Texas Hold'em 2078 [IP]
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Texas Hold'em 2078 [IP]
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“No offence, but with what you displayed so far I’m not entirely convinced I could stomach the distraction you provide to me.
I could offer you all some disposable transportations. I have a guy that mods motorbikes for coyotes. He produces Maze Runners and Razorbacks.
He could tune up your transports as well.”
Johnny counter offered. -
She chuckled and said “Well, I was improvising, said the first thing that came to mind. You got out without a bar fight, and I got to play the evil and seductive bitch. It was fun but I don’t suggest we use the same approach all the time. About your offer, Mr. Guthrie would bite I am almost certain as he has some fondness to vehicles, but let us first see if everyone is in agreement, before we set you off to your way.”
With that she surveyed her team, trying to spot any objections to the agreed upon price.
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Ichante doesn’t budge when asked to count the credsticks. If the Supermodel wants them counted, she can count them herself. Unless, of course, the blonde can’t count. She could get the commlink to sum it up for her, unless she’s too dumb to know how to use a commlink.
Ichante doesn’t openly reject the request, but she gives a narrow-eyed squint to the blonde that strongly implies, “Don’t ask others to do what you can do yourself.” It’s an easy look to confuse with, “Frag off, slot.”
Then Al has his stroke, which is really inconvenient timing since Ichante had such high hopes that he might be a voice of reason when it came to the discussion about the job particulars, including the negotiation. Preston and the rigger seems to be quiet types so far, not likely to interject themselves meaningfully unless the topic touches on their expertise. Ichante hopes against hope that this isn’t going to be several days of the blonde browbeating the others into submission. ¥100k is great money and all, but the job will be so much the better if the team isn’t annoying as hell to work with.
“I’ll do it,” Ichante says when it comes time to openly declare intentions. “Sticking it to the Azzies is an added bonus.”
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Becky shrugs “This is going to be a long run” she says to herself and sat on the floor with the guitar case between her legs. She unceremoniously counts the money and divides it into different piles of equal value. One for each runner, including Al that was not there at the moment. Once she is done and finished verifying that the payment is as agreed, she releases the Jhonson by saying simply “Impressive, perhaps I should switch to poker instead of having people shoot at me all the time… Your cred is good Jhonny, we will take the job… I assume you want your guitar back?” she says and handing the man his guitar.
She took her credsticks and placed them in her purse. Then she went to look for Al, hoping he did not go too far. When she finds him she says. “Al, are you alright? I managed to get you a free upgrade for your ride. I assume you still know how to drive… isn’t it so?”
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Sitting outside the room on the hood of someone’s car, Al was smoking another filterless Lucky Strike and feeling pretty good about himself.
For a moment, he had been slightly dismayed at almost sleeping through the part where he had promised Becky an assist, but then he realized that the voodoo gods had roused him at precisely the correct moment for greatest effect. The fact that he had interjected his opinion into a conversation that he had not heard up to that point was irrelevant and of course had worked out for the best. He applauded himself for his choice of allies.
Then he had been a bit offput by mistaking the door to the head for the door out of the room, but then he realized that it had been one more spontaneous manifestation of his considerable Thespian talents – far from being unaware of his surroundings, he had in fact been hyper-aware of them, to the point that, submerged in method-acting his chosen role, he had added that extra bit of verisimilitude to his portrayal of a person disoriented upon suddenly waking.
The arrival of Becky announcing that his efforts had resulted in an increase in their remuneration merely served to confirm the basis for his effusive self-congratulation.
He smiled widely at Becky, taking a few extra and obvious moments to appreciate her form. “All stock in trade fer the master craftsman. Glad ta hear things worked ta plan.”
He flicked the butt of his spent cigarette in a random direction. “As fer drivin’, yeah, ol’ Al knows his way around motorized conveyances. But as I recall, Precious, yer no slouch behind the wheel yerself. Anyhoo, you can thank the keeb kindly, but no one touches my truck but me. Got ‘er jist the way I want ‘er.”
He lit a fresh cigarette and proferred the pack to her. “So don’t mind sayin’ I’m hopin’ yer takin’ point on this one as well….whatever the hell the blamed job is….”
