Mosca Syndrome

...in short, Porter seems to be talking to the dregs of this place, but at least he's talking to the dregs who make their living here and know who Bobby D'Angelo is.

The aging club princess pops her gum and tells Porter that The Chimes are playing tonight at a place called "Club Terranea" next to Haldemeyer's Music Shop.  D'Angelo, she claims, "has a thing for the singer" and never misses a show.  

Club Terranea, thirty years ago used to be a small underground shopping mall with one entrance on Claude Street.  It seems strange that a anyone would build a shopping center underground like that.  As was bound to happen, the place failed and changed hands several times.  It's now owned by the guys who own Haldemeyer's Music Shop next door and is used as a small-to-midsize live performance venue.  Its above-ground presence is a small paved courtyard with benches and concrete planters with skinny, winter-stripped trees in them, and a large, wide staircase leading down to the front doors at the back.  

Sure enough, The Chimes are playing tonight according to a scrolling LCD sign on the side of Haldemeyer's.  The opening act is something called "The Phe-Ramones," a name which rings a vague bell for Porter.  Apparently you have to buy tickets (at 12 bucks a pop) from a window set into the red brick wall of Haldemeyer's, and then give the ticket to the door crew at the gate of Club Terranea.  Bobby's nowhere to be seen here, so he might already be inside.

None of your characters seem to be the type to obsess over the local live music scene (correct me if I'm wrong on this), so you don't really know much about this band.  You can see that there's a line of people waiting to buy tickets, despite the fact that it's now 11:45 and the opening act is well underway.  The people seem to be clustered by subculture--some goths, hippie types, college joes, latter-day beatniks, coffee-swilling intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals.  Quite a mix, really, though in the chilly courtyard everybody's breath hangs in the air the same way as yours does.  

A sullen-looking, shaven-headed, facially pierced teenage girl in a black faux-leather overcoat covered in white stencilwork wanders from person to person in line:  

"Dude, buy me a ticket for the show...Hey, lady, will you buy me a ticket to get in?  I lost my money on the maglev...Hey, man, nice boots!  Listen, will you buy me a ticket to get in?"

She's not having much luck, and she'll end up asking the three of you soon enough.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

OOC:

PORTER:

You're having no luck on the Blue Glass (someone needs to enlighten me as to what kind of a drug this is supposed to be, BTW).  In fact, through a misunderstanding with Habib (one of your drug contacts), you've managed to accidentally get the word out that you have a bunch of Blue Glass to sell, and every few minutes you find yourself answering the phone and explaining to some hopeful contact that they've got it backwards.   Aggravating to say the least.  (Curse those fumbled Streetdeal Rolls!)  

CHANTRY AND OZ:

Sorry there isn't really any "action" for your characters at this stage, but we're sort of in a "Porter Moment"  

Claude Street is, well, Claude Street.  On this Thursday night, it's packed.  The sidewalks teem with life, and even if you can ignore all throbbing dance floors and racous bands in the bars and nightclubs, the very sidewalks themselves are stages.  One one corner, a group of buskers might be singing for a few stray bucks.  On the next, a band of Jesus freaks might be trying to stuff religious comic books into the hands of as many passersby as possible while waving doomsday-themed placards.  In between all this are the partiers, students, hipsters, and tourists all looking for a good time.

Oh, yeah...and the cops.  There's a small clot of them somewhere on any stretch of two or three blocks, all in their day-glo orange armor jackets.  Foot patrols, in teams of two.  Maybe a cop or two on three-wheeled electric motorcycles.  And then there's the bicycle-mounted ones.  Most of them are 95% human or better, but by now most people know that a cop with cyberlegs can hit 50 mph on a bicycle and keep it up as long as necessary.  Yeah, a car is faster, but can a car knife through traffic like a psychadelic orange torpedo?  Every five blocks or so sits an ominous 6-wheeled riot vehicle and a couple of frumpy-looking mariahs.  

It seems like a lot of cops, but it does keep the area from becoming a complete turkey shoot for strongarm crooks and crazed booster types, but it's by no means a squeaky-clean family fun center.

Despite the police presence, a thriving underground revolves around the Claude, and especially in the alleys, sidestreets, and pedestrian malls that radiate from it like misted overspray on a badly-done grafitti tag.  It's not the best or cheapest place to find what you're looking for, but it's a start.

One enormous hassle about the Claude, as Oz knows better than anyone else, is that the traffic is murder.  And if the traffic is murder, the parking is genocide.  Most people come in via the maglev, shuttle in from outlying parking, walk up, or find some other way to get here that doesn't involve driving or parking their car anywhere near here.  Luckily, Oz is a cabbie.  Specifically, an Apple Cabbie.  Apple has an substation just two blocks off the Claude, and he's able to park the car in their backlot, which is not only secure but also convenient.

At this stage in his career, Porter is beyond hustling (Tawdry Ware X) on Claude Street, but he's been here before and knows his way around for the most part.  The clubs change names all the time except for a small percentage of stalwarts who seem to define their respective scenes.  People are the same way.  Starting at about 10:40 PM, Porter leads the three of you on what almost anybody would call a wild goose chase in search of Bobby D'Angelo.   First he speaks to an aging street musician who stops playing long enough to mention that D'Angelo said "Hi" to him as he passed by heading East earlier.  Then it's an aging drag queen hustling flowers out of a pushcart.  After that, a frizzy-haired woman in her thirties who seems to be clinging tightly to the idea that she's still a frizz-haired woman in her twenties who has the time of her life partying in heavy-atmosphered dance clubs...  (CONT.)

PORTER:

The best you can get right now (on the way to the car) on Bobby's location is that he's "on Claude Street"...Claude Street is a strip of clubs and eclectic stores about a half mile long at a sort of nexus between the university, a large warehouse district (part of which has been coopted into the Claude Street District), and some neighborhoods full of trendy townhomes and lofts.  The place is an utter madhouse, seven nights a week, like some kind of permanent Mardi Gras.  There is a rather sizeable police presence down there, just to keep things from getting out of hand.

