Shadowrun Down These Dark Streets

WHERE NOBODY KNOWS YOUR NAME… Things don’t rise to gutters, they fall there. Same with back alleys and dumpsters. Same with graves. Running the shadows comes with ups and downs, but you never know where those rises and falls will take you. What someone else might call rock bottom…you might call Tuesday. Collected here for the first time, read Russell Zimmerman’s Shadowrun tales of winners, losers, and edge cases constantly somewhere in between. No longer just scattered across sourcebooks and decades, here you can find every short story and intro fiction featuring everyone’s favorite shadow legends rubbing elbows with wannabes and not-shadowrunners-at-all-just-ask-them. But it’s not all yesterday’s news, chummers. More than just a collection of previously published fiction, between these covers you’ll find a handful of brand-new stories, including a classic, pre-On the Rocks Jimmy Kincaid yarn. Also, each one comes with brand new commentary by the author, written expressly for this volume. Enjoy short stories about hearts and souls, elves and trolls, and rock and roll? Then join us here, and explore these dark streets…

HELP FOR ALL—RUNNERS, CHUMMERS, AND DREGS… Nestled in one of the worst parts of Seattle is a place where anyone can go to get patched up, no questions asked. They call it Mercy Street and it’s a practically free clinic run by a drunk old troll named Shimura, who’s seen a lot in his years. When a decker named Lockdown Paradox shows up bleeding on his doorstep, it’s just an average Tuesday, but when corporate stooges looking for her show up and try to shake Shimura down for information, he wonders just what this kid hacker’s gotten herself into. But he’s not the only one wondering…Paradox thinks there’s more to the ol’ whiskey doc than meets the eye, wondering if he might be a legendary shadowrunner that might be able to help her. When she turns up missing, Shimura is forced to go far deeper into the sleaze and sprawl than he ever wanted to...and return to a part of his past he’d sworn to leave behind if he wants to get both of them out alive…

VEXING MEGACORPS FOR FUN AND PROFIT… Landon and Liana Hoffman are on summer vacation, and look forward to producing their Matrix repair show, the Right2RepairRigger, and hanging out at the local makerspace. But when they get a chance at a lucrative salvage run, they can’t say no—especially when they owe the fixer who’s hiring them. Beyond settling their account, the job promises untold riches in salvageable, possibly beyond state-of-the-art gear at a secret, abandoned military facility. Aware of the dangers involved, the run is still too good to pass up. However, the place may not be as abandoned as it seems—and the clock is ticking. Also, there are powerful enemies who don’t like what the Right2RepairRigger is doing, and are willing to destroy whoever they can to put a stop to it—including arresting anyone possibly connected with the twins’ program. Can Landon and Liana finish the run and save their family at the same time?

A CORP’S SHADOWS ARE EVEN LONGER… A “cleaner” for the megacorporation Ares Macrotechnology, Maria Payne is a model employee—efficient, attentive to detail, and very deadly. She navigates every danger that comes at her, whether it’s on a mission in the field, or walking the political tightropes in her own corp. But when Internal Affairs takes an interest in her, Maria begins to suspect something is going on. Her suspicions are confirmed when what should be a simple convoy heist nearly goes lethally awry. And when Maria’s investigations find an innocent man marked for death, she suddenly has to decide between the corp that has given her everything and the fate of one man…and if she makes the wrong choice, she could be targeted for termination by her own employers…

STREETS ON FIRE… A vicious magical assault on a street gang isn’t a case paranormal P.I. Jimmy Kincaid would normally pick up. But when a fellow private eye asks him to look into it, and he learns the gang was doing a charity run for a church—a church Jimmy knows quite well—when they were attacked, his professional curiosity is raised. But his investigation quickly leads to a tangled maze of clues and dead-ends. Someone—or something—is prowling the streets of Puyallup, looking to incinerate whoever crosses their path. And Jimmy’s got to find them—and stop them—before the entire neighborhood goes up in flames. But whoever’s looking to light innocent victims on fire made one mistake—they’re doing it in Kincaid’s backyard. And Jimmy’s never taken kindly to trespassers…

TWO AGAINST THE WORLD… Two-gun hacker William “Billy” Bonney and laconic street samurai Cheveyo are holed up after what should have been a straightforward job testing security for one of the megacorporations in the Sixth World. But when a megacorp is involved, nothing is ever easy, and when law enforcement comes looking for the pair of shadowrunners, Billy knows someone’s either ratted them out or double-crossed them—and he intends to find out who tried to make them dead. Their search takes them to the mean streets of Manhattan, where they have to infiltrate one of the largest symbols—literally—of the Sixth World, to find the truth. But the truth behind what has led them to this place is far worse than anything they could think of…and unless they come up with a new plan fast, they might not be leaving alive…

TIES THAT BIND… Mage Jonathan Leeds has built himself a comfortable life owning and operating an exclusive night club in London, far from the iron grasp of his family. But when his father, Gordon, abruptly summons him to the Seattle Metroplex, John finds himself a stranger in a strange land, thrown into the wilds of the ’Plex to manage a situation apparently only he can handle. Although he’d prefer to ignore his father’s wishes, John knows that no one—family or foe—says no to Gordon Leeds. At least, not if they want to live to tell about it. But family obligations aren’t the only reason John is in Seattle. His patron back in England, Lord Callen Nassau, has asked him to look for a missing woman. John is only too happy to oblige, as the elegant elf noble is everything his father is not. But when Gordon’s and Callen’s tasks intertwine in unexpected ways, John is forced to question everything he knows about both men, and soon discovers not all that glitters is gold. When the desires of these rich and powerful beings collide in the Sixth World, John finds himself a pawn in their vicious game. If he’s to escape the Emerald City in one piece, John knows he must take control of the situation—any way he can—or suffer the lethal consequences.