Hogan shakes his head slowly. """Nope, you're barking up the wrong tree. The street thugs were just whichever gang was active on that block. They were strictly the tools for whoever was higher up, which is why they couldn't answer any real questions. They didn't know. All they knew was that they'd get a fresh BTL worth of nuyen for tagging up a MaChef."""

Piggy-backing on Blue's question, Karma asks, """Were any of these thugs repeat offenders, or were they all one-shots? Maybe we can join the vandals and work this thing from the inside."""

Hogan rubs his (quite stubbly) chin before taking another pull of beer while considering the question.

"""See, that's a tough question. Gangbangers all have records, pretty much, from public urination on up. But generally speaking the vandalisation attacks were pretty much catch-as-catch-can. I guess some street bosses got repeat orders, maybe, but it didn't matter whose hands actually did it. We interviewed the street bosses, which is why we know that it was done through middlemen."""

"""So the Johnson hired the street boss, who gave it to one of his delinquents, but the Johnson was different each time, and more than one gang was approached with the same task?"""

"""That's where the investigation ground down, you see. The middlemen were pretty much hired guns, from what I can tell. That was a kind of slog, because most of them are very good at hiding their identities and trade in deniability and confidentiality, so instead of pursuing that too hard I started to work out common threads between the attacks. That's when I realised that it was about the local market, and how I had to start checking out who wanted MaChef out of the way but not the average pipe slinger. The problem then reduced to an analysis of the players in the region, and I was narrowing the field when I was told to stop spending time on that and start spending time on a fresh rash of 'weener attacks."""

"""Weener attacks? Pipe slinger trucks are now the new target?"""

Blue's mind is spinning as he tries to keep up with and decode the slang terms. And to think a few weeks ago when he was 'slumming' he thought he was up on this lingo. Not!

"""Nah, the 'weeners go for anything and everything. They love roasting randoms, so there it's more a matter of finding them ASAP and sending the armed and armoured troops to bring 'em back, dead or alive. Usually dead, if I'm a betting man. But this was a way higher priority than digging out some mastermind with a grudge driving vandalism. People get excited about granny being toasted by a flamethrower just because some freak burned his brain with a BTL and decided that he needed more excitement in his life."""

"""Is the vandalism still ongoing? Can I get a list of all the events, with dates and locations?"""

"""At the moment, no, but I can get you the records. It's as if they did it for a while, then decided to stop. Some kinda elaborate pump-n-dump scheme? Who knows? The more worrying side of it is, if bombs didn't do what they needed, what comes next?"""

"""Hmm. I'm not sure how to proceed, Karmakaze. Should we check out the damaged concern to see what they think? """

Blue really has little idea how to investigate these things. Give him a nice, complex philosophical problem, or a magical formula to figure out. This. People issues. Conflicting political ideologies. Power grabs. Sheesh!

"""That is a good idea. Maybe the owners will have some insight now that some time has passed."""

She turns back to Hogan, """Can we get a list of the franchise owners for each, and go shake some trees?"""

Hogan nods, and taps on his pocket secretary. """Yeah, not a problem. It's all public record anyway, but here, let me send it over."""

Karmakaze gets a file sent over with neatly categorised data. It's a format that she recognises as Seattle enclave standard records; easy to parse and search.

Blue perks up. """So, where should we go first?"""

Neither of them answers that question right away. In the silence, Blue comes up with some more questions.

"""I recall hearing that these events happened for a while and then stopped, and that the troubles were localized. So, was there something else happening during that time? Political election, like that Grenville guy.

"""An obvious cause might have been somebody who shorted the stock, sold it high and then expected to buy it low. Did any large sell happen before, matched by a large buy after the stock dropped in value? Maybe that Voltsev guy.

"""Was there a pattern to the strikes? Like moving along a street or around a block? Could one have predicted where the next strike might have come?

"""Maybe the data files we have could show something."""

Hogan nods seriously. """Yup, those were the kinds of things that we were looking for. Best lead that I found before I was pulled into other stuff was when I figured out that it was not really limited to any location, but concentrated where street gangs were stronger and even so nobody was safe. That led me to see that it was really aimed at the whole organisation, not just one zone. Here's my thinking: it's not an incumbent enemy or competition gunning for them, but somebody trying to make a situation right for making their own move - but that hasn't happened yet, so following the money's kind of the main trail."""

"""Sounds like we have a first step, then. Study the data we've been given and see if we can find any clues that the police missed because they got called off. That work for you, Karmakaze?"""