Episode Seven: The Going Too Farr Job, Part 3 - kaseido/NeoTokyo GitHub Wiki

date: 5-6 Minsky

Carbide, Paragon, and Vir go to the offices of Zhirov Security, the local mob/private security force that Mister Snuggles identified as the ones who were contracted to snatch Stridev off the street. Unsurprisingly for the local law-equivalent, security looks super tight: a guard pillbox out on the street with a turret on top, cameras over the entrance and emergency exit, and network nodes that can’t be accessed from the buildings on either side. Paragon does detect a node near the front, but the team decides to try the legit approach first.

Carbide goes up to the guard shack and introduces himself as an insurance investigator for Loving Hands, looking for some information on a missing persons case. The guard calls for his boss, who, for NB100, is happy to share what he can. They did do the job, but it was a standard anonymous hire: follow, stun, toss in van. Once the team throwing Stridev in the van transmitted proof of life, Zhirov got paid, all via cryptocurrency. The boss shares the proof-of-life photo, showing the entirely anonymous gray van, and the call log from a burner phone. Carbide and the boss compliment each other on their professionalism, and the boss passes on a business card: “a pretty above-board criminal transaction, there.”

The three stop in the Thai restaurant next door for an early dinner, and Paragon works the phone records, discovering that the burner was bought in a nearby shop four days ago. After their meal, they head over to the phone store. Once the nice older Chinese lady realizes she isn’t being accused of anything, she’s happy to share surveillance video, for NB50. They get a clean shot of the purchaser.

While Carbide’s dealing with the shopkeeper, Vir picks out a pair of pink animatronic kitty-ears headphones, and shows them to Paragon. It takes Paragon a moment, but she realizes that Carbide could work them into kitty-peripherals: with whiskers added to the headphones, she could use them for processing kitty sensory data, but not have to become a full-time catgirl. She’s delighted, and buys the headphones. Paragon then runs a search on the visual of the buyer, and discovers it’s Armand Winslett, the kittylab department chair, who’s supposed to be at a conference on Bynar! She’s able to connect his home address with the IP address of the fake social media posts from the conference. The team decides to pay his house a visit.

Meanwhile, Starscream and Friction have headed over to the kittylab for their tour. They’re met by a very bubbly grad student carrying a big fluffy tabby cat. She greets Friction: “Oh, hey, I’ve seen you around – Culture Vulture, right? What brings you to see what’s on the Slab?” Friction starts to introduce Starscream, but the student points at Star in enthusiastic recognition. “Oh! oh! you’re – “ Star is wearing happy bubbly celebrity face.

“Horizon Group! I’d know that facial musculature anywhere. Do me a favor, blow me a kiss?”

Star is no longer wearing happy bubbly celebrity face. She does not blow a kiss.

The grad student keeps babbling at her, offering to upgrade her neural processing software, completely oblivious to Star’s cold reaction. Eventually she winds down and introduces herself as Kylie Bentzen (“NeuralNymph”), handing Star the kitty, Romeo, who immediately begins purring and kneading at Star. She asks what Romeo’s modification is, and NeuralNymph reaches over to skritich the kitty’s scalp, and then unzips him, removing his fluffy fur to reveal a rubberized body. Romeo climbs back into Stars arms, still purring.

NeuralNymph explains that he’s a test of a system that would allow people to hot-swap their artificial bodies without humanity loss. Star is a bit testy at this news: she likes the beautiful body she has, thank you very much. NeuralNymph’s enthusiasm is undimmed. They get the tour, NeuralNymph apparently being completely open about showing them everything and discussing the lab’s operations. She maintains that they don’t track the kitties past two weeks: they just don’t have the resources, and that’s enough to judge the grad students on their projects and determine what mods are worth pursuing for future commercial applications.

Star gets a message on her internal agent from Paragon, that they’ve ID’d Winslett as connected to Stridev’s abduction. It isn’t hard for her to get NeuralNymph to dish on Winslett: he’s an angry guy, hates Netwatch, hates socialists, hates corpos who’re afraid of Netwatch, gets into arguments on forums. Taku, the aide who “went to the conference with him,” is his suppository. They each live in town, nearby. Star wonders if Taku’s the brains of the operation, but NeuralNymph denies it: Winslett’s the idea guy, Taku’s the operations guy. Star tries to get NeuralNymph to let her into Winslett’s system to look for information on Netwatch, claiming she’s being harassed by an agent due to being a full-body replacement. NeuralNymph is sympathetic, but won’t do it: they deal in fantastically valuable trade secrets, and she can’t take the chance. She is willing to let Star look around his office, and Star surreptitiously records, but there’s nothing incriminating in sight.

