Wednesday 6 June 2075 0530 Adra's Doss


The rain pounds unmercifully at your window and it seems for a bit like it almost threatens to pound through the roof when you realize that the pounding is really from your door. You look around and see that you have once again fallen asleep in the living room in front of the trid viewer. The taste of soy pizza sits in your mouth and you notice that the delivery box still has two slices left in it. Standing, you almost stumble over some clothing on the floor and cannot seem to determine if it is yours or did you get lucky last night. Another knock at the door reminds you that someone is disturbing your dreams and beauty rest.

Adra rubs at her eyes with one hand and wrapped her other hand around the grip of her Warhawk. It never hurt to be safe. She made her way to the door, calling up an arrow of the view outside her door. There weren't many people who would come to her house rather than leave a message on her 'link, and it made her cautious.

Your initial view lets you recognize your early morning visitor as Janice Keppler, a black market arms dealer that you have met a couple of times. The only real link here is the money you paid her for that batch of stick-N-shock rounds. You interpret the look on her face as anxious as she raises her hand and knocks again.

Adra tucks the heavy revolver down the back of her pants as she approaches the door and opens it a crack to look out at the nervous looking dealer.

"Keppler, what the drek are you doing here? It's 5 in the morning!" she exclaimed irritably, looking as far down the hallway as she could in either direction.

The woman also looks down the hallway then says, "Yeah, I know what time it is. I would not bother you, but I need some help and I have run out of other options. Can I come in?"

Adra cast her eyes about once more before letting the door swing ooen the rest of the way and motioning Keppler inside.

"As long as you don't mind the mess. I'm not really used to visitors these days."

Janice smiles weakly before entering the room and moving to the couch while stepping over the pizza boxes and other detritus scattered about. She does not really seem to recognize how untidy you are as she takes a seat on the rumpled couch. Listen, I know we barely know each other, but I did some asking around and you might be able to help me. It's my kid brother. My exceptionally dumb kid brother, as it turns out." She takes a deep breath and says, "He was getting all tied up with some bad friends. I did not like it and tried to steer him to others and I had thought he was getting away from them, but some girl got to him and drug him farther in. Anyway, he and the girl were supposed to make a delivery of some BTLs to a contact and bring the money back to the source. Y 15K worth of BTLs. The contact was found dead last night and my brother and the girl are in the wind. If he did it, he deserves what he gets, but I never knew him to do that sort of thing. Problem is that everyone I know that might be able to find him is in tight with the source.........except you. You have a license and I was thinking that you might be able to help. I have some money stashed so can probably cover your fees for a few days at least. Could you take it and what would it cost me?"

Adra gave the weapons dealer a steady look, rolling over it in her mind.

"I'll tell you what," she said in a steady voice as she crossed her arms, "You keep this in mind in the future when we do business, and I'll cut you a deal. Cover my expenses and a hundred per day."

It never hurts to get on the good side of the person handling your weapons...

The woman nods. "You help me out and I will be your new best friend in the arms business." A part of her comes back to normal. "Please provide receipts as much as possible, but I will take your word as much as I can." She lifts a commlink and presses some buttons then looks at you. "I have some pics of Kenny and his girlfriend Rat. Why she goes by that name I do not know. Give me your comm code and I will send them over. I am also including a short list of his, hers, and their known favorite places. If you give me a stick I will deposit Y1K to cover your first expenses and some days of service. Do you think that is enough to get started?"

"That should be plenty to get me going," Adra says before rattling off her comm code and fishing a platinum banded credstick out of her pocket and passing it over, "What information can you give me on the source? Any enemies of your brother that come to mind? Oh, and did Knight Errant handle the contact's murder or was it kept in the dark?"

Already, Adra is planning and trying to get a few steps ahead.

There is always another player... someone else with an angle.

The woman looks relieved. "The source's name is Brego. The contact was Alfred Vector, a KE Lieutenant on the take. As most of them are. He worked out of the 23rd Precinct in the vice unit. His partner has gone underground somewhere. Perhaps he is dead, too, but he might be the real killer or perhaps he saw something. I don't know. The KE is all over this, looking for whoever killed one of their own, which is part of the problem with getting anyone to find my brother. Er........you aren't going to back out are you?"

Adra furrows her brow and puts her fingers to her temples for a moment before responding, "No, I'm still on board. I'll find your brother, but I can't protect him if it turns out he did this."
As she speaks, Adra makes her way to her kitchen and starts up a pot of soykaf, "I'll start looking once I get some food in me."

Janice stands, "Thanks a million. I will owe you if you find him. And I understand about..............that.............well, if he is guilty...............oh drek and frag. The information I sent you includes my personal commcode. Please use it any time, day or night, if you find anything. I....I will leave you now. Sorry for coming so early and thanks again." With that she leaves your apartment and you are again alone with your thoughts. Like, whose clothes are those on the floor at the couch? You certainly do not remember them as being yours.

Adra leaves her soykaf to brew and decides to give her apartment a search to see if anyone else is there before she investigates the clothing on the floor.

It does not take long to look through your tiny apartment. The bed is definitely mussed, but that could be just unmade or..................no, a rather distinctive odor leads you to the conclusion that there was something going on here besides sleeping, and quite recently, too. Suddenly it comes to you. Vanda and Joe were over last night. Vanda is married but is carrying on with Joe behind her husband's back. Her husband is a prize dickhead and an abuser, but he has the money. Vanda helps you make your rent here for the opportunity to crash here with Joe. They had been over the night before, which might explain the coats on the living room floor. Mystery solved and just then the signal goes off to tell you the soycaf is ready.

