Episode Twelve: The Hardball Job, Part 2 - kaseido/NeoTokyo GitHub Wiki

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Paragon assembles the data that the team’s been able to collect: she has seat numbers for each of the games that fall along a line from the camera that showed subspace interference to the spot of Cherry’s bike explosions on the track. She remote-hacks the Samurai ticket purchase site and gets purchase information: there are seven people who had seats in that block at all three games. She digs into each: six seem normal fans, paid with regular credit cards, have full banking and employment history. The seventh had promo-code tickets. Paragon suspected another hacker, but Carbide noted their theory that the bomber was a hitman hired by the team owners.

She cross-references audience cam footage of the person in those seats against bounty and contract-worker databases, and discovers Federation citizen Quentin Markell (“Blitz”): ex-Starfleet SPEC1st, demolitions expert, discharged five months ago. There’s a blind comm code for him through the site (“The Swarm”). She hacks his voicemail box: it’s empty. Hacking deleted messages will need an actual onsite netrun.

She packages up everything she’s learned and sends it to the team, and heads out to, not The Swarm, but the adjacent cybercafe, Le Phreak, C’est Chic. It’s owned by The Swarm, which figured that since they were getting hacked constantly anyway, they might as well turn it into a profit center. The pastries are good and free, and the coffee’s superb and expensive. Paragon gets into the system easily: they don’t bother with black ICE. She finds deleted messages from Allegre, the owner’s representative to the team, all falling before and after Cherry’s explosions. She adds a virus to forward on all of Blitz’s messages, with a comm code embedded, if he’s good enough to find it: that way maybe their first contact will be by comm instead of bomb.

Meanwhile, Starscream has been working on their financial prospectus and pitch. Carbide suggests a compelling story similar to that of Nguyen’s grandmother, but without being on the nose. Star envisions it: “I’ve had the occasion to be in the hospital, and have encountered this sort of person many times… an old lady too stubborn and traditional to accept a synth body, but this tech would have let her continue to feel just as human as she still was, and she would still be alive today.” She plans on working in her personal story: she stresses she’s a girl who has a synth body, discussing herself in a body dysmorphia way, of being in a place that is not me, to explain her initial motivation for investing in this: “but it can be much bigger than that, and I need someone with vision, able to exploit every bit so it moves fast.”

She calls the hospital she toured after the bombing of her show, but doesn’t get any good leads on potential poster children. Dr. Desai is busy: “I might know some people, but come back later, dammit!” Star makes an actual therapy appointment, and then returns – but Desai holds her hostage for taking the appointment first before she’ll talk with her. Alas, she doesn’t know anybody right for the role either.

Vir’s mentor, Dr. Sakai, however, does know a potential case, and happily provides a medical review and endorsement. Star includes the case, and plans to interview the patient later.

Star feels ready: she calls Mina Nerova, Nguyen’s executive assistant and gatekeeper, for a preliminary video pitch. Nerova is unimpressed, and refuses to book an appointment.

Star turns to her ex who’s a player, and asks him to set up a meeting with Allegre, which he’s happy to do – in return for drinks and his getting back up in her DMs. She doesn’t mind; a renewed fling will be good for both their careers.

She meets with Allegre and makes her case: she’s got an investment that’ll take the pressure off of him to generate dependable returns from the team. She’ll buy season tickets, her celebrity being a boost for ratings. But he googles “StarCREAM” and gets a low-budget porn actress, and is unimpressed. She shows him the guest list for her benefit concert in the Spire. He’s still not biting, and wants something in hand, not promises. She drops Blitz’s real name, and offers an alternative revenue source to get Nguyen off his back. He relents, and gets her on Nguyen’s calendar the day after tomorrow, just before the next game.

Starscream returns to the Hideout, and uses her dance training to work with Vir to improve their balance in the antigrav harness, after Vir took a hard fall working on their own.

