Papa Gotcha's smile twists a little as Zoé demands to know a precise price. "C'mon. School records? You're askin' me to take that as a risk, not knowing if I can sell it at all? Hell ..." his voice trails off and he rises to grab one of the other mugs before sitting down again. The chair squeaks on the floor as he shifts it.

"Awright. Two thousand, UCAS, as a favour. Call it seed money, to help you get on your feet. If I manage to broker it, I'll tell you how much you coulda made but I'll keep the profits. That's how that works, li'l chummer."

@Hex, Daiyu, Hop [Liara]: Hrm. Coming down an order of magnitude from his sky's the limit offer is pretty insulting. Might be a good enough excuse to turn him down altogether; he's asking us to gamble on a big payday with no reasonable guarantee, after all; making grandoise suggestions without giving any real promises, and then offering an insultingly low amount when we ask for a guaranteed payday for the data instead of being willing to gamble - and giving him the data whether or not he can sell it... On the other hand...

Zoé fires up her lie detection and empathy software; together with the powerful sensors in her eyes, she could read things such as the flow of blood and the pulsing of Papa Gotcha's veins. To her it meant little, but with the empathy software to judge his state and offer psychological advice as regards Gotcha's mood and intentions, it could be the key negotiation factor... And it could likely tell her whether or not he was trying to play them.

She raises her eyebrow, looking just so damn adorable as she tries to look serious, her eyes bright and shiny... And concealing sensors, in use by her commlink, scanning his face in more visual ranges than he was made capable of at birth, and with more resolution than a hawk.

CHA + INT (Judge Intentions): 4 hits
Empathy Software (Judge Intentions): 1 hit
Lie Detection + Thermographic Sensors (Detect Truth/Falsehood): 3 hits

@Hex, Daiyu, Hop [Liara]: I'm also guessing that he doesn't know with any confidence whether he can sell it at all or not because he doesn't handle paydata as a general rule. Spitballing this here: what if we offer to trade him this information outright for a contact with someone who's more in touch with satisfying the needs of matrix-based transactions?

Zoé's examination of Papa Gotcha doesn't show very much which she did not already know - except that software shows perhaps less duplicity than she might have expected. He doesn't show any signs of ulterior motives, in fact.

From what the software can pick out there's mostly doubt evident - what's in the data might be in doubt, or whether he's pouring his money down a rathole, or whether these kids can even make it in the relatively nicer areas of what was once called Puyallup.

One thing is certain: there's no clear evidence of predatory intent.

@Hex, Daiyu, Hop [Liara]: Hrm. My software doesn't look like he's trying to swindle us, though. So... 500 is chump change. Do we gamble, take the pocket money, or offer to trade for a connection?

@Liara, Daiyu, Hop [Hex]: I'd take the contact. I can get spare parts, but for anything more important I don't even know where to start. And I think I need a gun for my drone. Rio's seen enough trids to think that getting hired by a fixer means that sooner or later -- probably sooner -- someone is going to need shooting. She's rather looking forward to it.

Hop shrugged mentally to himself, happy to let the girls run the negotiation

@Liara, Daiyu, Hex [Hop]: A name is probably worth more than ¥! Personally, I’ve never shot a gun in anger in my life and I want to keep it that way if at all possible. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some fragging pacifist and I’ve been in a few fights but sooner or later a gun is gonna kill someone and I’m not comfortable with that. Anyway, all that aside I’ve begun compiling a mental list of what we might need, we can compare notes in a bit – hardware rather than software is my thing anyway! I’m assuming we need to establish the Public Grid out there, with access points to the others, should be straight forward enough, some wireless repeaters and perhaps a sat link. As Papa said power is likely to be our issue for a long term installation. For something juryrigged like this I’m not sure we want to be messing with fuel cells but some high capacity batteries that we can swap in and out and charge elsewhere might be good. A portable generator would be better but the noise might attract the wrong sort of attention. The trick will be setting it up unseen (and then moving backwards and forwards so that the predators don’t come sniffing around. Assuming the structure(s) we’ll be in are sound (and there’s no guarantee of that), I guess we ought to take some camping gear even if we’re inside, some surveillance points…I’ll keep working up that list!

@Hop, Hex, Daiyu [Liara]: Actually, I had a thought about that. My aunt and I were up all night Saturday watching whatever the trid flicked over to (okay, we weren't paying it much attention, we were mainly talking about sex, but attention coprocessor FTW) and we wound up seeing a documentary (more of a docudrama,) about disaster zones - warzones, natural disasters, manmade disasters, etcetera - and the different ways they'd get Matrix connectivity back into places. One of those ways was by setting up this really fragging expensive Evo Mobile Terminus drone, a wheeled/tracked drone with a Nexus with a powerful transmitter... And the infinitely cheaper option which assumes the people you want to connect with already have their own freaking commlinks; Mesh Tags. They've only got a signal range of 100m, but they're dirt cheap and meant to be dispersed en masse to reestablish the wireless mesh.

