The Run Down Under/Gettin' Giggy with Shadowrun - Thursday, November 1st, 2007

Nigel and Giggy disembarked from their plane into the antiquated international terminal at Gatwick.

"Look at that fog that just rolled in," Giggy said.

"Yeah," Nigel replied, "it's green. We'll have to see what the health report is. It will probably clear up once we're in the domes."

As they entered the terminal, they could hear a voice over the loudspeakers suggesting the use of gas masks for those who had to go outside, and recommending heading directly into the underground from within the building for those who did not have to go out.

As they were herded toward the customs desk, Nigel turned to Giggy, "You know, I don't think we have to go through this. We can get a ticket from one of the kiosks without having to actually enter Britain."

"Ok," Giggy replied. "I wasn't particularly looking forward to having to avoid my sister, but I thought maybe we could spend a couple days here. It's been a while since I was back."

They walked up to an automated kiosk, and, as he reached for the English button, he asked Nigel, "So, where to?"

"Um... Turkey. Istanbul," Nigel responded. "From there we can get a flight to Australia."

"Why Turkey?" Giggy asked.

"A little bird told me?" Nigel responded sheepishly.

Giggy booked the tickets. "At least that was cheap. Unfortunately, we have six hours to sit here."

They waited into the early hours of the morning, and then boarded the plane. A few hours later they touched down in Istanbul. As they got off the plane, the terminal struck Nigel as almost being a military installation. There were armed soldiers at regular intervals along the wall. Glancing around the room as they got herded toward customs, he realized that all of the guards - and almost all of the crowd - were human. He didn't see a single ork or troll, and only spotted one other elf.

He got pushed into the customs counter rudely by the person behind him, and the soldier at the counter said something to him in Arabic.

Nigel looked at him with a puzzled expression, and the guard repeated himself. When Nigel just shook his head, the guard said something else, slowly, and a little louder than necessary and pointed to the counter in front of him.

"You speak English?" Nigel asked, gesturing with his palms toward the guard.

The guard repeated himself again, still slower, and tapped the counter with his long index finger.

Nigel looked at him, then as understanding dawned brightly on his face, he took his ID out and put it on the counter.

The guard looked at it and pushed it back, then turned and beckoned to a mage Nigel has seen earlier sitting along the wall near the counter. The mage walked up, and the guard whispered something to him. The mage looked at Nigel, then his eyes seemed to go out of focus for a moment.

The mage quickly snapped back, and then began to cast. The casting was over as quick as it had started,and though Nigel felt something brush at his mind briefly, he couldn't recognize any effects. however, the mage seemed to wince in pain and put his hands to his temples.

He said something to the guard, and the guard drew his side arm and gestured to Nigel to follow the mage. The three of them went through the crowd waiting to get through customs and passed through a door into a room with bars on the outside of the windows, and the blinds pulled down. There was a man sitting behind the desk, who shuffled some papers out of the way when the door opened.

The man said something to the group, and the mage responded. The man addressed the guard, and the guard saluted and left, closing the door behind him.

Nigel could tell by his ribbons and medals, not to mention the way the others treated him, that the man outranked the mage and the guard. The man remained seated, and addressed Nigel in Arabic again.

"Look," Nigel replied, "I don't speak the language. You'll need to be someone who speaks English."

The man grabbed his radio and spoke into it. A minute later another man entered the room and closed the door. After a brief exchange with the man at the desk, he turned to Nigel and asked, in thickly accented English, for his papers.

Nigel handed over his ID and the translator looked at it. He spoke briefly to the man at the desk before turning back to Nigel. "Mister Miller?"

"Yes," Nigel replied.

"Why have you come to Istanbul?"

"I'm heading from London to Sydney."

"Why stop here?"

"I've heard you have really good grape leaves," Nigel answered.

The translater raised his eyebrow.

"OK," Nigel said, "I wanted to get my passport stamped."

The translater and the man at the desk spoke briefly, then the translator turned back to Nigel and handed him his ID, "You have no luggage."

"Yeah," Nigel replied.

"You're traveling from London to Sydney without any luggage?"

"Yeah, there was an accident in Pakistan."

"In Pakistan?"

