0900 Briefing. The Lieutenant makes a point of telling us that Skin Traders have been active in our precinct. No BPN's have been issued yet (probably not enough media attention for those posey bastards), and he's champing at the bit to get one over on the Op squads. Reports of thirteen domestics last night. No surprises there; this place is enough to make the most loving couple flip. Also some bunch of newbie Ops came swaggering in last night, rubbed the local KT affiliate up the wrong way, so we've got a bunch of pissed-off, armed to the teeth gangers on the streets to boot. Deep fucking joy.

0930 Pick up the patrol car. Murphy, my partner, insists on driving. He's got a brick where his right foot should be,swear to God. Lose my first cup of coffee inside of five minutes when he decides to respond to an all officers at about 60 per.

0943 Riot on the Longway. Civs armed with CAF guns and bitching about the lack of decent sanitation down here. Big surprise; the sewers got fucked over after last week's Gorezone. They're still picking corpses out of the drains round here. We keep our heads down, but there's no heavy stuff; looks like those Darknight bastards aren't behind this one. Riot APC shows up and hoses the place down. Then an Ops squad shows up, shoots a couple of poor bastards who couldn't have scratched them, smile to camera and fuck off again. Scumbags.

1117 Get a break on the Skin Trade deal. Shaking down snitches, Ugly Patrick lets on he's seen some new talent setting up shop in the old MultiPaedia building. Place used to make encyclopaedia slugs for kids computers till they went belly up. Radio it in; the Lieutenant tells us to check it out. Figure he still wants one to make the Ops look bad.

1136 Staking out the Mulipaedia building. Something's going down in there for sure; lights and stuff moving around.

1138 Trouble. Some of those KT affiliates the Op squad pissed off show up, waving some ugly ordnance around. Murphy ignores procedure, leaves the car to calm them down. They put a bullet or ten into him. Radioed for backup, floored the accelerator, ran 'em down. Caught a couple of slugs for my trouble. Fucking windshield's totalled, probably have to come out of my pay. Bloody stakeout's blown as well. Trauma team show, cart Murphy off. He was still alive when they got him, figure he'll pull through.

1201 3EN issued a BPN on the Skin Traders. Lieutenant's pissed about it, yells at me some until the Ops show. Brain Waster nearly clocks the Lieutenant when he turns his bile on the squad. Luckily the Shaktar restrains him. Lot of people don't like 'em, but Shaktars are all right by me; least you know where you stand with them. Some bird wearing a dress costing more than my monthly paycheck questions me about the Skin Traders. Tell them what we know, isn't much. At least the Ebon patched me up, decent of him.

1247 Hospital phones. Murphy didn't make it. Bastards.

1315 Another all officers. Carrien breakout on the Northside. Show up in time to support the riot APC's. Pretty nasty out there. These fucking gauss guns are shit for fighting Carriens. That Op squad show up, helps out. Nearly go down when my gauss gun runs out of ammo at a bad time. Fucking mutant carrien thing headed in looking for lunch. Lucky me; the bird in the pretty dress puts a Ripper round in its head at the last minute. She throws me her 603, which keeps me alive until the carriens decide they've had enough of a beating and fuck off again. Her name's Sally.

1408 Paranoia. Swing by the Multipaedia building. Something's wrong; everything looks like it did. What happened to those Ops?

1410 The Lieutenant tells me to stay away, it's Op business now. She gave me a gun. Fuck him.

1412 There's a big-arse slab of meat on the door. He sees my uniform, goes for a gun. I give him a gauss round in the face. He's got a Gunhead and a couple of grenades; I swipe them. Shouldn't have, I know, but screw the regs.

1413 Up or down..? Down.

1414 Locked door, couple of thugs outside. Make them a present of a grenade. These toys are nice to play with. Find what's left of the Ops behind the door. Brain Waster and the McFroth-job are toast, Ebon's fucked up, but Sally and the Shaktar aren't too bad. They take the guards' guns and we beat a hasty retreat.

1435 Lieutenant's shouting again. The Shaktar tells him to go to hell. It's the honour thing; I saved his life. Lieutenant goes an interesting shade of green and backs off. Sally's been on the phone to some Contract Killer she knows. Sounds like fun.

1512 Sally, the Shaktar and this Contract Killer - Cyber Rat, I've heard of him - hit the Multipaedia building like a bomb. I'm on crowd control outside, I can hear the chaos within.

1516 It's all over. Lots of Sally smiling into the camera. Big surprise: she puts my face in the eye as well. Maybe there are some decent Ops out there after all. She leaves me her number.

1542 Back to the precinct. Loads of report writing to do.

1605 Lieutenant calls me in to the office. Figure I'm due a hauling over the carpet. Could have knocked me down with a feather when he chucks me a frigging medal. Somebody on the top floors saw my face on the news, looks good for the Shivers they say. Lieutenant's not sure whether to congratulate me or keel-haul me. Settles for a gruff handshake and booting me back to work.

1700 Off duty. Trip over some poor dead junkie bastard lying cold outside the precinct. door. Just another fucking day in the Downtown.