Rio blinks owlishly at the gun, twitching her fingers to call up an AR window and confirm that, yes, it's real. "Is, ah. Is that really necessary? Ideally we're going to get hired, not... shot at."

"Look around you, R-Sasha," Zoé says. "Girls like us go missing in parking lots like this every day." She shifts the pizza bag. "You gonna open the car so I can stuff these pies in the back, or did you have a different plan for them?"

Another quick twitch of Rio's fingers pops the lock on the Comet. She looks around the parking lot in vague surprise, as though she's only just noticed it. "It's open. I thought you were going to eat that awful bagel thing."

Zoé pushes the pizza bag into the backseat of the comet, opens its flap, and pushes out the pies, the bagel, and the tube of Thunderblast Red. She takes her helmet off, curling the bag up and throwing it into her bike's sidecar, which closes up dutifully.

"I am," she says, sliding into the backseat, beside the pies, and unwraps the bagel. "Either of you want to try some?" She leaves the unwrapped bagel atop the stack of pizza boxes and pops the tab on her fizzy drink, taking a swig, and then lifting the bagel, which was cut in half, offering a half to either or both of Daiyu and Rio.

Even though it didn't look like it, Daiyu was not one to turn away proffered food and silently gave Rio one more opportunity to snag half the bagel with a nod before she grabbed it for herself.

"Thanks Zoé, I'm starving." She bit into the still-warm bagel and found it to be rather tasty. "What do I owe you guys for my share of this anyway?"

She happily munched away on the bagel, happy to avoid the discussion about the gun that Zoé was carrying as so long as the girl could use it, being in this neighborhood she was almost happier that someone was armed.

"You said something back at school about my commlink? Something you suggested I do to it?" Daiyu shrugged, "Tech stuff isn't exactly my forte I guess, not in the same way it is for the two of you."

Zoé smiles when Daiyu bites into the bagel eagerly, and more when she seems to like it. She knows she can can have weird tastes at time; seaweed and cream cheese bagels being one of those oddities, and is genuinely glad to have brightened Daiyu's day in some small way.

"Didn't get to grab a snack after school, huh? One of the small - very small - perks of working at a pizza shop." She takes a bite of the other half, crunching happily through the toasted bagel's crust, teeth sinking through the warm, bready inside, crunching back out through the middle, sinking again through the cream cheese, and finally crunching one last time through the seaweed, pulling it away and swallowing the bite, then she holds it up in case Rio wants to try it. With her other hand, she reaches across herself, swallowing after a moment and taking a swig of her Thunderblast Red, a sweet, vaugely red-berry flavored drink known primarily for its abundance of caffeine and carbonation (as opposed to the other flavors in the line, Thunderblast Purple, Thunderblast Blue, Thunderblast Black, Thunderblast Orange, Thunderblast Cola, and Thunderblast Sherbert,) then offers the can to either or both of Rio and Daiyu.

"And I was suggesting we pass out encryption keys so we can contact one another securely, if need be. There's probably not much I can do with your 'link. I can have a look if you want me to, though, but Rio's probably better at that than me. As regards the split, let's see... My drink and bagel together are 7 and the pies are 17 each. Who paid? I'll chip in 25."

Rio shakes her head at the proffered bagel and shrugs. "I'm alright with hardware. My comm's not as good as yours, though. I paid." She turns to look at Daiyu, eyes unfocusing slightly as she looks between the elf and an ARO. "Are you good at anything?" she asks, tactful as ever.

"Oh, that's right," Zoé says. "I had a paranoia moment earlier when I wondered if the school might have been using spyware on us, getting it onto our links. I didn't find any on mine, but they probably would've had a hard time getting any onto mine in the first place. That kind of got lost in all the more scary stuff, but it doesn't mean there's nothing to worry about."

She looks up at Daiyu, with a smile. "Want me to scan your 'link with a fine-toothed comb and nuke anything nasty?"

"Sure, have at it Zoé. Doubt you'll find much on there of interest." She unclipped her commlink from her waist and tossed it over the backseat into Zoé's eager hands, unlocked and open for whatever she wanted to do with it. Daiyu then turned her attention back to Rio and shrugged before she answered, not bothered by the girl's direct approach.