The good news is that you know a few people down there, and that Bobby D'Angelo is quite the schmoozer--half the hipsters in town at least know his name, though few know what he actually does--and should be easy to track down once you get there and start asking people if they've seen him.  Nobody is completely certain where he's getting his stuff or who, if anybody, is backing him.  You hear rumors of some 'Refu chemist he's close friends with, a cartel of displaced Texans, and even one tale of a spacer who brings the stuff down from an orbital connection through the launch centers in Toledo and Sandusky.  In short, it sounds like people have made up stories in the absence of truth.

Mullet's yard is currently property of the lending institution that held the mortgage on it when he died.  As far as you can determine without going and looking for yourself it's as it was after the police conducted their inconclusive investigation into the murders that occured there a few weeks back.

The weeks since that Night have been rather uneventful.  Your rackets have been doing pretty lousy--there seems to be an ever-increasing number of new guys trying to horn in on this small-time stuff.  The guys who "stole" the Waterbed Phil job, a couple of cowboys with no real finesse or sense, got gunned down by police several days later.  From what you've heard, Chunky's been linked to the job and didn't get out of the country in time.  He might even still be in town, laying low and wondering how the hell he's gonna get back to Samoa with a conspiracy rap hanging over his head.  

Ivan wandered off somewhere and you haven't seen or heard from him.  His sister is glad to be rid of him and wouldn't give any information if she did have it, mainly because she doesn't like any of his "criminal friends," but partly because she doesn't want to risk him coming back to stay at her house.  Since Ivan had no phone except the one he wanted to make that one guy eat (and never uses except to try to track that guy down), he's been a little hard to get a hold of.  You suspect he might have left town with that psychotic 'Refu medtech chickie that showed up in the Tiki Lounge with big ideas about running a ghoul racket of her own.  In fact, if Larry hadn't specified Milner's gender or name, you wouldn't have been surprised to hear that she was the target of tonight's job.

Will has basically disappeared from the face of the Earth.  He and Ivan went to the Tiki Lounge one night to steal that old pinball machine, because Will thought he knew a collector who'd buy it.  You thought it was a dumb idea, and decided to stay out of it.  They stole it, the guy bought it.  The last you heard (from the last time you talked to Ivan), Ivan had convinced Will to spend some of the money on Vodka, and shortly thereafter managed to convince him to spend the rest on lottery tickets.   That was the last time Ivan saw Will, and Will's phone number now rings up some guy who only speaks Hindi and is apparently infuriated by people calling the wrong number and asking for Will.  Nobody on the street has seen hide nor hair of him.    

OZ:

The camera is in a parcel at the desk.  It's a small Sony handheld job that records directly to a built-in chip at high quality but with minimal editing features.  It has a standard port for transferring data to and from the camera.  Terribly simple to operate.

The car is right were you left it in the parking garage.  The chrome on its tailfins glistens in the vile yellow light of the garage's glowstrips, which give the car's glossy, cream-colored paint a sick, jaundiced cast.

A skinny, necktied security guard rolls by in his electric patrol cart with a blinking blue light attached.  He eyes you for a moment, but thinks the better of it and continues on his way.

ooc:  making the assumption that Chantry picks up the phone too, since I'm ready to post    If he doesn't, he'll only hear Porter and/or Oz's end of the conversation at most...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"This is Yard Dog.  You guys ready to go?"  His voice has a harsh clipped tone to it--probably something to do with the heavy encryption--but it's clearly Larry.

Regardless of your replies, he continues.

"Well, ready or not, I've just sent out the payments for tonight.  I've got something for you to do.  Patching up a hole in someone's boat, so to speak."

"It seems a certain underground doctor--I'll give you some stats on him in a minute--who's got a long history with a local, uh..."syndicate"...has acquired a nasty drug addiction.  High-end euphorics...the stuff that works over your pleasure center and leaves you screaming for more...there's a new name every week for whatever the latest thing is, but they're all the same family.  Regardless, it's not the drugs that are the problem--it's that he can't afford to support his habit.  As a result, he's turned to some dangerous means of procuring more money.  To put it bluntly, he's "Gone Ghoul"...grabbing people off the street and harvesting organs for sale on the black market.  Now, I'm not gonna get all righteous and pretend to be a saint or anything, but I can tell you that nothing in the world gets police attention around here like a ghoul, especially after that case with the Mayor's daughter a couple years back. And since this doc has a known history with the syndicate in question, the police are going to be all over that syndicate with a microscope if they catch him, and the cops have managed to link a couple of the grabs so they know it's some kind of a serial thing.  If someone doesn't put a stop to it soon, it could get really ugly for some people."

"The doc's pulled up stakes from his normal workplace and set up in parts unknown.  However, the syndicate knows who he gets his drugs from--I'll tell you more about him, too-- and that dealer can probably lead you to him with the right incentive."

"I've had a pocket-sized videocam couriered over to your hotel.  It should be waiting for you at the front desk.  I want you to find the dealer and get him to tell you where the doc is.  Then take the camera and go kill the doc and destroy his organlegging setup.  Film the obviously dead doc and the destroyed equipment with the camera so I have something to show my client.  Anything you find that's not related to organlegging you can keep as long as it doesn't bring the heat down on you.  When you're done, call me and I'll arrange to have a courier pick up the camera."  

"I'm gonna give info on the doc and the dealer now.  I'll text it and send photographs over to you as well for reference.  You should be able to print them out in your room if you want hardcopies."

"The doc goes by the name of Milner.  Don't know if it's his real name or not.  He's a pretty unremarkable-looking guy--average height, thin, balding.  Dresses to blend in with the crowd.  Not terribly dangerous on his own, so we think he might be paying some legbreaker, maybe two at the most--he needs his money for dope--to help him grab victims.  He's justifiably paranoid and probably not playing with a full deck at this point due to his habits, so be careful."

"Oh, and if you can find anything on this guy's connection--who he's moving the organs through--that could be a valuable bit of information.  We could probably negotiate some good extra money for all of us if we had it.  It's secondary to the job at hand, of course, but it's worth considering."

"The dealer's easier to spot and should be easier to work with.  His name's Bobby D'Angelo.  Don't know if it's his real name or not.  Tall pretty boy, shoulder length brown hair, likes high-style clothes.  Bobby's just a flash dealer--he sells upper-end dope to people who can afford it, and he takes a lot of care not to step on people's toes or get himself in trouble.  He's more interested in getting laid than taking part in fixer wars, so he should give up the info real quick if some tough guys were to get in his face about it.  Or if you think you know a better way of getting the info, you go right ahead and do it.  I mean, he doesn't want to lose the client, and may or may not know or even care where the money is coming from.  Whatever works.  Just keep the heat off your back, okay?"

