Everyone seemed to be thinkng and looking at one another, but nobody seemed to speak up - Piece took the first shot. "What's in this for you?.... What's the prize?" He was stalling, a little bit - and still baiting the J. He wasn't too good at financial arguments, but he had a feeling that if he could press the conversation up against this man's next appointment, that wouldn't give him a lot of room to argue - and he was hoping to get the man to agree that 'victory' was worth more to him than the prize-money.

Bellvue, Seattle, UCAS - 0933 hours, Tuesday, July 8th, 2070

"Prize, well there is some sweet gear I can buy, and phat loot, but the real prize is pwoning his sorry butt. And I will be number one on the shard."

Bellvue, Seattle, UCAS - 0934 hours, Tuesday, July 8th, 2070

Gray assensed the aura of their host. What he saw was to be expected of a man who sat around and played 'trix games all day long.

"Maybe you ought to take some of that phat l00t and go on vacation somewhere... nice? You know... get some sun?"

Piece got the answer he expected, but not really any indication of how much this meant to Jonus. "Is it 'poh-ning' to win, by forfeit?" He smirked and glanced at his own image-link clock, still a half-hour to go. He doubted he could keep the conversation going that long, by himself. "Whatever. I don't really care why you want this done. I want to know what it is worth to you." He was no good at this crap, but he knew when he had someone up against a wall, and his instincts said to keep pushing.

"None of us know anything about your friend, so we can't tell you how much effort it will take to track him down, or hold him down while you beat on his lifeless character in that game."

"It sounds easy enough. It wouldn't take much to get me to say 'deal'.... For now."

"Course, if we find out he's hired protection, or he's dangerous, or we spend the whole week digging up his secret lair, and well, we will reevaluate the deal. If we think your offer isn't worth the effort or risk, we're out, and you're on your own."

"On the other hand, if we just assume that this is going to be a big bloody mess, and ask for a lot, we might ask for too much. If your victory isn't worth our offer, you'll say no, and you're still on your own."

"Only you know how much this victory is worth, to you. So, it seems like it is in your best interest to make your initial offer close to that - insurance that everyone gets what they want, even if things get complicated."

Then he shrugged. Piece wasn't really making an offer for the team - that wasn't really his place. He was just trying to put some pressure on this client to get him to start high. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't bother. Professionals knew that Shadowrunners were a dime-a-dozen, and didn't like being manipulated - and wouldn't even consider a team who suggested they might just walk away from a job and wipe their hands of it. Piece didn't have that same sort of respect and professional integrity when it came to this slime ball.

This was a special situation. Piece was prepared to do something he disagreed with, in exchange for a large amount of cash, as usual., but if the narcoleptic diabetic hacker wanted to play hardball, and negotiations fell apart, Piece felt pretty confidant that the rest of the Shadows wouldn't end up hearing too much about it, and he could get out of it with his reputation intact. In fact, as he thought about it for a moment, working for a nut-case like this, strong-arming children for cash, was probably more likely to hurt his reputation.

So, when it came down to settling on a price, Piece's bar was set pretty high. The J had a half-hour to argue, but if it wasn't settled by then, this was still the easiest two-thousand Piece had ever made.

Bellvue, Seattle, UCAS - 0936 hours, Tuesday, July 8th, 2070

Lyssius kept one ear on the conversation, but his agent, an app called Shadowsearch, (a little thing he picked off Jackpoint), started picking up interesting bits of intel here and there, drawing his attention on more onto his AR feed. It must have been his lucky day, since hits just kept popping up.

He grinned to himself as he unearthed a particularly juicy bit of data. Huh. Never thought some neural rejective gamer woulda been so popular.

Bellvue, Seattle, UCAS - 0940 hours, Tuesday, July 8th, 2070

Uleso blinked four minutes later, Shadowsearch and his other apps telling him nothing more can be found. He was disappointed not to find the guys address, but Lyssius figured it was enough, especially if some more intel could be pulled out of their client. His emotitoy, disguised as an ear stud and toggled off in AR, whispered in his ear, warning him that Piece might be pushing the Johnson a bit too far.

He stepped between them with a ready smile, about to interject, then realizing that J0nus Blain3 was already too engrossed in his game to care or notice about anything outside. He got the feeling himself, sometimes, when he was playing Worlds of Starcraft and Uncle Travers crashed his connection to force him to do chores. He instead turned to Piece holding up his hands in a 'hold off' fashion, motioning for the rest of the crew to gather.

"You are under the mistaken impression I give a damn what a two bit hood thinks of me, either you want the job or you don't. Either you can tell me a price or I will just tellyou two thousand a piece. Listen," he looks to the clock, "I'm running out o time here. Do you want the job, and if so how much do you want to charge, if you don't want the job get out, if you do, tell me a price."

Lyssius blinked a couple of times. Guess he was paying attention. Huh.

He prepped his smile again, stepping back for a moment.