@Hop, Hex, Daiyu [Liara]: They have long life batteries, too; they don't need to do anything except transmit and retransmit. So I'm thinking, we scatter those all over the area - and it's only about 200mx200m - to reestablish area connectivity, then we can get a couple of high-rating microwave directional transmitters, set them up on top of buildings and aim them at the nearest areas which have connectivity. The main problem I see is, as he said, power supply... A generator would make sound, which would attract unwanted attention, and while mesh tags themselves probably aren't worth stealing, the microwave antennae and generators would be. So I'm thinking solar, maybe, or else we sniff around to see if there's any active power lines or whatever in the area - I can tell... But, um... I'm not an electrician. We might have to pay someone if we go that route... Solar panels might be our best bet, I'm thinking.

@Hop, Hex, Daiyu [Liara]: Or we just scatter enough fucking mesh tags to create a wireless mesh from the target zone back to the nearest "civilized" area with actual connectivity; we might need to look into that. Alternatively, we can lay fiber cable from connectivity area to the mesh zone he wants us to establish.

Papa Gotcha shifts in his seat, quietly watching the inaudible conversations going before him, before he clears his throat, wipes away a little beer foam, and says: "Well, what'll it be?"

RL DEADLINE: 4 November 2013

Graciana sits in her Toyota gopher in the parking lot of Loggers, about ready to swear.

I love training dogs, I really do, but it's almost 5. What to do? No, just waltzing in would be rude. Treat it as a job interview, Ixchel.

She blinks back tears for a moment, thinking of home. Then she gets to work with her commlink.

@Rio: Buenos dias! My name is Graciana Acosta and I wish we'd been able to meet earlier. I got your invitation, but I have a job after school helping to train attack dogs, so I couldn't be here at 4. I have a Talent that you might find useful, depending on what you're up to. I hope it's not too late to meet with you today. If it is, just let me know and I'll find you at lunch tomorrow. Yes, I go to our wonderful high school. I just transferred in last week. Best of luck to you!

Graciana settles in to wait for a reply. I think I've got an hour before I'm in real trouble.

"We seem to be at an impasse, Papa," Zoé says, in blissful ignorance of the fact that there's a new friend just waiting to met outside. "We do not prefer to hand over something we've acquired the hard way on speculation; we don't prefer to gamble. You, on the other hand, likewise prefer not to gamble; you'd not like to hand over a sum of money on data that may or may not pay out, and the sum you did offer was... Not sufficiently interesting to us."

She waits a beat for that to sink in. "We can understand that. So, instead of offering money upfront, I have a proposal."

Zoé smiles, sweet-as-melted-sugar.

"We have a strong leaning towards the matrix - Matrix technologies, Matrix activities, and even Matrix connectivity, as you've so amply pointed out. I think that such activities and technologies lay outside your personal wheelhouse, you seem more comfortable in environs like truck stops and gas stations than in the Matrix. So we'll trade; a connection with someone who has a pipeline to the, say, technologies; hard- and software that we have need of; in exchange for the data. You can speculate on it, and if it goes bust, you haven't spent any bucks buying it, just given us a name. If it speculates well, then... Well, you get to reap the financial reward, and we still remain satisfied, as we've gotten what we care to receive in exchange."

As she finishes her proposal, Zoe takes another bite of her pizza, swallows, and returns to angelic smiling.

Papa Gotcha smiles a bit as Zoé speaks, and then breaks into a soft chuckle. Finally he raises a hand.

"Awright, I surrender. Uncle. But you hafta understand, names are worth more than money. I'm not giving you anybody's name in the biz until you prove yer chops. I don't reckon you really need that name anyway, because you have some pretty nice gear there. 'sides, if you need better gear, tell me, and you may be surprised what falls off the backs of those trucks at the truck stops and gas stations."

He takes another sip, and continues: "So keep yer data. Hope it's still fresh and valuable in a week or so, once you've proven what you can do. Oh, and in case you're not feeling too good about it? I could hire some proven professionals for twenty grand, tops, to tapdance into the school systems and get me everything there is. Tonight, even. For them, that'd be beer and hookers money for the weekend. I'm not gonna do that, out of respect for what you did, but the other reason I don't is that I don't think there'd be much profit in it. Prove me wrong if you can. Show me a radioactive piece, let me see what I'm buying, why it's valuable, and the price rises. But sight unseen? Forget it."

He takes another slice, and bites off the tip, chewing a bit. and says: "So, if you ain't got nothin' else, I reckon this meeting is over. Get back in touch if you have a bill of materials needed for the Puyallup Matrix job. I've a nice stockpile with no serial numbers if you need it. Found it at a truck stop."

Up goes the glass, down goes some beer.

@Rio, Daiyu, Hop [Liara]: Ahhh crap. Blew it there, looks like he took insult in the 'truck stops and gas stations' bit. And scarily enough, he makes good points about truck stops and gas stations. I guess they're not exactly the kind of places girls like us - no offense, Hop - can really frequent all that well.