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[Lunchtime, Wednesday February 2nd, 2078; Sleep Eazy Motel, San Angelo, CAS]
Jazz shrugged, it was considerably more money than she’d anticipated but you had to be alive to collect your pay. With Al on board, despite his strange outburst and Becky’s explanation of borderline insanity, she was more confident that she would have otherwise have been about their chances of success. His impossible reputation preceded him and the Mechanicals in particular stood in awe of his deeds, his exploits the stuff of campfire tales on a cold winter’s night.
“I’m in” was all she offered at this point…the J didn’t need to be part of any planning and the sooner they got out of this rat hole the better
#05
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*Oleg: these people don’t know how to behave properly.
* Eliza: they may behaving by their own rules
Oleg; then their rules are wrong!
Gamma: they did get the job done“Sounds like ee have an agreement.”. He nods at their Johnson as he heads out, adding “we’ll be in touch.”
To the team he sends <<splitting up fixer and morgue right away? Or want to swing by my motel for some planning?>>
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Becky ignores Al staring, she is used to that by now, and is dressed in an attempt to appear more like a brute/street punk and less like a lady, in a futile attempt to attract less attention to herself. She was memorable as hell, whatever she wore – like there was something about her that made her unforgettable. Which is why she was constantly skipping town after a shortwhile.
“Aye… there is getting from place A to place B, and there is driving… manually, just you the engine and the open road. Nothing beats it. I know nothing more complicated than how to replace a flat tire though. Somehow, I never was interested in how it work, only in what I could do behind the wheel.”
When Peterson suggested his Motel, Becky replied “Let’s go drinking somewhere, break the ice… It is a good practice to know a bit about your teammates before things get tough. We can visit mourges afterwards, the dead will be there an hour later as well. “
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The nearest bar turned out to be one of those quiet, country style pub franchises that some Euro corp had imported to the states – ignoring any and all cultural conventions.
Consequently it wasn’t particularly full… -
Ichante accompanies the rest of the team outside into the cool February sun as they talk about next steps. She trusts that the nearby rumble of road traffic helps to mask their discussion from any curious ears.
“I don’t drink on the job,” Ichante says, adding to the growing list of subtle and not-so-subtle rebukes to anything that Becky says.
The alcoholics unite, and the team ends up at a bar anyway. At least it’s empty.
“Like the Johnson said, it’s a time-sensitive case. Our lead has been dead and on ice for 36 hours. He says we got Jags on the case, and if so I guarantee it only took them a fraction of that time to realize their error. We either stay one step ahead of them or they beat us to the prize and we find ourselves playing catch-up. I know which side of that I’d rather be on.”
A waitress comes over to take drink orders. She’ll likely be replaced by AR order once the Euro corp does the math and figures out that their business model might not be sustainable when the place is empty at lunchtime.
“We need more time,” Ichante says rather forcefully to the waitress, who looks surprised at the unexpected rebuff.
“Or, here’s a cheery thought,” Ichante resumes. “The Jags never set foot outside of Aztlan. Maybe they made an exception in this case, since it’s so close to the border, but given the nature of the operatives who took down the arcanoarchaelogist I think we have to consider the possibility that we’re dealing with Blood Panthers.
“Remember that for the blood mages, Infection is a blessing, not a curse. So Aztechnology the Blood Panthers: vampires employed as infiltrators and weapons specialists.”
Her magically improved personality gives her words more punch and conviction than they might usually have.
“Jags or Panthers, it’s bad news either way, which is why there’s half a mil on the table. So let’s hit the morgue and hit the fixer before someone else does, because I don’t want to find myself sucking hind tit to a whole bunch of spec ops goons who may literally try to eat us for lunch.”
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Al didn’t particularly like what he was hearing, but the dwelf was making it hard to completely ignore.
When Becky had decided they should go for a drink, observing philosophically that ‘…the dead will be there an hour later as well,’ Al’s first thought had been, ‘Not if the competition gets to them first.’ But what was the point of being in this crazy profession if you couldn’t let liquor take its rightful place ahead of work? Besides, he rationalized, success needed someone decisive and visible to preempt endless debates about courses of action, and he couldn’t position Becky that way if he countermanded her first idea.
So Ichante-the-short-elf-or-tall-dwarf’s opener about time-sensitivity echoed his own thoughts enough for him to overlook his general distrust of teetotalers.
