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 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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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."

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."

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.

"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."

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.

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."

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.

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?"

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.

"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."

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."

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."

"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.

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."

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."

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."

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?"

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?"

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

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.

Tasha:

Nicky blinks, and seems to consider your words for a second before nodding. "Okay, come inside. We're gonna have to do this quick before my ma gets back from work, she doesn't like visitors in the house."

"Attaboy, big guy," the ork kid says. He slaps you across the shoulder and waves goodbye. "Well, I'm outta here. Gimme a ring when you've got the gun!"

You follow Nicky inside his doss, which is a small, cramped space that looks like it hasn't been cleaned in years. It's obvious that the apartment wasn't designed to accomodate a troll, and he has to hunch over just to move around inside his own house. He leads you to a small bedroom with a yoga mat on the floor for a bed, with all sorts of opened up electronic devices piled up all over the place, including an old Fairlight Excalibur cyberdeck. After you hand him the commlink and the cat, he spends a moment examining them, his brow furrowed in thought.

"This is a pretty high tech model," he says, turning the commlink over in his massive hand. "It'll take me awhile to figure out how to crack it, assuming it comes with pre-packaged security software. Gimme half an hour or so."

He sits down on the mat, leans against the wall, and closes his eyes. A second later, his body goes limp as he loses his consciousness to the world of virtual reality. Well, it looks like you'll be here for awhile. You spend the time browsing through some e-zines over the Matrix, catching up on the latest news feeds, fashions, and cultural fads. Eventually, Nicky opens his eyes and sits up with a huge grin on his face.

"I cracked it! Here, I'll send the data dump to your 'link. You can look it over while I figure out how to access the cat's headware memory. It was made in the pre-Crash days, so it doesn't have any kind of wireless capacity. I'll have to go into it manually."

You spend a few minutes browsing through the material you downloaded from Nicky, and most of it appears to be standard fare, purchase orders, personal calendar events, media files etc. However, one thing does catch your attention: shortly before his disappearance, there was a short e-mail correspondence between Peyton and Thomas Osborn, the man who hired the construction crew to renovate the Dinosaur Diner.

>>Mr. Adams, I urge that you reconsider my offer. The money is fair, and if there's someone else out there who's putting a better offer on the table, let me know what it is and I'll match it. Quicksilver has been looking forward to opening a new outlet at this location for some time now and we would be highly disappointed if you chose not to lease to us.

>>I apologize, Mr. Osborn, but my earlier answer still stands. No, the problem isn't your money, it's just I've already promised the lease to a friend of mine. As a businessman, I'm sure you understand the value of keeping one's word. Thank you for your interest, and I hope your company finds another space to further its business ventures.

>>Mr. Adams, I'm afraid that I simply cannot accept that answer. If you choose to deal with us, the benefit would extend beyond our monetary compensation, because you will also gain the invaluable goodwill of Quicksilver, which may lead to many lucrative business opportunities with us in the future. Likewise, if you choose not to deal with us, there may be consequences that extend beyond the loss of our business. Please think it over.

>>You can threaten me all you want, you son of a bitch, but my answer is still no thanks. Actually, I want to revise my answer: no thanks, and fuck off. I've done my homework on you and I know all about how you slimed and bullied your way to where you are now. So no, I'm not going to change my mind, and I would appreciate it if you never contacted me again. Good day to you, sir.

That's the last of the e-mails. Before you've had time to consider the implications, Nicky tells you that he's finished downloading the contents of the cat's headware memory. He transfers the file to your commlink, and you open it to display in an AR window. Rewinding back from the present, you eventually reach the day Peyton disappeared from his home.

