Episode Twenty: The Spicy Job - kaseido/NeoTokyo GitHub Wiki

22 Genghis

Star got a message passed on from Sue. Professor Rachel Granger of the Kaneko Institute of Fashion and Design saw her on the train – well, she saw her suit from The Vesture Group spring collection, then did a photo search on her. She’s actually working on a book on the evolution of former teen-idol stars, and well, Star’s a special case. Star agrees to an interview and maybe a tour of her wardrobe.

Paragon gets a ping on her media search on the Team’s adversaries: apparently Yandarian Karpaev, fresh out of hospital after losing more body parts in the Battle of Tentacle Temple, attacked and killed his replacement as head of security at BADI. He was substantially injured in the attack, but escaped. She passes word on about Karpaev – if he’s a psycho, he’s not making smart decisions. Star asks if they’re likely to get kidnapped again, but Paragpn says will he’ll just shoot your face off – cyberpsychos are usually not subtle people. Star raises an eyebrow. Paragon:“Im not cyberpsycho!” “I’ll just put a pin in that one.”

Paragon goes through the data from the Wholesome nature servers. First thing up in the Shipping & Receiving files is a memo saying all physical samples moving off premises must be accompanied by no fewer than 2 Level 3 (SWAT-equivalent) guards with verified valid security contracts. So yeah, good thing the team decided to hit Shipping and Receiving.

About the bee: They did ship one prototype queen bee, capable of birthing drones able to pollinate in the wild, to their parent corp, Izanami, the planetary terraforming agency in the Spire, for evaluation. It went missing in transit. The courier was found dead and ransacked, and Wholesome Nature assumes a corporate attack by ConBrands. They’re rushing a second prototype to completion, should be ready for transshipment by 15 Moskva. See new policy re armed escort: double that, plus secure armored storage.

After some back-and forth discussion, the team decides to hand off the bee to the Dirty Hippies. Carbide agrees it’s better than setting up a hive in the backyard. Star’s in it for the honey. Vir says they can trade. Star wants a cut of the profits, but honey will be a mandatory part of the deal. Carbide doesn’t care about the cash. Skyler brought honey toast to the negotiation, Paragon got into it, and agreed to a larger percentage of profits in honey than Star wanted. Star’s not even mad about it.

About Friction’s folks: Friction’s mom didn’t work for that lab, but did work for Wholesome Nature R&D, and their HR files are exhaustive. Kaori Nishi’s file was closed out with a termination order 20 years ago, along with the rest of her team, “Terrestrial Predator Adaptation to Indigenous Pest Control.” No project files remain, and there’s a lot of redaction in Kaori’s file. Juro Nishi’s file was closed with a code for “collateral damage” and a cross-reference to Kaori’s.

Paragon passes on the info to Friction with a note that she’ll keep looking into “Terrestrial Predator Adaptation to Indigenous Pest Control” and the fate of Friction’s folks. After a pause, Friction sends her thanks and an NB100 tip. Paragon considers spending it on sneakers in case she actually has to walk again.

Star insists that Paragon come to her dance classes, and even Carbide pushes. It won’t have to be the morning classes, but she’ll have to go.

Vir remembers that Night has an agent who’s brought in some information on their sister, and talks to Night to see what she’s got. Night tells them that her agent is Randa Maxess, and Randa’s reported that her contact in the Sailor Scouts has gone seriously tight-lipped about what’s going on. She seems to be okay, but it’s a real change in the level of the gang’s discipline.

The Scouts have a substantial complex on Level 4. Most of the Scouts don’t live there, but Shan does. There’s security, but it’s at the counter-street-gang level, patrols and some cameras. That doesn’t seem to have changed recently. The Sailors are larpers as much as they’re a street gang. Yeah, they fight, but it’s mostly recreational, hardly anyone gets killed, and they’ve got decent docs. Nothing public on their narrative or whatever.

Vir invites Paragon along to snoop, and she agrees, though she doesn’t expect they’ll be sloppy enough to give her net access. They disguise up in hoodies and fake moustaches, which weirdly seems to keep them from the attention of the guards on the complex. It’s really pretty secure. There’s only one apparent public access point, to their night club, the Hi-Score club. They decide to return with the team in two days, when the weeb band “Powerglove” will be playing videogame music.

Star’s freaking out about her gig tonight, and invites the rest of the team along. Carbide and Vir notice that she’s freaking – and that she hired extra security and a sniper. Paragon learned to do a whole 30 seconds of Star’s dance routine in class today, so she’s psyched to give that a go.

Carbide asks Star why she hired Allspice as concert security instead of just inviting her to meet in a conference room that their sniper could see into. Maybe Star hasn’t been thinking super clearly?

