IC: Origins, It takes two to tango. Options

[Glyph]

Tasha smiles ruefully at the ork kid's enthusiasm. Even a cheap, used heavy pistol, the kind you can get from a pawn shop that doesn't ask questions, would normally be a bit much - 20 or 30 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) is what she is used to paying for these kinds of favors. But these delinquents aren't lean and hungry, like real gangers - they have homes to go back to, allowances to spend. So instead, she'll give them something they don't have the connections to get themselves. Hopefully they'll listen to her warnings, too. If not, then hey, not her problem. Her main concern is getting into Peyton's place as quickly as possible. With the clock ticking on a ten K run, she'll pay for speed.

But when they open the door, she wonders if they were too late, after all. She doesn't question how Zee knows that the apartment is clear. The way she shot someone right through a wall, she has to have some sweet senseware. When Zee readies herself to open the closet, Tasha moves to a position that gives her a clear field of fire - but she takes out her medkit, not one of her guns.

[krayola red]

When the closet door is opened, a body tumbles out of it awkwardly, falling on to the carpeted floor with a dull thud. The rancid, gut-wrenching odor of rotting flesh that follows makes it evident that whoever this is, they're beyond saving. However, you know for sure who this man is not...you've seen a photograph of Peyton, and this definitely isn't him. He appears to be an elf in his early twenties, with long blond hair tied back in a durag and a tattoo of a scorpion on his hand. The cause of his death is apparent even at first glance...there's a large knife stuck in his diaphragm, impaled all the way to the hilt.

[Glyph]

"Damn..."

Tasha puts away her medkit.

"Little late for this, I guess. I... um. I guess we should check this guy for any ID or clues, check the place out too. But we have to be sure we clean up after ourselves. This is a murder scene now. Wish I knew whose side this guy was on."

She waits for any questions, or, hell, ideas from Zee, before she starts combing over the place. She's good with a gun, good at talking, good on a bike, but she's always felt a bit lost when it comes to the covert ops/high tech stuff.

[BlackHat]

Zee's olfactory sensor could detect the scent of rotting flesh, but it did not have the same psychological effect on her, as it might on other people. She knelt beside the body, returning her pistol to its concealed holster in her boot, and then began to search the body for clues. "You are right. This is a murder scene. If we leave it like this, all evidence will point to Peyton. If he is still alive, our job will become much more difficult if other people are looking for him." Zee was thinking of her own apartment, recently vacated for basically this same reason.

[krayola red]

A search of the dead body offers few answers for our two protagonists. Turning out his pockets, you find a couple of certified credsticks, a box of breath mints, a condom, a single tablet of a drug called "Prolaxis," and a recently expired coupon for a free meal at McDougal's Chips and Cola.

A thorough canvassing of the apartment makes it clear that some kind of struggle had taken place here, if the corpse stuffed in the closet wasn't enough evidence already. The place is a mess, with broken furniture and appliances strewn everywhere. One of the chairs in the kitchen is split in half right down the middle of the seating board, like it had been used to club someone over the head with. There's a dinner half eaten on the dining table, next to a commlink that's blinking red, indicating that it's running dry on batteries. You notice that the knife stuck in the dead man's chest seems to match a set of steak knives in one of the drawers. Outside in the living room is another scene of chaos, and in addition to the smashed and overturned objects, there appears to be a few flattened out gel rounds littering the floor. Suddenly, something moves.

There's an old, 60s-era Ares model of a mechanical cat perched demurely on top of the couch, watching you two with gleaming cybernetic eyes. You believe it's from the Felix the Synthcat line, which used to be popular amongst the middle class corporate types, but fell out of demand when more advanced models equipped with designer brand empathy software were introduced into the market. After all, why get a pet that just sits there when you can have a pet that trots over and nuzzles your leg affectionately when you're feeling down? After a moment, the cat appears to lose interest in you and begins to groom itself.

[BlackHat]

Zee made her way through the apartment, noting any signs of violence aloud - even the ones Tasha pointed out first. The gel-rounds held her attention for more than a moment - the man in the closet had no firearm, and no holster. The other object of major interest was the commlink - if there were clues, they would be found there. Getting to them, however, would prove to be challenging.