The recording is kind of fuzzy, and the footage is sporadic since it's from a pet's eye view, but from what you can piece together, Peyton had been eating dinner that night when four gangers burst in through his front door armed with blackjacks and clubs. You recognize one of them as the dead elf you found earlier in the apartment. Apparently the cat also has audio pick-ups installed, so you have sound with your video. The elf says "Where the fuck is he?", right before a knife flies out of the kitchen and imbeds itself into his chest. The other gangers rush into the kitchen, and you hear screams, curses, and sounds of things breaking inside. Eventually, Peyton runs out of the kitchen, but he doesn't get far before one of the gangers pulls out a gun and shoots him in the back, bringing him down. He springs back up to his feet, and there's a short brawl in the living room between the ork and his three assailants before they finally take him down, knocking him unconscious. One of them, a burly human kid with red hair, says "Shit shit, Jonah is dead!" and another says, "Fucking tusker, we'll make him pay for it later. Come on, help me stash Jonah's body." They drag him into the closet and dump him inside before moving to leave. One of gangers turns around and looks directly into the camera. "That fucking cat is staring at me. I'm gonna go squish it." "Forget the cat, we gotta get the hell out of here." The gangers leave carrying an unconscious Peyton, closing the door behind them.

When you finish watching the recording, you look up to see Nicky staring at you with eyes the size of saucepans. Apparently he had also watched it. He seems speechless.

Tasha, no stranger to violence, feels anger rather than shock at the footage. She doesn't let that show, though. Instead, she looks distraught as she turns to the troll.

"Oh, Nicky, I'm so sorry you had to see that. I had no idea that Mr. Osborn would do something like that. I mean, I heard bad things about Quicksilver, but you hear that about any company."

Although her emotion seems genuine, she is throwing those words out there to see if they ring any bells for Nicky. She figures someone this tech-geeky might know something about Quicksilver. Zee seemed to have hit a brick wall there, although that was just a quick search. A longer search, armed with Osborn's commcode this time, might be more productive.

"Um, are those guys gonna come after me now 'cause I helped you?" Nicky says, his voice trembling with fear.

Tasha mentally berates herself for trying to pump Nicky for information right after what was probably a traumatic scene for him. She quickly reassures him.

"No, no, Nicky. No one's going to hurt you. I promise. Those guys didn't even know the cat was recording anything, and I'm sure not going to tell them anything. If I do find them, and they ask how, I'll tell them I showed around some pictures of the dead guy, and asked some questions. I should probably go soon, Nicky, before your mom gets home, but I owe you for this. If I run across any electronic stuff that it looks like you might be able to use, I'll bring it over, okay?"

She lingers long enough to soothe Nicky's fears, however long it takes, then heads out. She hands to cat off to the ork kid if she sees him still hanging around, and otherwise takes it with her for now. Before roaring out of there on her bike, she sends another terse comm to Zee:

<< Got into the commlink and the camera. We have footage of the perps - good news is, at least they took him alive. Also some nasty emails. Osborne looks more and more like the one behind it. >>

As she heads towards Sabot's place, she frowns, trying to remember if she has seen those gang colors before.

Zee was nearly to the address she had been given, when Tasha's message arrived. If Tasha was just leaving Peyton's neighborhood, Zee expected to have a little while to wait. At least she would have a few minutes to make sure the area was secure before Tasha arrived.

<<I am glad to hear you had success. Do we know where they took him? Would you like me to try to get close to Osborne?>>

Tasha responds quickly.

<< Yes, if you could do some more digging on him, that would be great. The gang punks he sent to nab Peyton looked like errand boys. Might still be worth it to track them down, too, but Osborn is our main lead. >>

Zee[b] arrived outside of [b]Sabot's place, walked the perimeter, and kept an eye (and radar) open for anything out of the ordinary. Seeing nothing that needed to be addressed before Tasha arrived, Zee turned her attention back to her commlink, which was trawling the Matrix for information on 'Thomas Osborne'. A few minutes later, Zee responds.

<<I found his home address and main office location [Attached]. Let me know once we are certain enough of his involvement to warrant a visit.>>

Tasha replies:

<< I'm tempted to go there right now, but first, we should see if we can track down those gangers. We are pretty sure Osborn is our bad guy, but getting Peyton back is still our main job. Scum like Osborn don't like to get their hands dirty, so the gangers could still be holding him, or they could have killed him, or they could have taken him someplace else. I'm not real hopeful at this point. Osborn got what he wanted, so Peyton would just be a loose end to him now. But we'll see. If Peyton turns up dead, we might be seeing Osborn anyways, to get some old-fashioned payback. >>

The two of you meet up on the street outside Sabot's workshop, which is a two level outfit that was converted from the garage and basement of a back alley building. As you approach his place together, you catch the sound of voices having what seems to be a heated discussion coming from inside.