Star goes to the venue early to do sound checks, and the rest of the team follows later. Paragon failed to get Carbide to comb his hair –“Why? It’ll be dark.” Vir’s in their nice green dress, carrying their Big Bag of Drugs. Jade Khansa is along to sell merch during the first half of the show.

Regular security extra Kenji tries to figure Allspice out: Allspice isn’t wearing shoes, and has her hair up, wearing a pretty green dress. She definitely doesn’t look like a bodyguard. Kenji’s totally giving her the hairy eyeball and awkward conversation. Allspice is totally chatty – she doesn’t need a gun. “Turning someone’s head to pulp will usually keep them from pushing a bomb trigger thing. I don’t usually do event security, I usually taste food to see if it’s poisoned and smash people’s heads to pulp.” Poor Kenji is unnerved, and gamely manages that since he does look like a bodyguard, they’ve probably got the event covered.

Star comes over to chat with them. She says hi to Kenji and gives Allspice the detailed once-over. It’s definitely Twirly’s face, and a full-body replacement, but nowhere near as high quality as Star’s.

The conversation is kind of a nightmare of the two of them talking past each other, Star refusing to believe Allspice was her best friend and drummer, and Allspice hurt by Star’s denial. Star walks away, more freaked out than before – the person wearing her dead best friend’s face called her mean – acting suspiciously like her dead best friend. She checks in on Jade, telling her to seek out any of the Team if anything’s off. Jade’s psyched to sell merch and get rich like Star.

Meanwhile, Allspice checks out the giant lizard in cosplay – she knows about the Gorn Happy Aura Fan Club. She helps get the Gorn up to a good spot near the stage, and the Gorn recognizes her as Cinnamon Twirl. Nazzan asks her to come to the club. Allspice demurs: “it has been recommended to me by therapists that I don’t try to do that anymore, cause it sort of - it’s a whole thing, if you attach yourself to the stuff you can’t have anymore you just get sad, and when people like me get that kind of sad it doesn’t go well.” She pops out a marker she uses for her own tats and grabs her arm and writes the Sweet T network address. She likes sharing music, and if you wanna listen… Nazzan offers sparring. She accepts, and pats her on the arm and slides off.

Star notices the Temple crowd and gives them a nod. Paragon notices Acolyte Amelie talking to Jade, and also notices Carbide’s really not into the show. Or crowds. Or loudness. Or a light show. And the last time he was at one of these things people were trying to kill him. If she wants to drag him off, he is absolutely into that. They head over to the merch booth. Paragon says someone from the cult may be hassling Jade, and Carbide gets close enough to intervene as the big scary looking guy.

Jade is word vomiting a lot, she’s really glad to see Amelie. She’s one of the coolest girls they knew and hasn’t seen her in forever! Jade talks up the new direction of the church but not Star helping with her singing or her mom working at the house. Just lots of merch, and the shootout with the Gorn, which she only knows 5th hand, but the Gorn were the heroes of the day.

Amelie fades off without seeing Carbide and Paragon – who might still have her mustache on. Carbide cues up a text to Star to send after the concert, not to bug her during her song or dance or whatever the hell she’s doing up there. “Looks like that little groomer girl form the oldschool cult is sniffing around Jade again, you might want to do something about that.”

After the show, Star heads over to the cultists, and Hepzibah buys her a drink. She’s got lots of questions about the future of the Temple, as does Lavinia From Accounting. Star wants the local temple group to lie low and let the corp heat blow over, but look into how the other temple franchises and the Mother Church are handling Star’s doctrinal reforms. Asenath offers FIRE AND SWORD! Everyone else appreciates her enthusiasm, but suggests another path.

Lavinia’s very suspicious that Star is treating the Church as a minor sideline, and refusing to do cross-branding. Star convinces her that she’s just looking to not damage the Church’s reputation with her “frivolous career,” nor splinter the Church by pushing too hard and fast with her doctrinal changes. Lavinia’s sold, and loves the focus on high-rollers: she’s going to start working on plans for when Star’s ready to ramp up with the recruiting.

Star catches Allspice as she finishes up herding the last of the stragglers out of the club. It’s another horrifying conversation: Allspice is utterly casual about having been turned into an escort/assassin, but is hurt by Star’s continuing suspicion. Star asks her to send her contract with RS Contracting LLC, the Retirement Services subsidiary of Cheerful Rodent Empire, to Sue for analysis. Star can’t DNA test her, because all that’s left of the flesh is Allspice’s brain – though Allspice would be fine with invasive testing or scraping around her chipware socket.

