.

By 2066, the Wireless Matrix was in place, and commlinks hit the market, forming the backbone of the Matrix we all inhabit today. AR became more pervasive than ever, with AR glasses and gloves becoming all-but-a-necessity for modern life (for those without implanted DNI, anyway).

The NAN thumbed their noses at the Corporations in late 2066, with the Gaeatronics Geothermal Power Plant Network coming online, making the PCC, the Sioux nation, and the Salish-Sidhe Council completely energy-independent. Representing the vast bulk of native power, the move sparked protests throughout the NAN as corporate-run power plants were decommissioned and disassembled. The PCC would even go as far as to ban Aztechnology from its territory altogether, as tensions with Aztlan grew. (The absorption of the Ute nation into the PCC in early 2067 only further exacerbated tensions, as Aztlan for the first time began to worry about its northern border.)

2069 brought more destruction to Los Angeles as the earth quaked twice, while near Seattle, Mount Rainier erupted once more, making regular ashfall a common occurrence. NAN efforts focused on maintaining order in and rebuilding the beleaguered city.

The end of 2069 also brought MIT&T’s “Virtuakinetic Phenomenon”, a paper revealing the existence of Technomancers. Their “Patient V” disappeared soon thereafter. Knowledge is power.

Questions about history? Ask Breach! [email protected]

 Seattle Street News is an independent activist news source released weekly on Tuesdays or Wednesdays

[Watch CorporateSINs on every Wednesday, 6pm PST or on Youtube at, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h11c7BLFQtc&list=PLHKocVDXoWBtzze1SGGUnU6KB5UFrDLFo]

[srseattlestreetnews]

Seattle Street News 50, Mind Control

Local News:

Clone Crisis Connected to Dragon Prince

Reporting and tips have led to some new revelations in the ongoing clone crisis. There seems to be an organization called the “Hand of Dusk” which is behind not only the proliferation and infiltration of clones, but also the summoning of the purple dragon we are calling Prince a few months ago. Sources say this “Hand of Dusk” is some sort of dangerous and deranged dragon cult. What are they up to?

Tipsters! All you tipsters in meat space or in the Matrix, send more tips on the Hand of Dusk. Send in any information you have no matter how small or innocuous. Only by working together can we stop this scourge, and since our corporate overlords don’t seem to be interested in working together, we have to do it ourselves outside of normal channels.

Corps! Get your members tested for clones and let the SSN know your results. But it isn’t just clones you need to look out for. Sources have indicated that Hand of Dusk cultists have infiltrated multiple Seattle megacorps. This conspiracy is extensive and it threatens not just the corps, but also the citizens and SINless. Don’t let your corp arrogance blind you to the dangers affecting us all.

More importantly, Citizens!, there is a conspiracy growing like a poison that is threatening us all, in the form of a dragon cult, a dragon, and the attempted undermining of our democracy. This conspiracy has only been able to thrive because it has used the megacorps, with their extraterritoriality and lack of accountability, and with their secrecy and lack of transparency, to grow, to gain resources, and to threaten us all.

This is the fault of cultists. But Megacorp negligence and unchecked power is what enabled it. Tir Tairngire has more oversight of megacorps, maybe it is time for UCAS to take more of an oversight role in corporate doings. For all our safety.

 Crime Up at the Docks After Barghest Attacks

Two weeks ago, the Knight Errant precint near the docks, was attacked by a pack of Barghests. An HTR response team went into the precinct to help, but in the subsequent battle to destroy the barghests, the entire precinct was burned down. Later investigations noted that before the destruction, the precinct had had all of its equipment stolen. Knight Errant’s incompetence in being able to a) stop the barghest attack, needing to rely on HTR and b) having their precinct completely destroyed is an embarrassment. And the result? All my tipsters tell me that crime and smuggling is up in the docks area in the absence of the Knight Errant precinct.

This leads SSN to suspect that the barghest attack was probably a deliberate attack, but was it orchestrated by corps or by gangs? We’ll continue on with our investigations on the matter—tipsters send in information. Dock workers? Are you still safe?

 Corp News:

Event Horizon:  An Exploration Into The Morally Bankrupt And Culturally Genocidal Monoculture Of The Horizon Media Empire—(by demmalition1)

The Horizon Group is one of the most depraved and homicidal groups of mad men to ever walk upon God’s Green Earth. They take all that is good in life and the artistic pursuit of creativity and distill it into a microcosm of what they want you to see and hear. You will see the pictures of the valiant executive and the scary technomancer. You will hear the screams of a goody-two-shoes corp employee before she is rescued by the noble officers of Knight Errant. You will get some variations on this from time to time, but all in all they are the monotheistic monoculture that you all put in place for better or worse. Yes, I’m putting the blame of their meteoric ascendancy to godhood firmly on your shoulders, dear readers. You choose to watch their crap, to soak in their controlled and sterile messages of corp dominance each and every day of your routine lives. Their toothless criticisms of any misdeeds on their parts are swept under the rug. Even the slightest scent of criticism will send the beast into a blinding bloodthirsty fury as it hunts down the ne’er-do-well and rips them asunder in order to keep the public on their side.

They take all that is good and chew it up, only to regurgitate it back into your mouths as revolting and vile trash that you happily lap up since you know no better. You’ve only tasted the creative vomit that’s got a flavor of bleach, worried that anything that might form even the slightest agitation to your diet would overwhelm your delicate digestive tract. You’ll then regurgitate the same thing to your friends and family, spreading the corporate line just as they planned, removing any thought of questioning their lordship over the domain of your supposedly-critically-thinking-mind.

Anything taken as unique like the hit show “Hammer and the Fang” is eventually diluted to its basest elements and repackaged for the widest audience out there. Nope, we clearly don’t want an engaging story about the overreach of power by the police and the (previously) inherent thought of basic rights for all beings, not just those with SINs. You want them to hunk off another formless blob of aggressively indistinguishable gray blocks as “Hammer defeats Nails in this thrilling Season 1 midseason finale!”  Nope, anything else would be too hard hitting for you.

Horizon is one of the few corps that knows what they’re doing. Starting small in 2061 as a high-level think tank to help earthquake and gang stricken Los Angeles, they hit it big in 2063 after scoring several extremely lucrative PR contracts. Their successful fending off of Aztechnology with the help of the PCC secured their spot to solidify themselves as “The Horizon Group” soon after while restoring LA and UCLA along with their two big spin-offs: Singularity (Matrix) and Charisma Associates (PR). When the Crash 2.0 hit, they were mercifully spared as the rest of the world was ravaged by the fallout, emerging soon after to help rebuild much of the California Free State. After seizing CATco’s Corporate Court seat in 2065, they became the unstoppable AAA that we all know and hate. There’s been a push as of late by the corp to go into my hometown of Chicago (aka Cee Zee, the Noose, Hell on Earth) and replicate LA. All I can say is... you can’t do worse than Ares, those pigfucking whoremongers deserve whatever’s coming to them.

Despite CEO and President Gary Cline’s repeated talks of cleanliness, all is not well in the land of the never-setting-sun. His use as a puppet to dance and wave in front of the public with his larger-than-life lifestyle to razzle-dazzle and distract them from the whisper of a shade’s shadow is truly troubling. They’re the corp so concerned about their public image that there is something hiding behind the smiler’s false face of deceit. A smile and a handshake to distract you from the pickpocket of your mind, wallet, and whatever else he may purvey to your bounty of information. For each awakened team-building exercise in “cross relational synergy workshops” we get a Bogota defeat. For each meta and AI friendly act, we get a Las Vegas Massacre. Even their well-touted P2.0 Social Network and LMG(U56) programs had and still have horrible consequences for everyone involved (remember Christy Daee?). Don’t even get me started on their Cal-Hot sim systems addictiveness and dubious legality or their amazingly absurd abuse of skilljacks.

Their internal voting system is known as “Consensus 2.0”, a way for all employees to provide individual input and vote on the direction that they think the corporation should head. Though this may seem like a good idea, a direct democracy can have disastrous consequences as is showcased by the Las Vegas Massacre of a group of protestors (mostly Technomancers) who were fighting for equal rights. Safeguards were put in place after this allowing “The Board” to reject any proposal that they think would undermine their public image. And God forbid their public image should be hurt. They do perform a lot of charity work, I’ll give them that, but the nefarious duplicity behind their motives of control is not something to be shirked off the minds of the people so easily. Rumors of involuntary kidnappings and medical experimentation on possibility hundreds of Technomancers should not be taken lightly. Nor should self-generated war crimes in order to build public support for manufactured wars be forgotten lest we revert to pliable semi-sentient slime for them to mold. An attractive succubus is still a demon no matter how eloquently it speaks or how beautiful it looks.

“We Know What You Think” is not just a phrase that they toss around lightly. They say it with confidence because they tell you what to think, no independent thought required. Another, unofficial motto of theirs I see mentioned around in the Matrix is “Better Living Through Copyright”. Can’t really blame them, they got laws in place that make the old Fifth World “Mickey Mouse Laws” look like a joke (that they will then patent, trademark, and copyright before suing to death you or anyone else who dares repeat it for a fraction of a nuyen). They’re the guys who’s Spec Ops teams don’t go in guns blazing. Good ol’ Richard (an unofficial internal name for the Dawkins Group) will instead infiltrate the offending corp and through power memetics and industrial-scale cultural engineering persuade them to stop. They’ll then buy only Horizon branded goods and services. Freedom of Thought be damned.