Zoé folds her hands together, and closes her eyes. "We understand. It's a shame we couldn't come to a mutually agreeable arrangement, but such is life. Perhaps we'll find something satisfactorily radioactive." She grins. "We'll need to survey the area you want connected, but I feel safe in saying to start off with that we're going to need mesh tags, a lot of them. Fortunately, they're cheap. If that's all, then... We'll get to it." And I will get back to work before my boss starts screaming up a storm... Fuck.

Zoé stands up, sliding her chair in, and smiles, oh-so-sweetly. "Enjoy the pie. It's on us."

Zoé turns, and slips out the back, walking towards her bike, her eyes' zoom flashing to the bike and Rio's car to check on them. @Rio, Daiyu, Hop [Liara]: I have to get back before my boss goes radioactive. It's a good thing my bike doesn't have GridGuide. I'm just gonna tell him I got sick and have been in a rather nasty truck stop restroom. Rio, you gonna take Daiyu and/or Hop and check the area he wants us to check, or shall we wait until I can go? My aunt put a bitchin' sensor suite on my bike, it might be useful. If not, Daiyu, you want to ride with me and waste my boss's time sipping soycaf at his shop while I finish my runs, go with Rio or Hop, or what? Oh, and we can hang/plan at my place. I don't have any parents to ask why we're planning tactical strategy, and if my aunt walks in... Well, she won't be angry. I don't think she's ever been mad at me.

While waiting in her car for a reply to her Matrix-mail, Graciana sees a blue elven girl enter the parking lot and head towards a bike.

What the? She looks young enough to be Rio. I'd better go grab her!

Which means that a 5'8”, 110 pound human Latina dressed in gray top, gray cargo pants, black running shoes and a darker gray jacket emerges from a parked Toyota gopher and runs across the parking lot towards the blue elf, yelling, “Wait! Wait! Are you Rio?”

Papa Gotcha raises his beer in salute to Zoé as she leaves, and takes another sip.

"Best o' luck, kids. Let me know how it goes. You know how to get hold of me. I'm gonna get some mesh tags set up, but lemme know what else you want. Whatever you need, Papa Gotcha."

He drags the pizza box nearer, and flips it open, settling back in his chair and taking full advantage of the cover and heat, out of the Tacoma weather.

Well it could have gone better but all in all we seem to have scammed a job here Hop mused to himself.

@Liara (Rio, Daiyu) [Hop]: No parents bugging you heh? I don't know if that sucks or is fresh but I kinda like having them breathe down my neck every once in a while! Anyway, we should certainly plan this out before we go rushing down there mob handed! Let's see what we can dredge up on pics/vids of the area, find out who the local gang bangers are if we can, anything so we aren't going in cold. Your bike might be a bit wiz for heading down there, likely to draw attention, no? We might need to liberate some wheels or see if Papa will set us up with a clean set...I don't fancy taking the bus down there (if it even goes there!)...

Exiting Papa's behind Liara, Hop is more than a little suspicious when another kid comes barrelling across the parking lot. It was hard not to feel protective for his new (diminutive) companion, even though he didn't really know her, or the others, yet...

"Who the hell are you!"

And I told Rio to put a sock in it, Zoé thinks to herself, as she starts into the lot... Then her reverie is interrupted as another girl comes barreling towards her.

She doesn't seem intimidated by her, turning her head as the other girl asks if she's Rio, and holds her hands up, but Hop yells at the girl before she can respond.

@Hop [Liara]: Easy, easy!

"Hi. Uh... No, I'm not Rio. I'm Zoé. She should be along shortly, though." She smiles up at the Latina girl. "What's your name?"

Up close, one can see long black hair pulled back severely, brown eyes that look kind and sad and a blah figure. The clothes don't help the figure: silver-gray top, charcoal gray cargo pants, a nearly black jacket and black running shoes. Oh, and dog hair here and there on the top and pants, but not the jacket.

The Latina elects to momentarily ignore Hop. She smiles at Zoë instead.

“Hi, I'm Graciana, Zoë. I got Rio's invitation, but I had to help train attack dogs after school. I got here maybe five minutes ago. Is whatever she was inviting people to over?”

Hop held his hands out placatingly

"Rio's on her way..."

Attack dogs?!?

For the kind gesture and words, Hop gets a smile.

“Thanks. Are we starting late, then?”

"Um... Not exactly," Zoé says, not bothering to correct Graciana on the mispronunciation of her name. "What Rio wanted us here for - it's already a done deal. She ought to be out in a few secs."

Probably finishing that beer. I don't think I'd have drank it, even if I didn't like alcohol. Hope she's okay to drive - ah, she'll probably make the car drive for her.

Zoé steps aside, waiting for Rio and Daiyu to reappear.

Daiyu nearly filled the doorway as she stepped out, at least in height. The sinewy Elf stepped out into the persistent drizzle and pulled her coat tighter around her, grateful for the warmth. She paused however in mid-step as she looked up and spotted a familiar face across the parking lot.

What's Graciana doing here? I don't remember her name on the list.

Daiyu's features flash a puzzled glance for an instance before she moved across the short distance to join Zoé, Hop and her fellow Washout.