"D'Angelo likes to hang out in the Claude Street district--you know, where all those live music clubs are?  Porter shouldn't have too much trouble tracking him down, even in that madhouse."

"I'm sending over the photos and descriptions right now."

The phones beep as a message is received.  Upon opening it, you will discover the same information Larry just gave you, along with some halfway-decent photos of the personalities mentioned.

"Any questions?"  The hard, crackly edge the scrambler gives to his voice is starting to get irritating.  It would be murder to have to listen to an hour of it.

The discussion is rudely interrupted by silence as Porter finishes his counterpoint.  Apparently, the adblimps have cut their audio blast.  Often, when enough citizens have complained to the police about the noise, the cops will dispatch an AV, helicopter, or chopperdrone to do a fly-by and check it out.  The approach of the AV is typically taken as a hint by the blimp "crew" (at most two people) that it's time to reign it in a bit and move on.   Occasionally one of the companies will get cited for disturbing the peace, but their lawyers are slick, the laws loopholed, and the revenues greatly outweigh the fines.

The room suddenly feels infinitely more relaxed.   It's at this point that all three of your new phones ring simultaneously.  A tiny, blinking key icon on the phones' displays indicates that the scrambler is functioning.  Next to that the display reads "Incoming Call from Yard Dog..."

January 4, 2029  9:57 PM

The three of you are at the hotel room, talking.  Porter's just said:

"well, we've got the tools for disposal pretty much taken care of. burn, burry or toss into the harbor. if you've got the know how to dismember them without the use of this" holds up the chainsaw "so much the better. although, if you could dig up some potent acid, for burning off prints and teeth, that would just add a wider safty margin for us. i mean, if sombody's real commited eventualy they'll dig some marrow out of a bone for dna matching, but denying a match by prints, retnia and dental gives us some time to make ourselves scarse. and digging out the slugs would be a big help too, so they cant match the rounds back to our guns. it's good to know you can handel that stuff for us."

It's another cold clear night.  Outside the hotel windows, you can see traffic crawling by on the freeway interchange due to a stalled car in one of the middle lanes.  Over the gridlock hover several adblimps.  The colorful lozenges all jockey for best position over the captive audience, until a huge Zeppelinwerke literally bumps the others out of the way to tell the world about "Fish Cube!", available at the nearest Cap'n Snarly's Seafood Shanty.  It's been postulated that advertisers often deliberately stall or even crash cars on the freeway just to create a slow-moving audience with nothing better to do then look at billboards and adblimps.

This would all be merely academic, if not for the fact that this slow-motion dogfight is happening about thirty yards outside your balcony, bathing the room in multicolored light.

"YARRGH, MATEYS!"  shouts the blimp, "FISH CUBE! BE NOW AVAILABLE AT CAP'N SNARLY'S!  ONLY SELECT CUTS OF COMBED PROTEIN LOAF BE ACCEPTABLE TO THIS OLD SEA DOG!  HAVE IT IN LARGE, EXTRA LARGE, OR MOBY DICK SIZES, OR GET IT IN A YAHR-A-GOIN' SEAFARER MEAL FOR ONLY $4.99!  SHIVER ME TIMBERS!"

The directional speakers are directed down at the freeway traffic, but the "overflow" is plenty loud enough to make conversation a hassle.  Supposedly there are laws against them doing this.  Supposedly there is a toll-free number you can call to get them to move on.  Some people also believe in a race of "chompy-men" who live under the city.

OOC--I'm gonna go ahead and decide that the current entertaining conversation between Porter and Chantry is occurring close to 10:00PM, and start a new thread.  I'll quote Eraser's last post as the first post in that thread.

OOC:  I'm sorry if I've not been clear, but I thought it was understood that your suite at the Philpott Inn is your "home base," and that you would be getting assignments from Larry by phone and wouldn't be heading back to Larry's condo at all.  If not, Larry will explain this to you and will, well...apologize for not being more clear.

If there's some other reason you feel you need to go back, we can do that, too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PORTER:

The "Do-it-Yourself Body Disposal Kit" comes to 200eb.  Well, not exactly 200eb, but for our purposes 200eb works just fine.  The checkout clerk seems more interested in getting through another day of tedium than any sinister motives you might have in mind.  

The liquor score goes off as hoped, but keep in mind that this is a rare score for you.  Normally, you make between 1-200 dollars a day on your rackets (I don't have Wildside and probably wouldn't adhere to it anyway.)  

You spend ten bucks at Denny's.

OZ:

Some careful shopping at used book stores and thrift shops keeps the cost of your random stuff down to 30eb.  The Mastoid runs you 100eb.

The car is in fine running shape, and everything checks out.  It could still use some more horsepower, suspension tweaks, and better tires, though.  You think you've gotten the Falfa-stink out of the trunk completely.  

Jennifer informs you that the comatose taxi driver (I don't have his name handy right now) has been taken off life support and is expected to die within a day or so.  You can tell she's really upset by this.

ALL:

The Philpott seems like a nice enough business-class hotel.  Your three-bedroom suite is on the ninth floor (suite 915) at the Southeast corner overlooking the freeway interchange.  All bedrooms have windows and tiny balconies with sliding glass doors, and the main living area has a larger balcony.  You have to use your room key twice--once in the elevator (it takes you to your floor) and once to get into the suite itself.  There is a switch inside the door that lights up an Indiglo "Do Not Disturb" sign on the outside.  I will assume you have an ounce of sense and turn it on and leave it on to keep the maid from walking in while you're cleaning automatic weapons and planning nefarious deeds.  There are also some substantial deadbolt locks on the inside of the door.  

The beds are comfortable enough.  The decor is some passe variant of Southwestern USA, heavy on the Navajo patterns, pastels, and coyote themes.  The carpet is a dark rusty color, and the potted cacti are green rubber, with blunt points.      

