Shadowrunners in the media are always presented in one of two ways: smooth operators with nerves of steel, or wild rebels doing anything possible to tear down the status quo. Maybe it’s a good thing that truth doesn’t sell – nobody would tune in to watch what really goes through a runner’s mind.
Beaumont came to Seattle in an effort to escape his past. A new country, a new name, new contacts, and a genuine fresh start to wipe away the horrors of the past. Unfortunately it’s not always that easy to wash off a lifetime of blood and sins.
Try as he might, Beaumont couldn’t escape the specters of his former life. He kept seeing their faces in crowds, on the trid, even in face-to-face meets. There only seemed to be two things that kept them at bay: an overzealous application of any drugs he could find, and the focus that came with being on a job.
As soon as the clock started ticking, he was every bit the calm and purposeful professional Hollywood suggested, but when the bullets stopped flying and the nuyen hit his account he became a wreck. The shivers, the ghosts, the memories came flooding back in. He did anything possible to drive himself back into numbness, to keep the past away.
Word of his wild and uncontrolled post-job habits didn’t take long to circulate through the Shadow community. While his laser focus and commitment to the job gave him a fair amount of credibility, a lot of fixers were wary to send jobs to an out-of-control junkie. Still, Beaumont did what he could to keep ends meeting, even if it meant taking far less savory jobs than he would have preferred.
Eventually those jobs – those faces – became yet another reason to dull the pain, the thoughts, and the memories.
Header image taken by lllonill, a fantastic Los Angeles-based photographer and image composer who shares his flair for the near-future.
