[IC] [SR4] What I want to do when I grow up, High School builds character Options

[Twitch_]

Rio nods calmly, not appearing upset at Papa Gotcha's insults. Or maybe she just doesn't realize they're insults at all, who knows. "I'm pretty sure we already broke the law stealing those files. We know what the score is. Let's hear what you've got to offer." She winces as she belatedly realizes she maybe shouldn't have mentioned their snatch-and-grab on the school's node.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Zoé tries not to wince outwardly, even as she definitely winces inwardly.

@Hex [Liara]: You should not have said that.

[Koekepan]

Papa Gotcha sighs, eyes moving from one girl to the other. He shifts his bulk a little, and pulls out a credstick. "Here, if you take the job, is the up front payment. Certified, two thousand UCAS dollars." He drops it on the table, takes another big bite of pizza, and munches a bit before swallowing.

"The job itself is quite simple. Bring up some equipment in an open area, make sure it's working, keep it up. If you can do that, for just a week, there's eight thousand more. If you can't do something that simple, I got no jobs for you."

Papa Gotcha goes back to the pizza. Seems he's one of those guys who eats the whole thing including the crust. The chewing gives people a chance to communicate, and make decisions while bubbles slowly rise in the beer.

[Twitch_]

@Liara, Daiyu, Hop [Hex]: What do you guys think? I'm sure we could forge permission to get off sick for a week. That's $2500 each. Her eyes are already glittering as she thinks of the kind of upgrades she could buy with that much money. Even before speaking, it's obvious she's sold on the deal; Rio is a terrible negotiator.

"Is there any particular someone needs to babysit this stuff for a week? I mean, are people going to be trying to shoot us or something?"

[ShadowDragon8685]

@Hop, Hex, Daiyu [Liara]: Guys, I think we should pick one person to do the talking.

She tries not to goggle at the money on offer. It is rather a lot - literally an order of magnitude more than she makes per week. However...

"When you say 'bring up the equipment,' what do you mean? Do you mean activate something that's already in place, or install something? What sort of opposition to it do you expect - vandals and scavengers, gangs and syndicates, or corporate security and the cops? Does it have to be babysat twenty-four hours a day, or is responding promptly to any disruptions sufficient? And by 'open area,' what do you mean - the middle of Puyallup or Snohomish, or just an grayfields site in Tacoma?"

[Koekepan]

Papa Gotcha swallows, wipes his mouth, and half smiles. "Are you taking the job? Details depend on that. If you're walking out on me, you need never know." He digs in the box and grabs another slice.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Zoé frowns (cutely,) then raises her eyebrow. "Come on, do you think we're idiots? Taking a job with no idea what it entails is the kind of thing someone who's touched in the head would do."

She leans on the table, elbows on it, and takes a slice of pizza, taking a bite out of it, and swallowing. "Do you think I was touched in the head, Gotcha?" She pauses a beat. "Like you said, there's ghouls out there who'll use us up because they think we're disposable goods. Who's word do we have that that ain't you - yours? I can tell you I'm the Queen of England and if you only have my word to go by, you can't prove I'm not."

She sits back, crossing her arms. "So you have a job on offer, that's great. We're here to find a job. But if that job doesn't match our capabilities and equipment, it doesn't matter how much is on offer - you could be offering us ten billion nuyen on completion, but if the job is to launch a rocket into orbit, it's not happening unless you're also proving AresSpace and all of its employees along with the up-front cost. So, we have a need to know: do you just need someone to activate something that's already in place, or are you looking for wrenches to install something? If the job was going to go without any trouble, you could pay any courier or mechanic 200 nuyen to drive out and do it; therefor you're expecting some kind of hassle. Ten grand split four ways isn't worth picking a fight with the law or the mob over. And some of us - well, all of us - have prior existing obligations that need to be met. If you need to hire four people who can drop everything to go squat in an abandoned building for the next hundred and sixty eight hours, you're looking at the wrong team and we both know it. I don't want to insult you by taking your credstick only to hand it back, so why don't you not insult me by telling me what you actually need us to do and what kind of people we're going to have to butt heads with to get it done."