The suite is equipped with two bathrooms with showers, a hardwired phone, dataterm, and a fax machine/printer with standard interface ports (your phones can be plugged in to print out hardcopies of text messages).  The big flatscreen RATV (Random Access TV...watch what you want, when you want...pronounced "RAT-vee") gets the usual 667 channels.  The kitchenette is good enough for heating microwave prepack, but not much else.  The hotel has a bar and restaurant on the bottom floor.  Parking is in an underground garage that (surprise) you need to use your card key to get access to.  A nearby underground maglev train station is accessible from the lobby via a carpted corridor flanked with small shops selling things like umbrellas, maps of the city, and toiletries that travellers often forget or run out of.

Beats a sleepcube any day.

"Meyer...okay."  He makes a note of it on his laptop.

"As far as rondezvous points go, well...don't take any offense, but if it gets so bad that you guys not only have to abandon the suite, but can't risk calling me on a scrambled phone, I don't want myself or anyone I value to be within ten miles of you, let alone meeting face-to-face.  You have the phones, and the idea is that you'll stay reasonably close to each other.  If one of you loses your phone or your cash card, have one of the others call and let me know so we can change scrambling keys and accounts and arrange for replacements.  If all three of you manage to lose your phones or cards, I've probably hired the wrong guys, and it's probably best that we don't speak to each other anymore.  I'm giving you guys the option to end the agreement at any time, and I expect the same consideration from you."  

"Ideally, there'll be no contact at all between you three and myself except for when I call with a job, and when you call to tell me it's done, if that's necessary.   If something happens to me you'll probably know because the calls and the money will stop coming.  If that's the case, you guys are on your own."

He stands to shake Porter's hand.  

"You guys can find your way outta here, I'm sure.  I've got some things to take care of here and then I'm gonna catch some rest myself."

With that, he picks the black knight back up and moves it to a new position.  Sensible move, but it's still too early to tell...  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OOC:  If nobody else has anything to speak to Larry about, we're going to slip into what I call "FAST FORWARD" mode until about 10:00 PM that night.  In FF mode, you guys basically describe in one post what you want your character to try to accomplish during the time period described--if they're going shopping (and what for if they are), or making deals, looking for info, telling people they'll be unavailable , or maybe just getting some sleep.  In an online game, a simple shopping trip can end up taking weeks to slog through in detailed narrative, and I'd like to avoid that if at all possible.  Once we resolve what you'll be doing in FF mode, we'll start a new thread for "EPISODE I"

"Great!"  Larry says.  He opens a drawer on his desk and pulls out some plastic sandwich bags.

"There's one of these bag for each of you."  He empties the contents of one of them on the desk.  From the pile he picks up a plain yellow card with black characters written on it.

"Here's a generic debit card that'll work at any automatic bank machine in town.  The alphanumeric PIN code is written on it in marker.  Each one is connected to a separate account.  Every night at 10:00PM, Five hundred will be deposited into the account to pay you for the next twenty-four hours."

He puts down the card and picks up a pocket phone.  

"Portable digital phone with a 2048-bit encryption scrambler.  Unlimited US calling.  Your number is on a sticker on the side of the phone, and your teammate's numbers and a hotline to me are all entered into speed-dial presets--we can all conference if we want to.  It's also got text messaging and limited net capability.  I'd recommend you keep it with you."    

He puts down the phone and picks up another card.  This one is white and sports a large calligraphic "P" on either side.

"This is the card key to your 3-bedroom suite at the Philpott Inn.  The hotel is located right by a major freeway interchange and has underground access to a subway station if you need it.  It's a nice place, reasonably secure..."

He pauses.

"...room service is not included in the deal--"

The intercom beeps again.  "Sorry, I have to take this," Larry says and keys a button on it.  The echo-ey female voice again.

"Yard Dog, I'm in."

The pimply voice chimes in behind her:  "Boo-yah!"

"That was fast, Cygnet."  Larry says calmly.  "Are you sure we're safe?"

"We're ghosts, Yardie.  Anything else you want while we're in?"  

"No.  Keep it discrete.  Both of you."

"Can do, Yard Dog!" assures The Netripper with much gusto.

"Check.  Cygnet out."  

Larry looks back up at the three of you.

"--and if you have to abandon the room, please let me know so I can stop paying for it.  That reminds me, though.  For the purposes of the next ten days I am going by the code name of "Yard Dog"...the phones are scrambled, but I would hate for the wrong person to overhear my name in public.  Hence the cloak-and-dagger bit.  If you guys want your own code names, give me something now.  But I'm going to be spending most of my time here."

He scoops the items back into the bag.  He looks at a label on the bag and hands it to Oz.  Identical bags are given to Chantry and Porter.

"Your first day begins at 10:00 PM tonight.  Until then, go check out your suite, move in what you need, get some rest, whatever.  I'll probably have something for you to do later tonight."

Larry picks up one of the black knights from the chessboard and absently fingers it as he speaks:

"The teams'll operate as independent cells.  They won't know each other, but I'll make sure that there are no conflicts of interest.  Should some situation arise where they have to work together, I'll arrange it as far ahead of time as I can."

"As far as equipment goes, you three probably won't be looking at James Bond-type operations here, and I don't send anyone into the mouth of the dragon.  I'm interested in you guys because you're self-sufficient and I won't have to micromanage you.  Getting a hold of items is going to be Porter's function for your cell--"team," I mean.  I really like that word better.  If there's something big that you just can't manage a job without, call me and we'll talk about arranging funding for it.  Little things are just overhead that's going to have to come out of your own pocket.  I mean, if your ammo expense starts threatening your livelihood and you have to buy a new armorjacket and score a new mace every night, then we're all doing something really wrong here, you know?"

He puts the knight back to the square it occupied before he picked it up.

"I should add, of course, that as long as you aren't drawing attention to yourselves or me, you're of course entitled to whatever spoils--cash, goods, whatever--you might come across, unless they are the target of the job.  I think of it as my 'bonus' program...."

"Opposition?  Well, it could range from clowns like Falfa to guys the three of you are going to have to be very careful about.  My teams have different specialties, and I'm going to try to match the team to the job.  Now, if it's clear that I've underestimated your opposition for a certain job--you know, I ask you to do some guy and he turns out to be surrounded by C-SWAT or something--call me and we'll talk about it."

CHANTRY:

"Chantry, as long as you don't tell them why you're unavailable, I've got no problem with that."

