*tap* *tap*...

This thing on?

OK, good. So, let's get on with it.

Winterhawk, huh? How, why, what... geez, you make it sound like we're both ancient or somethin'. Yeah, we go back a ways, but not to ancient Rome or anything. You want details, you'll get details.

First off, he's got no reason to run. I don't get why someone in his situation would do it. He's got his mansion, some English snooty title (he hates it when I call him "Your Lordship"), a whole lotta nice land, a Doctor of Magical Doodah degree, and he teaches at a university. He's even got an Aubrey. Huh? No, Aubrey is a who, not a what. Something like a caretaker or butler, I guess. Nice enough old guy, serious homebody, mother hen complex. With all that, why does someone slog through sewers and chase after bugs?

And he just doesn't get it. The streets, I mean. He takes it too lightly. Doesn't wear armor when he should, never learned to shoot better than so-so, shoots off his mouth to people who don't really want to hear it. He wears suits on shadowruns. No, not to talk to Johnson -- under a chemsuit wading through a sewer!

Are you getting the picture yet? He ain't exactly your average 'runner; he's weird even for a mage. So, why exactly do I trust him more than anyone else? I knew you'd ask that. Maybe I can even answer it; I ain't no philosopher, and not really into introspection. I spend my time on extrospection, if you follow.

Right. The "why". It's hard to explain, exactly. Way back from the first, it was obvious that he didn't take this whole "shadow" thing seriously. I guess that's because Dr. Alastair Stone (that's His Holiness' real name) always had a real life to go back to, complete with genuine SIN, since day one. None of the rest of us had that luxury; we were doing this for a living, he was doing it for fun. Really. He's into it to see the magical... things we run into. And, let me tell you, we've run into a few. Dragons? Oh, yeah. First big run had a dragon in it. Awakened critters of all kinds. Spirits. Toxic shamans. Vampires. Ghosts. More kinds of bug spirits than I want to think about. Fate herself. Things even worse than bug spirits. The kinds of things that make sane people decide to quit this and do something safer, like juggle cobras or eat grenades.

So, what does Al do? (No, you can't call him Al.) He enjoys this stuff. He's so curious that cats stare at him. I mean that sincerely. I've seen him so intent on examining this bizarrely-mutated Troll that he nearly got shot in the back. He just gets lost in his own little world, and doesn't care about anything else.

I know, this doesn't explain why I trust him. Stick with me, OK? We'll get there. Now, before you think he's just a flake, let me assure you he's more than a flake. He's a flake with some serious magical firepower. He may have trained as a little-rich-kid college mage, but he can just flat waste things with spells. That kind of power on our side is more than a little... comforting. Really. Besides that, he does like to look around on the astral plane, and see what's hiding. That keeps us from getting ambushed more often than we do. He takes magic really seriously. REALLY seriously. He's never going to let me forget that I could have been a spell dude (probably a shaman) if I hadn't gone and "ruined it" by getting all chromed up. The concept of "I did something I didn't really wanna do just to survive a little longer" doesn't get through his head. I think it's because he never really had to make choices like "do this or die" when he was young; he thinks you can afford to take the time and plan out your future, and "be all that you can be". To him, I threw away my big "gift". To me, I'm a living guy with lots of cyberware, not a corpse of a shaman-wannabe. It's all in your point of view.

The thing is, even though Vrool called him "Poof", it wasn't quite right. Killing, death, carnage -- they didn't scare him off. He didn't like to be messy. Like the sewer thing. That was what got to him, not the huge Troll with the meat-locker full of choice cuts of former researchers. I've seen him get more upset over a bad wine list (yes, he checks the wine list) than over getting shot at. The man has some damned weird priorities.

But, when push comes to shove comes to shoot, he's there. Always. He's never let me or the rest of the team down. He kept Vrool alive in the middle of a machine gun battle when the smart move would have been to cut and run. He went to the wall trying to save his kid, damn near making a deal with the Devil herself. Then he killed the kid to prevent him suffering over weeks when he was gonna die anyway. You have any idea what that'll do to you? Any clue what a decision like that takes?

You shoulda seen him trying to save Val. She was a rigger; not part of our team, more of a freelancer, but a good friend. She'd saved our butts more than a few times. Well, she got screwed on a run (gee, that's original), and got poisoned. Bad. We didn't know that; we just knew she was hurt, and calling for help. We ran over there, and found her laid out. Then we got jumped. Short fight, and they got away. He picked up Val and carried her himself, and then spent the whole trip to the shaman's trying to heal her. There was nothing he could do, nothing anyone could do. Still, he didn't quit. He was bleeding himself; no matter.

So, that's it at the bottom. If you need him, he's there. No bullshit. No excuses. If you gotta depend on people to keep you alive, you need to be able to depend on them. If not, you're better off dead. I ain't intending to be dead.

So. You got any other questions...