I’m going to propose something, dear reader. Let’s all go down to the same Stuffer Shack and buy the same burger and gush over the same show with the same revelations as everyone else. Let’s also pass by the SINless beggar on the street who was born and will die alone all because she had the misfortune of having a SINless mommy and daddy. Let’s keep filling our minds with mush and our bellies with chemically altered food designed to placate us and keep all the cattle in line as we go to the slaughterhouse of mainstream media. We’ll wear our little ear-tags of “Team Jorge” or “Team Kelly” and argue over the banal nothingness of the modern media zombie empire we’ve allowed to be constructed in front of our very eyes. We could turn the channel, but Horizon owns damn near 70% of all media in the greater Seattle Metroplex. Good luck finding anything of value anyways, it’s all corp owned (except us at the SSN). It’s amazing what ¥225 billion will buy you. Don’t complain, remember, you made this.

Now tune in, zone out, and pray to the altar of your media overlords. You better hurry up, I hear this episode’s the one where Hammer gets his trick knees fixed.

I wonder where all of this will lead us. Hope the ending is a good one, this story sucks so far.

 Entertainment/Supernatural News:

(Angelyne Billboard sighting in the Barrens)

Angelyne Sighting in Downtown!

Last week, a tipster in the Barrens noted an Angelyne billboard sighting. It showed up out of nowhere, as they normally do, a portent and an omen of an impending possible sighting. And sure enough, last night, Angelyne The Undying was seen driving her pink convertible downtown! This has been the first Seattle sighting of The Undying in ten years. What is she up to? Why did she show up in the Metroplex this week after such an absence? Might she be releasing a new album sometime soon? Who was she visiting? What was she doing here? Any tipsters with information on Angelyne the Undying, send in tips!

 Features:

Once More 10--(by Breach)

Although Renraku had claimed to have SCIRE under control by mid-2061, in 2063 the UCAS military seizes control of the arcology and declares it “officially” liberated of the AI’s influence. But while the arcology was cleared, the world was not.

Official history will never tell you the story I am about to.

Deus survived Renraku’s assault and even the UCAS “cleansing”; somehow, in its experimentation on the arcology’s residents, the AI had discovered a way to write its source code into the minds of people, and engineered its escape through a thousand of these meat-drones, who would be numbered among the “otaku” who could connect to the Matrix without need for cyberdecks to process the sensory input.

Unfortunately for Deus, and fortunately for the rest of us, a second AI named Megaera, which Renraku had employed to combat Deus, was uploaded into the Network as well. The two factions of the Network fought a years-long shadow war among each other, each side recruiting more otaku into its ranks to replace losses.

Pax, one of the leading figures in Deus’s faction, made an alliance with the terrorist group Winternight, and plots were hatched. Winternight, with the aid of Deus’s Network, secured weapons of mass destruction both biological and nuclear; Sioux military forces foiled what appeared to be a nuclear attack, but it takes many months for a Corporate Court-sponsored team of counter-intelligence and shadowrunners to fully bring Winternight to heel.

And it was all too late.

Early in 2064, Novatech - Villiers’ megacorp du jure - announced an IPO of 20% of their stock for public sale to commence on November 2. The UCAS stock exchange undertook a massive upgrade project to prepare for the IPO - and this all played into Deus’s plans, which was to upload himself across the entire Matrix, taking over every connected device on the planet. And he very nearly succeeded.

Fortunately, Megaera had known of this plot and together with the Matrix’s first AI, the program Mirage (part of the Echo Mirage team from the first Crash, if you remember) they managed to stop Deus and thwart his plans - but the fallout of their struggle would ruin the entirety of the Matrix, bringing down the entire world network in what would come to be called Crash 2.0.

This time, it was not just networks, however - because Winternight was part of the plot as well. The Winter of ‘64, which started in August, was later proven to be the result of Winternight rituals, meant to cripple the world. As the three AIs battled in the IPO launch, Winternight launched its own attacks, unleashing a Crash-like virus named Jormungand that trapped many in the Matrix (some of whom would go on to become e-Ghosts), and killing many more.

The second prong of the Winternight strike is in the physical realm, as EMPs were set off to further cripple the worldwide network, and nuclear warheads detonated at fault-lines around the world in an attempt to tear the very land itself apart. The warheads, however, fail to detonate with the force science would expect, and the damage and fallout is largely contained locally.

Someone is responsible for saving the world that day - it could have been much worse. I hope they know our gratitude.

Questions about history? Ask Breach! [email protected]

 Gang News: 

Ancient JuL33T Murdered!

Shocking news out of Puyallup gangland! Ancient Street Sam JuL33T was found poisoned in her quarters the morning of her wedding of mobster Enzo Gianelli. Belial is on the warpath and expect there to be a lot of gang violence over the next few days. Also expect runner teams to be dispatched to find out her murdered the Street Sam.

 Seattle Street News is an independent activist news source released weekly on Tuesdays or Wednesdays

[Watch CorporateSINs on every Wednesday, 6pm PST or on Youtube at, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h11c7BLFQtc&list=PLHKocVDXoWBtzze1SGGUnU6KB5UFrDLFo]

[srseattlestreetnews]

Seattle Street News 48, Explosive Information

ALERT:

Explosive Information: SSN Recommends All Corps and Government Agencies Test Employees for Clone Possibility

Clones have been cropping up all over the news recently. The two most visible and explosive moments? 1) The revelations reported in SSN 41 that candidates for governor, Aztechnology Exec Alphonse Krund and “Arislen” as well as the naked man found in Seattle and then subsequently kidnapped were all clones of the reportedly murdered Shiawase executive Arislen. 2) The reporting by demmalition1 in SSN 43 that a collection of men battling a local runner team who were trying to stop the Seattle mana storm that eventually gave birth to the new indigo dragon Prince, also seemed to be clones of Arislen. We know that these Arislen clones had memories magically imprinted on them, and we know that Shiawase, with the help of Saeder-Krupp had been working on trying to clone Arislen, though they insisted that these clones cropping up all over Seattle were not their doing.

This reporter has been working on some deep investigation for well over a half year now and with the discovery of some new information, it is time to publish a small bit of that investigation for the good of all the citizens of the Metroplex. This investigation has taken so long in part because the megacorporations of the Metroplex not only do not work with each other, they also jealously hide any and all information. It is this distrust and secrecy that has allowed a third party to take advantage and threaten all of us. Hopefully publishing this partial story will encourage the megacorps to, at the very least, contact this reporter in order to try and piece together the larger story.

But let me begin at a beginning.

Shiawase was not the only corporation interested in cloning. Mitsuhama had a top secret team of scientists working on cloning. One member of that team was a scientist named Demur. Mitsuhama’s reason for working on cloning, from all my research, had to do with looking for humanitarian and medical advances. They were not able to finish their work, however, because that team of scientists went rogue. No one knew where this team of scientists went or what their goals were. My suspicion, based on my investigations, is that this team of scientists set up a research facility in the city of Sekondi and hid their tracks by misdirecting their actions onto a variety of megacorporations. What were they doing in Sekondi? Some of what they were doing ominously involved sending something into space…but that is not all they were up to.

Megacorps gain new execs every day. Over six months ago, Renraku got a new executive named Demur. When I discussed with Renraku contacts the strange coincidence of the Renraku Demur’s name being spoken out by a Mitsuhama space ship the Kurosawa before it exploded in an act of sabotage, Renraku security did a full range of tests on Renraku Demur. The result of those tests was that Renraku Demur was in fact a clone. Renraku transferred the Renraku Demur to a facility in Tir Tairngire where he could do his research while minimizing any sort of damage Renraku Demur might do to Renraku if he became unstable. Renraku dropped the matter. They didn’t ask follow up questions along the lines of: Of whom is this person a clone? Who made this clone? Why? Why was this clone sent to infiltrate their corporation? I suspect this lack of follow up had to do with the loss of Renraku’s security chief shortly after the incident.

Around the same time that the Renraku Demur showed up in Seattle, there were a rash of kidnappings of megacorp executives, including Saeder-Krupp’s Vorack and an Aztechnology exec. Both execs were able to be rescued by their respective corporations, and both of those kidnappings had connections to the clone saga. Vorack was found in a warehouse that couldn’t be confirmed to be owned by any corporation alongside an Arislen body in cryo storage. The group that kidnapped the Aztech exec? Investigations revealed that group was funded out of that mysterious facility in Sekondi.

Months later, an Arislen clone was on the streets of Seattle naked before being picked up by an unmarked van, a van that was set up to frame Renraku in the kidnapping.

A few months after that, someone tried to infiltrate the Seattle gubernatorial election with Arislen clones.

Shortly after that, Arislen clones were involved in trying to bring a brand new Great Dragon into the world in the midst of a mana storm—a Great Dragon that did devastation to Seattle and killed numerous people.

Most recently, Renkaru discovered that their Demur was missing from his work station in Tir Tairngire. Where did the Renraku Demur show up? Sources close to me indicate that Renraku Demur ended up in that base in Sekondi. There are other details about this incident that are more lurid, but that it isn’t time yet to share of that.

What I want to share is this. It is very clear that there has been a very powerful rogue operation creating clones of Arislen (that Arislen himself is apparently himself involved with in some way), altering those clones magically and surgically, infiltrating those clones into megacorporations and governments, implicated in the release of a Great Dragon onto Seattle, and then framing the various megacorporations in order to sow distrust and make it less likely that the megacorps would work together to unravel their schemes while they fight each other or hoard information.

