It was just your average day...<br/><br/>Sure, the streets are filled with filth and crime... and sure, each and every one of them might have done things in the last many years that might make a ghoul blush if they could... but Seattle was home, and no matter where they hung their hats at the end of the day, the pollutant-laced smog-filled nights were some of the better things in life... But the life of a shadowrunner in the metroplex wasn't without it's pitfalls. Gunfire, corp security, late night DocWagon trips to the doc... all romanticized on the trid and in the sims, but every runner worth their salt knew the trids and sims didn't meet the real bloody life they lead...<br/><br/>But on this day that should by all rights have been just any other day... a message arrived in the possession of each of a select few runners, that almost immediately seemed like the stuff of dreams or trid-born fantasy. The message, passed along and validated by each runner's fixer (or other likely shadow-contact), was a simple one...<br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: courier;"><strong><em>"Job of a lifetime, Eye of the Needle, 11pm. Mr. Johnson's Party. Dress code mandatory. You owe me. Big."</em></strong></span><br/><br/>The "Eye of the Needle", as any Seattle-ite knew, was the 6-star restaurant atop the Space Needle in Downtown. It was a place you had to book months in advance, pull all manner of favors, and even then, the plates of food would likely set the average wageslave back several paycheques. It was a place the shadow community always spoke of meeting the Big Johnsons, the ones who handled the white-hot runs that paid the kind of money that could set even the most eccentric of runners up for a year or more, drowning in nuyen till they spent it all paying off their debts and maybe, just maybe, going legit...<br/><br/>The public nodes on the Space Needle and the Eye of the Needle listed the restaurant as unmatched, world class, and intensely exclusive. Most Seattle-ites knew the Space Needle itself possessed and in fact boasted world-class security, able to host international diplomats, world leaders and the biggest sim-stars. Matrix, Electronic, Magical and Physical security were all legendary... the mere idea to have a shadow-meeting in such a place was nearly insane, but considering the place was run not by a AAA Corporation made things certainly a little easier to handle.<br/><br/>But the meeting had been set, and with the mandate of a dress code and the tone by which your fixers had passed it along to you... this wasn't going to be just any old evening...<br/><br/><hr/><div class="floatright">(http://i.imgur.com/dRI2gga.jpg)</div><div style="text-align: right;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: courier;"><span class="bbc_u"><strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;">The Eye of the Needle</span></strong></span><br/><em>410 West Thomas Street</em><br/><br/>Take the elevator up to the top of the 185-meter tall Space Needle, and<br/>you arrive at one of Seattle’s most elegant and famous restaurants. The<br/>service is impeccable, the food delicious, and the view of the downtown<br/>skyline through the broad windows is unparalleled. <br/><br/>Check out the “interactive zoom” feature on the windows’ touch-sensitive<br/>surfaces, allowing you to shift, focus, and filter your view as you see fit!<br/>Be sure to book a reservation well in advance and to check the limit on <br/>your credit before you go, however; tables at the Eye of the Needle fill <br/>quickly, and the prices are not cheap. Still, it is a Seattle experience <br/>not to be missed.</span></div>