**Note: This is a story I wrote as part of the introduction of my current SR5 character, Vicar. His friends call him Carlos. You probably don’t need to know his name. The picture which inspired him is from a German SR book. Find it here.

It takes place in the Rox, Boston’s own Barrens. That’s super-ghetto for the jargon-impaired.

I fuckin’ hate the Rox.

My son, Levi, was awake till god knows last night so I figured it was a good time to slip out for some work. Kid should be asleep for at least 12 hours.

Well, that’s just me kidding myself of course. He’ll be up in six. SINless folks don’t have school to go to so it’s not like anyone cares if he sleeps past the crack of noon.

He can read and has, more or less, the whole of the matrix to learn from. Not my scene, but he loves it.

I head down the access ladder from our deliciously illegal loft. See, back in 2050, a bunch of goodie-two-shoes decided to try and gentrify the Rox.

They took a couple outer blocks and half-built some upscale apartments. Then they discovered the contractors weren’t just skimming a little off the top, but nearly half. And the Rox took in a few new blocks.

The Anvils, an all-dwarf gang, built up the building and we have a simple arrangement.

I pay them for this apartment, they keep stealing electricity and water from the ‘plex. Good people. The kind who prefer to stand in front of a stereotype and let people see what they like rather than fight it.

Gives ’em a lot of room to breathe.

Anyway, my day isn’t real planned. I load up my regular kit: An Ares Light Fire 70, two throwing knives, a stun grenade, and my lockpick set. You never know when someone needs to get into a car, right? Put the Light fire in the arm slide for easy use, the grenade in my duster’s pocket, tack on my cheap ‘shades and a smile on my face and I’m set.

I leave the shotgun behind the wall-panel where it’s hidden. It’s important not to leave guns just laying around for kids or cops to find. I need work.

Before I can plan my day all proper-like, I need to descend the fire escape to the second floor’s reinforced rubble heap. Looks like garbage, walks like stairs.

Time for a drink.

The block’s watering hole isn’t a bar proper as much as it’s a room with homemade synthohol and some tables. Even has an automated tab like the fancy people downtown get, from a few salvaged nexi jury rigged together. The bar doesn’t have a name, but it’s why we’ve got such nice matrix access.

It’s still before noon so the only one inside beside myself is the guy who runs it. He used to be a hardcore gangbanger before he decided to settle down and become a house-bandit. Picked up a few local tech-kiddies, got them to teach him how to hack, and set up a serious business.

Well, as serious as business gets in the Rox. They’re small time criminals, but who here isn’t? Anyway, Aric is good people. And some of the hootch he makes is even drinkable.

“Mornin, Carlos.”

“It’s Vicar today, I’m working.”

Aric sighed. We’ve argued about my name more times than I can count in the past few months. Still, I’m regular money and no one refuses that.

“Anything drinkable today?

“Nope. An ale, then?”

“It’ll do.”

I take my table by the corner and activate the burner commlink I’m using this week and punch in the code for the Nexi upstairs. Rather than surfing on what I’m told is, “last year’s shit” I let them do the hard work and use the burner to display.

As it loads up the wider matrix I consider what I need. Cash is low, though we’ve got a few months paid in advance. Might be time to hit up the guys at Tailwings. They usually pay well enough. If only they weren’t such cocks about smuggling. I pushed past my disdain and got to work.

I shoot off a half dozen emails to people I haven’t talked to in a while. I would have sent out a few more, just stirring the pot a bit, but a thought occurred to me.

Yes. Walkabout. Used to have something to do with coming of age in the Australian Outback.

Nowadays it’s about going for a mean strut and seeing what trouble you stumble into. Just the right cure for the mood I felt settling on me.

Aric handed me a “brew” and I chugged the fucker, headed out the door, and got ready for whatever heads my way.

It doesn’t take me long to realize Aric has been trying to brew slagging Hurlg again. What that bastard calls Ale the rest of us call poison. A single pint shouldn’t make a healthy dwarf in the prime of his life tipsy.

And he never puts enough nutmeg in. The philistine.

The first half hour of my walkabout is a bit loose. Most of the riffraff aren’t around with the sun out so high but every so often I see packs of gangs hanging out on corners and whatnot.

It’s not long before I recognize the tell-tale signs of street craps. A bunch of fools hunched over something in an alley, a couple of them flying colors looking out.

Easy money. Just need to put on the right look. I slumped my shoulders, stopped focusing, and meandered towards them. The trick is to look abusable.

I almost walk past them, but stop, appear to look behind the look-outs, and ask if there’s room for another. I make a point to speak to no one in particular.

They disagree and we discuss the matter at length, but my charm and innocence (faked, though it is) win out. There are four gangers crowded around with some non-gang punk and a woman who’s clearly slumming.

