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

16 Minsky

When Star hears that Vir broke their ankle last night, she calls Friction for a fashion emergency, not just a fashion challenge. Carbide makes his way to the kitchen grumbling: now he has to think about breakfast, since he’s sworn off kibble. It’s screwing with his routine! Paragon, eating a microwave burrito, suggests “Hey carbide, you could go to the bakery and ask why they have all the baked goods!”

“What a stupid question, of course they have baked goods. But I don’t think I’m willing to risk being banned from the premises forever for asking. What do humans eat for breakfast? How does oatmeal become food? “I had people,” Star says. To prepare breakfast. Paragon has many ideas. Oatmeal sounds like way too much work. “Are those microwaveable burritos, Paragon?” Excellent. Burrito and coffeepot, back to his workshop.

Carbide builds the fog machine with all sorts of options, ergonomic control layout, and absolutely will not clog from the mind control chemicals you’re putting into the fog, because that does change the droplet size. “Bespoke mind control fog machine.” There are physical controls on the unit itself, but it primarily hooks into an Agent, for Paragon and Star.

Friction comes over, and she and Starscream tear up their design plans for Vir’s outfit and start over, to build the cast in as a design element. During the discussion Starscream gets a push notification that Carbide wants to install an app on her. it's just "fogmachine.exe" and there is extensive documentation he is sure she won't read. She doesn’t.

“We were going sleek and tentacly, but now we have to go sculptural. Coral reefs! Friction, you remember about four years ago, that whole trend of 3d printed elements? They’re mega hyper out of date, but Vir isn’t gonna care, and the dude won’t. They decide to include antigrav, primarily for the floaty effect, but also to take most of the weight off Vir’s ankle. Star texts, “Carbide great job fog machine definitely read the whole thing need some help on antigrav boots.”

He he comes back down, looks at their designs, and notes the foot will still be putting pressure on the boot, just the boot not pressure on the floor. “You’re going to want to have them practice walking, it’s gonna change their whole center of gravity, literally, because it’s antigrav. I’ll get you a system that won’t pitch them head over heels when they take a step, but they’ll have to learn to walk in it.” He heads back to his workshop.

When they finish, Star slides the designs to Paragon – “you live downstairs, you have to go by him.”

Vir wanders in in neon green furry leg warmers. Star is aghast. “What, why would you do that? Are you sick? Is it infecting your brain?” “I found these,” she explains, “they hide my cast and they’re green, I love green. “They don’t hide anything except any remnant of sex appeal.”

Shortly, the antigrav is complete and functional and will fit under most clothing. Carbide had to make some compromises with the battery pack to ensure enough power, so it clips in the small of their back. Paragon drew a smiley face in silver sharpie on the battery pack.

Friction’s contact at the uni is appalled to work on something so out of date, and they’re owed one, but agree to build the outfit.

Shortly thereafter, Night calls a team meeting to interview a potential client: Spire Samurai driver Cherry, who was brought to them by the synth Channels. Since it’s a meeting, Dino is wearing a tie. Star notes that she once dated a Sprire Samurai player but didn’t go to any of the games. And of course Happy Aura sang the corporate anthem at the finals a lot.

Cherry looks like shit – more than usual for a Rollerball player, actually. It’s the third time this month his bike’s exploded when it’s crashed. And not in the ways they’re rigged to explode. The team mechanics certify them, and swear up and down the bikes are clean. But he’s blown up three. He thinks he knows what’s going on. And he’s talked to some of his buddies, and – if you could stop whoever’s fucking with him, that’s worth NB1,000. Now, if you could solve the bigger problem, they’ll cut you in for equity.

There’s a group of players – minor league and several from the Samurai – who want to set up their own team in Old Dome: the Dome Demons. BTS franchise rules state that teams have to have a high-net-worth owner to front expenses, which are paid back out of local ticket sales and a percentage of media revenue. They’ve approached a bunch of successful locals who’ve agreed to an ownership consortium, but BTS won’t deal. It’s weird, because their projections (done by a stats-nerd fan – yes, it’s Channels) indicate the potential for them to rank third in the league in ticket sales within the first year (after Koto City and Shimizu).

Channels explains that the Samurai are owned by Tiffany Nguyen of Nguyen Acquisitions, a remarkably successful investment firm. She has a reputation for ruthlessness.

The team is not surprised: “You don’t fuck with the mouse,” Star says. Paragon has issues with the definite article. Carbide explains,“There’s a trademark difference they shoot you about.” Star tells Cherry that of course the Samurai owners would be blocking the expansion: “They don’t want more money, they want all of the money. Not some of the money, not some of your money, they want all of the money, and they don’t want to share that money.”