"I'm nothing special remember, just another washout who is apparently tripping alarm bells in the Administrations office these days."

Zoé connects her datajack to Daiyu's commlink by fiber cable, and closes her eyes. It takes some serious trust and perhaps a little bit of negligence to get the idea to go into full VR whilst sitting in the back seat of a car whose door is open, but she feels safe because Daiyu and Rio are out there.

In her reality filter, it's no trouble at all for her to clambor down from the rooftops of her virtual city node to leap onto the roof of a passing elevated train, riding it through the tunnel of fiber-optic cable, into Daiyu's commlink.

She emerges into the constructed city of Daiyu's commlink, much more constrained than her own, and her avatar issues a smile as she brings up her Analyze program. In moments she's running through the 'link, golden scanlines parsing over everything, searching for the bright, angey red matrix symbol-rain that would indicate a virus or form of malware.



Max hits: 5 (IP 1, 4.)

Liara finds nothing wrong in the commlink she inspects. The worst is a plethora of nasty little personally identifying bits from various matrix activities - this should be wiped for anonymity's sake, but it's not active software.

Liara rounds those nasty little bits of PII (Personally Identifiable Information) up, the metaphor being gathering them up with the alien avatar's powerful, gravitic-based telekinetic manipulation, and dumps them all in a massive, hovering skip-bin that follows her around the city. She slaps a lid on it and marks it quarantine, the idea being to illustrate to Daiyu exactly what sort of information she probably wants to nuke in the future.

Then she leaps down from the top of the skip-bin, which she rode back to the elevated train tracks leading in from the sky-tunnel, materializing a pair of glow-rods in her hands, dramatically waving them as if "landing" a train car which arrives in the station, pulling what looks like heavy cargo; a stack of hacked programs.



She smiles in a pique of mischievousness, setting a search for Daiyu's porn stash ( 4 successes) and sending it back to her own commlink if she finds any, then decides to spread the wealth beyond hacking and questionably potent privacy tools.

She sets up another incoming train, this one carrying less-heavy cargo cars, as well as copies the transmission to Rio.



She leaves a note for Daiyu as well: Your link was clean of viruses, just some PII left over from some matrix browsing you've done. I quarantined it all so you can get into the habit of figuring out what kind of stuff needs to be wiped regularly. I also sent you a nice large suite of very strong tools that others should not see. If others have access to the 'link, put 'em on an optical chip and delete them ASAP.

One of those tools you'll probably get good mileage out of is the corrupter I sent you. It's a specialized program that just overwrites anything you point it at with utter gibberish. Once something's been good and overwritten, that's it; it's gone. Can't be recovered by mortal metahumanity. It doesn't have the same finnese as knowing what you're doing with an edit program, but the upshot is that you don't need to know what you're doing with an edit program to erase the evidence with a corrupter. Someone who knows what they're looking at will know something happened, but won't know what.

Start with this note. No really, you need to hash this note ten ways to Sunday before you delete it. Then you might as well get on to those piles of PII and your data logs. Most people don't know about them, but they keep a record of every action an authorized user makes, which is, well, bad. Here's how to find them...

She then hides a message in Daiyu's data logs.


Zoé takes in a deep breath as she comes out of VR, and hands the link back to Daiyu, disconnecting from it and rolling the fiber cable back up, sticking it in her pocket. "Here you go. I loaded you with some tools way too hot for this 'link, but you might be able to get some use out of them anyway."

Hop trudged through the drizzle through the charming neighbourhood that he'd been invited to. He might be new in town but this place had a twitchy feeling that had him itching to grab at the stun baton holstered in the small of his back. What the frag am I doing here? he thought to himself for the umpteenth time? Not like me to have my head turned by a pretty face, even a weird blue one...but he'd meant what he'd said about finding friends here, even if it did slightly jeopordise the low profile his parents had insisted they keep...



@Hex [Hop]: Right, I'm here as you asked...where the hell are you? nobody at school? Well that might be just as well, but this was intriguing! Cypher would probably kick his arse for not taking more precautions in getting here, but he was here now...