And the part about Jags staying in Aztlan, that rang true enough. This Blood Panther thing, though, that didn’t sound like the benevolent and charitable Aztechnology he knew and admired. Sounded like a reach, a bid to simplify things by conflating two apparent threats. But then he thought back to Boston and had to concede that anything might be possible.
Standing and nursing his third beer, he looked straight at the dwelf (easy enough, as she was only a few inches shorter than himself). “Blood Panthers, huh? Well, maybe that’s so an’ maybe it ain’t. Reckon I’d have ta hear more. But jist remember, Aztechnology does a whole lotta Christian good in this here benighted world. So I wanna git one thing straight. If’n this is a bunch o’ spec-op dracs, then they’ll be on they own. Rogue. Which, importantly fer us, means unsupported. Sure, it’s a big corp, so they’s bound ta be some bad apples. Hell, up Beantown way they whole operation done got taken over by a damned blood-summonin’, horror-fraternizin’ ice lizard. But nothin’ abominable like blood suckers’d ever be sanctioned by the good men at the top o’ the pyramid.”
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Becky ordered a single shot of whisky for anyone interested to drink with her. Tossing a glass “To success”, the uptight dwarf lady decided to play the professional, but she did not mind. There are annoying people everywhere, the world is filled with them.
“I see that you are quite knowledgable about Atzlan, this also explains the rambling about vampires after the orb. Initially it seemed just racist to me, but a military organization of vampires seems on spot. Good thinking… but let’s not talk about the mission just yet. Let’s introduce ourselves, and what we can do. Better we know now, then before we go into this shit storm”
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Ichante looks at Al with an expression somewhere between quizzical disbelief and outright affront.
“Aztlan declared the Roman Catholic Church an ‘revolutionary organization’ in 2041, persecuting them and forcing them underground.” Her look to Al clearly expresses her belief that he’s old enough to remember it happening. “You’ve been eating at Stuffer Shack too often, the Sweeteez and the Krak-L-Snaps and the Ludivenko Lovely Soya-Sloppies with the DoubleThick option. They’re in your head, man.” She pounds her forefinger into her temple to drive the point across.
She waves off the whiskey, as well as the menu at this miserable establishment, and generally looks sour at being paired with two dips and two humans too timid to contribute ¥2 of good sense to the debate.
“I do the magic,” she says after she’s calmed a bit. “Healing, illusions, levitation, spells that say ‘frag off’ politely and less politely. Plus spirits. I can’t pop my soul and fly around though, so don’t ask. I have some other tricks up my sleeve that don’t need casting. I can generally look like I want and sound like I want. Always going to be short though.
“Oh and I cook like a fragging poem. We’re eating better than this soydrek from here on out.”
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Hah! She referred to herself as short. Not tall. So she was an elf. One problem solved.
In response to her socialist tirade against an array of the revolutionary food products that had lifted nutritional standards globally, Al had no chance to do more than grin around his cigarette and raise two conciliatory peace signs before she shifted topic, launching into her bona fides. She wasted no time in revealing herself as a card-carrying Satanist. Al had learned that such could be useful in this line of work, and it also explained her sympathy for the papists, so he appreciated the infodump. The last bit was the best though. Suggested that for all the hocus pocus, she knew her place. A real mixed bag, this one, a swirling mixture of hippy lunacy tempered with good horse sense. Not an uncommon trait for her gender, if you really thought about it. And if she cooked as well as she claimed, then he’d make a point of staying on her good side.
Standing beside her, it was apparently expected that he somehow render his prodigious skill set in easily digestible terms. “Alouicious Harlan Guthrie. Esquire. I know karate. Voodoo, too. I’m gonna make myself available to you.”
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[Lunchtime, Wednesday February 2nd, 2078; Dingy Bar, San Angelo, CAS]
Jazz accepted the shot from Becky, although she looked too young to be in this establishment let alone drinking anything, and downed it with a grimace
“It’ll keep the cold out for a bit” she muttered to herself. Looking over at Al she shook her head slightly at his argument with Ichante. She was beginning to question the hero worship bit…wasn’t there a saying along the lines of better not to meet your idols? Of course her friends weren’t idiots, and the stories about Al were at least half true so no doubt action would make up for the thought behind them. His heart was in the right place and despite his slightly crazy ideas, gruff and rather smelly façade, she knew that he would have their backs when the shit inevitably started flying about.