“This is why capitalism sucks, incidentally,” Carbide interjects. Star continues: “You didn’t’ hear me say this but yes. You’re walking into something somebody else owns a part of and they don’t want to give you a piece of it. What you need is not a little collection of wealthy people, but somebody as big as the mouse, you convince them that they need a team.”

But Carbide thinks the idea of a Dome team should be a moneymaker even for the Samurai owners: push the local rivalry, that gets more butts in the seats. Even Nguyen would make it back pretty fast.

Paragon speculates that there must be something short term she needs money for, or needs not to take a loss for now, as the projections do suggest an overall revenue increase after the initial dip from a spinoff team. So she researches Nguyen Acquisitions: they have a lot of non-liquid assets, so they need debt/collateral for acquisitions. The team is her major cash generator, so that’s “spiking down the tent” of all the more speculative ventures. Long term profit is not at issue, short term affects her ability to acquire or flip companies. So a potential short term loss affects her upcoming plans: that cash flow is what potential sellers to her look at, to ensure she’s stable. Samurai sales have to always go up, never down.

“She’s in a position to make being unhappy lots of other people’s problems.”

Star suggests they give her a reason to choose a different tentpole, so her risk is diversified. “How do we make the Samurai not one of the anchor points of the tent? What are we good at that we’re about to disrupt already, that if we give her proper tipoffs gives her the trade? Say a revolution in biomechanical feedback loops for synths to eat?”

The synth digestive system would be another long term profit stream, and would open up Horizon as a consistent business partner. They trade enough on their reputation that that would be a really stable revenue stream, and their rep would rub off on her. They’ve seen a rise of synth activity, and the bakery suggests there’s a market in synth eating and if you can sell more food…. a rising star for production and promotion, Star as a face. Paragon adds that there’s a huge non-synth market for gut replacements, from colon cancer and “bullet cancer.”

Star notes, “What we need other than my beautiful face is enough star power to make everybody want this, so it becomes imperative to finish building it.” Paragon adds, “we’ll need the corporate entity ready to go and tantalizingly priced.”

Star and Paragon bond: they were both happy corporate cogs till their lives got blown up.

Star makes a call to Bolovoi. Design is going well, they just need funding to begin prototyping. The more funding, the faster it can go. Star asks for and gets a number for the fastest possible time to scalable prototype. “Make big dreams, plan to have that money.”

“So we just need a tiny little amount of money. That’s our startup!” Star announces.

“That’s a little more than passing the hat around,” Carbide observes.

Paragon has the solution Nguyen has the cash: “We find enough info for a presentation, slip it to Nguyen. This is what she does: provides cash infusions to build. Here’s something she won’t want to sell. She’ll front the cash because she’ll own it. That’s what she’s buying: ground floor ownership of cutting edge tech.”

Star asks if the venture could profit in time for her to not care about the new team cutting into her profit. Carbide says they need to convince her it’s an ongoing revenue stream along with or instead of her stake in the team. They actually want to show long term not short term profit.

Paragon wants stats for gut replacements and synth conversions. There’s nothing to touch this tech on the market and nothing in development: it’s a true monopoly. Nguyen will be the one selling to Horizon, hospitals, whatever. She’s a shark, she’ll figure out how to shark with it.

Carbide is suddenly having an ethical problem with this: it kind of screws a bunch of people. Star counters: No - right now synths are settling for a half life, a mimicry of humanity. Even the ones who love every second of their inhuman existence miss that. That’s why we go through that nonsense with the bags and the recycling.

Carbide’s afraid of microtransactions for tasitng your meals. Paragon says no, this is the burbly bits in your torso, synths can taste stuff now. Carbide grumbles that that’s why he builds all his own stuff: “I don’t owe anybody to keep it working.” Para gently tells him that having it exist will be of help. Currently it doesn’t exist and nobody can have it. One of the benefits of a shark, she won’t price herself out of the market. Carbide is cheered: “I can always bootleg stuff after she’s funded it. I wouldn’t be able to do the prototyping myself anyway without that kind of resources. Once she makes it, I’ll steal the designs and bootleg it in the tech forums.” Star notes: I will have the prototype. “ Carbide says, “My ethical qualms have been satisfied by theft.”

Paragon and Star argue over guinea pigs versus bunnies.

Carbide suggests they should look at the bike thing separately – it might be a deranged fan or something. Star agrees: “I guess it’s not always the corps.”

Vir drops a tiny jar of healing salve in Cherry's hand before he leaves.

Carbide will investigate the sabotage while Paragon and Star work on the marketing proposal.

