"Thanks," Kellan said with a smile. "I'll do that."

"Have fun," Newt said, pulling aside the velvet rope for the shadowrunners to enter, ignoring the complaints of the people waiting in line.

"Pipe down!" Kellan heard the troll yell above the noise of the crowd as they passed by. "Don't make me get physical with the lot of ya!" Then they stepped through the doors and into the Inferno.

In addition to the traditional words, abandon every hope, all ye who enter here, written in flaming neolux above the main entrance off the foyer, Dante's Inferno clearly held to the motto "nothing succeeds like excess." Everything about the club was clearly designed to be as over-the-top and impressive as possible, and it spared no expense to make one man's vision of the perfect sinful playground a reality. Kellan did her level best not to gawk at sights designed to provoke exactly that reaction. None of the other shadowrunners acted like they even noticed anything unusual. They'd clearly been here before-many times, if G-Dogg was any indication. Kellan was impressed by their casual attitude and tried to compose her own face into a cool, jaded expression.

Past the foyer, the club was a giant cylinder, partitioned into nine levels. Kellan could see at least seven levels looming overhead. The floors were made of transparex, allowing you to look all the way up (or down) through them. Ramps wound along around the outside walls of the building's interior, and a massive spiral staircase speared up through the open shaft that ran through the center of each level. Engulfing the staircase was a holographic display of flames, apparently roaring up from deep beneath the nightclub, filled with ghostly images of mostly nude figures writhing in what looked far more like passion than torment.

Fantastic murals covered the walls of the level they were on, depicting green gardens spread over rolling hills, and trees filled with golden fruit. Kellan noticed many of the trees had snakes curled around the branches or peering out from between the leaves.

"Envy," Liada said into Kellan's ear.

"What?" she asked, startled and a little embarrassed to be caught rubbernecking.

Liada smiled. "Envy," she repeated, nodding toward the murals. "Each of the top seven levels of Dante's is themed on one of the seven deadly sins. There's Envy, Sloth, Greed, Pride, Gluttony, Wrath and, of course, Lust. The club is supposed to be modeled on the nine circles of Hell, but I guess our modern-day Dante didn't find as much to work with there as he wanted, so he mixed his metaphors a little. I think he made Envy the entrance level as a sort of joke on all the people waiting to get in. You can bet those poseurs out there envy us right now."

"There are two more levels below this one," G-Dogg chimed in, "which makes nine altogether, although there's actually ten."

"Which are:?" Kellan asked.

"Purgatory, Perdition and Hell," G-Dogg replied, counting them off on his fingers. "That's where the real biz gets done around here. But we're not here for business tonight. C'mon, let's party!"

Her companions clearly enjoyed introducing Kellan to the myriad pleasures of Dante's Inferno. Most of the upper levels of the club featured dancing to various sorts of music, ranging from the violent speed-thrash on Wrath to the slow and sensual sounds on Lust. There was unlimited food on Gluttony, including outrageously indulgent desserts. There were also what Liada called "glamour snacks"-illusory food created with magic. The food had fantastic flavor and texture, but no actual substance. You could eat it forever and never feel full or absorb a single calorie. Kellan tried an amazing piece of cheesecake with "strawberries from the garden of Paradise," that was the best she'd ever had, even if it wasn't real.

There was a near-infinite variety of drinks, as well. The Inferno's bartenders knew their business, and could not only mix up whatever their customers wanted, but did it with flair. For the indecisive, they suggested concoctions Kellan considered to be the extreme of exotic. G-Dogg bought the first round for everyone on Envy, and they toasted the success of their run, and to more of the same in the future.

Though she was enjoying the company of her newfound friends and the pleasures of the Inferno, there was something at the back of Kellan's mind that prevented her from throwing herself wholeheartedly into the celebration. When they were drinking a round on Pride, Kellan finally decided to say what she was thinking.

"What I don't get," she said above the pulse of the music, "is why that Johnson paid good cred for us to lift a bunch of cheap electronics, only to turn around and give 'em to us. And what was the point of us working with Orion?"

"Frag if I know," G-Dogg said, taking a sip of his drink. Kellan had laughed when she saw that the big, frozen concoction was served in a coconut shell and decorated with a tiny umbrella. "Johnsons do some strange drek sometimes. It's all smoke and mirrors, corporate infighting and politics 'n' stuff."

"Doesn't really matter why," Silver Max chimed in. He was on his third imported ale, which he drank with considerable relish. He wiped his mouth with the back of one hand as he set down his empty mug.

"As long as the Johnson's cred is good, who cares why he wants it done?"

"Just seems weird to me, that's all," Kellan said.

"Get used to it," Liada replied. "Because you're going to see a lot of weirder things in this biz than an employer asking you to do stuff for no good reason."

"But sometimes, don't you want to know why a Johnson wants something done?"

Liada shook her head. "Not as long as it doesn't put my hoop on the line. Most of the time you're way better off not knowing. The employer is paying for discretion, and that's what he gets."

"The trick is to know when you need to know, if you know what I mean," G-Dogg said with a laugh. "And to know when and what you don't need to know and not know it."

"I definitely need another drink," Max said. "G-Dogg is starting to make sense." The dwarf pushed away from the table. "It's my round, what do you all want?" Max signaled for a waitress by waving his credstick above his head.

"I still don't see why we needed Orion on the run," Kellan persisted. G-Dogg shrugged, hooking the miniature umbrella on his tusk as he tipped up the coconut. Liada made a face.

"I don't either," she said, "but he was on the Johnson's tab and he did his job, so I don't care. I'm just glad he's gone. Fraggin' Ancients," she muttered, tossing back the last of her drink.

"What about them?" Kellan asked.

"They're an embarrassment," Liada said. "They put on airs about how they're so much better than norms, than everyone else really, like they're the exiled nobility of Tir Tairngire, or something." The name of the elven homeland rolled off her tongue with an almost musical lilt and an accent Kellan couldn't place. "But they're really just ganger punks, no better than any other gang."

"He definitely had a problem with Mr. Johnson," Kellan said, recalling the obviously hostile conversation between Orion and their employer.

"That's his business," G-Dogg replied.

"I think the Street Deacon knew him, too. The Johnson, I mean."

The ork shrugged. "Coulda been. The Deacon probably worked for him before."

"It seemed like more than that to me," Kellan began. G-Dogg interrupted by banging his cup down on the table and letting out a thunderous belch.

"You're thinkin' about it too much, kid," he said. "It's over and done with. The Johnson got what he wanted and we made out with more cred than we planned. It was a milk run. Orion has a stick shoved sideways up his hoop like most of the Ancients and the Deacon is a fraggin' weirdo, always has been. End of story."

He pushed away from the table and stood up, offering Kellan his hand. "C'mon. I'm up for some dancing. I'll show you some of my moves," he offered her a tusky grin.