"Hey Zoé, I might take you up on your offer to sip soykaf for a few hours and kill some time. If I go home right now I'll end up having to work in the shop."

She nodded slightly in recognition to Graciana before she blew warm air over her long fingers with their long dark silver nails. "Hey.

Graciana nods to Daiyu. “Hey. Cold out here.”

She then turns back to Zoé, smile fading. “I hope she'll still want to talk about it, or would you? Her invitation didn't say much, but I may be able to help with whatever it is. If it's something she or you would want help for.”

Zoé smiles at Daiyu, and nods. @Daiyu [Liara]: Alrighty... And... You know this girl?

To Graciana, she shrugs, and looks around, then curls her arms up under what swell of breasts the small elf has. "Well, we discovered that the school is evidently trying to label us psychos so they can preemptively ship us off to juvvie. Rio... I dunno, she called a guy and got us a meeting and now we've got a job."

Zoé shrugs.

Graciana stares at Zoé for several seconds. Then she explodes, “They're WHAT? That bastard!”

Graciana continues in Spanish for about thirty seconds, her speech fast and furious, like her current expression. (If your character speaks Spanish, she's cursing some guy, Tacoma Educational Authority, Tacoma, the UCAS and just barely stops short of cursing God Himself.)

When she calms down, she continues, “I'd ask you for proof, but I don't think Mom's going to believe me, no matter what you've got. Jobs are good things to have, if you're going to have to leave school. I'm not sure how I can help myself, let alone you.”

Graciana now looks as miserable as the average Washout.

Spider! Spider, help me! Help me think of something to do other than set that miserable place on fire!

The spider's way is to find an advantage, be patient, and strike when the time is ripe.

Graciana's devastated outburst takes Zoé by surprise, and she blinks at the taller human's sudden anger. It hits her like a shanghai gut-punch (not the drink,) and so she does the first thing that comes to mind.

She hugs Graciana, turning her head and pressing it into the latina's chest, squeezing her. "I know, I know. It's bad, but... Well, we're not alone in this, right?"

Graciana is startled for a second by the hug. Then reflexes she developed in a large extended Latino family take over and she hugs Zoé back.

“I hope we're not alone, this is really bad.” She muses, “Patience, find an opportunity,” then speaks a little louder. “Do we know who precisely is behind this? I think I know how I got on that list, but I don't think that explains how the list got created. I'm no hacker, but I know some people who just love to watch things.”

"Supposedly it's from the assessment tests results or something, but I'm hardly an expert on the details. That's Rio's gig."

She shot Zoé a look, knowing she might have bruised an ego not including her alongside Rio, but she decided to play it close to the vest not knowing for certain what Graciana was doing here exactly, not being a part of the initial communications.

@Liara [Daiyu]: She's cool, part of my clique I guess you could say. Never saw her info pop up from Rio though, maybe she sent it later if her results weren't in?

If Zoé took insult, she doesn't show it. Perhaps she's too busy hugging Graciana to notice, or just isn't that easy an ego to bruise.

@Daiyu [Liara]: She must be, if Rio invited her here. I guess I could double-check; we weren't the only ones on that list.

She looks up at the latina girl she has in a hug, smiling at her. "And we have a pretty good guess. This seems to be the brain-child of the principal of our school. She badgered the school district into sending a psychologist specialist to work up profiles, and they picked us out for personal interviews. Her name is Melinda Xavier, and I don't like her... But really, it's the principal we should like even less."

“I remember seeing her,” Graciana says. “I have an idea. I can get the principal watched and I won't even have to go to her office first. I can't get her watched all the time, but I should be able to learn something.”

Out in the parking lot, the wind abates somewhat, and watery, filtered sunlight breaks through the heavier clouds.

A large pickup truck, a stained and chipped late model GMC, rumbles and splashes into the parking lot of Logger's. There are two large figures in it - big men, or fair sized orks.

RL DEADLINE: 7 November 2013

More as a matter of innate caution than any sense that the new arrivals presented a threat, Hop kept one eye in their general direction

"So, we going to reconvene somewhere a bit less open and a bit less rustic?"

"Yeah, sounds like a plan, I was just waiting on Rio. Maybe we can all group back together after Zoé gets off work? That little coffee shop over by the school? You know the one I'm talking about right?"

Daiyu paused as the name of the place eluded her for an instant, but nearly anyone who drank a decent cup of coffee at school was there on a regular basis.

"Um... No, I don't. And for that matter, we might to meet somewhere more... Private? Somewhere more under our control," Zoé suggests.

Graciana belatedly lets go of Zoé. She frowns a little as she thinks.

“Mom's been after me to make friends at school, but I don't think we can meet up at my place. Not if you don't want her to hear everything. How about a corporate park? Aztechnology has a nice one.”

Daiyu shrugged and then nodded.

"It was just a suggestion and I didn't want to intrude on your home life. But if you think your aunt won't care or even might be cool with it that'll work too."

She had forgotten half the group was basically new to the school and likely didn't know all the traditional haunts.