I do not have all the answers as to the full extent of this shadowy Sekondi Group’s membership, goals, or location. I don’t have all the information on the relationship between Arislen and Demur, between Alphonse Krund and Prince the Indigo Dragon. But I do know this: it is now clear to me that the Sekondi Group has been systematically infiltrating our institutions for reasons unknown and their reach is wider and deeper than anyone has yet suspected. I do not write this to panic anyone. I write this for as an alert.

I recommend that all megacorps and all Seattle Government institutions get their employees tested right away to determine if they might be clones.

Hopefully, there are no other clones. However, considering what I have learned, I think it important that we undergo medical examinations to make sure. I know that megacorporations are loath to trust each other. I do ask however, that if any governments or megacorps discover clones in their midst to contact me with this information. I would keep your information anonymous, but I would like to determine the extent to which the Sekondi Group has infiltrated Seattle. Perhaps, as an outside observer, I can help bring together the distrustful in a way that can help all of us.

I do not normally like to publish before having all the answers, but learning of the extent to which the Sekondi Group may have infiltrated us all has prompted me to publish early. I call on those who have access to hiring shadowrunners to investigate seriously. I am willing to consult and would like to get to the bottom of this. Not just for the scoop for the Seattle Street News, but to protect the people of Seattle. The people on the streets don’t need anymore dragon attacks. No one needs any more kidnappings. Let us work together.

 Features:

Once More 8--(by Breach)

The Election of 2057 was unusual in many ways - the most obvious being the year. 2057 was not a normal election year; those happen every 4 years, and the last election happened in 2056. That election was rife with controversy, however, and amid allegations that the vote had been rigged, President Steele and Vice President Booth are both impeached, leaving Speaker Betty Jo Pritchard to become the first female president of UCAS.

It was short-lived, however, as Pritchard did not wish to preside over a nation wracked with controversy, and soon after the impeachment, Congress called for a new election in August. Several candidates announced their intent to run - a name familiar to Seattle Street News, Kenneth Brackhaven, first among them. A few other candidates are worth mention: Franklin Yeats, notable as he was assassinated by a bug-infested FBI agent, and, of course, the Great Dragon Dunkelzahn, who announced his candidacy on the March 15th episode of Wyrm Talk.

In a tight, narrow election, Dunkelzahn and his running mate, Kyle Haeffner, won the election. They were sworn in at noon on August 9th, and at 22:23 that evening, the Presidential limo was engulfed in a fireball, reportedly killing President Dunkelzahn. His would be the shortest Presidency on record, lasting only 10 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds.

An Astral Rift opened in the wake of the explosion, and eye-witness reports saw Dunkelzahn’s spirit departing the conflagration into it. The Watergate Rift will come up again next week, so we’ll come back to that.

There are rumours in the shadows that Dunkelzahn’s death was not an assassination, but a suicide, as the Big D sacrificed himself to save the world from something much worse. I cannot verify these whispers, but I choose to believe them; they fit the Dunkelzahn I knew, and sometimes we need something good in the world to cling to. I cling to the goodness of Dunkelzahn.

After a brief investigation clearing him of involvement in the attack, Kyle Haeffner is sworn in as President of UCAS and, in a surprise move, he nominates Nadja Daviar, Dunkelzahn’s then “Voice”, to be his Vice President. He also nominates a full slate of Cabinet chairs (breaking from the tradition of offering names one-at-a-time) that includes a great diversity of metatypes and gender - a hope of many of Dunkelzahn’s voters.

About a week after his death, Dunkelzahn’s Will was read, leading to the foundation of the Draco Foundation to carry out its varied and complex bequeathments. The Foundation still exists today largely because many of the stipulations of Dunkelzahn’s Will have yet to be fulfilled - a non-metahuman source for ghoul sustenance is a trick that yet eludes corporate science, for instance.

Requiescat In Pace, Dunkelzahn. Your legacy lives on.

Questions about history? Ask Breach! [email protected]

 Corp News:

Reflections on the Military Hardware Market

The article is one of a series looking at the current state of individual corporate subsidiaries in the Seattle Metroplex. This particular issue focuses on the Metroplex Military Hardware.

The Military Hardware market is one of the smallest markets in the Metroplex with a value of just 86.5¥B. Not only is it a small market, there are also only three megacorps competing in this market. The market is dominated by Ares with 57.7% of the market followed by Saeder-Krupp (33.65) and Aztechnology (8.7%). Military Hardware is used by nations and corporations alike to engage in hot wars rather than cold ones, and sometimes, as with Aztechnology, they are used to defeat a Great Dragon. But very often they are also used in the hands of Law Enforcement to oppress the average citizen, or to keep corp wageslaves from escaping their compounds. The great shiny swords are double edged. What does the market tell us?

SSN reached out to the three corps with a Military Hardware presence we got a comment from Aztechnology as well as our regular analysis from Vorack.

Aztechnology, the smallest company in the market, provided us with its understanding of its place in the market replying emphasizing their cross-promotional research and developement: Aztechnology is very proud of its advancements in military technology. Our major subsidiary in the field is of course Espirit, though Dassault has offered up many military advancements in the past as well, and we look forward to many new contributions from them in the future as well. We also look to coordinate efforts between various subsidiaries such as Espirit working with Tres Chic Clothing to produce a line of armored clothing or MageWerks working with Espirit to produce the Third Eye battle visor. Of course the most recent piece of new hardware to hit the market is Espirit’s Real Destroyer missile designed for use with the Aztechnology Striker. And while the plans Dassault has regarding military technology are not public knowledge at this time, rest assured they have a grand plan for helping to secure a safer tomorrow. Which is the most important take away from Aztechnology’s efforts in military technology. The devastation caused by Sirrurg, as well as the recent dragon attack on several corporations in Seattle, are just two of the numerous examples as to how dangerous the sixth world has become. Aztechnology is afterall the way to a better tomorrow, and in this case we are also the way to a more secure tomorrow. As the threats to our world grow so too must our innovations, and Aztechnology will forge the razor edge of innovation needed to preserve our safety.

Aztechnology speaks of the 6th World larger dangers, while market analyst Vorack discusses dangers closer to home:

Military Hardware, don't even need to explain it really. Military hardware encompasses many different types of equipment, be it explosives, firearms, surveillance, traditional vehicles like APC's or even something a bit more exotic like mechs. They all find their use and it seems like they are needed more and more due to the recent events. Now don't get paranoid, everything is going well and the world isn't gonna crumble apart but it seems like the law enforcement segment could take notice of what the Military is doing and maybe change things up. Everyone knows of Knight Errant and how effective they are, and it just makes sense as Ares actually seems to be competent with their military as well. They are able to supply their own officers with better equipment so they can actually perform their job to the highest standard, they use their own investments to help and boost other segments of their company. If Renraku were to do this, then maybe their own officers could of investigated and recovered Demur which hasn't seemed to of happened as of yet. I was kidnapped as I'm sure the readers know and I was recovered by SK because they used resources to find me, military hardware is just one of the contributing factors to being able to do so.

I wish well for Demur, I hope he is okay and I will go on record saying that us at SK actually helped Renraku with their investigation in tracking down the Chairman as we gave Renraku his last known location, which we knew, due to our own surveillance system spread throughout Charlotte. ( I personally have a soft spot for any kidnapped and missing executives and will help in any way I can. I just want any and all corporations to know this. Even if we are competitors, some things even transcend that and I will be there to help) Military seems to be a bit of a safe market though, I guess no one is dumb enough to attack the corp that makes the big guns. Ares has never once been attacked in their market though their announced market value has dropped 15B through its lifetime. I'm not exactly sure what this means but that kinda money just vanishing is odd and I might be wrong here but I think I've reported about vanishing funds from Ares as a corporation before. SK was attacked once in our military segment but we easily held them off with minor damage. And if I am going to be transparent here, us at SK did lower our Market Value by only 5B as well at one point. Ill even tell you what we did, something I doubt Ares will ever do, and if they do tell you, it will be a cover up.

We were preparing for our assault on NeoNET back when we were in a full CorpWAR with them. We made sure to spend that money in making sure our own people would be safe, that only NeoNET was damaged and that no innocents were harmed at all. It was a worthy investment and it’s one I would happily make again to make sure only those who deserve our retribution are the one who feel it. Now the only other known attack was against Aztec. This attack was by far the most damaging of the two attacks though and it does make sense as they are the underdog in the militaristic side of things. No corp has ever joined the race to arms as it were, which is kind of odd. Almost all sectors have a new corp joining in at some point but not this one. I guess it’s up to these three Corps to defend the whole world or so it seems, Ares easily being the strongest of them all, SK doing what we can to help out in any way, and Aztec, while not doing much at all (like anything really) they are at least trying and for that they should have our respect. It’s these three that sacrifice for you all, it’s these three that watch over you all and do what they can to keep you truly safe and it’s these three that seem to actually care about you enough to be prepared for when the worst happens and I hope you all remember that. It’s not EVO that cares, Horizon only wants you to watch their shows and Wuxing is only interested in your money. When something goes wrong, you know you will be calling us for defense.

 City News:

Explosion in Downtown Warehouse District Reveals Corrupt Detective

Last night, close to midnight, there was a large explosion in the warehouse area of Downtown controlled by the Cutters. The explosion follows the MO of Cutter cut and run operations in the face of Law Enforcement raids on their stash houses. The Cutters, one of the main suppliers of Tempo in the Metroplex, are known for rigging the warehouses they use as their Tempo distribution centers with explosives and blowing them on their way out if threatened with discovery. The Cutters usually accomplish two goals with this this, they destroy all evidence and will sometimes take down some Knight Errant in addition.