Suddenly, Zee was whipping her pistol up again - startling Tasha and drawing her attention in the direction of the drone-cat. Rather than firing, however, Zee smiled, and tucked the pistol into her the waist of her pants. "It seems there was a witness." She made her way across the room, to pick up the creature, petting its artificial fur. "If only I could speak to it."

Her eyes flicked back to the table. "... or to that."

[Glyph]

Tasha shrugs elegantly.

"Well, we can take them with us - they both have memory, so maybe at least one of them can give us a clue."

She frowns, looking around the apartment. At least Peyton seems to have won this particular tussle, and made his escape. Unless there were more than one of them, and they took him. Or his body. Damn it! All of this thinking is starting to make her head hurt.

She is wearing her biking gloves, and being careful about touching things. She knows that, really, all a forensics person needs is a stray molecule or two, but it makes her feel better.

She delicately scoops up the cat, which utters a pre-programed meow, and indicates for Zee to grab the commlink.

"I, um, I guess we've done everything we can here. Let's see if these thingies have any useful information on them."

She pauses by the body to flip the wrapped condom onto the corpse's chest.

"Guess it wasn't your lucky day after all, pal."

[BlackHat]

Zee exchanged the cat with Tasha and then picked up the commlink, as instructed. She pauses for a second to check if it is lock, and was not surprised to find that it was. "I might know some people who can help us gain access to this - but their favors come at a price. It will almost cheaper to do it our selves." She then clipped the link to her pocket, so she would remember to connect it to the bike's batteries when they got outside.

"Are we going to leave this place, like this?" Zee asked, as they began heading for the door.

[Glyph]

"Unless you have any suggestions... messing around with stuff like this isn't really my area. I know this won't look good for Peyton, but I don't want to try moving a body out of an apartment complex, with lots of people who could catch us doing it."

[BlackHat]

Zee shrugged. "We could start a fire." Her blank expression seemed extra unnerving. She wasn't grinning, like some kind of pyromaniac - but there was no sign of the compassionate girl who patched up a man sent to kill her, either. Zee simply offered the idea, darting her eyes to the kitchenette, and then back at the door. "If we disable his CHN and fire-safety utilities, most of the evidence will be destroyed - including evidence we left behind." If there was any danger of the fire spreading to the neighboring apartments, and killing dozens of people, Zee did not seem concerned.

[Glyph]

Tasha actually seems to consider the idea, briefly.

"Naw, probably not a good idea. A murder, crappy neighborhood like this, they're not gonna try too hard. Arson, they'll pay more attention. Plus, we got let in by someone who lives here, and posers or not, a bunch of pissed-off kids making trouble for us is the last thing we need. Fingering us for the blaze is the least they could do. Much as I hate leaving the place like this, we could make it worse mucking around with it."

[BlackHat]

Zee nodded, silently, and followed Tasha out of the apartment, closing the door behind them. As they made their way down the stairs to the front door, she commented, "I agree with your decision, morally." The unexpected comment caused Tasha to pause a moment, as if expecting there to be more to that. There wasn't.

As they opened the door, Zee looked across the street, and saw the gangers posing and pretending to have pistols in their hands. The safe course of action would be to clean up after themselves, Zee understood, but she did not want to see those children 'cleaned up,' any more than Tasha did. They were witnesses, but they were also an almost insignificant threat to them - at least, at the moment. The idea that they could ID them to anyone who came looking for Peyton nagged at her. This was, she thought, what separated her from the faux-cat that was looking back at her over Tasha's shoulder. Zee could acknowledge that her decision not to do something put one of her objectives at risk, and, yet, still abstain from that action. Then again, she thought, perhaps it was only because her objective of 'backing up Tasha' held higher priority. The idle thought - comparing her internal processes to that of the SynthPet - was suspended when they reached the street, and their bikes.

"Do we know where we are going, next?" Zee glanced down at the new commlink. "Perhaps, Biggs knows someone who can help us." Zee knew her own contacts could easily bypass whatever security code metahumans could write, but they had no personal stake in this mission, and would expect compensation for their favor. Zee could, theoretically, do it herself, if she loaded the correct software, but she did not have access to a copy of an exploit-class program-suite that would be necessary for the job. Writing one, was an option, but would take months. Purchasing one would be faster, but expensive. She concluded that their best hope was Biggs. If that failed, she could begin searching for the programs she would need on the Matrix.