Zoé hugged Graciana to cheer her up, and seems to have lightened her own spirits in the process. She smiles, stepping back from the taller latina, and looking to Daiyu, giggling.

"Are you kidding me? My aunt would be ecstatic if I had friends over. That would imply that I had made friends here."

Zoé loops her arm around the very tall Chinese elf's waist, and starts towards her bike, while she searches for Graciana's commlink, to send her a message.

@Hex, Hop, Daiyu, Graciana [Liara]: Hey, girls (and Hop; sorry, but you're literally and figuratively the odd-man-out in this group,) I'm sending you an address. Do not go there on foot. Either drive your car/bike/whatever into the underground garage (passcode for guests to follow), or take a cab to the curb and walk straight in, as fast as you can. It's a great building, but it's a really rough neighborhood and there's a gang zone DMZ across the street. Oh, and send me an idea what kind of munchies you like and I'll have the apartment order some before we arrive. Otherwise, well... I hope you like Earl Grey tea, rice balls/cheap sushi and Sugar Bombs.

Zoé heads to her bike, with Daiyu in tow, and climbs on; Daiyu can use the sidecar. After that, she'll have some explaining to do to her boss, and she'll probably have to drop Daiyu at the corner and have her walk into the shop on foot. She'll likely have to claim to her boss that she needed the restroom of a gas station or truck stop urgently, and was on for quite a while, but is feeling good now. Then she'll spend another hour and a half running pies, before she can collect Daiyu and head for her doss in southern Downtown.

Graciana actually manages a smile. She nods and gets back into her truck. Any member of the group who asks can get a ride. If Graciana was supposed to do things on the way home, she does them.

Once she gets home, she changes into clean clothes to do chores in, then gets her chores done. One of those is getting what she wore to train attack dogs washed and dried. In fact, Graciana will be an angel this afternoon, so when she tells her mother she made a friend at school today and wants to go over to her house, Graciana won't get crap.

Half an hour after getting off work, and after thankfully not getting too much shit from the break she took in the middle of a piddly three-hour shift, Zoé motors up a street downtown, with Daiyu in the sidecar of her bike.

While it isn't exactly the barrens, it's pretty clear that at some point, someone tried to gentrify this neighborhood and failed. Most of it remains older low-rises, with new bits of street infrastructure all over the place.

"From what I understand, they were trying to fix this up back in the early sixties," Zoé explains to Daiyu as the whisper-quiet electric monowheel rides up the street. "Then the Crash hit. Only one building was standing... But it stayed up." She pulls up to the curb at the front of a building which spears into the gloomy evening sky like a tower of light; bereft of the city's ubiquitous Wizard of Oz themed "Emerald City" AR sculpting, the Hylonome building stands proud on its own merits. The building's architecture appears to be some kind of fusion of classic North American, Baroque, and retrofuturistic, having heavy, ornate and irregular sidings climbing up the corners and stretching semi-organically across the layer of amber-hued glass, etched with white lines in what appears to be some kind of approximation of ancient circuitry.

The front of the building is set back from the curb, and features a semi-circle terrace of fountain spouts and greenery, with a statue in the middle of the euphemistic "courtyard." The statue is of a female centaur - the classical kind with a human head - completely bare and with her breasts, nipples and all, rendered in exquisite detail. "Look under her tail if you dare," Zoé teases Daiyu - the centauress has a bow and is wearing a quiver, which has an arrow nocked and pointing skyward. Prominent warnings, both in AR and visible light, warn that automated security measures will be deployed with zero warning and zero tolerance against graffiti artists and other vandals. That might explain why a luxury building standing right across from a derilect row of industrial lots is completely unmolested, even when the shopfronts to the left and right of the building are tagged.

Zoé turns to drive down the alley beside the building, and drives onto a vehicle elevator, sized to accommodate vehicles of up to huge North American pickup trucks and SUVs. It lowers them into the underground carpark, and she drives to a spot which has a unit number attached to it, again both in a sign on the wall - and it's an ornate, fancy sign, not just numbers in paint - and AR.

Getting off, Zoé smiles, leading Daiyu to the elevator - nice wood, metal arm-rests. "The security in here is tight. Ex Lone Star, all of them, and they have some nice toys. Punks and gangers alike leave the place alone. It's a nice building, really. I'm not sure how it stays afloat, given some of the rather reasonable unit prices... But I'm sure I don't want to know. It's none of my business."

She grins as the elevator starts to rise; it takes a while. Clearly, Zoé's unit is high up; she leads Daiyu into the hallway, to one of the units. In here, they aren't numbered, either in AR or in the visible spectrum. The door slides out of her way as she approaches it, and walks in. Immediately after she does, a soft, feminine voice, clearly electronic, declares "Welcome home, Ms. Devois."