Last night, however, something went wrong. The explosion seemed to go off early for some reason, causing the death of over a dozen Cutters. Also caught in the explosion, was well known and decorated Knight Errant detective Akshara Nundri, formerly with Lone Star. Detective Nundri had established herself as an expert on Tempo, and it seems she gained her expertise by being in league with Cutters. She was arrested on site by Detective Lance Pendleton, who retired at midnight after decades of service.

In the wake of the explosion, there was some tension when a Saeder-Krupp executive tried to invade the crime scene ostensibly for “relieve services,” though they were rejected by Knight Errant. This may indicate a coming larger conflict between Ares and Saeder-Krupp or it might have been a failed power play.

 Wireless to the Underground—(by FooBar)

Hello digital denizens, time for the snoop on the wild waves of the wireless. Speaking of wireless, with the rise of Josephine Dzhugashvili to her position as governor, she’s made some great promises to bring free wireless access to all the people, and let the flow of information spread to everyone.

Infrastructure has already begun to proceed in the Ork Underground's infamous Mall district, as surveyors have started planning different ways to create wireless access to the people down below. “One of the main difficulties,” a spokesman for the city states, “is solving the noise issue. How do you connect the upper city to the underground when it’s separated by feet of concrete? Several ideas are in the works, but we’re not able to disclose that information until we’ve been able to weigh our options. It’s still too early solidify anything.”

Surge, a local born to the underground had this to say on that subject: “We’s never known what it’s like to have true wireless. Best we’s ever been able to got was rigging hard wires up to the surface, you know, them old rigs them’s used to use before the crash, and let me tell you, workin’ with tech that old’s bad for the brain pan. Un’liable them thing; almost fried me eggs from dumpshock. Don’t never bother going in hot no more. Gots to rely on them’s fancy AR techs to do what I needs to. Hope Them gets things goin’ soon. Knowin’ them Gov’ment types, I’ll be long dead before they gets us ‘liable access.”

So, what are the government’s plans to bring an entire underground to the light of information? If you have any comments or snoops on this or any other subject, make sure to ping old FooBar, your Marquis of the Matrix.

Keep discovering, and stay Jacked in, Jackrabbits.

 Underground Traveler—(by demmalition1)

January 2078 brought the newly elected Governor of Seattle Josephine Dzhugashvili into office. One of her first acts was to introduce a set of sweeping laws and proposals through the Legislature collectively known as the SINless Acts. These are laws and policies meant to help the poorest of the poor by giving access to education and medical services. Finally the SINless have a chance to rise up.

Ms. Dzhugashvili grew up an only child of Russian immigrants to UCAS, a child prodigy that graduated from Harvard at 17 and attained her Masters from Kennedy School of Government at 23. Despite her dumpshock induced stroke during Crash 2.0 in 2064 and loss to Brackhaven in the 2070 Governor's Race (where he revealed she suffered from AIPS), she has done more for the SINless than any person I know. With her help Prop 23 passed in 2074, legitimizing the Ork Underground as an official district of Seattle. This decision was fraught with contention at the time, as it was seen by quite a few people as a power grab which would allow the jackbooted thugs of Knights Errant to legally enter the Underground and give everyone down there a nice and shiny Criminal SIN. Luckily, that never came to pass and the Fools Errant remain confined to mostly tourist areas around The Big Rhino and Lordstrung’s.

This story will concentrate on one particular aspect of the SINless Acts: their work to help the Underground modernize and develop into a fully functional city district. Planned Matrix expansion will take years and completion will be difficult in these crowded tunnels and burrows, just look at the Alaskan Way Viaduct tunnel, a project that has taken so long that it started in the Fifth World!  Now, dear readers, let's take a walk together through the Underground so you can see what it’s really like down here in the dark and damp.

---

Note 1:

I’m currently sitting in Trollstack, a pancake and breakfast establishment in the Ork Underground that smells of syntheggs and “authentic” maple syrup. The plates are the size of car hubcaps and the foot-thick stack of warm and golden heavenly delights with melted soy-butter will delight even the most battle-hardened troll with their aroma. The lighting is adequate and I’m trying to flip through the AR feeds waiting for the birth of a Greater Unicorn. It’s been more than a week so far, and this one has a uniquely long horn for their species and neon pink hooves to boot. I say trying because Matrix access in the Underground is spotty as Hell, probably because they’re that much closer to Hell compared to the well-off denizens of the surface world.

---

Note 7:

I’m growing hot under the collar here like Brackhaven in a courtroom; the AC’s cut out again. “Damn it Jeff!  The air’s stopped movin’ AGAIN!  Fix it or I’ll crack your skull open and use it to store the pretzels at the bar!” says a burly grey-skinned ork behind the counter. The purple neon sign behind him is assaulting his skin like a corp exec on basic human rights, changing his hue to a soft pinkish mix as the light dances across his expressionless face, a face that only a blind mother could love. His name’s Zed, he tells me, and he won’t take kindly to me and my kind down here so deep in the Underground. I’m too “snooty” apparently, that’s a new compliment.

I’ve been asked by Zed to try some Hurlg or he’ll throw me out of the place. He gets me a pitcher of it with no glass. With a look of half murder and half humor he slides the pitch dark ale to my face. The stench of nutmeg is fermenting its way into my nostrils as the 180 proof alcohol labeled “Brute Beer”, a Celtic subset of Hurlg known by “Fomorian Usquebaugh” sits in front of me, taunting me. I’ve never been one to back down from a challenge.

---

Note 8:

Oh God, I should’ve backed down.

The irate hobo out back doesn’t like me, I think. I’m sure he’ll forgive me once he wipes my vomit off of his decomposing home and forgets the heavy insults we traded with each other. I think I’m starting to trip from all of the alcohol, hallucinating down here is not a good thing to do when you’re an elf who looks better off dead than alive.

---

Note 11:

Stayed at “Drac’s Coffin”, a Transylvanian themed coffin hotel. Lord knows I’ve slept at enough of these back during my days with Richard. Movie selection was very good, if you’re into horror. Watched a Fifth World flatvid starring some long dead man by the name of Bela Lugosi. It was in Italian and had subtitles, didn’t need most of them. I’m getting rusty, need to brush up once I get decent Matrix service again.

---

Note 15:

Took “The Underground Railroad” as the locals put it. I don’t know if they did it out of poor irony or simply didn’t know enough to care about the history to care. The electric tram moves along smooth enough, but not as fast as my liking in these dark cavernous mazes. Guy on the tram with me claimed to be from the Creeps and offered to sell me the ashes of “the original founder of the Underground” Bill Speidel for the low price of 1,000 nuyen. A steal!  Possibility literally knowing a few of those types.

When I inquired further he launched into a 15 minute tirade on the history of the Underground starting all the way back to Seattle’s founding as a logging town. A fire in 1889 by a worker heating glue (the West Coast’s O’Leary cow) set most of the city to the torch, and reconstruction left most of the city’s swamp foundation to the dustbin. Filled with a variety of rabble and criminal until “Great Father Bill Speidel” saved Pioneer Square in 1965. It’s grown ever since The Awakening and The Night of Rage, with many nooks and crannies being made and destroyed daily.

I was so captivated I missed my stop and had to scare off a few Skraachas who mistook me for a Humanis member. They ran pissing their pants and crying for mommy, apparently they never saw or heard an Ares Predator V before.

---

Note 23:

Stayed at the Jericao Inn Mission, met a guy who claimed to be best buds with Frank Hardy. He doesn’t know that I know my history, he didn’t last long under pressure being only 19 years old with the IQ of a peanut. Had a comm on him that was stolen from the October raid on Knight Errant in 2074.

---

Note 27:

Sometimes I just stop and have no words for the beauty of the Sixth World. Sure, you have murderous corporate overlords who kill seven innocent civilians at a nightclub, but you also have the wondrous awe of magic and society coming together. The Cavern of Waterfalls opens up to show a dazzling display of fluorescent lighting provided by the local mosses and fungi. Cascades of blue, pink, purple, green, and yellow bounce and scatter off of one another, providing a deep complex rhythm of stunning opulence unlike anywhere else in the world. Local shamans down here set up lodges to tap into the innate magic that flows from the cavern. The water mains that let out here, damaged by the earthquakes of years past, flow out into the Sound through various drainage systems set up in the area. Fungitek harvests a few more specimens for culturing.

I think I could live down here given the chance. Life itself gives pause, and for a brief moment, reminds me why I love this city and its people, why I’m fighting for their rights in the face of oppressive corporate action. The sound fades back in, the tempo and chatter of the Dwarven Mennonite family on vacation behind me mix in with the crowd of people around them. I snap back into my body like a rubber band pulled too tight and look down at the sea of people around me. I’m but a face in the crowd once more. The ethereal feeling of oneness fades, the grit returns with the stench of flesh. I dance to the rhythm of the masses.

---

Note 29:

A troll takes out his combat knife and carves another three notches into his thick dermal skin. By my count he’s up to 11 now, the crimson blood dripping down his pale green skin. I inquire what they symbolize, he responds with “thirty-second, so far...” before he removes his shirt showing the scars of battle. There are other notches, but they’re above a large set of cuts and deep scars that adorn his chest and abdomen. A strong and proud fighter, a good man. “They never stood a chance, beat up some ork kid on his way home from school on the surface”. He turns around and I see tattoos of his family, their dates of birth and a singular date of death below their crying portraits. Words are scrawled below them:

Never Forget

        February 7, 2039

He cried in my arms a broken man that night.