With the mystery solved, Adra returned to her kitchen to pour herself a black cup of soykaf. As it cooled she decided to send a quick message to her friend in Knight Errant, Bill Reef, to see if he would be willing to share any further information.

<"Coral, how is KE treating you? Just wondering if you could tellme anything about what happened with Al Vector? I'd owe you big time.">

The response from Bill comes in pretty fast. >>Hey there. You fishing for work? If you are, you might be able to score a twofer here. Got time for lunch? O'Reilley's. Noonish. Bring your PI brain.<<

Adra grinned with satisfaction before confirming the meeting. She was far too awake now to return to sleep and there would be plenty of time for her morning exercise routine and maybe even a little trid before the meet.

O'Reilley's is a mid-grade bar and restaurant that has apparently seen several ownership changes over the years. The current owner and staff are all oriental but have kept the name of the bar as it is. Perhaps out of some idea that changing it would bring bad luck. Perhaps. The place is usually pretty busy at lunch time from the office worker crowd and today is not different. You spot Bill at a table with a pretty woman, who looks to be maybe twenty. He does not notice you until you make your way through the crowd to the booth, so you have a chance to observe him and the woman. His attention seems to be focused on what she is saying, not her chest, which means that she is probably business, not pleasure. From what you can see, she is quite slender, with long blond hair and glasses that set off her eyes. Bill looks up as you arrive and scoots over on the seat as he motions for you to slide in next to him. "Hey, kid. Good to see you. It has been too long. Have a seat and grab a menu. This is Karen and she might just be your ticket to some spare cash, especially if you are already onto something about Vector."

Adra slides a menu over the table as she nods a polite greeting to her former training partner and the woman sitting across the table.

"Nice to see you again, Bill; and a pleasure to meet you," Adra says by way of greeting, "Not sure if I actually 'have' anything, but we can probably share some notes."

Bill leans forward and drops the volume of his voice a bit. "The LT was dirty, with a capital D. The kind of dirt that puts you in bed with the syndicates. Way beyond turning a blind eyes to some petty stuff in exchange for good info. He was providing off-duty officers for security details for drug deals, prostitution, smuggling. You name the vice, he probably had a hand in it. But what you know is a lot different from what you can prove. The Yaks were his biggest fans and apparently had his back, protecting him from any sort of prosecution by terrorizing or killing witnesses and prosecutors. Needless to say, he was pretty tough to go after. But Karen here, was telling me that was about to change. Karen? Why don't you take it from here?"

"Sure, Bill, but not too sure what I can really add. The Deputy Commander for Internal Affairs formed a special task force to bring Vector down. A secondary objective was to pick up any of his cronies and cut outs they could identify. All very hush hush and funded by a grant from the UCAS DOJ. All seems to be going great when Vector manages to get all dead during a crappy drug deal gone bad. Countless hours down the drain. A pair of punks, a man and a woman, strolled up to the site and go into the building. Suddenly, all fragging hell breaks loose in there and the two kids come running out and manage to slip the codon we had set up. So they either did the job or saw something or someone. In any case, the Department wants to see them. Badly. I am authorized to offer you Y200 per day, plus expenses, if you can find these punks and bring them back alive. Interested?"

Adra leans back in her seat, closing her eyes and furrowing her brow as she mulls it over on her head. Technically, Janice only ever asked her to find her brother, this wouldn't conflict with her other 'contract' even slightly. Janice likely wouldn't see it that way, but her brother was probably guilty so she couldn't really complain if Adra turned him over.

"You have yourself a deal as long as I can stay off record with the DoJ during this. I'll likely be dealing with some unsavory characters," Adra replies as she looks up to Karen, "Do you have any leads?"

Karen nods and slides a small glossy over the table to you. "This is Leonid "Skarzo" Skarzofsky. He is a mid boss for the local Vory. Apparently the kids were on his dime to buy the drugs that Vector was protecting. The current thought is that the pair planned to use Skarzo's cash to front the buy, kill the dealer and Vector then disappear with both the money and the drugs. So far, it seems that they have succeeded. Watch out for this guy; he is dangerous and almost certainly looking for the kids as well." She slides another pic to you. "Now this treasure is named Durango. He is a male stripper over at a crappy dive club called "Bob"s Strip Club and Bar". Not overly original. The place caters to a mostly gay crowd. Anyway, this Durango used to be the boyfriend of this kid we're looking for. We haven't been able to do much follow up with him because he refuses to have anything to do with the police, local or federal." Karen gives you a third pic. "And this last hero is named Cretin, pronounced Kray-ton. Please do not get that wrong anyplace he can hear you. This Ork is heavily chromed and not unwilling to use it to enforce his way. He runs a brothel that the girl used to work from. From what I understand, he actually runs the place with an eye to helping his girls out and still makes a good profit. It might be interesting some time to examine his business model. Apparently a mostly nice sort of guy, he is a mean drunk and hates cops and anyone who mispronounces his name. That is about all I got right now. Is it enough to get started? If so, I can advance you one week's wages and Y 1K for expenses. We got a deal?"