"Look, we're offering to pay you a lot of money to do this, and you'll be saving a bunch of lives to boot. No one wants a mob war to break out on these streets. No matter who you are, it isn't good for anybody."

"Saving lives, eh? That how you see it? Way I see it, it's just making a swap between who's gonna live and who's gonna die. Unfortunately for you, your proposal means that the guys who'll end up dying are my customers, which isn't exactly good for my business."

"Look halfer, I've had just about enough of..."

You two step into the workshop to see Sabot and a group of Italian men in three piece suits standing inside, glaring at each other. They turn when they hear your entrance, and the Italians seem visibly displeased at the interruption.

"This isn't over, dwarf," one of them says. "We'll be back, and hopefully when we do, you would've come around to seeing things from our perspective."

"Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen, so don't waste your time," Sabot snaps.

Sabot continues to stare them down until they leave, and he breathes a sigh of relief as soon as they're out of sight. "Man, that could've gotten ugly. You always did have good timing, Tasha. What can I do for you?"

He gives Zee a once over. "And who's this?"

As they enter, Zee is scanning ahead of them, on the lookout for anything that might pose a danger to Tasha. Given their location, and the nature of its business, she wasn't surprised when she picked up a number of small-arms - or the presence of other customers. As they entered the scene, however, Zee's mapsofts were already scanning the place, labeling exits, identifying priority targets, and doing a handful of other operations in perparation for the scene becoming dangerous, quickly. To her relief, the Italian men did not seem to want to escalate things, and chose to use their arrival as an excuse to back off.

Zee's attention seemed to stay fixed on the Italians, as they exit, only turning to Sabot when the closing door cut off her line-of-sight. Even then, her perception continued to follow their signatures as far as it could, before her radar lost its fix on their shapes. She remained quiet, turning her scan to Sabot and allowing Tasha to speak first and handle introductions.

Tasha's cold eyes follow the suits as they walk off. She's getting tired of running into sneering punks in suits, making threats and leaning on people. It takes a measure of self-control to not send a few bullets their way.

She relaxes as she turns back to Sabot, her lips quirking up in a slight smile, but a genuine one.

"This is Zee. She's an up-and-coming runner, who might be visiting your shop herself in the near future. As for me, well, no biggie this time. I was wondering if you had a heavy pistol for sale laying around? One that's off the books, so to speak. Just a basic gun, and some regular ammo for it."

"A pistol? That all? Sure, I'll be right back."

Sabot heads down to the basement and returns a minute later, laying down a pistol and two clips of ammo on the table in front of you. "Standard Manhunter, 300 even. Ammo is free."

As Sabot walks off to get the gun, Tasha turns to Zee, thoughtfully.

"We should probably go back and finish our 'transaction', then head off to find those gangers. Redmond. Yay. At least it's not Puyallup. But it depends on how quick we get some leads. If something doesn't turn up quick, we may have to risk skipping a step, and go right to the big guy. Clock is ticking on this one."

Tasha grins when Sabot brings back the weapon. It's just what she needed - a cheap, common, but reliable gun. Decent stopping power. And intimidating-looking.

"Hey, thanks, Sabot!"

She pays for her purchase, then hesitantly turns back.

"Um, this may be none of my business, but... right now, we're looking for someone who might be dead right now, because he underestimated how low a scumbag suit would go. You need any backup, Sabot, let me know, okay?"

Sabot gestures dismissively. "Oh, you don't need to worry about me, I know exactly who I'm dealing with. They just need to hope that they know who they're dealing with. Thanks for being on the look out though, I appreciate it."

"All right, then. See you later!"

Tasha turns to Zee.

"Ready to roll?"

Zee seemed distracted during most of the conversation, Tasha's direct question seemed to snap her out of whatever internal monologue was going on.

"Ready to roll," she said, with less confidence than Tasha would have liked - almost as though her own question was being twisted into an affirmative.

Turning to Sabot as they left, she added, "You need any backup, Sabot, let me know, okay?"