---

Note 32:

Stopped by “The Home of Kham”, a tourist trap claiming to be “the official residence of Kham”, a lie if there ever was one. Took a few pictures. Was butted into by a group of snooty Elven tourists from the surface. Rude. Is this how they see us down here?  How I am starting to see the surface dwellers as they intrude on sacred ground without a care in the world. Makes you think.

---

Note 35:

SUNLIGHT! 

The air is pure and the light unmolested by the contemptuous hum of fluorescents. There is wind on my face and a biting cold of snow as I trudge through the park back to the beating heart of the city. The hum of the internal combustion engine roars to life as tires screech and machines of man race as beasts along roads of asphalt and blood. I pause in the middle of the street to listen to the woman singing Carmen from her apartment window as she rehearses for her open-air play down in the park. My breath frosts up a glass display as I look into the lounge of a nice diner offering refuge from the cold. I feel ALIVE!  There is a charm to this city that I miss, but there is something fundamentally lacking within these walls of concrete. God may shine his gaze down upon this city, but His face is grim with respite and sadness.

After being down in the dark and damp for more than 3 weeks I’m starting to grow an aversion to the surface life. I can see why the cloistering cells are loved, why the cubbyhole of warmth is held sacred above the oppressive monotheistic architecture of the surface world. I can see ACHE a few blocks away towering over the skyline, a festering boil that’s blighting the cityscape and threatening to burst at any moment. Might go down to see an improv show, heard that they’re taking on an old classic called “War of Stars” or something like that.

This world is full of grime and dirt and disease and starvation. A kid will die of exposure tonight out in the streets. This world is also full of beauty, however fleeting as a woman in red walks by and for a second I fall smitten. We walk past and never speak, but share a lifetime together through a simple glance into each other’s eyes. The depths of our souls laid bare as we grow old and die together for an instance in time before returning down our paths, diverging, never to return again.

Just stop and enjoy life.

Who knows, you might like it.

 Classifieds:

Famous company recruits awakened individual for a well-compensated part-time job in entertainment. All metatype and gender identities welcome. Ability to summon a shark spirit is a must, good Matrix skills are appreciated. Contact SPTFB on the Matrix to apply.

 Seattle Street News is an independent activist news source released weekly on Tuesdays or Wednesdays

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Seattle Street News 47, Last Wishes

Corp News:

Ares Squires Exec Soltysiak Kane Dies Under Mysterious Circumstances

Late yesterday, Ares set up a press conference to announce the death of Soltysiak Kane:

Ares Macrotechnology, Knight Errant, and The Squires of Galahad are deeply saddened today to announce the passing of Former President of the Galahad Academy Soltysiak Kane. It was often said that guiding the Squires and helping them grow was his true purpose in life. Sadly, it seems that his heart never fully recovered from the pain of the Fitzgerald Revelations and his subsequent stepping down. Mr. Kane retired to his bed Saturday evening and after falling asleep, went to join his beloved Winnifred in the great beyond. In accordance with his wishes, he shall be cremated and his remains scattered around the campus of Galahad Academy, so that he may forever be a part of the hallowed institution. A small Remembrance service will be held at the Avalon Chapel in Bay City; in lieu of flowers, a small donation to your local Squire Order would be the best way to honor the late Soltysiak Kane.

SSN readers will remember that Mr. Kane was the President of the Galahad Academy and Order Master of the Squires of Galahad during the shameful and embarrassing scandal involving unethical kidnapping and experimentation on metahuman SINless children by Ares Execs Margret and Foster Fitzgerald. While there is no evidence that Kane was aware of the experimentation, Kane seemed to be the sacrificial lamb used by Ares to save face while there has been no public word from Ares about what has become of the actual perpetrators of the experiments, the Fitzgeralds. After sacrificing Kane figuratively, have they sacrificed him literally?

Official sources insist there is no mystery here and nothing to see. A completely healthy man just happens to die in his sleep for no particular reason right after an embarrassing scandal. Forgive me dear readers, but dying of heartbreak might be a convention in romantic literature, but doesn’t happen in real life—especially in not so convenient a way.

This reporter was able to contact a source close to Mr. Kane who I’ll call WhaddyaKnowJoe, who told a slightly different story. Joe says that right after the news broke, Kane made a number of phone calls, one to his lawyer, but three could not be traced. The call to the lawyer seemed to have been to change his Will. Joe was able to provide this reporter with a copy. Kane had just set up an endowment to make payments to Squires who “could prove they were part of the Fitzgerald’s program.” There was digital handwriting on the initial copy of the remade Will, and the handwriting evidenced “no trembles, or other signs of duress.” Strange that the confident and competent handwriting would belong to someone so close to dying of “natural causes.” The day after writing that new Will and those three mysterious phone calls, Kane made three withdrawals of 10K nuyen. Where did that nuyen go? Was Kane hiring a runner team for something? Perhaps a mission that someone else did not want to succeed? Who could that other person have been? One thing I’d like to leave this story with is a quote from WhaddyaKnowJoe, who know Kane well, “I can't say what happened that Saturday after he went to bed, but between you and me the weight of the guilt he felt about the situation wouldn't have been enough to stop his heart.”

Something happened to Soltysiak Kane the corps don’t want us to know. I think we should find out. If anyone has any info on Kane, including where that money went, or on the Fitzgeralds, contact the SSN.

Reflections on the Cyberware Market

The article is one of a series looking at the current state of individual corporate subsidiaries in the Seattle Metroplex. This particular issue focuses on the Metroplex Cyberware.

The Cyberware market is one of the larger markets in the Metroplex with a value of 145.6¥B, just edging out Robotics in revenue. However, unlike Robotics, Cyberware is a fairly densely populated market. Six out of the ten megacorps have cyberware subsidiaries and no one has overwhelming dominance: Evo leads with 26.3% of the market, followed closely by NeoNET (23.1%), Renraku (18.4%), Horizon (17.9%), Mitsuhama (9.6%), and Ares (4.7%). Cyberware is used by all sorts of members of the 6th World as a form of enhancement, but must of us in the shadows are used to seeing cyberware on the bodies of our Street Sams and other runners. Cyberware makes an impact from high to low. So what does the market data tell us?

SSN reached out to all the corps with a Cyberware presence and responses we got are interesting. A NeoNET contact offered some overall analysis in the absence of Vorack’s, noting that:

Cyberware is an interesting market: not big by any measure, but the biggest market with more than 5 players. None of the corps involved have it as their main market either. And still it boasts exciting products with very different uses. Like the tattoo industry that only became hot when it could brand itself as art rather than a mark of infamy.

Virtually all the players could at any time use their share as currency in a deal to grow one of their core markets instead, or become the clear market leader in one move. It is therefore only a matter of time before it consolidates.

Last but not least: Saeder-Krupp is nowhere to be seen here, but they can be relied on to foment a coup and pounce as soon as the numbers work. That is, if Vorack hasn't choked on confectionery baked with impromptu cooking implements by the time it happens. 

This analysis of the market as being one that might start moving towards consolidation seems to be borne out by comment by a tipster who works with Ares, the corp with the smallest subsidiary, who leaked the explosive news that Ares is in negotiations to sell their Cyberware holdings. A deal seems imminent and could result in interesting changes in that market. Let’s hope it will not result in layoffs for workers connected to Ares’s cyberware division.

A Mitsuhama spokesperson responded to questions about their Cyberware presence in s seemingly more corporate approved way noting, “In the vein of Cybernetics, or Cyberware, Mitsuhama has taken the approach of overcoming the growing dependencies to magic several of our competitors have taken. We're excited to see this area grow as further development of the Dawn Suits continue. Just yesterday a colleague of mine told me a story of a woman who worked in Health & Safety and was able to quickly, on her own, remove layers of rubble that had trapped a puppy and child who was in the wrong place as a magical experiment went awry. Quite terrible." Mitsuhama seemed to attribute their success in cyberware, despite their small market share, to their experience in magically diminished locations, “As you know, Mitsuhama has rebuilt much of the lost colony on Mars, where magics dwindle, making it ideal for technological enhancement and prime for research and development. We believe Cybernetics will only improve much of what we already do, including Matrix Services, Robotics, and Aerospace allowing us to better connect with whomever tries to integrate with our technologies in a holistic manner." This reporter pushed the Mitsuhama representative on its rhetoric that seemed to distance itself from magic and the Magical Goods market, and the source let slip some interesting news, saying, "Of course, we don't completely disregard magic and its importance on Earth; as such plan to dive into that area again to remain competitive and empathetic to those who want to dip into both realms. For instance, Cyberware that doesn't impact those of a spiritual nature; attempting to keep our spirits clean. We try to remain inclusive at Mitsuhama." The Mitsuhama rep indicates that perhaps Mitsuhama might enter into the Magical Goods market. Are they planning to create a new subsidiary or buy someone else’s?

This week’s market analysis has revealed some interesting information for investors and workers alike. The market seems to be on the verge of mergers and consolidation while Magical Goods might be on the verge of expansion and more job opportunities. What will this mean for our street sams and runners? Only time will tell! Additionally, let’s see what will develop with the rivalry between SK analyst Vorack and my currently anonymous NeoNET analyst.

 City News:

Meet the saddest guy in Seattle—(by 8)

Top Gun, that’s what he goes by at “Blast from the Past”, the trendy NeoNET-owned club where he spends his days and his nights. Not that he has a choice in the vintage Bomber jacket that projects the tough-guy image his thin frame and old bean counter uniform used to repress, and original Aviator sunglasses.