Carbide builds a subspace jammer, and Paragon gets them tickets to the next game. The jammer is something inconspicuous that Cherry can wear securely as a “good luck charm,” powerful enough to shield his bike, but no more than that. He hands it off to Night to pass on Channels to get to Cherry with the message, “keep it on you while you’re playing and your bike won’t blow up anymore.”

Vir builds a high-calorie high-caf beverage to keep them awake and full and not in pain, to avoid the shrimp puffs on their date, and heads out.

Armitage’s place is the full shag-pad, with a lime green semicircular couch the centerpiece of the living room. Vir can see a round waterbed with a mirror on the ceiling, through the bead curtain. Armitage is wearing a very nice smoking jacket and ascot, and mentions watching a threesome on the couch as a conversation opener. He’s definitely trying seduction, but it’s not taking at all – maybe because he led with techniques on grooming minors? Vir asks details about the operation, and again Armitage passes, telling them that Hepzibah and Asenath will be over in a bit to talk doctrine.

Vir refuses refreshments, continuing to sip on the drink they brought with them, but agreeing to an ankle massage. They make some headway with Armitage in stressing Star’s plans to glam up the Church.

Hepzibah and Asenath arrive, the latter pretty twitchy – well, very twitchy – and Hepzibah taking the conversational lead. Hepzibah repeatedly stresses keeping upper management happy, and Star’s need to attend to that, though they’ve been working to buy her time. Asenath is ready to keep everyone in line – is there anyone else who needs “doctrinal correction?” Vir tells her Star’s designing a new look for everyone, and Asenath zones out thinking about her future whipping-cultists leathers. She does add that they really really really don’t want to draw the attention of the Inquisitors from the Church hierarchy.

Vir tries to leave, but is wrapped in conversation by Hepzibah, who is looking to learn as much as she can about Star’s plans and Vir’s relationship to her. On Vir stressing that all communications should go to them, not Star, Hepzibah becomes convinced Vir’s plotting a coup against Star.

Eventually, the evening wraps, and Vir goes to kiss everyone goodnight. Armitage accepts happily, and hopes he’ll see them again soon. Hepzibah interposes herself between Vir and Asenath, who’s really too twitchy for anyone else to get in her personal space, but returns her own kiss.

Vir heads home and tells Star all. They focus on the local group’s franchise role with respect to the Church hierarchy as a problem, along with the Inquisitors. Star says it might be time for a doctrinal review so she can gather info as to how far they’ve gone astray, unless someone else would be better? Vir’s up for the job, and will talk it over with Paragon: they can double-team them after saving the hot boy from being blown up. “You don’t want to say double-teaming around Armitage,” Star notes.

“Oh, and Asenath wants whips & chains,” Vir adds. “Oh all right,” Star says, “there’s always one in a group: some get into cults for the money, some get into cults for the murder. Everybody needs an enforcer, it’ll be fine.”

Star sends her business manager to get to know Lavinia From Accounting at the Church, to get the financials, to make this a harmonious changeover as we correct doctrinal issues. They’re okay with a change of leadership, as Brother Tempest was excessively correcting some of the more prosperous members. So the Church accountant is onboard, and somebody from management will be in touch sooner about policies, procedures and doctrine.

Paragon polishes the visuals for Star’s presentation, and then heads over to The Five-Year Flan. She shows owner Anamaria Filova the message from the Gnus asking why they have so many baked goods. Filova is not amused, and less so as she recognizes Paragon as one of the upstart 4I punks. She throws Paragon out, but is willing to take cash for baked goods first.

Paragon takes a crack at the ginger fish lo mein recipe. She copies her copy to a virtual machine, and her attempt to open it fries it, but she’s able to defeat that level of defenses so it won’t be a problem in the future. The encryption on the recipe is insane, way more complex than the best corporate work she saw at BSP. She’ll be poking at that for a while. She could use tools, but doesn’t want to go through Night, as Night will ask what she needs them for, and won’t be satisfied with “Business, None Of Yours.” And there’s no way she’s going to cut anybody else in on the job. So, she’s resigned to picking away at the problem.

And so the evening ends.