Outside, she closed her eyes for a moment, before opening them, and looking a little more 'with it'. She climbed onto her bike, and got ready to take off - calculating that Tasha would beat her there, hand off the gun, and be ready to leave again, before Zee arrived. However, there was still the possibility of danger at that location, so Zee prefered to arrive late, than not at all.

Tasha shoots Zee a brief look of concern, but she is distracted herself. She peels out on her racing bike, wanting to hand over the gun so she can get back to the hunt. She meant what she said, though. They are going to get gun safety 101 from her. Whether they take it to heart or not is up to them.

Tasha's flinty gaze flickers around her surroundings as her bike comes to another halt in a protesting screech of tires. Like her, the Suzuki is restless, longing for the hunt. But this is important, too, and it can't be rushed. The gang is still lounging around the same area, although right now one of them seems to be occupying himself with tagging a wall, with actual paint. Old school. Tasha approves - the RFID taggers these days lack style.

They become more alert as she approaches, their attempts at cool nonchalance sabotaged by their puppy-dog eagerness. The tagger, an older kid who wasn't with them earlier, is suspicious at first, until the others introduce her - after an awkward pause, and asking her name, which she gives as simply Deadeye (she sometimes omits the "Tasha"). She doesn't mind, since it leads to introductions all around, giving her some names to work with. She succeeds in not laughing at some of their street names. Some of the most useful contacts that she has had came from unusual places.

"So, you got it?" asks the ork kid eagerly.

Tasha nods. "Yeah, but not here. Someplace more private."

They wind up taking her about half a block, where they pull a previously-loosened piece of plyboard away from the entrance to an abandoned high-rise, a half-completed structure whose skeletal beams poke out of the more complete lower area. Construction seems to have been abandoned, and their footsteps echo loudly. Tasha leaves her commlink's connection to Zee open, so the other woman can find them.

She takes out the gun, and patiently shows them its workings. How to change the clip, how to use the safety, how to use the sight, how to keep it clean, how to clear a jam. From there, she shows them basic operation - aiming, compensating for muzzle lift, tracking an enemy's movements, firing. She demonstrates with her own gun and some old plastic jugs set against another wall, and they use a few of their own precious bullets trying it themselves. Finally, she offers some of her own hard-won wisdom about guns - how to keep them concealed, when to bluff with them, when to use them, and when to not escalate things.

They seem enthralled enough - hopefully some of it will stick. Zee shows up quietly, about halfway through the demonstration. She stands near one of the unfinished doorways, and patiently watches with eyes that don't seem to blink quite as often as they should.

When Tasha is done, leaving them still excitedly talking amongst themselves, she strides past Zee, who follows.

"Guess we should go check for those gangers now. We just gotta keep it low-key. Redmond's nasty. Don't want to attract too much attention there. I haven't been there much, at all. I've been to this one dive of a bar, the Rancid Rainbow, a few times, though, so I guess we could start there."

Zee stood and patiently watched Tasha's instructional gun-safety lesson. She paid more attention than any of the juvenile gangers - but Tasha did a good job of making sure they got the basics down before handing them the weapon. A bad idea, Zee thought, that was only made worse by the time required to do so responsibly. Outside, Zee's patience faded, and she moved quickly to her bike. If she had anything to say about the diversion from their mission, she kept it to herself.

"If Redmond is 'nasty', should we still be arriving everywhere separately?" She seemed to look past Tasha for a moment. "And, when you got the data from the chip, did you show it to them?" Zee nodded back in the direction of the abandoned building, where the young gangers were still looking at their new toy. Zee expected to hear gunshots any minute. "If another group of gangers went into that building, or spent any time nearby, they might have noticed and not connected the event to our earlier questions about Peyton."

Tasha shrugs. "Yeah, but these gangers aren't local talent - what would these kids be able to tell us? We already know what they did... but I guess it wouldn't hurt to check it out. To be sure we've done everything."

Tasha briefly mulls over how to go back to the kids she's just left without it looking awkward. She also absently addresses Zee's other question. "As for Redmond, yeah, I wasn't planning on zipping ahead of you for that one. You'll probably need me to show you where the bar is, anyways. It's in a matrix dead zone, and it's a real hole in the wall. Nothing but steps going down to a door, no signs or anything. Well, there is if you know to look for it, big psychedelic rainbow design spraypainted on the wall, but most people think it's just graffiti."