@Hop [Hex]: Over here. Rio puts up an ARO marking their position, batting it absently away from her head in the meat world. @Hop [Hex]: Glad you could make it. We're still waiting for the guy we're meeting. Come sit in the car if you want.

Zoé looks up, noticing the ARO at about the same time her commlink informs her that a recent contact is within close distance.

@Hop [Liara]: We've got pizza! Climb on in.

She looks up at Rio and Daiyu. "Why aren't we all in the car, again? And where is this guy? I can stretch it a lot, but if he's not going to show up until quarter after, I may have some serious dancing to do with my boss."

Rio's commlink gets a transmission:

@Rio [Anon53869]: If you're all here, the side door is unlocked. It's the one with the High Voltage sign on it. Don't go through the front.

It's not a recognisable ID, but who else would it be?

Rio reaches around to the passenger seat and picks up her duffel bag. "Okay, everyone," she says quietly. "Here we go. Side door." She cancels the ARO marking their position, gets out of the car, and walks to the door, pausing at the High Voltage sign. Hopefully this is not Papa Gotcha's idea of a joke. Gingerly, she opens the door.

The door has a big, bright, black and yellow WARNING - HIGH VOLTAGE sign on it along with an iconic image of a stick figure and a lightning bolt. There is also an ARO warning of the dire consequences of unleashed electricity, but other than that the door is unremarkable in a chipped, stained, industrial sort of way.

Rio pulls the door open, and at least the puff of air from inside is warm. There are some conduits inside, but most of the room is empty save for a medium sized table and some battered but comfortable looking chairs. In one of them, facing the door, is Papa Gotcha.

Papa Gotcha probably weighs 140kg, and stands around 180cm tall. He's a big, beefy human with a naturally jovial expression. Currently he's dressed in what might be called urban lumberjack chic - an undershirt of some sort under a basic flannel shirt, boots peeping out from under the table. On his eyes are goggles, with a wire leading to the pocket of his shirt. The icons and everything around it betray it as a pathetically cheap Stuffer Shack special - internal battery guaranteed to die in a week or less, if he didn't pay for the HI-POW upgrade (which he almost certainly didn't).

"Howdy, c'mon in, take a load off!" His language betrays his age - not much younger than the Sixth World, clearly - but he is energetic. With an expansive sweep of his hand he offers a tray table on which foaming tankards sit to one side. One of those tankards is in his left hand.

@Hop [Liara]: Ah, damn. Pizza will have to wait, looks like. She abandons her tube of Thunderblast Red in the cup holder in the back seat of Rio's ride, along with her half-eaten half-bagel atop the pizza boxes. She sets the anti-theft deterrent on her Revolution and sends her boss a text: Gonna be a while, have to use the powder room before I get back. Sorry.

She sets her link to archive and ignore any tags, texts, social media posts, or commcalls - basically, everything and everyone except Daiyu, Rio, Hop, or her aunt, and pauses before she shuts the door, then takes one of the boxes, pulling it out and easing the door shut with her leg.

@Rio [Liara]: I don't know anyone who doesn't like a slice of pizza pie, do you? As Hop approaches, she foists the pizza box onto him; after all, she may need to get to her pistol in a hurry. Looking around at the surroundings again, she frowns, but follows Rio, as she loads up a suite of programs and puts her commlink into invisible mode.



@ Hex, Daiyu, Hop [Liara]: Okay folks. Gut check here... Girls, I sent you Stealth and ECCM programs. Turn them on. Especially ECCM - if someone starts up a jammer, it's the trump card. Hop... Coming at you now. In the interest of speed and brevity, she sends him ECCM 6 and Stealth 6 alone.

She follows Rio in through the door, glad that her friend didn't get summarily electrocuted by touching it, though she had been about to say she should go first, as her gloves were electrically insulated.

Rio fires up her own programs, persona donning the paper hat of Stealth and a small origami boat of ECCM. Looking around the room, she sits in one of the offered chairs. After a moment, she even remembers to take a tankard, although she sets it on the table instead of drinking. "Papa Gotcha, I'm... Hex. We spoke earlier. These are the other people I mentioned." She doesn't introduce them, deciding to let them choose which names to give. "We brought something we thought might interest you. And also pizza, I think."