[Glyph]

Tasha looks somewhat frustrated.

"I really don't want to use Biggs if we don't have to. It looks bad, going back to the guy who hired you, asking for help, the same day you got hired. Besides, if he knew anyone, they'd wanna be paid for it, too. But you said that you knew some people. They wouldn't charge too much for a simple job like this, would they? Because we're probably gonna have to pay either way."

She frowns in concentration, remembering.

"You also said something about 'doing it ourselves', so maybe you have something you could try, before we see anyone else? Unless it would take way too much time, wouldn't hurt to try it, right?"

[BlackHat]

Zee considers the options. "I could write a program that would get the job done, but it would take months to finish. I suppose that is out of the question. I have some contacts in the matrix that could either get us the program I would need, or get us the passcode to that commlink - but both would cost us about the same amount of money. If the commlink is running any sort of encryption, then I expect that the price of programs would be greater than that of a one-time favor."

"Given that we will probably face this situation, again, and we want to limit who knows about what we have, here, it makes sense to try to buy the programs, anyway, even if it costs us more." Zee became visibly disheartened. She did not know much about the economy of programs that could theoretically be copied infinite times, for free, but she understood that there was one, and she expected that a large chunk of her payment was going to be spent getting the next clue.

"Let's keep moving. I will put some feelers out in the Matrix. Perhaps, we should work on locating a pistol for those kids, so they are not tempted to betray us when someone comes asking questions about what happened here." As Zee climbed onto her bike, she was already connecting to the wireless Matrix, and dropping messages in dozens of anonymous drop-boxes - hoping to make contact with a digital intelligence who could send her the programs she would need.

[Glyph]

"Yeah, might as well get that done, while we're waiting on the other thing."

Tasha tries to dredge up some names from her memory, some seedy pawnshops, anything. She's too frazzled, though. The best she can think of is Sabot, a dwarf who does good work, skimping only on the paperwork that normally accompanies a firearm. He's sure to have a gun lying around. So she'll head to his place and get something. Your basic heavy pistol.

"I know a guy, does good work on guns. Can't think of anyone else now, so we'll see him. He's good, don't get me wrong, but you pay for quality. More quality than you really need for some street punk's first gun. Mine was a frickin' Streetline Special. Of course, I was way young then, not even ten yet... Anyways, Sabot's sure to have something I can get."

[krayola red]

The gangers notice as the two of you come out of the building, and the ork kid splinters off from the group to cross the street, waving at you. He comes up to Tasha with a huge grin on his face.

"So, didja get what you need? Can we get our gun now?"

Suddenly, he notices the cat you're carrying and his grin grows even wider.

"Holy shit, you stole his cat! Awesome! That little bugger is annoying as hell, it's how Mr. Adams found out about me junking Mr. Peterson's car. It has a camera installed into its eyes and it records everything that it sees into its headware memory. I bet the old bastard used it to spy on babes, the pervert."

He processes this idea for a second, then shoots you a hopeful look. "You know, if you don't want the cat, I'll take it off your hands."

[Glyph]

Tasha is ready to gently brush the kid off, but she suddenly wonders - if these kids have a budding bike tuner, maybe they have a budding hacker, too? Or at least, a script kiddie with a generous allowance?

"Well, we still gotta find the guy, that's the problem. So I gotta take the kitty somewhere to download all the stuff from its little camera, and do the same thing for this commlink, see if we can find out where the little rat ran away to."

She 'hmmms' thoughtfully.

"But if one of you guys knows this tech crap, and can get that stuff for us, save us a trip back to the office - wouldn't have to see Percy, that creepy perv is always staring at me, and he never blinks - then hell, I got no problem giving you the cat. When I get your gun, though, I'd like to meet you guys someplace a bit more private than this, maybe some hangout you got where people don't hassle you. 'Cause like I said, I'm not gonna give you a gun without at least running you through the basics for it."

[BlackHat]

"Send me an address, and I'll meet you there." Zee fires up the Scoot's electric motor. "... in case you need backup."