To Becky’s request for a skills resume Jazz replied
“I work with drones, although in AR never VR when I’m working so nobody is going to need to carry me. I’ve got a few with me now, some for surveillance and some for fire support, although hopefully the cats will never be needed.” She pulled up an AR window, for those able to see it, with her drone inventory and scrolled through. Probably the most noticeable where the two big cats, one with a fucking big gun mounted on its back. “Shere Kahn can do some damage, possibly even to one of these Blood Panthers” the last almost a whisper despite the small chance of anyone listening in. “Mowgli could carry the orb so Becky doesn’t have to” and she showed them an anthro drone, probably a repurposed sparring robot, it was shown carrying a large rifle and was kitted out in security grade armour…
“I can also monitor communications so that Preston doesn’t have to worry about that side of things. If we need to jam anyone else’s signals I can cover that too but if you want to frag them up electronically that’s likely to be Preston’s gig.”
#06
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Al gave a low whistle of appreciation. “Damn Sam, little ‘un, but turns out yer the blamed muscle fer this little posse. Who’d o’ thunk it? The best gifts, an’ all o’ that, I s’pose. Ya mod them babies yerself?”
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[Lunchtime, Wednesday February 2nd, 2078; Dingy Bar, San Angelo, CAS]
Jazz basked, just a little bit, in Al’s words
“Not the guns, I just point those in the right direction” she said depreciatingly “Sprogget helped me with those. But the drones, yeah, they’re mine… I like cats! But drones are fragile, better for hit and run than a stand up fight. They lose a lot of their manoeuvrability indoors too, that’s why I got Mowgli…where I can go, he can, more or less. We seem to have a good mix of talent here, let’s hope it’s enough against a spec ops unit!”
#07
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“Heh heh. Spec ops splec shmops. If what Miss Ichante here says is so, then these guys is so special they let theyselves git nibbled by dracs, which in ol’ Al’s book ain’t very special at all. You’ll do fine, little ‘un. Jist aim fer the head, take the un off the dead.”
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* Coleman: drinking on the job should only be done when necessary.
* Eliza: this is essential
Preston sips at his shot while listening to the others.*Oleg: Ichante is a witch!
*Monkey: She can cast a spell on me!
Gamma: i can’t trust any spells on me.
Coleman: these women seem formidable
Monkey: Jazz doesn’t like hot sim. She can suck sour soy.
*Coleman: Al is strange, but he is alive and in demand, so i should respect his abilities too.
Eliza: so i start with a compliment, then give facts, and only then get to implications and opinions.“This seems like a formidable team; i wouldn’t want to go up against the lot of you.”
“I go by the handle Preston. Seems like i would be here for matrix tricks. I’m decent at that, I’d say –certainly better in hot sim than AR — but I’m not as hard core as some. I guess you could say i find the matrix good for getting things done.”
*Monkey: and hot sim is so hot!
“But if it is easier to get things done by getting hired as a janitor, jabbing someone with a taser, or making up some quick and dirty fake credentials, I’m happy to do that instead. By the way I’m decent wuth pistols, and had a ciuple of lessons on using shotguns, a couple of years back, but generally not so hot on the heavier weapons.”
“Oh, and i travel with my own kit for caff and coffee, so if we set up anywhere that Ichante can cook, I’ll make sure we stay decently caffeinated.”
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She listend to the discussion, and felt as if the Jhonson has made some good composition. She nodded in appriciation, and assensed each of the team members to make sure that she can regognize them later. Who knows if it would come handly later.
Becky said “Think of me as trid ninja, I sneak, climb, jump and roll and I fight with bows, sowrds, and most recently unarmed – as it is difficult to carry a katana in many places. I enjoy sparring, it makes me feel alive -but when I am on the clock, I try to avoid violence and use my charm to talk my way into places. I am also a good driver. I am technically magical, but it is difficult to notice as I am usually well maksed as a mundane. I don’t feel very magical in the day to day – because what it means in my case is that I better control my body, basically like augmentations that only work in some places.
My weakness is my genetics, as a dryad I am memorable regardless of what I say or how I behave. I sometimes enjoy to misbehave to just to see how much I could actually get away with. I’ll try to be polite and proffessional from now on as the danger seems more intense than a bar fight. ”
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