Star continues to play on NeuralNymph’s sympathy. She suggests that Star visit The Smoking Gnu, a makerspace/club near campus: the regulars are information brokers and into shady stuff, and definitely have conspiracy theories, if not hard information, on Netwatch. Friction asks whether Winslett has ever mentioned her advisor, Nixietube. NeuralNymph says that he does, sometimes: he thinks she’s coasting on her reputation as an expert witness in the android’s trial a few years back. Friction rises to her defense, but is relieved that it doesn’t sound like anything particularly hostile. They take their leave.

The team reunites and they make their way to Winslett’s house, in a pretty posh neighborhood. They loop the security cameras and break in via the back door. Vir discovers a wall safe, which Carbide easily opens. There’s a rental agreement for a storage unit in Koto City. Star searches the trash: only one person has been there, and not in several days. Paragon discovers that while Winslett’s computer was used to make the social media posts, it was accessed remotely, from somewhere in Koto City.

They decide to make a quick run by Taku’s apartment before getting on the train back. It’s significantly downmarket from Winslett’s place. Star goes in as a Grubhub deliverer: nobody responds to her knocking, and she’s pretty clear nobody’s home. They decide it’s unlikely he’d have anything worth the risk of breaking and entering for, and head to the train station.

On the way back they make plans: they arrange for Night to meet them in Old Dome Station, to hand off Vir’s and Carbide’s weapons and to collect Friction, who isn’t potential-firefight material. They’ll approach the storage center as celebrity and entourage, concerned with security, and try to check out the unit.

On the way to the center, Vir notes that they’re being followed by a drone. Carbide tries to hijack it, but it peels off.

At the center, the guard/clerk is happy to show them around – and there is an open unit right next to the one that Winslett rented. Carbide runs a scan and discovers signals from a prosthetic – presumably Winslett’s hand – and some electronics running. Star raises a fuss to the guard, who’d assured her that they don’t allow people to live in the units. He heads over to check it out, and gets critically wounded by submachine gun fire from within when he forces the unit open. Carbide takes a peek: it’s Winslett and Taku, and Stridev’s strapped to a table. He calls on them to surrender, and exchanges shots with Taku, both missing.

Vir makes their way in to pull the guard clear of the firefight, and as they do, an unmarked black shuttle flies low overhead and fires flashbangs at the team. Carbide and Paragon are dazzled. Star sends a hologram of herself in to check out the unit, as two figures in black armor rappel down from the shuttle. They grab Stridev, shoot Winslett and Taku, and recover their bodies. One throws something at Carbide: thankfully, it’s a credit chip and not a grenade.

Star calls Linvaa and sends live video of the abduction. Linvaa admits it’s a Netwatch extraction team. Star tells them they’re liable for the injuries to the guard. Linvaa apologizes for yet another assault on the team, and says they’ll be in touch again tomorrow. They’ve been paid in full, they’re fine – and they GTFO before the storage center’s backup security gets there.

Linvaa does call the next day. Carbide expresses his displeasure with the assault on the team. Linvaa says that the extraction squad violated direct orders – again. The next time Netwatch deals with the team -and there’s a strong implication there will be a next time – relations will be smoother. They thank Starscream for the video evidence, and mention that they did thoroughly compensate the guard. They ask what the deal was with the kitties, as a matter of personal curiosity. Star just says “we like cats.” Linvaa admits that’s the same answer they got from Stridev. And since somebody had to be an insurance beneficiary, why not the cats, they suppose. They tell the team that Stridev’s immediate needs have been taken care of, and he’ll be shipped off to Vulcan on the next flight, for a month or so of recovery. They recognize that Netwatch’s thanks wouldn’t mean much, but on behalf of those of Vulcan ancestry, they thank the team. They then… obliquely ask Friction out? Or threaten a rendezvous? Time will tell!

Paragon, Vir, and Carbide head back to Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid for a spot of brain surgery. Mister Snuggles is able to clean up the damage Paragon suffered in hacking into Winslett’s net, and hooks her up with an internal catbrain emulator. He’s happy to share his work in whiskers with Carbide. Paragon gets him talking: they learn that the cats are touch-networked only (and only the ones he’s worked on). He only works on cats who volunteer or want their kittens upgraded.

There are two tracking networks: the cats’, and the university’s. Just location and basic biometric data. He’s been going to great lengths to hide his work and feed the CCRU bad data: he’s pretty sure they don’t know a lot of the cybercats are his work, not theirs. Honestly? He’s been a lot more successful hiding from the CCRU than he ever expected. Maybe they know and are just factoring it into the dataset? The kitties don’t have a hive mind, and he hasn’t been able to do a lot with cognitive enhancement. He can do the hardware, but neural integration requires a genius specialist, and he doesn’t know anybody who does that sort of work at cutting-edge levels. The team does, though!

And Starscream follows up with NeuralNymph: the lab is a lot quieter without Winslett, and she got Taku’s job as lab manager, which is pretty amazing for a grad student. And she’d definitely be up for talking neural integration with a kitty hardware guy….