You can't see much of The Netripper from where you're sitting--the black club chairs are apparently very plush and easy to sink into.  You can just see the oversized white sneakers and the lower legs of his shimmering Flashpants on the Ottoman.  

The other chair (the one occupied by the tattoo-handed female) seems to have a black crochet afghan draped over it, creating a makeshift tent.  The legs on this Ottoman are clad in faded black jeans rolled up to just beneath the knees, revealing oily-black PVC jump boots with treaded soles and some kind of silver decoration on the toes.  One of her feet seems to have a persistent twitch.

OZ:

You know that tattoo is connected to some kind of news story some time back.  Between the dozens of chatty fares and coversations with co-workers at the yard since then, you can't place it.

The chess game is pretty early...just a couple of pawns and knights have been moved on each side.  Too early to see an advantage.  

ALL:

"So how about it?"  Larry smiles, his arms raised in a half-shrug, palms up and open.  His teeth are small and numerous, but white.

"Don't sell yourself short, Porter.  It may not have been dangerous, but you did it fast and you did it right.  That carries a lot of weight with some people.  But that's not really why I asked you guys to come by."

"You see, it looks like a couple of major players around town are starting to realize they have irreconcilable differences on how certain matters are going to be handled.  In simple terms, we're looking at a fixer war.  I've seen a few of these things come and go, and by now I'm pretty confident that I know one coming when I see it.  These things tend to resolve quickly--maybe ten days or two weeks, tops--and I get a lot of dirty little errands thrown my way.  Last time this happened, in fact, I had more business than I could handle.  I ended up having to scrounge around and take some chances on some unreliable people.  I didn't like having to do that, so I'm taking a slightly different approach on things this time around."  

At this point, the intercom-like device beeps.  Simultaneously, all three PCs notice that one of the netrunners sacked out in the club chairs has raised a slender, tattooed hand and is waving it gently in the air as if trying to get someone's attention.

"Sorry," Larry says, "Pardon me for a moment."

He presses a button on the intercom.  "Go ahead, Cygnet."

A female voice, drenched in artificial reverb, speaks:

"Yard Dog, the setup looks good.  Big, clean, pipe.  I can see for miles.  Chester's cutting the blue wall to get--"

"The Netripper! a second, pimply-sounding voice interrupts.  I'm the Netripper!  It's part of the deal, Larry!  Tell her!"

Larry shakes his head and sighs as the kid whines.  "Cygnet, he's the Netripper.  Let's keep this professional."

"Okay, okay..."  The female begins again.  "...the, uh...Netripper...is cutting the blue wall so I can get the info on Kaiser.  We should have it within the hour."

"Great," Larry says.  "Keep me posted."

"Will do.  Cygnet out."

Larry turns back to to three of you:

"Anyway, what I want to do is to put together a number of small teams--effective, self-sufficient types who take a ball and run with it--and insure that they'll be available to me for the projected duration of the war.  I want you three to comprise one of those teams.  For ten days, I'll pay you each a $500 per-day fee and set the three of you up with a nice suite for a base of operations.  In return, you guys just make yourselves available for some work.  It's likely to be the same kind of work you've been doing, just more of it.  If your services aren't needed on a given day, you make $500 for doing nothing at all.  If you get hurt doing your job, I'll set you up with a competent medtechie on my tab--within reason of course.  If at some point you want out for any reason, just let me know and you're out.  No strings attached, no cortex bombs or any of that zaibatsu nonsense.  I don't want to work with anyone who doesn't want to work with me.  We're all just sensible, honorable people working together to better our situations."

"I'll understand if you three aren't interested or have other commitments, and there may still be some jobs for you in this if you want to pass on my offer.  But I don't think the money or the work is going to be as good."

"So what do you say?"

There is some amount of laughter from the dining room, most noticeably Malkie's.  Somebody must have told a joke.

OZ:

You noticed from your seat more detail on the netrunner's hand when she was waving it.  That tattoo seems rather familiar, but you can't quite place it.  A green snake curling up from the wrist and intertwined around and through the bases of the fingers, and clutching a red apple in its mouth.

PORTER:

Your history with Chantry is brief.  Essentially, on one job for Larry you used your contacts to track someone down, and then Chantry "did the rest"...to the best of your reckoning, he's a hitman of some kind.  He's quite reserved, and kind of spooky.  Not really "the life of the party," as it were, but radiates an air of chilly effectiveness and dignity beyond his apparent age.

OZ:

You have heard passing mention of Malkie on the phone, and assumed he was in some way connected to Stubbs.  He seems to be nothing more than an errand boy of some kind, albiet a jarring one to look at.

ALL:

"Let's go inside.  It's coldah then a penguin's nuts out heah."

Malkie leads the way to unit 187.  The buildings themselves here are contemporary, with white stucco facades and a jagged array of sweeping 45-degree rooflines.  Lots of windows and little balconies on the upper floors.  

Door 187 looks normal enough.  Brass doorbell, intercom console with a small smoked plastic dome immediately above it that can only mean a small closed-circuit camera.  Malkie rings the bell.  After a brief delay, a solidly-built bald guy in a brown overcoat and dark, slightly oversized wraparound glasses opens the door.

Immediately inside #187's front door is a landing, with a set of stairs leading up and another leading down into a large open plan living room.  Baldy stands in the way of the stairs going up, and motions with an open hand toward the downward steps.  He doesn't say a word, but nods at anyone who greets him.  An Arasaka Rapid-Assault 12, ugly and purposeful, hangs behind him, its sling draped over the end post of the bannister for the upward staircase.  

The living room looks like it's been converted into a sort of war room.  Most of the walls and windows have been sprayed with an inch-thick layer of grey bullet-and-shrapnel-resistant foam, giving the walls a sort of cavelike appearance.  A large monitor (one of those 2-meter roll-up jobs that hangs on the wall) displays a map of the city on the wall, with all kinds of little markers all over town.  Some markers blink, some are steady, some are red, some are green, some are other colors.  The data cable from this monitor extends over to the far end of the room, where a couple of low-slung Danish modern club chairs (with matching Ottomans) cradle people jacked into cyberdecks, their I/O cables spilling out of the machines and into a stack of blinking equipment on a set of cheap metal shelves.  In an adjoining dining area, a group of rough-looking guys is seated around a card table playing some variant of poker.  