When the young orc rushes up and begins going on about the cat, Zee smiles a little bit. She had hoped that the drone's sensor-memory still held the details of the struggle. Hearing that it was programmed to record everything meant she just needed to find a way in to get a look at it. She let Tasha do the talking, she seemed to be good at this - and Zee didn't want to risk contradicting any of the inaccuracies Tasha had created.

She didn't pull away yet, however. She was curious as to how Tasha would handle the request. She was also a little curious as to what the boy wanted the drone for. Given the way he and his friends had been treating other people's property, she thought he might just want to destroy it. However, the way his face lit up when he remembered that the cat might have recorded infants, made her think that he thought he might be able to get at the pictures. It also confused her... and was slightly disturbing.

Tasha seemed to be following the same line of reasoning. Zee was a little disappointed, when she agreed to giving the cat away - but if it saved them a few thousand nuyen in programs, and they still got their information, it was well worth it. She continued to wait to see how the negotiation went.

[krayola red]

The kid rubs his chin thoughtfully. "None of us are really that good around computers, but my friend Nicky, he's the biggest geek you've ever seen. He can probably help you crack that commlink. He lives just a few blocks away from here. Want me to take you?"

He scratches his head. "Hmm, I should probably only take one of you though. Nicky gets nervous when there's too many people around."

[BlackHat]

Zee looks towards Tasha. "You go. You should be safe, there, and it will give me time to get a head-start towards Sabot's place." She tapped the handle-bars of her Scoot, to emphasize why this was important, then, with a swift motion, she flicked the Avalon off of her waist, and tossed it towards Tasha. "I won't introduce myself until you arrive."

[Glyph]

Tasha nods laconically as she catches the commlink.

"Gotcha. And probably a good idea - Sabot's the kind of guy you need an introduction to."

She comms the address to Zee, then turns to the ork kid with a grin.

"Well, let's go see Nicky. I'll try not to make him too nervous."

[krayola red]

Tasha:

The kid gives you a thumbs up. "All right then, let's bounce!"

You follow him as he weaves through the neighborhood with the facility of a long time resident, cutting through alleyways and parking lots to eventually arrive at a humble house at the corner of an intersection, sandwiched between a laundromat and a Stuffer Shack. He walks up to the door and rings the bell. You see the light of the intercom blink on, but no voice is heard from the other side.

The kid sticks his face to the speaker and says, "Open up, Nicky, it's me!"

There's no response.

The kid turns to you and says, "Don't worry, he's coming."

A few seconds later, the door opens, and standing before you on the other side of the doorway is one of the largest trolls you've ever seen. He's wearing an oversized t-shirt with a picture of Orxanne on it, and wrapped around his head is a pair of mechanical goggles that magnify his eyes to the size of tangerines. The strange thing is, he seems to be afraid of you.

"Um, what's going on?" Nicky asks in a squeaky, trembling voice. "Who's this?"

[Glyph]

Tasha wasn't expecting Nicky to be a huge troll, but she was expecting someone shy and in need of gentle handling, so she adjusts quickly. Her surprise doesn't show on her preternaturally controlled face. Instead, she smiles a soft, shy smile, looking up at Nicky with her hands out non-threateningly. Her voice is soft and soothing, and the slightest bit hesitant.

"Hi, Nicky. My name's Tasha." She brutally turns the force of her puppy-dog eyes on him. "I was wondering if you could...help me?"

[krayola red]

Nicky's face flushes a deep crimson and he jams his hands in his pockets. "Er, what with?"

[Glyph]

Tasha keeps her voice soft, and delicately balances between seeming friendly, while not crowding the nervous troll too much, as she explains about the cat and the commlink.

"...so you see, we really need to find out what's on the commlink and in the cat's memory, so we can find this guy before he gets into worse trouble. Could you help us? Please?"

She cynically wonders how much this favor is going to wind up costing her. But even if she succeeds in bowling Nicky over with her charm, she'll still find some way to do right by him. That's her philosophy, and what separates her (at least in her mind) from the two-bit con artists and hustlers. She likes for people to still feel some goodwill for her after the force of her personality has worn off.