The interior is... Well, overwrought might be a good word. Baroque definitely applies; one enters theroom and then barely a meter and a half in front are a set of stairs leading down, the effect being that one who enters their apartment gets to feel like the lord of their domain. A number of heavy, slat-like sliders covering the windows rotate and begin to rise up, away from the hugely tall bay windows; not only do the windows tint everything amber, they appear to magnify the light coming from outside. Hexagonal lights at irregular heights hang from the ceiling, heavy affairs, many of them darkened. A quite modern kitchen is immediately to one's left, rather narrow but appointed for both manual and automated cooking, with a large fridge at the end.

"The furniture came with the place. My aunt could've had them store it all at an additional fee and bring in our own, but... Why argue with free stuff? Besides - I kind of like it." Zoé deposits her PPP armor on composite stand next to the door, then starts down the stairs; there's one main room, very, very tall and quite large; while the doorway would be a bit tight for a troll, he'd have no trouble feeling at home in the tall main room, though the ornate furniture available by default would probably not fit him. Wood features heavily in the interior appointments, or a startlingly good facsimile thereof: especially on the floor of the main room, in the furnishings (which include a glass-topped coffee table with candelabra and sofa, a huge workdesk and some matching chairs,) and heavily overwrought in the window-frames.

"They callled it a 'Cyber-Renascence architectural style," the small blue elf explains, walking to the door at the bottom of the stairs, unzipping her jumpsuit. She drops her backpack at the side of the door to the left, and peels out of her Urban Explorer to the waist, turning to smile at Daiyu, seemingly without nudity taboo. "Which, you know, would earn them points for inventiveness if they hadn't ripped it off wholesale from a flatscreen video game that was about ten years old at the time. C'mon."

She heads into the next room, which is a bedroom; it's fairly narrow, with an ornate wood armoire and a workdesk with a house terminal atop it. Zoé continues to strip out of her jumpsuit until she's fully nude, then changes into a set of fairly regular-looking clothes in various shades of coal gray; a tube-top and a pair of tight shorts. They seem to shimmer a bit, and if one observes closely, there's a subtle floral pattern in very-slightly-different shades of gray against them. She doesn't bother with shoes, and throws the jumpsuit in a metal drawer that extends from the bottom of the wall. It retracts, and a wooshing sound presumably carries it to be auto-laundered. Then she flops back on her bed, sitting atop it with her arms across her knees. "And that's about it. Small, I know, but I'm a small girl." The bed itself is very low to the floor, with a thick mattress atop a very short metal platform with headboard that arches up above the sleeper. A thick, plush teddy bear sits next to the blankets, one of the few child-like touches in an apartment that doesn't seem very much to match its occupant, yet which she seems pleased by. "The bathroom's in there," Zoé murmurs, nodding to her right; a wooden panel that appeared to be part of the wall slides to the side, revealing a bathroom that was quite modern circa 2064; a very tight standing-room only shower in the corner that appears to be appointed to basically hose the occupant off automatically, large sink and mirror occupying the wall, etcetera. "It's a good thing the shower's basically automated - step in, close your eyes and let the pulse-jets and soap-jets do their work. You could wash yourself, but anyone bulkier than you would be banging their elbows. Two might fit, if they were both razor-thin elf girls and didn't want to do much more than grope each other awkwardly."

She chuckles salaciously for a moment, then takes on an immediate blush when she seems to process what she just said. "I, er... I didn't mean to imply... N-Not that I wouldn't be, i-if... Oh, fuck." Chagrined, she raises her leg, biting her big toe for a moment, then sighing.

"Anyway... Yeah, my need for a brain-mouth filter aside -" Does anybody make that aug? "This is my doss. It's nothing compared to the house my folks had back in the 'burbs of Boston, but... Well, I like it. When Cynthia told me that there was a building that aped a place from one of the games I loved, I was hooked and didn't care to do any more shopping around. There's just a few flaws, but nothing major, I -"

A soft ringing interrupts her, and the screen on the desk lights up. It records an incoming commcall; Zoé places her finger to her lips, as the screen shows what's going on; incoming call to the house node, blocked caller info. The screen says that the outgoing volume is muted, and vid/trid are both disabled. A male voice issues out: "Hey, babe. I hear you've got it going on, so why don't you tell me what I can get for what kind of prices, huh? Come on, I need some joy tonight!

Zoé's look is one of utter contempt and disgust, but rather than disconnect the call, the screen indicates she unmuted the audio. The tiny elf speaks, but the voice of a massive, burly, gravelly troll emerges. "Hey, Sweetie. You come over here with five hundrend nuyen on a certified credstick, and boy, I will tie you up and pound your sweet ass all night long! Make it a thousand, and I might even use lube."

The screen indicates the call disconnects, and Zoé looks slightly perturbed, and disgusted. She sighs, switching back to her own voice. "That... Was one of them. For some reason I keep getting commcalls from people who think this is a different building altogether, and apparently a joygirl, prostitute, courtesan, whatever, lives in the same unit number in that building. The lease won't let me disconnect the CHN's comm functions or auto-ignore them, since the management uses it to send out notices. And even when the caller has the right building and right unit number, the schmuck who lived here before me was a gigantic cunt. I keep getting bill notices for all kinds of things, and those leeches refuse to believe I'm a sixteen-year-old elf rather than a thirty-five-year-old ork. And worse, she had a lifetime subscription to some kind of burly he-man lumberjack man-on-man porno delivery service, and I can't cancel it without the bitch's ID info. I swear I'm about ready to burn the porno mag's matrix node to the ground if I can't stop getting that drek every three days or so..."