In the center of all this is a large pressboard desk, where Larry Stubbs is seated.  He's working at a laptop computer, and on the desk around him are a small laser printer, four different phones, a plate with some pizza crusts, a few scattered hardcopies of some data or other, some kind of intercom unit that seems to be hardwired into the main computer rig, and a chessboard that seems to be in the middle of a game.  In front of this desk are placed two metal park benches, set up so they both face the desk and are angled toward Larry.

Larry is a compact guy, thin and maybe 5'6" tall at most.  His black collar-length hair is receding into a prominent widow's peak, which hangs like the sword of Damocles over pointed, but somewhat handsome features.  If he were taller, he'd probably make a good stage magician or extra in an old movie about vampires.  He's wearing a silky splay-collared yellow shirt with random black square patterns all over it that reveals a thin gold chain and an abundance of chest hair.  

Larry looks up as you head down the stairs.  His voice, as always, is pleasant and sincere, though there is usually a calculating look in his eyes that seems to imply that he's taking apart the things other people say in order to see how they are useful to him.  

"Hi, guys.  Thanks for coming by so late.  Grab a beer or a drink and some pizza if you want it, and have a seat.  Malkie, they got a card game going in the dining room.  Why don't you go check it out?"

Larry motions to the bar over by the archway to the dining room, which seems stocked with most of the common liquors,  some halfway-decent beers, and a few random sodas and bottles of water.  A couple of stained pizza boxes share the bartop with the booze.

"Sure thing Larry," says Malkie, who seems pefectly happy to be brushed off to go drink and play cards.  He pours himself a small tumbler of Jack Daniel's and wanders off to look in on the card game.  A couple of the guys in the dining rooms shout "MALKIEEEE!" in loud, blue-collared greeting when he enters their sight.

While you're getting the drinks and/or food, Larry speaks again:

"Porter, my clients were really pleased with the results of the affair you handled tonight...."

One Rockerboy, sort of a 90-year-old William S. Burroughs-themed character, died because the GM had a policy of rolling a percentile dice at the start of every session.  If you rolled an 01, a piece of your cyberware failed at random.  Of course I rolled on 01.  We assigned numbers to the cyberware he had, and rolled.  His cyberheart failed in the middle of a drum solo.  He fell forward unceremoniously onto his tom-toms.  It sucked, but I was ready to play someone else at that point.

Another one, Gerard the Fairy (big blonde guy with big gossamer wings--he was a bodyguard for an elf-themed rockerboy who had him sculpted, but deserted his job.  No, he couldn't fly.  It was all for looks.), got crucified in a wooden garden shed.  It seems he had the misfortune of being involved with another PC whose player decided that "never backs away from a fight no matter how overwhelmingly deadly the opposition" would be a cool "character flaw" for his fixer.  Of course, 30 armed bullies showed up at one point, and Gerard woke up in the shed, spiked up like a butterfly and left to die.

My PC in one of the online games died of shrapnel wounds inflicted by suicide attack agents of the Kingdom of the Flies (don't ask!), but was resuscitated.  One of the other PCs died in the same attack.  Both players were not present, though, so they were really just being "offloaded" at the time.

My first huge solo died in the sewer.  One of the other, smaller solo's cyberlegs had been shot off, so the techie jury rigged a sort of backpack harness to strap the other solo to my solo's back and create a sort of walking 360 degree gun platform for the getaway.  No such luck.  He took a bullet to the head, and the GM rolled a d10.  Odd, he fell forward.  Even, he fell backward.  Rolled odd, so the guy on the back didn't end up drowning in sewage pinned underneath the body of a hulking goon.

In a remarkable coincidence, the delays en Route for Malkie and Chantry, coupled with the general vehicular expedience of Oz, result in both vehicles arriving at the Woodland Heights Townhomes within seconds of each other, and end up parked next to each other in the nearest visitor spots available to unit 187.

The Woodland Heights Townhomes are a collection of contemporary split-level condos in the somewhat pricey (and more heavily policed) part of town, but not so close to the waterfront or artificial islands to be crazy-expensive.  It's the sort of place that young professionals or successful independent consultants might choose--people who have a good bit of money but haven't been assimilated too far into the corporate heirarchies yet.  

Contrary to the name, the complex is not heavily wooded or on very high ground.  It is protected by a tall razor-wire topped privacy fence with security gates, but it's just a matter of finding the right number on the chart at the gate, ringing them on the intercom, and getting them to let you inside.  A gruff voice answered when you rang #187, grunted in response to whatever you said, and pushed whatever button he had to to get the gate to open.  It looks like the exit gates open automatically when you approach them in a car, though anyone trying to enter through an exit gate will find their car impaled on a row of curved "Severe Tire Damage" spikes.

Porter and Oz arrive first and are getting out of the car as Malkie rolls up with Chantry.  

Porter and Oz have both met Chantry before.

Oz has never met Malkie at this time.  

Malkie is still talking as he gets out of the car:

"So I says, 'The day they start making it illegal to advertise with noisy freaking blimps is the day I start voting--'"

He looks up to see Porter and Oz, and is compelled to confirm that this is a remarkable coincidence, primarily by remarking upon it.  "Oh, hey Portah!  Talk about timing!  Put 'er there, pal!"

Malkie, grinning, extends a hand toward Porter.  His breath reeks of cheap whiskey.  His "eyes" are faint purple moons over the red Mars of his lit cigarette.

The goons shut the side door on the van and accept the bag of Falfa's stuff.  The quiet one gets into the passenger seat.  Crooked Nose speaks as he rounds the front of the van to the other side:

"You guys do good work.  If we need to ask Larry for more outside help, we'll ask for you guys."

With that, he starts the van, and, leaving the lights off for now, idles around the side of the building and out of sight.

PORTER:

The goon thanks you for handing him the bag.  He says in a hushed tone.

"Look, kid.  Just so you know, we're probably not going end up killing this jellyroll.  We're just going to teach him some respect, and to not step on our toes.  After that, he'll be on his own unless he messes with us again.  So don't be surprised if you see him around town sometime.  Let your partner know, too."  

With that, he gets into the van.