A glance to size up everyone leaves me with the following impressions: Limpy is a thin ork. Probably one of those grown-up Betameth babies. The runt of the litter. Smiles, clearly in charge, with one of them trusting smiles and “concealed” streetline special. He has to play Boxman and Stickman himself. The harsh lesson of the streets: If you want it done right.. do it yourself.

To Smiles’ right stands Aces, a cocky fuck. I decide if this goes badly, I’d cripple aces on principle. Human swine. And the last ganger is their Heavy. A reasonable sized troll, if there is such a thing, but he’s got little more than a chain on him. Too much tight fitting clothing, guys.

The other “marks” were fascinating, briefly. Slummer did a decent job of dressing down but didn’t skip a manicure and her hands aren’t covered in dirt. Sloppy, sloppy. And Easy is such a sap I immediately assume he’s a planted ringer.

That twitch in my stomach tells me I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, which only puts a bigger grin on my face. I’ve been in worse with less.

Smiles welcomes me over with all the “New Shooter!” pomp he can muster. It’s not a bad try. Really.

We get down to business without any more pomp or circumstance. We all bet and I roll.

I won’t bore you with the details of who bet what or whose dice were loaded or what they were saying. Let us be sure of two things: Easy was definitely a ringer. And I won more than Smiles liked.

“You’re a cheater.”

I looked smiles in the eye. When you’re lying to someone’s face, it always works best if you give them strong eye contact into one eye. People think it’s harder to fake.

“Like hell I am.”

Slumming girl’s eyes widened, “You’re a cheat!? I thought you were just lucky.”

Aces spoke up, circling around me, “No one’s that lucky, chicky.”

“Oh, I get it. You’re just pissy someone else is winning. Don’t be such a sore loser.”

I took a moment to reassess the situation. The money was floating in a temporary escrow account. They were using a cheap program to do it so they couldn’t close the betting till I made a bet. Aces was cutting off the only exit not covered by two extra mooks.

Between me and that fight were Heavy, Smiles, and Limpy. Getting out of the situation meant changing the balance of power.

I couldn’t be sure of a KO on Heavy. Limpy and Easy weren’t important enough to the gang and Aces was already ready for a fight.

My smile perked up a little higher. With a mental command I set my reflexes to max. This was going to be awesome.

I took two steps up the wall behind me and leapt six feet towards Smiles. In transit I pulled out the grenade in my duster, and triggered the slide which loaded my pistol into my right hand.

I then shoved the gun’s muzzle up to Smiles’ throat and held the grenade above my head with my left hand. Thumb on the pin. He went white.

“We all die, or you pay and I leave.” OK, it was a flashbang. But they didn’t know that.

With only a few moments before shock wore off and they realized they could take back control. I pushed Smiles back with the barrel and he moved.

We moved out of troll’s reach and held the grenade towards the still-stunned crowd. Time to get going. I pushed him as far as I could then eased off a bit.

“Transfer the funds. Now. Hands where I can see them.”

I took a steadying breath. Wired reflexes got jerky if you didn’t keep them under control. That was dangerous. I needed to appear unconcerned and in control.

Smiles took his commlink out and slowly pressed the appropriate buttons. My Commlink popped a notification I’d received 300nu. Not a bad walkabout.

My smile perked. Yes, again. I then shoved my left elbow into Smiles’ groin with as much of my weight as I could manage. His eye bulged and I renamed him Groans.

But that wasn’t going to be enough. I fucking booked it. Full speed towards the alley. The grenade would work but this just wasn’t a big enough score to warrant it. If I wanted measly 70% margins, I’d scam my way into a straight job.

I slipped the grenade into my pocket as I ran and got ready for the hard part.

Aces had already started chasing me before I’d even finished clearing his boss. Easy, Heavy, and Limpy were slower to start, but it wouldn’t matter much. The pair of lookouts weren’t going to just let me get by either.

So I did the only sensible thing. I tried sliding under them. Leftie swung a club wide, but Rightie almost got me with a knife. Bastard nicked my duster.

But I cleared them and ran a hard left staying near the wall. I knew, even as short as I was, I was probably faster than these shitheels.

Then again, I owed Aces a crippling.

So I stopped about four Meters past the alley and turned around into the firing stance my mercenary mentor had taught me. Both hands on the grip, spine elongated, sphincter unclenched. Deep, slow breath in. I knew Aces would break through his friends shortly. Dude was seriously tense.

As if on cue, he burst out of the alley first. I exhaled, sighted the knee he was putting all his weight on to turn, and fired. The little red dot of my laser sight vanished as his knee crumpled under him.

The gun barely made a sound.

With my heightened senses he fell in slow motion. Like some giant killer felling a mighty foe, I fucking rushed away. And the rest of the pile kept chasing me. Heh. Stupid fuckers.

Still, there are some problems with being so short. A few times I thought they would catch up, but after three blocks I’d definitely lost ’em.

I stopped a few minutes later and sat on the street and laughed.

Walkabout indeed!

Might pick up something nice for Levi on the way home…