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"I'm afraid I can't help you right now, Sticks. Biz is backed up."

"Fuck your other biz, Gio. You gave me a deadbeat." I explain about Hutchinson.

"Hmm, all right. Won't even charge it against your account."

"You're a real piece of work Gio. Let me have it."

"Well, there are a number of lucrative markets. Livestock is one you've run into already, but from the sound of things the animal doesn't have a lot of meat on it, and they pay by the kilo. You could fatten him up, I suppose."

I don't even know how to take care of a dog, much less a dog with more high-grade implants than most veteran runners.

"Sims. Most of the syndicates have a bestiality BTL or two on the market. They pay a premium for well-trained "actors." Oh wait, the dog is fixed, right? Damn. Well, maybe one of those sims about being an animal."

I watch Chester as he stops sniffing and pads over to me, metal claws clicking on the ground. He's holding a piece of rebar in his jaws, and drops it at my feet.

I reach down to pick it up, and Chester's tail starts wagging. What the hell does he want me to do? I toss the worthless chunk of metal away. Chester leaps at the rebar, catches it in his jaws, and brings it back. I throw it harder this time, and again Chester fetches it. It's like a game. I start thinking while we play.

"Pit fights are a possibility," Gio continues. "The market is always hungy for 'amateur talent.' A few of the gangs in the Barrens raise mutts and beat them to make them mean. Trained dogs usually last longer, and carry a higher price. Dogs with implants are always in demand at the Coliseum."

A pit-fighting cyberdog, eh? Not many shadowrunners can say they have one of those. Could be a serious asset. Take him home; let him chew on my old clubs… I wonder how much he needs to eat? He'd be a nice security system. I'd like to see some gangers try to break in and steal my stuff with Chester around!

"But, if you take my advice, xenotransplants are the way to go. The implants and organs in your animal must be worth a small fortune to certain street docs and veterinarians. Here, I'm sending you an encoded file with a number you can reach someone at. Her name is Butch. I really must be going now, Sticks. I'll call you when I have work."

I barely register the disconnect as Chester stares at me with his dark brown eyes. Break him up for spare parts? Just like that? No. I'll try the pitfighting thing. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

I freeze when Chester starts to growl. Three Knight Errant officers are coming down the alley. One is a female ork armed with a stun gun, the other two are male humans with long poles that have loops of wire at the end. Looks like the boys at the lab want Chester back. How the hell did they find us? Then it hits me: the RFID tag. Damn. Well, they won't get my dog without a fight.

Just as I whip out my extendable staff, Chester launches himself at the one with the taser. The humans advanced on me, and I fall back. It's one thing to beat up two guards when you have surprise and a weapon drawn; it's something else to take on two armed, aware opponents working together. I fence with them a bit, feeling out the range of their poles. When one of them makes a move for me, my staff breaks his right wrist, forcing him to drop his weapon.

My follow-up is interrupted when the second officer gets the loop of his pole around my neck, and tightens it. I try to hit him with my staff, but he's out of range. The first human takes it away from me with his good hand. I can't breathe. I try to grab the loop, but my hands are too damn heavy. I can't see…

I wake up to warm, greasy rain on my face. My throat burns, and I rip the loop off of my neck. Must have passed out. But where are the Knight Errant officers? Where's Chester? I look around the alley and open my eyes wide to adjust to the low light.

Chester's snout is buried in the intestines of the ork woman; the bodies of the other two are nearby. The dog is covered with gore, and pulling out wet, slippery bits of meat from the ork's stomach. He stops feasting to look up at me. His eyes glow yellow-green. Chester wags his tail.

I can't take him home. There's no way I could control him. I fetch around for that piece of rebar, and hold it up. Chester comes bounding over, jumping up and down on spring-powered legs. I hold the rebar up, and reach down with my other hand to pet Chester. He looks up at me with brown eyes, totally trusting.

A shock goes up my arm as the rebar penetrates his left eye and into his brain. The dog dies almost instantly. His implants take a little while longer to stop twitching.

I make my way back to Soon's, but somehow I don't think I'm up for any more dog. Not for a while, anyway.

THE MAN WITH THE PLANS

by Dave Barton

I have become invisible and intangible. Nobody sees me anymore. I do my job but nothing changes, nobody benefits. Not anymore.

But still I love the sea, the lift and tilt of the waves. Monty Crane gets land-sick, they joke down at the Bleached Whale, and they're right. Vancouver makes me sick to my stomach. I'm only happy when I'm on this old boat of mine and heading out of the bay.

I am invisible. I keep my eyes on the horizon, my hands on the wheel, my mouth shut, and outside the one-man cabin my passengers chat as if I wasn't here.

"I'm just saying: from what I've heard, Skunk won't take money," says the guy who thinks he's their leader. An ork with stud-covered skin. The rest of his body also infested with metal, no doubt. Hints of a Seattle accent, I think. I get a gut-load of deja vu, then and there. But he's right: Skunk doesn't need money. Money's no good out in the Swamps. I know what Skunk will want, and I know it won't be pretty. This isn't deja vu. I have been here before. Too many times. Maybe I should tell them.

"So we save a chunk of our own pay," grunts his human friend, the Amerind punk with the coat full of knives. "Suits me."

The elf girl's looking a little green. I like her but what can I do? The sea's choppy this morning, and anyway it'll be better out than in.

"And I'm just saying: there've got to be other ways to get the-" she drops her voice to a hoarse whisper, eyes darting in my direction "- blueprints for the place." She needn't have bothered. I could have filled in the blanks even if I didn't have an ear full of electronics. I know how it works with Arty Skunk. I've been there from the beginning.

A cloud of sea spray slaps the elf girl in the face. She retches and folds up onto the deck, cupping her mouth. But she'll be damned if she won't finish her point: "I don't like what I've heard about this Skunk fellow-" she pauses to swallow back the sickness "-and I don't like thinking about what he might ask us to do in exchange."

I smirk, safe in the knowledge that this raggedy old beard will hide it. A shadowrunner with a moral streak. Refreshing. Likeably naive. But I'm guessing she's new to this way of life and she isn't going to go very far with that kind of baggage. More's the pity.

Up ahead their hacker perches cross-legged on the bow of the boat. He's sweeping his hands around in the air like one of those Tai Chi nuts in the park in Chinatown, only ten times the speed. Juggling little panels and streams of information that only he can see. I glance out at the landmarks and the little signs that only I can see. Behind us on the right, the fortress walls of the aerodrome are fading into the morning haze. The silt is merging with the sea. Time to turn hard to port and follow what's left of the coast. And any second now…

Sure enough, the hacker cries out "Fuck it!" and shakes his fists in the air. He stands up and stomps my way.

"No signal? Seriously?" he shouts through the window. I shake my head and shout back, trying to put some sympathy into the tone:

"Aye, and you won't get much in the Swamps either. A few patches here and there, but wireless relays aren't a high priority, I'm afraid."