Back in the car, Malkie gives you the directions:

"Don't go to da butchah shop dis time.  He's set up a new location temporarily.  Come to dis address.  It's in Midtown.  It's called da Woodland Heights Townhomes.  10412 Michigan Avenue.  Unit 187.  Just ring the doorbell.  They'll be expectin' you."

It's about eight to ten minutes' drive from where you are.

OZ:

You hear Porter's side of this conversation.  If/When Porter tells you the address, you'll reckon it's only five or six minutes from here.  You know the roads well enough (you even know where the Woodland Heights Townhomes are by name, having done numerous pickups there) to make good time, especially at this time of night when some of the stoplights have been changed to flashing yellows, and you know a couple of alleys that allow you to bypass the drunken driving checkpoint the cops always set up at Michigan and 153rd Street on Thursdays between 1:00 and 3:00 AM.  

This Chevy's a decent car.  Roomy, but lighter and a little bit quicker than the Checker cabs you normally drive.  As a trade-off, it's not as good for ramming things.  This one has the six-cylinder ceramic-block Toyota multifuel engine, instead of the more powerful V-8 that could have been installed had whomever ordered the car possessed the hedonistic inkling to do so.  Still, it's better than an electric and it will easily outrun most of today's small commuter vehicles.  It also has excellent trunk space.  It could use some minor suspension adjustments and a better set of tires, though.

CHANTRY:

You hear Malkie's end of Porter's phone conversation.  You're new to this town, but you're pretty sure you're something like five to eight minutes away from Midtown.

After the phone conversation is over, Malkie returns to his one-sided conversation.  Now he's talking about blimps, and how the Germans used them a hundred years ago to bomb ships and cities, and now they're doing it again with advertisements.  He thinks the comparison is quite clever.  

Traffic slows to a crawl as you approach the scene of a fatality accident.  The flashing strobes of the police and emergency vehicles turn the block into a kaliedoscope of pulsing color, and the victims are laid out under sheets.  Police wave the vehicles by one by one.  Malkie curses and speculates that someone was probably looking at the adblimp and that's what caused the accident.  A dazed, but conscious, victim sits on the curb with a bandage an his head, staring in shock at the cars as they inch by.

PORTER:

"Portah!"  says Malkie, who seems to talk loudly into telephones.  

"It's Malkie!  How ya doin'?"

"Anyway, Larry says to me, he says, 'Malkie, take dis number and see how Portah's doin', and if things are goin' okay, would he and Oz like to do a little more work tonight?'"

"So I says to him I says, 'Sure thing Larry.  I'll call him.'  So now I'm calling, and asking you how you're doin', and if maybe you and Oz'd like to do something else for Larry tonight?"

CHANTRY:

Malkie finishes dialing.  He speaks loudly into the phone.

"Portah!  It's Malkie!  How ya doin'?"

"Anyway, Larry says to me, he says, 'Malkie, take dis number and see how Portah's doin', and if things are goin' okay, would he and Oz like to do a little more work tonight?'"

"So I says to him I says, 'Sure thing Larry.  I'll call him.'  So now I'm calling, and asking you how you're doin', and if maybe you and Oz'd like to do something else for Larry tonight?"

A day-glo orange police SUV steams by in the lane beside you.  The cop in the driver's seat gives the pair of you a hard look, but continues on his way.

OZ:

Porter is taking a phone call.  The two goons are more than happy to do all the lifting themselves, but won't refuse your help.  Falfa's a mess, but other then a few bumps and a lot of bruising, he seems okay.  He whines behind the strips of tape covering his mouth.  The two guys ignore it.  From the trunk of the '57 now wafts a cocktail of odors that's probably three parts "Atlas for Men," two parts fear, and one part urine.

Crooked Nose gets a whiff, too.  

"Aw, Geez. Hang on while I put some plastic down."  He goes over to the van and quickly, haphazardly spreads some plastic sheeting.

"Okay, let's get this princess in the van..."

CHANTRY:

Malkie's gregarious cheer seems as unassailable as your emotionless poise.  He says, "Okay, let's go.  My car's right outside.  I got a new one.   It's a Buick.  Real Smooth.  We're not goin' to da butcher shop, though.  Larry's set up a war room in a condo in midtown.  Maybe heavy business comin'..."

He leads you outside to a maroon Buick sedan.

"Always wanted a Buick, ya know?  Somethin' about a Buick."

He looks up at the adblimp as he punches the key fob button to unlock the doors.  The car can't be more than four days old and it already reeks of cigarette smoke.

"Stupid Kraut blimp!  Dey should shoot 'em down.  I tell ya, I'm glad I can't see things far away so good.  I mean I drive just fine, but I can't see what's on dat Goddamn blimp, thank God!"

Malkie seems to drive okay, though there are a few moments where he can't seem to make out the color of traffic lights until he's uncomfortably close to them.  He never shuts up the whole ride over to midtown.  He talks about his Buick, and the jerk at the dealer who tried to sell him undercoating.  He talks about his no-good ex-wives.  He talks about Frank Sinatra, whose catalog is the sole content of the SatRadio station the Buick's stereo is tuned to.  He talks about traffic.  He occasionally takes a pull off a paper sack-clad whiskey bottle that he keeps tucked in space between the front seats, and offers you a drink, too.

At one stoplight, the two of you end up waiting next to a dilapidated SUV full of loud, laughing young men.  Their music is booming, some freakish combination of techno hardbeat and frantic Balkan horn band music.  Malkie shakes his head.

"Freaking refus.  Takin' over da city."

After putting some distance between the SUV and his car, Malkie pulls a phone out of a receptacle on the dashboard and dials...

CHANTRY:

It's almost 2:00 AM.  It's a cold, clear night, and that infernal Zeppelinwerke adblimp has been working the area for an hour now.  It's making it difficult to enjoy the book you're re-reading.  You can't see it from the battered vinyl booth at Smitty's Diner, but you can hear that stupid Plugg Nugget song subtly trying to murmur its way through the thick glass windows into your subconscious.  

A skinny older guy in a herringbone overcoat and a narrow blue-and-silver seersucker suit wanders in.  The top half of his face (under the straw porkpie) is dominated by round stainless steel implanted nacelles framing a pair of milky white lenses.   A nimbus of smoke from one a neverending chain of unfiltered Laramies seems to follow him wherever he steps.  He spots you and smiles, his leathery skin folding like a concertina around his too-white teeth.