Top Gun is grieving, he misses the funky smell, the chaotic ethos, the graffitied 1980’s-inspired murals and random nihilistic slogans whose successive layers used to read like a people’s history of Seattle, written by hackers high on sleeplessness after a pizza-and-beer fueled coding session on their laptop succeeded by groggy deckers just out of stim-patch inspired fantasies lived out in VR.

He turns his sight to his left, briefly, like he fears being caught. “Donnie, manager. Keep out.”, reads the sign on the door behind the saloon bar, the pride of the former owner. Leaving the bar here is one of the few promises he, Donnie “Top Gun” Deckard, has been able to keep since he got his employer, NeoNET, to buy the place and let him run it. “I’ll make Blast great again”, that’s what he had told Barry White over a dinner at the Space Needle as they were shaking hands to seal the sale.

It had only taken Donnie two months to understand the sad smile on old Barry’s face that had taken him aback. Two months of ego stroking and veiled threats by higher ups to rip the soul of the place out, down to the minutest scrape of paint, to shed light on every shadow where the SINless used to be at home.

Smelly Petra climbs downs the stage amid polite clapping, gives him a smile and a thumbs up as she approaches. He rises from his chair, they hug for a second. A smile, a discreet tear he wipes from his cheek. I have known them both forever, but I resist the urge to join them. I only came here to watch Donnie, tonight, to reckon what’s left of my friend behind the familiar leather shell. She leaves and Donnie seats again.

A brief rustle, the crowd turns their brand new seats to the screen behind them. Kappa’s Orkinary is about to begin. Before the excitement and noise crank up one level or two, the brief respite allows the weird Galaga music, the tugging and yanking at the joystick to reach Donnie’s hears. I know why he just breaks down now, I was there with him twenty years ago when he answered Barry’s call for an expert in arcane arcade technology. We fixed whatever was wrong with the machine. I’m sure Donnie remembers the serial number of the original replacement part he brought with him that day.

What was just an odd job in a smelly, dirty deserted place, turned into a life-changing experience as we tried to make our way back through the crowd that had come for Annie Linux. She was in the middle of her signature “Sweet dreams are made of this.” We just stopped in our tracks, intrigued by that unfamiliar sound, the microphone Annie was holding, her silly clothes. We stayed another four hours, singing, shouting, clapping with them, these strangers that became our new family, just like that. We returned, night after night, until we parted ways and started on our nice corporate jobs. Sweet dreams indeed…

Familiar images from the stupid incident between the weird ork clone known as Krund and an unidentified troll are greeted by loud cheers. Orkinary has just started. Showing popular Kappa fare to the new faux Bohemian patrons is one of the awful compromises Donnie has had to make. This abysmally void show in particular promises to reach even lower with a mysterious trid they already advertise for next month and call Bang Fang!

He sure is sad, Donnie, right now, but when he rises again and returns to the office behind the bar, I see a new resolve in his eyes and know my buddy is finally going to fight back.

Reds in Town?

Tipsters on the street have reported a number of sightings of Renraku’s elite military special forces, the Red Samurai out and about in Seattle. Why? They are not brought out for no reason. If they are around, Renraku is up to something, and something big. What are they up to? Anyone have any more information, send it to the SSN!

 Features:

Once More 7--(by Breach)

2050 saw the rise of what we would really recognize as shadowrunners, when the truly portable cyberdeck was introduced to the market.  Before then, cyberterminals were bulky and hard to transport - ranging from desk-sized cocoons down to bulky desktop tower units - but in 2050 the keyboard-sized cyberdeck was released and deckers hit the streets.  Corporate warfare had always been a shadowy affair, but the ability to carry your hacking tools with you changed the rules of the game.  

The early 2050s also saw the spread of the Universal Brotherhood and other neo-communist movements, preaching a philosophy of unity, equality, and belonging.  They opened their doors to the SINless, and the SINless flocked to them like flies to honey - and in the end, it turns out that’s not a metaphor.  

By 2055, the hives were widespread and the problem came to a head. The first obvious outbreak was in Chicago, where insect spirits moved boldly and openly and swarmed the city, leading the UCAS government to quarantine the city (citing “a new strain of VITAS” as the official reason.)  In the shadows, we know that Seattle almost had a similar outbreak a few months earlier, but a team of shadowrunners investigating a seemingly unrelated murder managed to destroy the hive before its queen got started - the news reported the camps closed for “health reasons”.

Chicago was bad. I was there.

The city was cut off from the Matrix (nominally - some entrepreneurs set up illegal satellite hubs), and the world.  Relief goods had to be shipped in from outside as access to food and medical supplies quickly dwindled.  Gangs took over entire neighbourhoods and Knight Errant set checkpoints and roadblocks across the city.  They even tried to nuke the hive, to no avail - the bomb didn’t even explode properly, contained somehow by who-knows-what. When the nuke didn’t work, they walled us in, and left us largely to fend for ourselves - fights over relief drops were common, and sometimes complete shipments were hijacked and sold off to the highest bidder by whatever corp or gang managed to get ahold of it.

Fortunately, we managed to get the word out and expose the cover-up.  Once the world knew about the bugs, it was harder to write off the city as another disease outbreak and action was actually taken, though not often to the benefit of the people trapped there. The quarantine was lifted in 2058 after Strain III, an engineered bacterium that targeted the spirit-infected, was released.  While the bugs were stopped, HMHVV-infected individuals were killed by the bacteria as well, and it never saw widespread use.  

Chicago remains “Bug-Town”, a shell of its former self and still largely cut off from the world.

Next week we take a pit-stop to talk about the election of 2057.  There’s a lot to unpack there.

Questions about history? Ask Breach! [email protected]

 Gang News:

Gangland Engagement in Trouble?

Tipsters with an “in” with the Ancients tell me that the engagement between Street Sam JuL33T and Enzo Gianelli might be in trouble. JuL33T is apparently inconsolable over the death of her cousin Street Sam TIB and it not in the mood to get married to anyone. Belial is reportedly not at all pleased.

Letters to the Editor:

Dear SSN editor,

Mr. Vorack, his qualities as an analyst notwithstanding, made unsubstantiated, libelous claims against my employer, NeoNET, in your latest issue.

I know that NeoNET management won’t stoop to his level but I, a simple employee, hereby kindly demand that Mr. Vorack just put up or shut up.

Yours truly,

--b.

P.S.: I will wholeheartedly concede that NeoNET robots are not meant to be used for cooking in the way Mr. Vorack did. But maybe Mr. Vorack’s marshmallows simply did not taste great because they were a Saeder-Krupp product?

 Seattle Street News is an independent activist news source released weekly on Tuesdays or Wednesdays

[Watch CorporateSINs on every Wednesday, 6pm PST or on Youtube at, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h11c7BLFQtc&list=PLHKocVDXoWBtzze1SGGUnU6KB5UFrDLFo]

[srseattlestreetnews]

Seattle Street News 46, New Model Army

Announcement:

I, your trusty editor, am happy to welcome a new reporter, FooBar, into the Seattle Street News family. FooBar is an experienced digitally based reporter who’ll give us the skinny on the streets and back alleys only found in the Matrix. Welcome FooBar!

Corp News:

Ghost of Arislen the Sexiest Ghostie in the 6th World?

We all know the digital rag, the Weekly Wuxing Enquirer: your place for celebrity gossip and irregular sightings of Bat Boy. Everybody seems to read it…legally or not. It is ubiquitous. If you want to know if the lead singer of SuperUniverse is still dating Trid Star Alpha Omega, the Weekly Wuxing Enquirer is the place to go. If you want to know if the brain of Elvis (some 5th World Trid Star) has been uploaded into a biodrone that also looks like Marilyn Monroe (some other 5th World Trid Star), the Weekly Wuxing Enquirer is the place to go.

Every year the Weekly Wuxing Enquirer also has the Sexiest Entity in the 6th World competition. Now, I think we all knew who was most likely to win the competition this year: Alpha Omega. Alpha Omega has been everywhere this year. She was the star of the year’s biggest blockbuster trid: 52 Fast 52 Furious—Bourne’s Impossible Mission 92: The Revenge of Electric Boogaloo. She also had 13 hit singles, including “Love Song #87: Buy This Song! (The Very Edgy Remix).” In a mainstream digital rag? We all figured she was a lock for the win. If not her, then maybe Lofwyr again. Dragons always seem to win these things.

But when the announcement came out…it was not what you’d think. The Sexiest Entity in the 6th World turned out to be former gubernatorial candidate: The Ghost of Arislen. Now this is clearly absurd. The Ghost of Arislen is clearly not the Ghost of Arislen, that much was clear from the election. Who is the cyberjocky that is maintaining the Ghost of Arislen persona and spent their time trolling everyone during an election? Doesn’t really matter, does it? Don’t get me wrong, I do indeed want to know who the Matrix troll is, but that is not relevant to this moment. What is relevant to this moment is that after the Matrix, a bunch of hackers, deckers, and SINless became fans of Arislen. For people who couldn’t vote in the election, a clearly fake candidate trolling the norms, something so very absurd, became one of the few things that made sense in this broken city. Not exactly a gang, but more an anarchist fanclub. And they have been active posting ghostie graffiti all over town…you’ve seen the images. 