She shakes her head. "But yeah! A few flaws, but find a place that doesn't have any flaws and you've found an ambush. Anyway, you hungry? I had snacks stocked, or we could have the autochef whip something up, or order out or whatever... Think we should order for everybody? What should we get?"

She smiles, brightly, adorably, her toes curling into her blanket as she tugs it away from its neatly-made state, into a curled-up bunker around herself, as she smiles up at Daiyu.

Graciana thinks, Beautiful, as she sees the building for the first time. Nicer than ours. I wonder what they've got planted in front?

She minds her instructions and does not go to check. Instead, she punches in the guest passcode and parks her truck in guest parking.

After thinking for a few minutes, she leaves her survival knife in the glove compartment. I should have worn nicer clothes, but she said it was a bad neighborhood.

Graciana is still wearing a silver-gray top, charcoal-gray cargo pants, black running shoes and a black jacket. They don't have dog hair on them, though. Now her black hair is only pulled back on the top of her head, allowing the rest of it to fall free. Gray feathers with green and pink iridescence have been worked into simple, yet pretty earrings in her ears.

Graciana pauses at the elevator and sends a message off to Zoé:

@Liara [Graciana]: Hi, I'm here! Which floor are you on? Which apartment are you in?

@Graciana [Liara]: Didn't I send that when I sent the code? Here. She sends Graciana an AR command, instead of a floor and unit number. The floors and units aren't marked. Just put that into the elevator's system and it'll give you an AR guide trail to follow to my door.

Graciana enters the elevator and carefully enters the AR command. When the elevator stops, she will follow the friendly AR and wind up on the inside of Zoé's door.

Definitely different. Just how rich is this aunt?

Aloud, she calls, "I'm here!"

Rewinding time just a little at Koekepan's request.....

As she drives over to Zoé's, Graciana reflects that she's going to need good workspace and a new place to live soon. Mom's probably going to throw me out when I get thrown out of school. I could train stray dogs to protect me, but I need space for them too and a safe place to stick the truck. I also want to be able to go to the grocery store without being robbed.

One search for large spaces later, Graciana's commlink tells her that she is going to be looking at shopping malls and supermarkets.

“Search police summaries for these locations,” Graciana instructs her commlink. “Find the names of any gangs associated with them. Tell me which gang is involved at which location. Wait, save that to a text file.”

I just hope there's someone else out there besides Local 69, the P-verts and the Running Motors. I think they're supposed to be getting into a war soon.

I can heal a little. That should be valuable to a gang. I can't heal them for free, because I'm poor, but I could give them a discount. I'll also need something big and nasty with me when I meet the gang to chat. Maybe the biggest earth elemental I can safely call up. The gang will want a present, I can tell. I should probably try to reach Papa Gotcha and ask him what whichever gang I wind up dealing with would like, besides heaps of nuyen.

And so things go until Graciana reaches Zoé's place. By the time Graciana gets home from Zoé's, the commlink will be ready to tell Graciana that she'll be talking to the Dealers, who have some lovely supermarkets and malls in their turf, including some with truck access unloading bays.

Hop sat quietly in Graciana's truck as it made its way to Liara's pad. He'd been grateful for the lift as Zoe/Hex had wanted to conduct her own business with Papa Gotcha and he hadn't wanted to take the bus again. He wasn't sure that this really classed as a bad neighbourhood but then he guessed it was a matter of perspective...

He supposed the building was nice but the whole thing jarred to his mind, overblown, some corpers idea of opulence no doubt. He found himself missing the eco tower back at Stillwater, before the mercs blew it to shit of course, it had been good there. Ah well, can't retrace the past, gotta deal with the now!

Tucking his Condor under one arm he followed Graciana up...

In the gathering dark of the September evening, there are few faces on the street outside the Hylonome building. The few which are there show little sign of interest in the small fortress which the building represents. As the largest light source in the area, it sends the shadows running away from it even as its lights shine off the clouds above.

Daiyu was impressed with Zoé's apartment set up, far different than the austere "Zen" layout of her place that her parent's demanded. She was half listening to the running tour from Zoé and half paying attention to the apartment itself as they headed down into her bedroom.

Daiyu was anything but a prude, but she did cast her eyes to the floor as Zoé changed right in front of her, more out of respect than modesty. She leaned against the wall as the tiny blue Elf girl flopped onto her bed and proceeded to talk, perhaps a little too truthfully about the shower, which brought a genuine smirk to Daiyu's dark lips.

She was about to continue the entendré when Zoé silenced her for the incoming commcall on the terminal. It was all Daiyu could do to contain her laughter by the end and she found herself shaking her head at the explanation of why Zoé was even getting these kinds of calls in the first place. She moved and sank down into the Lotus position on the corner of Zoé's bed as they started to discuss snacks.

