The Found Arcana - Seventh Interlude [IC] Options

[Tecumseh]

<<Wednesday Morning - February 8, 2079 - Touristville, Redmond>>

Following Sunday's excitement, SIS HQ has been peaceful. There have been no more shootings or explosions. There haven't even been any intimidating drive-bys, where there Crimson Crush rumble past on a hundred choppers, making the most stupendous noise. They seem to have moved on to other things. SIS doesn't seem to be a pariah in the sense that nobody is actively avoiding you anymore than they already did. Bobby has no trouble relocating the plastic-wrapped package from the U-Store-It to a hollow in a tree somewhere else.

Doc Painless has been sending updates about Mato's progress twice per day, once in the morning and once in the evening. He is slowly improving but hasn't woken up yet. Doc Painless expects that to happen any time now.

It is now Wednesday, February 8, 2029. It is the 50th anniversary of the Crash of '29. Globally, the world is rather more chaotic than usual. Many Matrix gangs have latched onto the day as an unofficial holiday, along with November 2nd as the anniversary of Crash 2.0.

Worldwide, there is a great deal of hacking and general mischief. In Neo-Tokyo, the Bakuto no Bakuta are hacking drones and vehicles, which they are racing up and down the sprawl. In the AGS, the Attic Spiders are terrorizing Frankfurter Bankenverein (FBV) with anti-corporate messaging. In Lagos, the Onyara (a technomancer clan) are having a huge party in Festac Town's giant open air market, where they are giving away commlinks and electronics that they have diverted from insufficiently-protected shipments. In Boston, the Troglobytes (a trog Matrix gang) are vandalizing Matrix sites. Globally, nobody has heard from Chaos Engine - a first-tier Matrix gang that's practically a syndicate - which makes everyone nervous what they're up to. Closer to home, the Reality Hackers are on a crime spree, but since it's down in Puyallup nobody pays much attention. Iktomi is having a blast and is strongly encouraging AM to get in on the action.

In Redmond, things are more silly than sinister. There is some crass ARO graffiti here and there. A mischievous sprite is trying to doctor the SIS Matrix presence with explicit photos of wives catching husbands in flagrante delicto. When AM shoos the sprite away, it tries to take over your soy processing unit to print anatomical parts in 3D soy. Your soykaf machine keeps making soykaf with crude foam drawings. Whatever is doing it must be quite the barista because the soykaf has been better than ever to the point where you're tempted to leave it alone.

Against this backdrop, you have a visitor around 09:02, right at the beginning of your business hours. A man - human, from the looks of things - knocks on the front door. Switching to your security camera, you see a middle-aged man in Actioneer Business Clothes. The business suit would be a bit ho-hum among the corpers of Bellevue, but in Redmond his clothes are decidedly upscale. The man has a briefcase that's either leather or synthleather. A sharp eye will notice that it has been handcuffed to his wrist. On his head he wears a bowler hat that definitely not the fashion in Touristville. The man rings again, constantly checking the street behind him. On the sidewalk, a teenager runs by yelling while being chased by a delivery drone that's apparently been hacked. Evidently eager to be inside, the man on your doorstep knocks once more.