And it seems, they’ve pulled off the ultimate troll. They have somehow hacked the Sexiest Entity Competition. And so now, the Sexiest Spirit of the 6th World is none other than Arislen’s Ghost. What does it mean in the end that such absurdities come to pass? Perhaps when they have nothing else and no other power, only the absurd makes sense. It may seem like a small victory, but think about it. Arislen’s Ghosties got “The Ghost of Arislen” named the Sexiest Spirit in the 6th World on the cover of the Weekly Wuxing Enquirer. Sometimes that sort of victory is enough.

Reflections on the Robotics Market

The article is one of a series looking at the current state of individual corporate subsidiaries in the Seattle Metroplex. This particular issue focuses on the Metroplex Robotics. 

The Robotics market is a medium sized market in the Metroplex with a value of 137.3¥B. It is much bigger than Agriculture and almost as important. Food, the Matrix, Housing, and Robots. These are the cornerstones of 6th World survival. Similar to Agriculture, Robotics isn’t a very crowded field. The four corps with presence in Seattle’s Robotics are the dominant Saeder-Krupp (43%), second place Renraku (29.8%), Shiawase (19.3%), and finally Horizon (7.8%). Robotics covers so much of our lives, from SK’s Kegbots, to Renraku’s new wolf drones, to Horizon’s innovative use of robotics in entertainment and news, from their journalism drones to their film effects robots.

SSN reached out to all the corps with a Robotics presence but could get no comment from official sources—however, we are lucky to get a rather different sort of market analysis from one of Seattle’s premier financial analysts, Saeder-Krupp executive Vorack. Gentle readers will be asked to remember that Vorack is a brilliant analyst but also a member of Saeder-Krupp, and that offers special insight, but also a bit of a SK slant:

Vorack: Good ol Robotics, it’s used for a whole lot more than you would think! Of course there are your typical bipedal humanoid types, the ones you use as a chauffeur to drive you around or even that certain tutor-bot who can actually stand your brat of a child, and maybe someday will teach them how to be more than a god damn good for nothing nerfherding dwarf! Sorry about that, I personally recommend the KLERM as it is an amazing tutor. Then of course you got your fun bots, the ones used for more recreational goods and that just make lives easier. Be it keeping your brew nice and cold and bringing it to you while called, the ones you set up for Halloween for pranks and used to scare anyone that passes by! Or even the ones who can self ignite, throw on a batch of amazing sausages on itself, get em all nice and crisp and crackling and then serve them out, without you even needing to think about lighting a grill, and then having people complain because maybe just maybe you would like to socialize instead of paying full attention to a grill full of BeccaWurst, I’m sooooo sorry that they came out a little overcooked, I was busy being a good host for everyone else! Sorry again, that was uncalled for, but seriously that KEGbot is perfect at what it does, chilled to perfection. And then of course there are companion bots for those who just need a little extra companionship in their life. There is nothing wrong with having a bot sitting around that you can talk to and bounce ideas off of maybe sing you a song or two. There are so many other types of bots out there that I could write this whole article and still not mention even a fraction of them, that's what is so great about them. A good team of engineers can figure out a new way to make your robo act and then figure how to design them to make it work and Bam!, just like that, your life just got slightly easier as now you will never need to fold laundry again!

It’s weird to say but I owe my life to a robot, I can’t give out too many details but it was a certain group of individuals piloting some KEGbots, they were heading out to a party to keep it going and they found me and rescued me from that warehouse after I was kidnapped. If it wasn't for those bots, who knows if I would have been found and I hate the idea of that. [Editor’s Note: SSN Reporting indicated that Vorack was not rescued by a group of individuals heading out to a party, but a S-K Special Forces team using modified Kegbots as combat Mecha.] So ya the Robotics industry is kinda important. We make robots all the time to do tasks that are either way to dangerous for us to do ourselves or so repulsive that even an Ork won’t do! (That's a joke, I don't know if it came across right but I didn't mean anything by it, I mean no disrespect to the Ork community.) [Editor’s Note: Vorack’s views are Vorack’s and do not reflect the views of the Seattle Street News.] I guess it’s time I get to talking about the division and its players then huh? As of right now there are four corps in the Robotics market but there used to be another, sadly their products were of such low quality that we felt bad for them and bought them out entirely so they wouldn't cause any more harm. Right now us at SK are leading, followed by Renraku, Shiawase and then bringing up the rear is Horizon but they are newcomers to the field so that's to be expected. It has always been a growing industry with very few setbacks in general. There seemed to be an attack on a Renraku factory of some sort months back and while SK was attacked twice by NeoNET, one of those time NeoNET’s own robots, who they were using as the attacking force, ended up turning on each other and it was hilarious to watch and report on, man that was a good time. I was actually there for that strike, we actually roasted marshmallows over the burning wreckage of their robots, the wreckage they caused themselves! (The marshmallows didn't taste that great, I don't recommend cooking anything over a NeoNET product) God I love telling that story, I wish I had a Vid of it.

But no aside from those few issues and the one time a Horizon product backfired and went around broadcasting how corrupt their corp was and how they are using the media to control the masses, there have been almost no problems in robotics, just always going up and it doesn't look like it’s gonna stop. I personally wanna see more corporations get into robotics, maybe come up with some new fun ideas that will change up everything but as of now it’s just a really strong subsidiary with very little downside. Who doesn't want a robotic pet Stegosaurus, I know I wanted one as a little kid and now because of SK and their robotics division I have one and let me tell you, Snappy is an amazing pet.

Robotics are central to everything we do. Sometimes that might be good when it is a hacked medbot in that one alley in the Barrens where SINless can get a bit of aid, but sometimes it might be bad when it is a new fleet of oppressive Robocops stomping on SINless.

 City News:

Galahad Academy Front for Child Kidnapping Ring?

The rash of SINless kidnappings, that caused so much outrage in the community, seems to have gotten some answers, and they aren’t pretty. The positive side is that they weren’t murdered by some serial killer. The down side is that they were preyed upon by some Ares scientists for immoral experimentation. Brother of one of the missing kids Sam Ortega, contacted SSN the other day to share some information.

It turns out a pair of Ares scientists, Margret and Foster Fitzgerald were enticing SINless metahumans with promises of SINs and scholarships to the Galahad academy, one of the infamous Ares Squire academies. Rather than a pathway to a new life, what they got instead was destructive experimentation. These Fitzgeralds seemed to be conducting surgeries on the children to make them seem human, suppressing their metatype. Rumors have it that it had to do with some sort of human supremacist program. Details are still forthcoming, but all signs are that this was about destroying these children’s selfhood, what made them special and beautiful, in exchange for…what? For the chance to be forever owned by some shadow organization hidden inside Ares?

Is this why Knight Errant was so slow in investigating the rash of kidnappings—because it was an inside job? I think it is not coincidental that Lt. Monroe, one of the most honest Knight Errant I’ve ever met was sidelined throughout the entire situation. Indeed, where is he now?

Fallout information on the scandal is very hard to find. Ares has moved into damage control mode. They have denied any knowledge of the experiments the Fitzgeralds were involved in, they certainly denied approving the program—indeed, they condemned the program in the strongest possible language. This is something we know. Things we don’t know? What happened to the Fitzgeralds and all the children deceived into their secret program. But we also know that Ares is cleaning house in the aftermath of the scandal. Soltysiak Kane, the President of the Galahad Academy and Order Master of the Squires of Galahad released a press release earlier today announcing that he would be stepping down from his position. He, in his press release, announced, “It has been my utmost pleasure over the past eighteen years to guide this prestigious Academy forward. However, in light of the recent revelations of Doctor Fitzgerald's reprehensible activities it has become clear that I am no longer fit to serve as your Order Master and President. It was my signature that allowed them into our Order, and my lack of oversight that allowed them to carry out their experiments on your fellow Squires. It's at times like these, that Squire Orders are most important. Though I shall be leaving this Academy in an Official capacity, I am now, and shall ever be, a Squire of Galahad.” The new President of Galahad and Master Squire is one Maritza Quartermane. Maritza Quartermane is a very symbolic choice. There are things about Quartermane you would expect. They are a graduate of the Galahad Academy. After graduation they distinguished themselves in service of Knight Errant, holding a variety of positions but being most well known for their work in Information Security. This is what Ares would tell you about Maritza Quartermane. What I’ll tell you about them is that they are an Ork. After a scandal involving human supremacy and unethical experimentation to suppress someone’s metahumanity, Ares has placed an Ork in charge of the Galahad Academy and the Squires Program. Is this an indicator of a more significant change in Ares? Let us hope so.

But for the moment, for Seattle, the most important thing is Liam has his brother back.

Emerald Rainbows—(by Demmalition1)

While walking along the streets pondering my next piece for this column I saw the most peculiar thing.  I saw a man in a bright red shirt fidgeting with his commlink and sweating profusely, mumbling to himself about God knows what.  I know this because that’s who he was mumbling to, God.  He was having an argument with the most supreme being in the cosmos about his life and the direction that he took to land himself there.  That’s right, God himself was standing over his shoulder shouting into his ear, and he being only a mere mortal was mumbling back what best he could.  As the devout among us know, you don’t say “no” to Him, the one above all who created the Heavens and the Earth, the one who gave the breath of life into this universe and allowed mankind to degrade itself into its present state of corporatocracy and crony capitalism.  However, you might give pause to what you’re being told if you were asked to “kill yourself for the betterment of mankind, you loser fuck.  Just jump into traffic already!”.