[Twitch_]

Rio opens her mouth and shuts it again, remembering Zoé's recommendation just in time. @Liara [Hex]: I'm going to defer to your expertise here, I think. Do what you think is necessary. She thinks for a moment and adds, But if he shoots us, it's your fault.

[ShadowDragon8685]

@Hex [Liara]: He won't. Shooting us would be terrible form. At best he'd yell at us and tell us to GTFO, and if he'll do that over us wanting to know what he's got planned, then chances are what he's planning is actually a trap to get us captured and sold to a brothel. I don't want to be a meat-puppet fuck-toy for the rest of my life, and neither do you.

[Koekepan]

Papa Gotcha nods, taking Zoé's response with equanimity.

"OK, so you deserve a bit more. Here's what I'll tell you: You need to inspect the target area, a small four block area in Puyallup. It's quiet, mostly squatters. You need to work out what you need, and what the hell since you're kids, I'll spring for equipment if you bring me the list. Get it up. Get it running. Keep it running. Just Matrix access for the local rats, nothin' fancy, but it's gotta work. If it stays up, you walk away with some cash. If you can't keep it up, you're not cut out for this biz anyway."

Papa Gotcha sighs. "And as for opposition, shouldn't be any. Nobody needs to see you, nobody needs to know you exist. If you get opposition, it's because you fragged it up. I can't prevent that. Now, are you in or not?"

He takes a long pull from his mug, puts it down, and looks across the table dead at Zoé.

[ShadowDragon8685]

"Matrix access for a week..." She raises her eyebrow, looking left and right at her companions as she nods her head, indicating she is now thinking the job sounds... Noble, even.

@Hex, Hop, Daiyu [Liara]: This actually sounds... Not bad. That's an awful lot of nuyen for some philanthropy, though. Makes me wonder what he gets out of it - nuyen, obviously. Someone's paying him more than he's paying us, and more than he's willing to spring for in equipment... Who? Not our concern. We might be able to squeeze him for more money... But I don't think we can get much. Maybe we can hold him for another person's share, just in case we wind up recruiting someone else? Ten grand splits as easily five ways as four, though... And with him throwing in the equipment if we bring him a list... That's generous, even if we don't get to keep the gear. And it sounds up our alley, too. I say we go with it.

[Twitch_]

Rio sends a reply back quickly, nodding in the meat world. @Liara, Daiyu, Hop [Hex]: And don't forget, it's mainly a way to get our feet in the door. There will be even better things later. I'm in.

[Aria]

@Liara, Daiyu, Hex [hop]: I can feel a school trip coming on! I'm in.

[Vegas]

@Liara, Hop, Hex [Daiyu]: Sure, what the hell. The money would be a nice benefit. I'm in.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Zoé finishes looking up and down the table at her friends, nodding at them, at their unheard answers. She looks back up at Papa Gotcha, taking his credstick and lifting it into the air. "Connectivity in Puyallup. Since you're talking about blocks, I assume that means in the bits of Puyallup where there's actual roads." She smiles. "We can do that. What four blocks do you need?"

[Koekepan]

Papa Gotcha nods slowly, and smiles.

"Awright, that's more like it." He pulls a data chip from under his sleeve's cuff, and drops it on the table. "There ya go. More or less central. Biggest problem will be power supply, I reckon, but you'd best check it out yourselves."

Papa lifts his mug of beer to the four of them, and says: "To yer success!" before taking a healthy swig.

"Aaaah, that's better. Now. You mentioned data. Whatcher got?"

[ShadowDragon8685]

Zoé takes her disposable commlink and slots the data chip into it, running a fiber cable from the datajack in the back of her head, under her hair, to the disposable, to check out the contents of the data chip with it in an extremely disposable device.

@Hex, Daiyu, Hop [Liara]: I think we probably play coy with the data. Besides that, he'll never pay us what it's really worth. Maybe just offer him the academic results... I wish you hadn't mentioned it, Hex.

She switches on the disposable commlink, and Analyzes the hell out of the datachip, looking for spyware or malware or virii. (4 hits max.)