"Sorry, what my associate here wants to say is that price is a very variable thing. It's like grades on a quest, scan? You know, you complete a quest without losing any health you get like a thirty percent bonus? S'like that."

Uleso reviewed the data he'd found, and the sources, deciding that two thousand wasn't enough for him to hack into a private database. "Thirty-five hundred apiece. That should cover the job, plus any extra action that might crop up. Deal?"

"OK, so that sounds good, use what I've already given you to get started, I need to know by Friday if you are going to be able to do this. If not, keep what you have and call it square. If you can, you get half the rest then, and all the rest after next tuesday, if he is on but not in. Soka?"

Did I just make two grand for showing up?

Lyssius smiled again, nodding. "So ka."

Gray added his acknowledgement, "Yep. Understood."

Piece nodded, although silent, and began to make his way for the door. This place stank, and so did the host. He got what he came for - and had been promised more if things worked out. That wasn't really in his hands, though.

Gray followed Piece's lead and made quickly for the exit. The stink of the place was startign to smother him. Or was he just holding his breath? Either way, he needed some fresh air, fast.

The change is almost palpable as Alistair steps from the house into the semi-fresh Seattle air. The mage is almost disgusted enough to cast another cleansing spell to rid himself of any lingering traces of the residence's clinging atmosphere.

Bellvue, Seattle, UCAS - 1000 hours, Tuesday, July 8th, 2070

As you exit the house alarms blair that the ten hour has arrived. You shut the door behind you once again out in the (semi)clean air of C-town.

Piece took in the fresh morning air, and stretched out his shoulders a bit. "That was fun. So, anything I can do to help? or do you want me to get out of your hair while you track our boy down?" Piece wasn't really talking to anyone, in particular. He just knew that he wasn't going to be a lot of help locating a hacker. Once it was done, he figured he would make up for it by doing most of the restraining, when it came to that.

Until then, well, he was already up. Maybe he would hit the gym.

Gray seconded Piece's reaction.

"Unless we can find something he touched, a used tissue or something, I can't really astrally track the guy. I'll call Katie to see if the have anything on these guys down at NewsNet."

Bellevue, Seattle, UCAS - 1000 hours, Tuesday, July 8th, 2070

Lyssius followed the guys out of the house, taking a deep breath of (comparitively) clean air.

Never thought I'd be happy to smell sprawl, Christ.

He grinned, listening to the others talk.

"Guess it's up to me, then. I can probably hack the server without too much trouble, and trace his location from there. It shouldn't be overly difficult.

Piece nodded, "That's what I like to hear." He grinned, nodding at his ride at the end of the long driveway. "Anyone need a lift?"

At the offer of a ride, Alistair nods.

"I do."

The elven sorcerer unconsciously pats his long coat clean of any trace of filth the house's interior.

"Where we going for breakfast?"

Gray commented, "We need to go somewhere quiet and close, so Lyssius can get some work done."

Lyssius feels his stomach growl at the mention of breakfast.

He looks to Gypsy.

"You feel like some ramen? I know this wizzer noodle place downtown by the ACHE. And its tucked into a corner, nice and quiet," he added, in response to Gray's statement.

An hour later the group is sitting in an Asian Fusion resteraunt. The booths are nice and wide, the waitresses nice and thin. The atmosphere is loud enough to cover casual conversation and the architecture prevents easy spying. The food was good and the drinks better.

Asian Fusion Restaurant, Downtown Seattle, UCAS - 1108 hours, Tuesday, July 8th, 2070

A empty bowl of noodles stood in front of Lyssius and he was busy wolfing down another bowl, interspersing with swigs off a pint of Spudwieser. He finished his second bowl with a satisified sigh, looking content. He looked at the others.

"You guys want me to start looking?"

Piece shrugged, "The sooner, the better." After a second, he added. "Oh, and if you can get his account information, while you're in there, that'd be wiz." He looked at everyone else. "I think the trickiest part is going to be convincing him to sabotage his own rep, by logging in for us, knowing that we're not going to let him even compete. We might be able to muscle it out of him, sure, but this guy is a competitor - it'll be an uphill battle, all the way."

"If we have his login information ahead of time, it'll go a lot easier, because we just have to stop him from being able to play - and one of us can log in for him."

Alistair pushes the empty plate away from him and reaches for the steaming mug of coffee before him. Coffee!. Not soycaf, or nearcaf, or even caffriend, but real coffee made from real coffee beans, grown in Amazonia according to their pretty red-haired waitress. The elf rarely settled for anything less when he had the choice, often going far out of his way to obtain the real thing.

A small sigh escapes his lips as he sits back in the booth and takes another sip. Looking up, he grins and winks at the others.

"It's the small things that bring the most pleasure. Besides, there's not much we can do until Lyssius digs up the data."

He turns his gaze to the hacker, his eyebrows rising inquiringly as he takes another sip of the rich-smelling brew.