Zachary DeWitt was a human who led a normal life for the first 30 or so years.  He had a stable job with a loving troll husband and an adopted ork rescue child who supposedly was born in Germany near the SOX region.  He was an analyst for some small-time accounting firm, going over numbers to find evidence of fraud and coverups.  One day Zachary decided to go out with his friends after work to a dive bar for a few drinks.  While there they all had a bit too much to drink, and too much alcohol can lead to some bad life decisions.  Though the punishment varies, the decision Zachary was about to make would have ramifications far beyond his own life.  He decided to slot a BTL chip in for the first time.  It went downhill from there.

I sat down with Zachary at a nearby diner, a bit rundown but it was the closest thing not near a major intersection.  Under the dim and flickering bulbs and over a hot bowl of soup he told me just what it was like to be a whole other person for a little while.  He told me how amazing the high was, and how his ability to experience snowboarding down a mountainside grew to feeling the victory of his first underground heavyweight boxing championship.  When he threw the knockout punch in the 8th round it was like being the king of the world, like being a dragon lording over a hoard of gold that was yours and yours alone.  This progressed rapidly to wanting to know what the female orgasm felt like, to him experiencing the macabre thrill of his first robbery, to feel the joy of hurting someone, and finally culminating in the hollow revelry of killing an innocent person point-blank with a shotgun, taking glee as his victim’s guts splattered against the wall.  But the high was fleeting, and Zachary was running out of money.  The repeated trips down memory lanes not of his own were growing tiresome, and he needed something more, something of pure and utter passion.

That's when Zachary turned to other drugs, other drugs that would expand his mind and experiences: novacoke, cram, jazz, and even nitro.  But even that wasn’t enough.  The repeated exposure to the various personalities he inhabited and the false lives he lived started to make him paranoid, and he was developing the early stages of dissociative identity disorder even when not slotted in.  His husband took their daughter after a while, he soon after lost his job and subsequently his UCAS SIN.  These events caused him to plunge into the deep end of the drug trade to find the meanest, baddest drug around.  Nitro wasn’t enough, he needed something more, something so permeable in its euphoric tendencies that not even Zachary himself could handle it.  He turned to a new drug, a drug given the street name of “Little Apple”.

You may remember Little Apple was featured way back in SSN issue no. 32 when it started to inject its way into the bloodstream of the city.  It has gone unchecked since then and has grown a small cult following in various underground circles.  Users within this following are referred to as ‘fluffies’ on account of the fact that they appear outwardly friendly and sociable before degrading rapidly.  The drug causes a euphoric feeling much like bliss, but has the added side effects of causing neurologically-based visual and auditory hallucinations.  Users see lights, rainbows, and unicorns accompanied by friendly music before flipping on a dime and going into ranting manic episodes.  The drug is highly addicting and causes these episodes to get worse and worse with each use.  These episodes eventually reach a crescendo of constant depression, hallucinations, and even death by suicide, most commonly by people wandering into traffic with a glazed look in their eyes.  Some, like Zachary, willingly throw themselves off of rooftops or into speeding traffic in order to stop the voices in their heads.  And Little Apple, coupled with Zachary’s previous BTL-induced side effects was right at the cusp of snuffing his life as well.

Nothing is being done to help Zachary and the other SINless in Seattle.  To those of you who are SINless and read this column, know that I care for and am fighting for you.  You are powerless to change your situation, with no legal means of voting or working in this oppressively kleptocratic oligarchical corporatocracy.  Something must be done for you.  But for the rest of you with SINs, I know sure as Hell that you don’t give a damn about Zachary.  If you did care for him you’d be calling your representative right now to complain.  After all, Zachary is just one among the crowd of assholes who populate our homeless shelters eating up your hard-earned tax dollars.  It’s Zachary’s fault he got into this, let him find his own way out in front of a bus going at high speeds.  Yeah, that’ll end the drug problem one deranged person at a time.  They don’t need our support, fuck em.  But don’t say that about Uncle Earl, he needs all the support he can get, he’s just going through a rough patch is all.  It’ll all work out in the end, I just know it.

If any of you SINners got out and looked at the state of our city, and I mean REALLY looked, you’d be outside your local Representative’s office screaming at the top of your lungs for reform.  You’d want to help those who can’t help themselves, but you know what?  Most people with SINs don’t go out and fight for a better tomorrow.  They’d rather stay in the blissful reality of their lives going about their daily loop, aiming for the next big and juicy promotion.  It’s the drug of choice, their promotion being the next hit to get high on life and ignoring all that’s wrong around them.  They’d rather have life go around and around like a merry-go-round, distracted by the colorful lights and cheerful music until they grow old and drop dead.  The only difference between life and Little Apple is that Little Apple does what it says on the tin, just a lot faster.

God help us all.

 Ares Rolls Out Jack Booted RoboThugs To Invade Our Homes

Ares/Knight Errant recently announced something very disturbing for the SINless and their fellow travellers. In a press release Ares/Knight Errant have announced the roll out of a new product: the Lancer Humanoid Security Drone. It is a heavily armored “law enforcement” drone that is meant to keep the well off SINners “safe” from those of us protesting for justice and representation. They cited the rise of a protest movement that brought our new government and our new hopes as the reason they brought out these new inhuman and frightening forces of intimidation and violence. A representative said the purpose was to “keep us safe from protestors and anarchists.” But who is the “us”—certainly not unarmed and peaceful protester Pedro Tanaka who was shot by Knight Errant officer Augustus Ivan Polk. Certainly not me and certainly not you. They are labeling us all anarchists because we want to be able to walk down the street like anyone else.

The forces of backlash are rising and now a metal army is coming to our neighborhoods. Keep safe chummers. But keep inspired and keep empowered. Nevertheless, we will persist. Once awakened, we will not fall back to sleep.

 Features:

Feedback Loop: Activity in the Arcology—(by Foobar)

Hello Digital Denizens; this is FooBar, your Sultan of Systems, coming to you from the heart of the Matrix. I’m here to bring you all 411 from the 0s and 1s, scoping the systems, and keeping an eye on the digital.

The now government run arcology known as ACHE has been a topic of a lot of debates, It’s walls being closed off, and its imports and inhabitants controlled. Nothing goes in and out of the arcology without the government’s notice.

Or so we thought.

Though information is obfuscated for anything within the arcology itself, import records show there is more need for supply within the closed system. Looking deeper, digital transactions within the arcology seems to be on the rise.

What’s more, connecting the data points paints an interesting picture. Over the last few weeks, there have been identical transactions to several of the arcology’s more independently run stores on a regular basis. What does this mean for the arcology? Is there a third party at play here, or just a coincidence of one of the more wealthy of the closed system’s regular habits?

If this is the work of an unknown benefactor we commend your actions toward the lesser man, trapped within a system they’re unable to escape. That’s all for your wave across the matrix today. Stay jacked in Jackrabbits, and keep an eye on the data.

 Once More 6--(by Breach)

The 14th Amendment to the UCAS Constitution, ratified on September 4, 2036, gives birth to the System Identification Number - the SIN that we are SINless without.  Some are SINless by choice. Some run SINless to escape the legacy of their SIN.  Some are SINless because the system has failed them, ignored them, forgotten them. Other world governments would soon follow (some few preceded, though not in quite the same way), but many found themselves unable to avail themselves of the rights promised them.

Metahumans - especially orks and especially trolls - were often denied access to the procedures to register for a SIN, and on February 7th, 2039, the collected rage of the mass of metahumanity spilled over into the Night of Rage.  The protests were global, unorganized, and sometimes messy.  Hundreds died in the Seattle Metroplex, and I still remember watching, three days later, as the Sears Tower was destroyed in Chicago.  Tens of thousands died in the attack and the fires that followed.  Metahumans involved in the protests were framed for the attack - shadow sources know it was the work of the terrorist group Alamos 20,000, but official records have yet to be cleared.

In the decade that follows, metasapient rights would slowly grow. The Athabaskan Council, a member of the NAN, was one of the first nations in the world (and the first that is majority human) to recognize metasapients, declaring sasquatches to be a sapient species deserving of rights and citizenship.  A rebirth of Eugenics in southern Germany was quickly squashed in a day by apparently magical intervention as yet another dormant volcano awakens.  Yamatetsu, the Japanese megacorp that will later become Evo, gained a seat on the Corporate Court the same day Buttercup, a free spirit, became its largest single shareholder. The Great Dragon Dunkelzahn started the show Wyrm Talk, bridging the gap between dragons and metahumanity.

We all miss you, Big D. Rest in peace.

National power sees perhaps its last stand in the 40s; starting in 2044, Aztlan nationalized all resources and holdings, seizing corporate lands and claims from other nations (but not from Aztechnology.)  Aztechnology’s position as a founding member gives it a veto on the Corporate Court, and it takes years of legal wrangling to get around it, but by 2048, the Court finally authorized Operation Reciprocity, allowing the other megacorporations to strike at Aztlan and Aztechnology with impunity in retaliation for the nationalization of assets.  After just three days, Aztlan capitulates, and Aztechnology pays billions in reparations to the other megacorporations.  Never again would a nation attempt to bar corporations from operating in their territory - sanctions have still been enacted against individual corporations, even the megas, but private industry proves its primacy over the public trust forevermore.

We didn’t know it at the time, but the foundation of the Universal Brotherhood in the California Free State in 2043 would send another shock to the world.  It took a decade before we saw what was coming, and we’ll talk about that next week.

Questions about history? Ask Breach! [email protected]

 Seattle Street News is an independent activist news source released weekly on Tuesdays or Wednesdays

[Watch CorporateSINs on every Wednesday, 6pm PST or on Youtube at, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h11c7BLFQtc&list=PLHKocVDXoWBtzze1SGGUnU6KB5UFrDLFo]