"Yeah, but I don't live there anymore, so I'm headed to Sydney."

"Why were you in London, then?"

"Look, there was an accident in Pakistan, or maybe it was in India. I don't know. We were crossing the border into Pakistan, then there was this explosion. Then the Pakistanis wee questioning me about what had happened, but I don't know anything. Anyway, I lost just about everything, so they sent me back to London because of my passport, but I don't live there anymore, so I was heading back to Sydney when the plane stopped here. It seems just as good a route as any.

"Look, it wounds weird," Nigel continued, "but it's absolutely true. It's been a pretty sucky month."

The translator turned back to the man at the desk and they spoke for a couple minutes, with the mage periodically nodding to them.

The translator turned to Nigel, then and said, "All right. We won't hold you any longer. However, you may not leave this building. Get your tickets to Sydney and be quick about it. And remember, we'll be keeping watch on you, so don't try to cause any trouble."

The translator stepped past Nigel and opened the door, gesturing that Nigel could leave. Nigel turned and stepped to the door.

"Thanks," he said to the translator, then turned to the other tow and said, "Durka, durka durka durka," and started to step out of the room.

Before he could clear the threshold, though, he collapsed under the mage's spell.

Giggy had been passed through customs rather quickly, not having any bags, and had gone to grab something to eat. He was coming back from a nice little kiosk in the airport where he had gotten some dolmas and soy-caf, wondering where Nigel was, when he spotted Nigel on his hands and knees, crawling through a pool of his own vomit.

"Oh, drek," Giggy said, downing the last of his soy-caf and running over to Nigel.

"Hey," Giggy said, "you all right?"

Nigel tried to shy away from Giggy and tried to push something else away, then jerked away from something on his other side.

"Great," Giggy said, standing again, "a really bad trip."

Giggy looked over the people around. Picking someone in uniform at random, he asked, "Is there a shower available somewhere?"

When the man looked slightly puzzled, Giggy looked back at Nigel and gestured as though he were hosing him off.

"Oh, yes," the man said, pointing, "where it say 'shower.'"

Giggy looked where the man had pointed, and seeing a door with a sign in Arabic next to it, nodded. He went back and grabbed Nigel bodily and hauled him through the door, hoping that he hadn't been misdirected. Fortunately, it did appear to be a men's locker toom, probably here for people with long layovers, or with layovers between long flights.

Giggy turned on one of the showers and shoved Nigel under it fully clothed. When Nigel seemed to snap out of it under the stream of cold water, Giggy let go. "Clean yourself. You stink. I'm not flying back to Sydney with you like that. I'll go get you something else to wear."

By the time Nigel was repentable again, Giggy already had tickets. It was still several hours before they left, and Nigel spent most of that in a sulk. They were followed across the tarmac to their plane by an armed guard, but once they got on the plane he seemed satisfied. "Are you sure that's going to make it all the way?" Nigel asked as they approached the plane.

"It should," Giggy replied, "besides, the tickets were cheap. We'll just have a couple stops on the way."

They climbed on the plane, and Nigel looked around in disgust. "Goats?"

"Look, it was cheap," Giggy replied, "and it was the first flight to boot. You're the one who wanted to come to Turkey."

Nigel got on the plane and looked around. there were a dozen or more goats walking around, and straw on the floor. His sullen mood deepened.

The pilot, a small Japanese man, climbed on and shut the door behind him. He said something in Japanese to the Nigel and Giggy and pointed to the leather hand holds hanging eyelets in the roof of the cargo hold.

Grabbing one of the loops, Nigel gave Giggy a disapproving look as the pilot climbed up into the cockpit.

A few hours later, the pilot spoke over the intercom. When the line was quiet, Nigel looked at Giggy. "Did he just say Delhi? Are we landing in Delhi?" Nigel said, his voice rising. "Didn't we just leave India? You got us a flight back?"

"Hey!" Giggy responded, "calm down, take a deep breath. We're not getting off the plane. I don't get off the plane, you don't get off the plane, it's just landing."

The landing was rough, and Nigel thought his arms were going to be ripped off, but they both managed to avoid the staggering goats. Once they were on the ground, the pilot climbed down and shooed the goats off the plane, then closed everything up again and went back to the cockpit.

