The Agency: Fear & Loathing IC Options

[dionysus]

Day 1, 0200 - Seattle Waterfront, UCAS
A thin fog covers the streets; the day had been warm and humid and the night cool, creating drifting, rising wisps of almost-tactile moisture. While light, the mist has a deadening effect on sounds, making the constant whine and rush of traffic seem miles away. A jet passing overhead sounds like a loud breath: someone exhaling forever, thousands of feet above you. Behind you, back downtown, bars are starting to close all over the city, spilling drunk & disorderly wageslaves onto the streets; the noise is detached and distant in the misty night air. Each of you, lost in your own thoughts, all stop at the same time and stare up at your destination.

The Agency never holds a meet in the same place twice. This particular building in front if you has demolition notices plastered on all the street-level windows, and part of the roof is missing. As you walk through the hallways, you see piles of broken acoustic tiles, wires & fiber cables dangling from the ceiling like ivy, tools lying on the floor in untidy heaps. You pass through empty security checkpoints with a smile: the smoothest infiltration you've ever done. The building is silent: the Agency's prep teams made sure that schedules & work orders aligned like the stars, so workers and construction drones have been absent for most of the day.

There's one elevator (mostly) working. One light flickers crazily the whole 4-story ride, and the ventilation blows hot, humid air on you. The doors open onto a hallway. At the opposite end, there's an oak-panel door with two trolls standing on either side: they don't actually have "BODYGUARD" printed on their horns, but it isn't really necessary. You ask for Mr. Johnson, and one of them graciously opens the door.

The room looks like it was once a reception area for some nameless service company, but everything's been carefully stacked on one side, with the standard-issue folding table in the middle. The room smells of bleach, ozone and OCD: a comforting sign that the prep team has been through, sterilizing, organizing and arranging everything just so; giving the meet that obsessive, precise Agency touch. The room is almost oppresively neat. You could eat off the floor and perform surgery on the folding table.

The Johnson sits across the immacualate table from you, with two more bodyguards a polite distance behind him. He's a tall, broad-shouldered ork with the confident, cultured expression that's the business card of an experienced Johnson. He's clearly a pro: suit neatly pressed and well-coordinated, hair carefully trimmed. No tattoos, no jewelry, no facial hair, no identifying marks whatsoever. A tablet-sized commlink sits on the table in front of him, exactly squared to the edges of the table, the stylus arranged exactly parallel.

The Johnson gestures towards chairs facing him and, once you're all seated, makes his pitch.

Johnson: "My clients are in the market for information. Specifically, they have learned of certain shipments crossing the Seattle border into the Cascade mountains, destination unknown. My clients would like you to find out what the shipments contain and where they are headed. The contract would require a short stay in the mountains, lodging provided. The pay is 35,000. Are there any questions?"