She turns back. "So yeah, I'll have a quick word with the kids, then we'll head out."

She wends her way back through the deserted building, finding the gang more or less where she left them, hashing out how they're going to share the use of the pistol. Surprisingly, it hasn't devolved into fisticuffs... yet. They look up, slightly startled to see her again.

"Hey, just thought of something. We've got some punks from Redmond getting in the boss's business, and it looks like they might be invading your turf, too. You seen these guys around? If you have, maybe we can help each other."

She shows them some of the footage. She considers warning them how dangerous these gangers could be to them, but that would only make them act with more bravado, to save face. Instead, she lets the violent footage speak for itself.

The gangers look at each other, and shake their heads. "Sorry, never seen 'em before."

"They're not from around here, that's for sure, otherwise we would know them."

"We'll keep an eye out for them and let you know if they show up around here again."

"All right. Thanks."

Tasha takes her leave of the kid gangers again. She answers Zee's questioning expression with a rueful negative shake of her head, then she gets on her bike. She shows no obvious signs of impatience when keeping pace with Zee's slower scooter, but it is a disorienting experience. After blithely ignoring the laws of traffic, common sense, and, sometimes, physics in her Suzuki, it feels strange to be going the speed limit.

Ah, Redmond, often referred to affectionately as the ass end of Seattle by people who live in other neighborhoods, though never within earshot of a Barrenite. You've already seen two shootings, a knife-point mugging, several street brawls, and one poor bastard who got swarmed by a rabid pack of hungry devil rats when he took a wrong turn and ended up in an infested alley. And you're only halfway to the bar. Well, if there's one good thing to be said about Redmond, it's that life never gets boring, and you never have the same day twice. Unfortunately, Zee, being a new visitor to this part of town, didn't take long to break the first rule of traveling inside the boundaries of Redmond: never stop at a traffic light. A few people had to get shot before everyone else got the message that you two were not easy prey, and there were no further incidents during your trip, though there were some close calls. Eventually, you arrive at the Rancid Rainbow. You actually almost missed it, but Tasha managed to recognize the rainbow tag on the wall just in time, even though there's now a poorly drawn phallic shape superimposed right over it. There are a few squatters and gangers in the area, and they eye you two with blatant interest as you pull your bikes to a stop on the curb. It's obvious that they're waiting for you to leave so they can hijack the vehicles, and they're not even trying to hide their intentions.

Zee pulls her scooter to a stop, drops the kick-stand, and steps off of it. She notices a few of the people seem to be looking in her direction with something her emosoft registers as 'envy' or 'greed'. However, seconds later, Tasha's bike slides up next to hers, and the poor scoot is immediately forgotten about. A number of the squatters begin to crawl forward, keeping their distance - seeming to be more afraid of the nearby gangers than of the two girls. Their eyes are glazed over with visions of the BTLs, drugs, or food these bikes could buy, and they seem almost ready to pounce. The gangers huddle up, in their separate groups, waving knives, bats, and chains casually in the direction of the two young girls as they discuss what they're going to do with the bikes, and how they're going to keep their neighbors off of them. Zee's enhanced audio-sensors pick up at least one comment about female anatomy that is met with some enthusiasm.

Zee processes the situation quickly, coming to the realization that a fight is about to start, here, whether they go inside, or not. She considers advising Tasha to get inside, quickly, while she handles things out here, but Zee hasn't seen anything in this part of the city to indicate that Tasha will be any safer in there. She leans towards her companion, murmuring, "Things are about to get messy." In the time it takes Tasha to respond, Zee loads up a number of programs to help deal with the situation when it inevitably escalates.

Tasha nods sourly.

"Yeah. At least these guys are nothing but street trash. Damn, the place was bad enough before, but it's even worse now. They used to have a few tough guys who would watch your ride for a reasonable rate - guess they're either dead or doing something better now. And even after we chase off this lot, one of us will have to stay with the bikes. Crap. Well, if showing the pics around the bar doesn't pan out, we may have to forget about finding the gangers and skip straight to Osborn."