Star’s beginning to accept that Allspice’s story might be true. She’s horrified at the prospect of sweet Twirly being casual about on-the-job brutal murder. She tells her that she did a good job tonight. Allspice tells her that “the giant lizard really loves you,” and it’d make their night if Star goes over to say hi. So the two of them do head over together, Allspice taking Star’s arm, and Star frantically making “don’t shoot!” hand signals behind her back. Star boggles a little when Allspice produces a marker for Star to autograph an isolinear optical chip of songs for the Gorn.

Star leads Allspice over to meet her friends, doing introductions in a clearly hysterical screech. Carbide does not like the state of Allspice’s parts, and asks if they’re giving her a lot of pain. No, she says, she doesn’t feel anything at all, her head hasn’t exploded, and her handlers tell her everything’s “within acceptable tolerances,” so it’s fine. Carbide is steadily less amused.

He asks Star if Allspice is going to be a regular contractor. Star doesn’t know? She does want to find out the truth. Carbide offers scans and a tuneup back at his workshop – and is horrified that Allspice seems to have no concept of consent to doing anything to her. Vir slies up and puts a supportive arm around a wobbly Star. They agree to fool Allspice’s onboard trackers and take her back to the Hideout.

He makes the occasional grunt during inventory scan until he gets to the pain editor. “The FUCK! That’s damn near criminal! Mismatched parts could cause you complications? You’re having them. They programmed your pain editor to not let you feel that. You’re running the damn thing at redline because it’s editing out all the pain signals your cyberwear is sending because they didn’t install it right. I kinda want to murder your cyberetch now.”

Allspice shrieks KITTY!!!!! when Boo wanders in, because Carbide’s workshop is the place where the toys come from. Boo lets her pick him up. She squees at the kitty in her hand, while Carbides getting the readouts. Boo’s delighted to be played with by her.

Star asks, “Hey Carbide – are there any makers marks?”

“There’s like 57 different marks because a lot of this stuff was designed for other people and they put it in her. that’s not how you’re supposed to get your cyberwear, kid.” He asks if he can make adjustments.

“Ask Star, she paid for my time.”

“I feel like I was betraying my craft if I let you walk out of here with that shit. You know that click when you pop your sword out? that’s gonna fuck your elbow up if it keeps happening. they’re not doing it right and letting the pain editor cover that shit.”

He delicately offers her to call him for any work on her. He tells Star it looks like a corp budget job for investment reclamation, and she agrees.

“If you decide to do something about that, anything I can do. You ask, ask me I will drop shit for this.”

Star calls Kenji to escort Allspice back to the motel they’ve established that her trackers have her spending the night at, and once they’re gone, she has a nervous breakdown. The thing wearing her best friends face might be her best friend, and therapy did not cover this.

She follows up with Jade the next day and reminds her Amelie is an old school believer, and murdering people is not a thing we do now, we just fleece people out of their money. Jade hopes she can be converted, and says she didn’t tell her about anything.

“Next time you talk to Dr Desai, talk to her about Amelie, ok? Did you have fun otherwise?”

Yeah! I made all that money, and the Gorn was there, I told Amelie all about how they saved the day.”

“Yeah, she didn’t show up for that did she?”

“She probably had school the next day. Maybe Amelie could be better too if she had therapy.”

Star tells her that the song from the show she liked the best would really suit her voice, and tells her to send a recording after her schoolwork is done: “education is important, that’s how you review your contracts.”

Vir sends angry texts to Armitage for not showing up at the concert. They haven’t heard from him since before the battle. Star checks in with Tentacle Pope.

Carbide is working out his pique on a schematic for a comprehensive overhaul for Allspice.

Next day conversation was Star just screaming for 30 seconds straight and then explaining to everybody else what Allspice told her about what she is and why she’s doing what she is. Star’s trying to talk herself down from “how do we destroy the Mouse utterly.” Night is all in on whatever Star wants to do.

Carbide says, “We can’t burn the Mouse to the ground, but we probably can break Star’s friend out of there.”

Star says she needs to investigate to make sure she’s not the one who blew up the car. Carbide agrees. Is there any chance the Mouse blew up the car?

“Of course, yeah, that’s entirely likely, we were aging out. but it’s also possible it was one of us. It wasn’t me because I didn’t’ do it, but I don’t know about Allspice or Moonbeam. Last night she didn’t’ seem like the kind of person who blows stuff up? But I didn’t’ think she’d cheerfully talk about popping someone’s head like a grape.”

“That’s fair, she’s clearly been through a lot.”

“The line I always got was corp retaliation but they said their investigation never turned up answers, but I don’t know why they wouldn’t tell me unless it was a corp and they didn’t want to start shit, or it was them, or one of us.”

Vir doesn’t trust her: they didn’t introduce her to the kitties.

Star calls Desai of her own volition.