Episode 4: The Do Little Job - kaseido/NeoTokyo GitHub Wiki

9 Bezos 289

Starscream has been told that the benefit concert will be on 20 Bezos, in 11 days. Good news/bad news: it’s been moved from Harb’s pad to Spire 404, a 1000-person venue that’s popular for corporate events. It looks like BSP is “encouraging” executive participation, and from parent and subsidiaries as well.

The team members get a call from Night: come to the back rooms of the Crimson Diner for a secure client call. It’s a referral from her uncle, and if the job comes off well, he’s poised to do some significant favors for the team.

The client is a very cute anthropomorphic dog, maybe a shih tzu? She’s about 4 feet tall, with terrycloth skin, her hair tied up in a ribbon with a bell on it. Paragon desperately wants to snuggle her. She introduces herself as Isabelle, VP of Resident Services for Nook, Inc. Her colleague Firebrand told her to call to discuss her concerns.

Nook, Inc. runs a group of homesteading communities in Old Dome for anthropomorphic synths. There’s hundreds of hectares of abandoned real estate in Old Dome, ripe for development. A lot of anthros feel safer living in a community with each other, in isolation – and they tend to bring skills, cash, and determination. They’re getting ready to open their tenth “Island” in Old Dome. Except… her boss, the CEO, Tom Nook, has been acting strangely lately, raising rents and fees, and acting like he’s terrified over the finances, when they should be easily affording new expansions. She’s afraid somebody’s leaning on him, and gods know anthros have a lot of enemies….

She’s got an internal security unit ready to cooperate with you, but they haven’t found a thing on any of their Residents -if there is a threat, it’s coming from outside. But if you can use them, the Happy Home Academy is at your call, including the heavy weapons unit. Since she works in Resident Services, she doesn’t have physical or net access to Corporate, which is why she’s turned to outsiders. Unfortunately, the Islands have a strict no-humanoids policy, so she can’t get you in to them. She can act on the inside at your direction, if you handle the outside world.

She’ll pay NB2500 for extensive information, half up front. Then we’ll talk again about any actions.

The team starts its research, digging into records available for potential investors. Paragon readily hoovers up pretty much everything, but even with Night’s help, the financials are way beyond their abilites to interpret. Starscream sends them off to her financial manager, saying she’s looking into a potential investment: communities for full-body-replacements like herself. Night drops a note to Dr. Goodbytes, asking for any rumors on Tom Nook or the company.

Starscream’s investor reports back in a few hours. The company’s financials are strong. Apparently there’s an affiliated investment vehicle, Nookingtons, which is highly leveraged, but performing well ahead of the overall market, at least as of the 1 Rand reporting date. If there were anything fishy going on, it could be there, but there’s no direct evidence.

However, Nook Inc. has been losing out on property bids over the past three months, to Odaiba Securities. Which is slightly odd: Odaiba’s an old top-drawer financial firm known for offworld currency speculation. They do a fair bit of property investment, but something as speculative as Old Dome real estate is new and unusual for them. The point person at Odaiba is Viridia Rackham, an unusually young manager. There’s nothing in the financials or other records to indicate whether Odaiba is targeting Nook specifically, or just hoovering stuff up.

Night, Starscream, and Carbide meet with Uncle Firebrand at the property he’s rehabbing. Firebrand’s a big, cheerful guy who wraps Night, his favorite niece, in a massive bearhug, calling her “Lil’ Ev.” She’s embarrassed but pleased to see him. He hands everyone a hard hat. Star just looks down at hers, then hands it back: “Thanks, though, safety first.” The others put theirs on, and follow him to a living room in a brownstone he’s renovating.

He knows Tom in passing, and Isabelle a bit better. He hasn’t seen or heard from Tom in several months, which is unusual: the Reclaimer community is a chatty one. Starscream asks if he knows of any vices Tom might have. He laughs: “I can’t even speculate on the vices a plush raccoon would have.” He doesn’t know anything about Odaiba. However, if Tom were in financial trouble… There’s a loanshark everybody in the community knows, a Ferengi named Ebit. You’d have to be stupid and desperate, but if you are, he’s where you go.

Firebrand gives the group the tour. He’s rehabbing what was built as a nice working-class neighborhood, and abandoned for over a century. It’s got storefronts, clinic space, classrooms, a park – its’ going to be really nice again. He offers to get the team set up at cost: he really wants some reliable folks in as anchors, who’ll draw foot traffic in. Carbide suggests some security upgrades, and the two talk shop, as Night and Starscream zone out. Starscream does see a brownstone she’d love renovated, though.