[Koekepan]

The data chip comes up squeaky clean, with one exception: a hidden file which presents like a guru sitting on a mountaintop, and the contents say:

Diligence is its own reward.

The actual data shows an address: 3rd St SW, 6th Ave SW.

Otherwise, it's all blank.

[Twitch_]

Rio, for possibly the first time in her life, isn't looking at her AR windows. Too absorbed in thoughts of new hardware to play with, she opens her mouth without thinking.

"Our school's trying to railroad us into looking like criminals so they can ship us off to juvie and improve their numbers. We hacked into the admin server and found emails and stuff, it would be pretty bad for the administration if it got out. They brought in an outside specialist and everything, this Melin-- uh." She looks around guiltily, realizing what she's doing. "I mean. Ah."

@Liara, Daiyu, Hop [Hex]: ...sorry...

[ShadowDragon8685]

Pokerface pokerface pokerface... Awh fuckdamnit.

Zoé resists the urge to facepalm, but not by much.

@Hex, Daiyu [Liara]: I'd yell at you for that and start thinking up some kind of suitable and hazing punishment, but I just realized that this credstick contains $2,000, not 2,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) . At current exchange rates, that's 500 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) , so... You're in good company.

[Koekepan]

Papa Gotcha nods thoughtfully. "Better than nothin'. Not Mitsuhama's employee list, but better than nothin'." He scratches his chin, and goes for more of that cheese and dough.

While he munches, he thinks. It takes about ten seconds, and a swallow of beer, then he raises his head and says: "Tell you what. I think I have a buyer. Possibly more than one might wanna bid on it - but my sense is, no more than 20 grand, UCAS. Now I could pass it along, for less than that, and maybe hook you up with someone who might want your services, if you can do the first job right. If I go for maximum money, they won't be as hungry for more. So. Want me to broker it for ya?"

[ShadowDragon8685]

Gotta salvage this, gotta salvage this, gotta - I know.

@Hex, Daiyu, Hop [Liara]: Hex, for the love of fuck, keep your teeth together. Also, make a mental note that any figure Papa Gotcha gives us needs to be divided by four, that's still only 5,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) . Fool me one, fool me twice and all that. I don't want to sell him this information - especially not my personal medical and family information! But we haven't let on that we have any of that, for all he knows, we only cracked the correspondence files. Follow my lead. Hex, just put on your best poker face.

Zoé doesn't want to just turn him down flat - after all, he could blackmail them with the information that Hex let slip that they hacked the school. "Twenty Thousand UCAS for the school staff's correspondences for the year up to this point?" she says to clarify exactly what he's getting, looking up at Papa Gotcha. "Or some figure less than that and the vauge promise of a contact with someone else who could use our capabilities? What figure, and what sort of someone?"

[Twitch_]

Rio shuts her face.

[Koekepan]

Papa Gotcha nods firmly. "Twenty thousand, maybe, if the buyers go that high, which I ain't promisin'. For correspondence 'bout the electricity budget and maintenance materials. Now, if there's a real big scandal, you think there's a good buyer - it's an election year, y'know? But I need to know that."

He sits back, and bites a pizza crust, then swallows more beer before eyeing a couple of the tankards sitting there, alone and unloved.
"There are some folks been botherin' me for expertise. But until you get some Matrix back where it wasn't, that's all I'm tellin' you. It ain't even relevant until you're in the biz, and far as I'm concerned you're still checkin' out the buffet."

[ShadowDragon8685]

Zoé considers what Papa Gotcha said, steepling her fingers. Her poker face holds (Composure test, 3 hits) despite the fact that she feels squirmy inside about snapping at Rio.

"Budgetary and maintenance correspondences?" Zoé nods.

"Let's not go into hypotheticals, or holding-out, or bidding wars. What will you pay for it, nuyen - or dollars - on the barrelhead as it were, after which it's yours to do with as you please?" She taps the table's top, then takes another bite of her pizza.

What in the hell is a barrelhead, anyway? Zoé makes a note to look that up later.