This otherworldy goblin of a man would be Malkie.  One of Mr. Stubbs' associates.  If it were dim in here, the milky lenses would be leaking a pale purplish edge-of-spectrum glow from the UV emitters built in.  His eyes are either "retro chic" or just plain old, but either way he looks like a hastily put-together science fiction character.  

Malkie has an uncanny knack for finding you, and he's done it again.  You're beginning to think he's part bloodhound.  He strolls over to your booth.  

"Hiya, Chantry..."

He pronounces the "Ch" in your name the same way one might use to say "chair" or "chump"...whether or not that's the proper way to say it, that's how he says it.  Very Chicago.  He prattles on thusly:  

"So, uh, Larry Stubbs tells me, 'Malkie, go find Chantry and ask him if he wants to work tonight, cause I got somethin' right up his alley!'"

"So I says to Larry, 'Larry,' I says, 'I don' wanna know what you got dat's right up dat guy's alley, but I'll go tell him.'  So I come around here lookin' and sooner or later I find you!  So now I'm here and you're here and I'm sayin', you wanna do some work for Larry tonight?  He's got somethin' right up your alley..."

Malkie angles his head slightly and smiles again.  If he had eyebrows, they'd be raised slightly.

The heavyset, tired-looking waitress at the other end of the diner looks like she's trying to decide whether or not it's safe to come offer coffee and a menu.  She decides against it, and goes back to reading her tabloid.

Back at the Chevy, you two can hear Falfa trying feebly to draw attention to his plight by tapping his feet against the inside of the trunk.  It is cold out, and your breath clouds around your faces.  In the distance, a huge adblimp (one of those new Zeppelinwerke models the city council tried unsuccessfully to ban) struts its stuff over the crosstown freeway.  You can't hear it from here, but know the words to the "Sugar Pork Rind Plugg Nuggets" ad by heart.  No doubt the poor soul who envisioned the wholesome future captured in that bar's decor is turning in his grave.    

Within a few moments, a blue Ford custom van (the sort with the raised roof and large tinted windows on the sides and typically plush interior appointments) eases around the corner, tires crackling on the bits of gravel and broken glass strewn around the back lot.  The headlights are off, but the ugly orange glare of the sodium vapor light over the bowling alley's loading dock reveals the bulky forms of the two heavies in the front seats.   Crooked Nose is driving, and the other one is lighting up a cigar.      

The van eases up next to the Chevy, and the two guys get out.  The quiet one gets out of the passenger seat and opens the sliding door.  There's apparently nobody else in the van.  Crooked Nose speaks again:

"Nice car...but you guys should get some suits or somethin'," he smiles, "You know, class up your act..."

"Is that him?"  he points to the trunk of the '57.  

PORTER

Your phone rings, or vibes, or whatever it does when somebody is calling you.

The chatty guy with the crooked nose gives Porter a firm, quick handshake.  Porter makes a mental note that the guy's right hand is definitely metal or some kind of composite underneath his thin leather gloves.

"Around back sounds good t'me.  We'll meet you there."  

Both guys seem to be in their mid-late thirties or perhaps early forties.  Not particularly stylish clothes.  Big guys, really--built like barrels.  Probably career goons for some organization or other.  They have a hardnosed look, like guys who have seen a lot of violence and maybe some prison time, and are in no hurry to see more of either.  Neither one seems particularly edgy.  In fact, both of them seem quite relaxed, as if they are deep in their own home turf.  If they're packing heat in any of the usual manners (ie, shoulder holsters, hip holsters), the guns aren't very easily accessible.  Considering Falfa's choice of bodyguards, these two guys are almost certainly way out of his league.

They turn and head back for the door.  The barflies ignore them just like they ignored you, but Oz notices that the bartender's eyes haven't left the two goons since they came in.  He looks visibly uptight and nervous, but he's not moving or doing anything.

This post is a >bump<...I edited the original post so it didn't get bumped like a new post would.  Game on!

Porter looks good to go.

Awaiting gear/cyber/background on Chantry and more info on the as-yet-unnamed wheelman person fielded by Wilphe.

Eraser, I'll send you a little write-up on the few weeks since you last saw Will and Ivan ASAP.  Work started with a bang today, and has been ugly ever since.

I have no problem with the superfluous stuff.

Well, I don't really need such info as whether or not you have a can of spray deoderant in the bathroom, or exactly how many changes of underwear are in the dresser, or what food is in the fridge, but things that are unusual or likely to make a difference in the game need to be mentioned.

In other words, if ninjas grab your .357 out of your hand and you announce that you're grabbing your other .357 out of the ankle holster, that other .357 really needs to be on the character sheet.  If you want to use B&E tools to get into a locked building, somebody needs to have them on their character sheet.  

A pack of chewing gum?  Sure...if this is the sort of character who would have it.

An extra toothbrush?  Sure, why not?  

A toothbrush with a handcuff key concealed in one end?  Better be on the sheet.

Things like ammunition need to be listed, because I'm going to keep track of it and if y'all don't and run out, well, "click!"

The more specific you are, the less likely there is to be a question about things later on.

I should mention that any character who wants a phone will have one for $20/month (phone is free).  In this time period you can even get service for free if you're willing to listen to irritating 30-second ads before you make a call (very important to remember), and the occasional telemarketing call.

I don't think anybody was proposing that zero-level skill checks should not be allowed.

I think the issue is that you can acheive a high level in one skill without having any knowledge whatsoever of other skills that would be directly related to that first skill in any real-world situation.  

My approach was that it's so hilariously unlikely that someone would become a +8 or higher in, for example, handgun, without picking up at least a point or two of weaponsmith along the way that weaponsmith would almost become a pre-requisite for that kind of skill.  Something to the effect of, you need at least one point of WS for every three points of handgun.  

Of course, it is a complication and it would lead further toward one-sided characters as more points have to be spent to acheive the desired skill level in handgun.  Toward that end, I have always been of the opinion that skill levels in the 8+ range represent very rare people who spend a significant amount of their life practicing/studying/whatever that skill.  Multiple skills at that level seem terribly unlikely to me, so I always flinch when I see a character sheet that has six skills at 8, 9, or 10 and nothing else (such a person must have 48 hours a day to practice or study all these things), and usually head these things off before the game starts.