Zoé elects not to speak up, nodding for Hop to put the pizza on the table and climbs up onto a stool next to Rio. She waves off the offered tankards; she is both driving today and underaged, after all.

She does, however, snap shots of this fellow - Papa Gotcha - with her eyes, though, waiting quietly to see what's going on and trying not to show nervousness on her face.

Daiyu moved in the middle of the pack of teens, following Zoé with Hop bringing up the rear. Unsure about the need for all the theatrics and paranoia, she did dutifully follow instructions and fire up the two new programs on her ‘link from their shiny new icons.

Her eyes moved about the room taking in the various details and wondered just what kind of work was going to come from a meeting with the roly poly lumberjack sitting in front of them. Regardless she was here with an open mind, she could use a distraction from the crapstorm that was brewing at school and if there was a way to make some extra nu on the side so she could stop having to take the bus all the time that wouldn’t hurt either.

She politely and silently declines one of the tankards, allowing Hex to be their proverbial spokeswoman for the group as she takes a seat on the other side of the Blinkie. Gone was any trace of jovialness that she had shared with the girls at the car as her best impression of an ice bitch went into play.

Well shit, now I'm the delivery boy..., however, Hop dutifully followed the girls in, more bemused by this encounter than anything else. So, this guy was a fixer...?!?

Papa Gotcha's face falls a little when he sees the four arrayed before him. Eyes move from one, to the other, over girlish elven features and Hop's lithe build. For just a moment, he looks tired, then he straightens up a bit, and his tone shifts as the door closes.

"You got something? Awright. But I'm not blind, and I can see that I got another crew of kids in front of me. Fine. Lemme tell you the score."

He pauses to take a pull from his beer, and puts a hand into the pizza box, grabbing a slice while he continues:

"You got something to offer? We can deal on that, if it means anything, but ain't nobody on the street gonna ask you to do drek, even kill a rat, without a rep. The ethical operators won't do it because they don't want you to die in a gutter, the cold ones because they don't want you to fail, and hit their rep. Now I know that you ain't nobody on the street, because of the magic word: reputation. I know you ain't got one, because that's what I do."

He states his case as bald facts - the conviction of a man who knows whereof he speaks because he's seen it all, and done most of it. He pauses merely to take a bite of the pizza and swallow it down with a little beer.

"But I also know there's some ghouls out there who'll use you up, because you're disposable goods. You ain't drek - and if I turn you down, you'll find them, and in two weeks you'll be dead, washed out, or worse. So, I gotta standing offer, 'cause street meat is cheap and keeps finding me: Do a job for me first. A job, personally, for me, personally. Got that? I state the case, I pay the fee, and if it all goes bad, ain't nobody's rep fragged but yours. If you succeed, maybe I got something else, and we can do biz."

He takes another bite, another sip, and looks around at the group before him.

"So, whazzit gonna be? Get stupid and swing the gear to prove your price, or get smart and bug out back to the safe streets and forget this drek?"

Zoé's heart skips a beat when it finally - finally - hits her that Rio has dragged them to a meet with a Fixer - an honest-to-god fucking Fixer.

This could be it - she could prove to her aunt that she didn't quite need to be coddled... Or she could wind up dead or worse, as Papa Gotcha suggested. The smart thing to do, of course, would be to say 'Thank you for the offer, enjoy the pie, we'll be going.'

Instead, mustering what she can from what she knows of her aunt's circumspection and from Shadowrunner trids, she sits up straighter, steepling her fingers, trying to look serious and capable, as she looks up into the large man's face.

"That depends on what the job is. We may be young, but we're not entirely stupid... So why don't we enjoy a somewhat average pizza pie, while you tell us what you want done, and what you're proposing as compensation for it."

She smiles, trying to look serious and maybe even a little streewise, as opposed to adorable. (Etiquette: Shadows 4 Hits.)

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.

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

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

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.

@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?"

@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?"

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.

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."

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.

@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.

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.

"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.

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.

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

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

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?"

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?"

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.)

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.

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...

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 . At current exchange rates, that's 500 , so... You're in good company.

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?"

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 . 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?"

Rio shuts her face.

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."

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.