They have the medical info, as Star is Patient Zero. They have public info on Nguyen. They turn to Star’s business manager: they’re mostly skilled in entertainment, but they should have a solid recommendation on who to go to. The manager reviews what they have, and says the hole is that Horizon passed on it because there was too small a market. Star says if it becomes a fashion thing to have this… once celebrities have it, everybody does.

Paragon says it’s all about presenting the data. Horizon is big enough they looked at their client rolls and satisfaction ratings of their current clients, and extrapolated, as they are the market. If they didn’t enquire specifically, generalized satisfaction ratings wouldn’t indicate a market.

Carbide adds that they’re big enough to be the market, so … Star picks up on it: it doesn’t gain them market. Carbide says their bottom line is already large, but Nguyen would see a larger bump from a smaller market because she’s a smaller fish. Paragon still wants more data: even if Horizon is right about full body conversions, meat people are very interested in working guts. Carbide suggests she pull carcinogen and pollution data planet-wide. Sell her on that market: it’s not big enough for Horizon, but compare it to the business she’s doing now. Star adds, lawsuit payouts for workers who’ve needed replacements, with alternative you pay less to make them go away. HR and risk management will want this as option to cut ongoing legal bills.

Paragon wonders, are there synths or people with gut issues in Nguyen’s family? She discovers Nguyen’s grandmother died of colon cancer five years ago. “You could have been a hero to your gramma before she died of this in a painful and lingering way, and I kind of feel I need to take a shower for coming up with that line of thought” – Carbide.

Star concludes she should talk with Nymph about poaching staffing from the Lab. She’ll tell Nymph when she comes over in two days. Star turns to working on show ideas.

Carbide wants to forensic at the bike remains, to discover a time frame, gear carried in and out, access to the bikes they needed to set this up, what kind of training they’d need, certainly they would have been under surveillance, so he could check surveillance footage specifically for time, dimensions of bag, etc. He’s going to go in the front door as the contractor for Cherry.

But there’s an issue of access to the Spire, since he’s wanted by Dome Ops. He calls Cherry to ask if he can get access to the remains of the bike, and is told the last one should still be in the trash. He tells Cherry to get the trashed bike out of the pile. Cherry solves the access problem by offering to bring the bike by. Within a couple hours – he was delayed signing autographs – he drops the crated bike off at a storage unit by the train station. Carbide comes by later, repackages the bike parts into bags, and takes them off on an antigrav sled. He’s confident he avoided any attempt to trace him via Cherry.

Carbide performs an exhaustive analysis, and gets lucky. The fuel tank is gone, but there’s a bit of the fuel line left, and he discovers not just residue from a microexplosive, but also a bit of a subspace trigger. So the crash was not contact triggered. With remote detonation of the explosive on the fuel line, it could have been detonated from literally anywhere. However, planting it could be done on a brush pass – by someone who knows bikes well enough to quickly plant it somewhere that would escape backstage inspection. It wouldn’t have needed conspicuous equipment, just access.

Whoever triggered the explosion had to be watching them somehow. They’d possibly have offworld explosive training, as microexplosives aren’t as common on planet as elsewhere in the galaxy. Tracing the suspect is possible that way: offworld explosives training + reasonable knowledge of motorcycles. The device itself would be very specialized to not be detected in the inspection. That takes a high degree of knowledge of motorcycles, so the mechanics wouldn’t catch it.

He bundles up all the raw data with conclusions, and hands it off to Paragon. The two brainstorm further lines of analysis: Was Cherry the focus of the camera action during the explosion, before the crashes? Then they could have been anywhere. They do think to ask Channel, who’s already crunched all the data on Cherry’s crashes.

The first was a foul by the opposing team, the second was a foul by Cherry, and the third was a loss of control running over a downed striker. Only the second was the focus of the camera. Therefore they had to either plant a camera specifically following him or were present. There WERE other crashes in those games and during the time period of the crashes, so only certain ones led to triggering the device. The bomber had to be onsite, though possibly through camera. Carbide would want to be onsite to do it himself.

Star asks, does a subspace transmission cause interference in digital broadcasting? Yes, and the glitches in the recording align with specific camera angles, so they can figure out a group of seats the bomber would have had to be in – and each of the explosions was the only time Cherry had a crash visible along that one line of sight.

Star suggests that possibility they were caught on video of the crowd. Carbide adds that he probably would have been there for the whole game: all this was designed for minimum suspicious behavior, and arriving late or leaving early would attract attention.

Paragon’s going to run ticket sales against the camera coverage of the seats with line of sight on the crashes, and try to determine if any of those tickets went to people with offworld explosives training or a history of working with motorcycles.