The plane took off again. Landing a few hours later, the hold was hosed out, and then they took on a cargo of several large boxes, labeled in Japanese. The pilot came over to them and spoke loudly in Japanese to Nigel and Giggy. "Right," Giggy replied, "got it. We're not to do anything with the boxes."

Once the plane was in the air, Nigel started eyeing the boxes. "Don't even think of opening one," Giggy said.

"But there's something in them," Nigel replied.

Giggy raised an eyebrow.

"No, I know there's something in them," Nigel responded, getting excited. "It's not live and it's not technological. It's weird."

"Look," Giggy said calmly, as though talking to a young child. "If we mess with those boxes, he may just dump us out over the Indian Ocean. I'm not ready for that. so, you sit down and stay away from the boxes - and remain conscious - and we'll get off the plane when it lands, none the wiser, but still alive."

Nigel sat back down, moody again, and stayed there until the plane landed. Unfortunately, this landing was again very rough, and the cargo slid forward and struck the front bulkhead of the cargo hold. This broke two of the boxes open. Giggy averted his eyes, and turned to fact the wall. Nigel, however, stared at the golden ball bearings that spilled out of the front box.

When the pilot came down, Nigel was still staring. The pilot looked over the damage, and pointed to the rear hatch. "You go now!" he said brusquely.

Giggy side stepped toward the hatch and stepped out, but Nigel stood fast, looking from the gold to the pilot.

"Go Now!" the pilot repeated, pointing to the door and resting his hand on his pistol.

When Nigel didn't leave, the pilot drew his gun and fired, but not before Nigel could cast a spell. The bullet was pretty severely damaging, but didn't kill Nigel, so now Nigel had control of the pilot. He had the pilot drop the gun, while Nigel bent down to grave some of the gold. Trying to staunch the bleeding with his hand, Nigel dropped the gold he had grabbed into his pocket, and grabbed some of the stones that had broken out of the other box as well. Then he grabbed the gun, and had the pilot come stand in the hatchway, facing into the plane.

"Giggy!" Nigel shouted, bounding down the stairs, "I just mugged that guy!"

"Nigel," Giggy replied, gesturing to th desert around them, "do you know where we are?"

"This isn't Sydney."

"Yes, and you're bleeding.

"I think we need to follow that road, and I think you need to give me that gun."

Nigel gave Giggy the gun, and Giggy ejected the clip, then returned the gun to Nigel, tossing the clip under the plane.

"Great, there's someone coming," Giggy said, seeing a dust cloud on the horizon. "Either it's Lone Star, or it's the buyer coming to get the cargo. Either way, we don't want to be here, and there's no place to hide."

"It's OK," Nigel said, starting down the track, "I'm from London."

"Nigel," Giggy said, grabbing the elf's arm and spinning him around, "at this point, about the only thing we have going for us is that your Docwagon is going off, and they should be here shortly to get you." Giggy hit the panic switch on his own Docwagon receiver.

The dust on the horizon seemed to settle down, and then Giggy could see a chopper with the familiar Docwagon logo on the side coming rapidly toward them. Docwagon loaded Nigel onto a gurney and strapped him down, then ushered Giggy onto the chopper and headed back east. Just a few minutes later, they were unloaded at a nearby Docwagon facility. Nigel was taken inside for care, but Giggy was allowed to go.

---

After returning to Sydney, Michelle got a surprise phone call from Bob, who used to work with Raven. He was leaving her father's company under questionable circumstances, and wanted to see if Michelle could help him get hooked up with some occasional income. A few days later, when Sama called Michelle suggested to Giggy that they take "Tim" along with them to the meet.

Jack, Giggy, Nigel, Michelle, and Bob (or Tim) joined Sama for a nice dinner in the back room of the Hippogryph. After dinner, Sama asked them to go to Port Macquarie, pick up a package and its escort from a ship and deliver them to the safe house they knew in Brisbane.. He suggested wearing red chrysanthemums to make sure that the escort recognized them. Sama handed Giggy a credstick with 35k on it, and promised that they would get twice that much when the package and escort arrived at the safe house.

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Now we just have to see what comes up next time...

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