Game Face [2075: Game World], Persistent World [SR5] IC Sub-Thread Options

[Aria]

Game Face
[Thursday July 18th, 2075; The Cirolletisha Hotel, Mercer Street, Elven District, Seattle]

Silk stepped out onto the elaborate balcony on the glittering spire just south of Lake Union. She breathed in the fresh northern wind that washed away the sticky heat of the streets far below, idly watching the ripples in the infinity pool below her. She had asked Aria to find her somewhere nice to meet her new team and the whimsical hacker had booked her into this luxurious penthouse suite that had probably housed visiting dignitaries from both Tirs and other nameless powers. Silk briefly hoped that the runners knew enough to dress the part or they wouldn’t make it past the officious staff on the front desk.

As the sun dipped behind the far mountains it cast a red gleam across the face of the huge Aztechnology pyramid to the east and Silk was filled with an uneasy premonition of things to come. The webs that Aria and her band of conspirators had wrapped Silk up in weren’t binding her tightly yet but given how much her life had changed in the last few years she wouldn’t be surprised if their subtle tugs had already altered her path in unforeseen ways.

Finding the body of her mother had plunged Silk back into the shadows five years ago and her quest for answers was still unfulfilled. Following her mother’s footsteps, she had abandoned the life of a good little student with career prospects in the intelligence industry or some corp sec team, and become a runner in a bid to find the truth. Now though, instead of running the shadows herself, she had inherited a readymade fixer network from Argent. Instead of dancing to someone else’s tune she now, at least, manipulated the tempo for herself. Her gift for reading the Patterns in events had allowed her to carve a successful little empire and she was known as a purveyor of quality information and disinformation. She saw much more of the picture now than she had ever done as an infiltrator, enough to be quietly afraid of the hints she had gleaned of Aria’s plans.

She was tantalisingly close to finding the truth about her mother, perhaps this new runner team would be the ones to bring her the last pieces of the puzzle that would allow her to finally act.

She turned back inside, smoothing the cocktail dress across her hips and analysing the AR feeds from the security feed to provide a three dimensional mirror of herself. The disguise subtly masked her true features, making her appear more Hispanic than she was. The AR visor concealed her eyes which otherwise would be an unmistakably recognisable feature. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust the runners but she hadn’t survived this long without a measure of caution.

They had performed well in the last three milk runs that she had set up for them but VR meets could only tell her so much about them and it was time to meet in the flesh. She could have chosen somewhere like Penumbra as her mother would have once done but she preferred to control the terrain and this place was expensively anonymous and secure.

Silk didn’t like the trappings of power that required ever present security guards and so had come alone, relying on the security presence in the hotel and her own skills to protect her. Gossamer was an exception, riding in the matrix to watch over and warn of any threats.

And here was the first of the runners… it was game time.