The group meets back up at the diner, really feeling the lack of a headquarters space. Paragon connects some dots: Odaiba’s in offworld currency speculation. All offworld currency trades pass through the Bank of Ferenginar, which means they end up sitting on mountains of NB, which, presumably, they use to buy interests in NeoTokyo conglomerates. So it’s entirely possible that Odaiba’s parent firm, NongHyup Financial Group, has significant Ferengi influence. Maybe the Ferengi are working to squeeze Nook Inc. from both sides: forcing him to bid up on properties, borrowing money from their loanshark, necessitating more investment to cover the loans. Carbide thinks it’s possible, but any Odaiba/Ebit link will need to be established. That should be their next goal.

Vir notes that they can’t pose as a property buyer or anything to get to Odaiba, and Carbide agrees: they don’t have that kind of an in. Dr. Goodbytes reports that Tom and his nephews are pretty clean: Tom’s reputed to have an impressive collection of furry porn, and the nephews are partyers, but not apparently beyond their means, and everyone’s reputation in the anthro-synth community is quite positive.

Paragon takes a look at Ebit’s website, and it’s a nightmare: flashing backgrounds, un-pauseable music, the works. But it does have a business address in Old Dome. Starscream begs, “Please don’t make me talk to a Ferengi!” A quick search by Paragon shows that there’s a nice Ukrainian-Italian restaurant backing onto the back of his office, close enough for Net access. She and Carbide head there for lunch. Vir, despite not actually believing in aliens, decides to look into the possibility of psychoactive drugs for Ferengi, just in case.

The restaurant is unspeakably wonderful. It’s entirely credible for the two to ask for a table near the kitchen, as it smells amazing. Night jacks in for a run at Ebit’s Net architecture. It’s small, but packed with tough stuff. She ends up taking a solid hit of brain damage, but cracks it. Carbide’s ready to claim “pasta coma” for her and sneak bites off her plate to make it look like she’s still eating. Hacking the files and control node are easy, but she bogs down creating a worm. She manages to embed something only a very skilled Netrunner would detect: the office’s “Alexa” system will now send audio straight to her.

After she jacks out, they finish lunch. The files show Tom’s on the hook for mid-five-figures, not nearly as bad as they’d feared. Paragon scrubs Tom’s info from her copy of the files, and considers selling them. Nothing in Ebit’s records indicates any contact with Odaiba or NongHyup.

They head back to another reunion at the Crimson Diner. Carbide wonders what got Odaiba interested in shitty real estate. He notes they caught the problem early: Tom’s circling the drain but hasn’t gone over the cliff yet. The team decides they’ve fulfilled the contract for information, and should wrap that up and get another contract before they take this any further, though they’re all determined to (“We always over-deliver,” Starscream notes). Carbide tells them that as someone raised communist cell-adjacent most all his life, he’s got a particular hatred for real estate speculators who take homes away from hardworking folks – even if these hardworking folks are hamsters :)

Starscream observes that Isabelle probably wants reassurance that she wasn’t imagining things, as much as anything else, and they can provide that now. Isabelle’s surprised to hear from them again only four hours later, and shocked to hear they’ve wrapped up the contract. Star does the briefing. Paragon cuts in to discuss the next phase of the plan: figuring out what Odaiba’s angle is, and mentions the prospect of violence. Carbite interrupts to say that they’d strongly prefer to keep it non-lethal. Isabelle is sanguine, and offers up the Happy Home Academy Heavy Weapons Unit again as needed. She considers how to pay for Phase Two: Phase One was a personal concern, but this goes to the welfare of the firm. She doesn’t have the ability to use corporate funds. The team wonders about approaching Tom or the nephews. Isabelle says that, especially now, Tom has a tendency to panic, and that can’t help. The nephews are steady: they could be brought in to authorize an expenditure.

Night negotiates, and gets the team’s top bid of NB10K.

They hang up with Isabelle, and plan the next ten days. Carbide’s going to focus on getting more of the team’s cybernetics work done, with Vir doing installations. He’s also going to keep plugging away at safecracking: he really wants another run at Harb’s Steranko, and since Starscream got him the exact make and model, he’s got material to work with.

Vir turns back to the Ferengi-drugs question. The team tells her that Ferengi are indeed, all too real. Vir gets why Starscream wouldn’t want to deal with them. They decide to get some beetle snuff and lace it with synthetic Orion female hormones, to increase Ebit’s suggestibility. This proves harder than expected. Paragon supplies Vir with a mountain of information, but Vir’s got no context of alien biochemistry to use it effectively.

Working through Friction, Night has no trouble getting Ferengi beetle snuff, but she strikes out on the synthetic pheromones. Vir asks a favor of her sublettor, Dr. Sakai: she can score it, but it’ll take two weeks for delivery. Starscream calls up Friction to try the direct route: scoring off a bartender in a club catering to offworlders. Friction points her at a club, and the bartender’s a fan of Starscream. He can score her two doses…. and promptly returns home to commission fan art of her as an Orion slave dancer  Vir synthesizes two laced doses of the beetle snuff, ready to go. Starscream might end up having to deal with Ebit after all. She may not have experience with offworlders, but she knows creeper guys cold – she’s got this.