"I'm down for anything. Everyone's so convinced I starve myself, but the truth is quite the opposite. I eat like a Troll!" She laughed softly, almost musically as Graciana called down from upstairs.

"Looks like some of the gang is here..."

Zoé smiles warmly as Daiyu seems to take comfortably to her apartment, and she slides up, hugging the tall elf tightly, from behind, laying her head on Daiyu's shoulderblade. "I know it's a mag place... But I'm really glad to have friends to see it," she murmurs, then they hear Graciana's call. She calls back, "We're in the bedroom! Down the stairs on your right!"

Letting go of her hug, she grins, sliding away from the bed and standing up. "Well... I've had quite enough of pizza. Spicy?" She walks out to the main room - a very short elf girl with only subtle curves to distinguish her from a boy, wearing nothing but patterned shorts and a tube around her mostly-euphemistic breasts, smiling brightly up at Graciana, and Hop. "You guys want spicy, or not? I want spicy... I'm not sure if I want to go Asian or Aztec-Mex, though. Of course, that is, if you guys don't want spicy, we can do something else!"

By the time Zoé gets out there, Graciana is at the bottom of the stairs in the main room. She starts getting out of her black jacket, revealing that the silver-gray top has long sleeves and a high neckline.

“Thanks,” she replies, “I love spicy! I've missed Aztec food horribly since moving up here. Is there any chance you can get Aztec hot chocolate?”

At Zed's Automotive Repair, a young ork argues with his father.

"Look, I'll make up the time tomorrow, alright? It's just an hour, pops, and I need to get going - Master Daniels is only visiting for the night, and I'm not going to get another chance to hear him talk about paracritters in security settings again. That Americar, on the other hand, isn't going ANYWHERE, anytime soon."

At a glance, the pair of them are nearly mirror images of each other. Both are dressed in the same shop coveralls, decorated with grease smudges and sporting similar levels of extensive tattooing around the arms and chest where their sleeves are rolled up. Only the signs of age set them apart, and it has clearly hit the elder hard. Though only barely into his forties, Tristan's father has the lines and wear on his face and body of a man ten years older. He gives his son a withering scowl.

"You'll make up the time tomorrow," he repeats with disdain, turning his head to spit. He gestures over at the shop foreman across the bay. "And what am I supposed to tell Pratchett in the meantime, huh? 'So sorry, boss, my son had to go play shadowrunner. Any chance you can tell the client oops, we made a mistake, we need to keep it an extra day?'" He arches an eyebrow at his son, daring a response. Tristan scowls and shakes his head, unable or unwilling to rise to that bait. His father takes it as victory and continues: "What you do on your own time is all well and good, Tris, but when you make a commitment to be here, you need to be HERE. This is your JOB, Tris, and even if that doesn't mean anything to you, it does to me. And your mother, and your brothers and sisters. We all depend on this job, and you know it. Your mother and I worked too damn hard to get this family out of the Barrens for you to..."

"Christ, dad, save me the tired old 'pulled ourselves up by the bootstraps' speech," Tristan interrupts with an exasperated sigh, running a dirty hand through dirty hair. Didn't this just beat all. After the crazy day at school, what with that ridiculous new survey and the mysterious invitation that came with it? Special guidance? Yeah, right. More like special exploitation. Nothing new under the sun there. And now this? Tristan wonders what his dad would think about the special guidance - just another distraction from work, probably. He hadn't told him about it yet, and probably wouldn't. No need to worry the old man for something that was probably just a gimmick.

With a gesture and a thought, he brings up the maintenance specs on the Americar, the repair estimate scrolling across his vision in glowing azure. One hour? The diagnosis had already been made by the more experienced techs in the shop earlier in the day. All he had to do was put the damn thing back together with the new part. If he had all the parts close at hand, and channeled a little mana into making his hands faster... Maybe he could still make the lecture afterall. He shot a quick message off to the dojo administrator: Hold my seat. I may be a few minutes late. and closed the link. Turning back to his father, he said, "Alright, I'll finish the heap before I go, but I can't stay until closing. Tell Pratchett I'll come in early tomorrow. Hand me that bolter."

Zoé leans back, into the bedroom, looking to Daiyu. "How about it, Daiyu? Is Aztex-Mex okay with you?" She nods up at Hop. "And you?"

@Rio [Liara]: Hey, are you coming, or what? And if you do, is Aztex-Mex okay with you?

Zoé starts a quick data search, cross-referencing for Aztex-Mex restaurants that will deliver to her building, have good authenticity, and won't break the bank. (She scores 3 hits.)

"Okay, so... C'mon." Zoé tugs an ornate chair from the windowside to the coffee table's edge, and sits on the sofa, in the middle. (This is a good image of her apartment's main room.) "Okay, so, we need to sort out how we're gonna do this, right? C'mon, campfire! Oh, and take your shoes off, will ya?" The "flames" on the candelabra flicker into life. Holographic, with heat elements in the candlesticks themselves.