Forums of the Coast

Mysterious objects, no matter how small, have a certain gravity, like tiny, super-dense planets. They have a way of drawing the eye, and drawing the hand. This is certainly true of the matte black, lime green trimmed Hermes Ikon commlink sitting on top of the desk in Netizen's office. The commlink wouldn't look that out of place in the room surrounded by well-thumbed books on Matrix design, a wide range of historical topics, and an entire bookshelf dedicated to the security company Lone Star - that is, if it wasn't for the fact that there was a motley collection of figures staring at it intently: an ogre with a well-worn Lone Star baseball cap, a gruff-looking dwarf, an elf, a child-like gnome, and a human. The ogre, Netizen, and sent the rest of the group a message an hour or so earlier asking them to come to his place in Bellvue, and fast. There was more to that Hermes Ikon than seemed.

Even the least tech savvy of them might be be tempted to pick it up, fidget with it, try to understand its mysteries. Not just out of idle curiosity—Mr. Johnson said it might be valuable, but not to him. That means it might be valuable and dangerous, a combination that means it should be sold off, and fast. But before it can be sold, they've got to find out what's inside it.

"All right," Netizen says, turning away from the commlink to face the rest of the group, "so here's the scoop: there's another device built into this commlink, and it's locked down with some advanced file encryption. I was examining it, trying to figure out who owned it to see if we could pawn it back to them when I noticed the extra device. I can try and get into it, but I didn't want to do anything like that without anyone around in case the device alerts its owner. There could be some paydata on it worth more than the link itself. What do you chums think?"

"If ye think it'll make more nuyen, I vote yes," Doc answers in his gruff voice.

"If the security is sufficiently advanced, then what's behind it must be sufficiently valuable." Harvard mused, in agreement with the dwarf.

"Makes me nervous," Hecate says. "I'd rather not end up in a body bag at the OCME's. On the other hand, I want nuyen. I'm in." She slides a knife in and out of its sheath while talking, a nervous tic.

"Sounds interesting to me. Not to be rude, but do you want any help running Electronic Warfare for you? I don't know much about offensive hacking, but I know enough to keep people of your talents out of my drones for a while." Weatherman offers, gesturing to RCC case hanging from his shoulder.

"Seems like an undercover cop? I wonder who this Bill character is."

After studying the fragments for a moment, Harvard took out a pen and a small journal, and presumably began taking down notes.

"I have a contact who may be able to get us some information. Though I'll probably have to offer them some of it. Can I get a copy of those fragments on a data stick?"

Netizen fishes a fresh datachip out of drawer and pops it into his ever-present bracers - or at least into the commlink installed in one of them. After a few seconds, he ejects the chip and tosses it over to Harvard. "I'm all for getting another set of eyes we can trust on that data. It's a mess, it's like someone's gone through and chopped the data into chunks and then ran off with half the chunks. It's an ugly sight in VR, big gaping holes everywhere in that mystery module. All my contacts will be able to tell us is 'the data is thoroughly fragged,' but I think I'm going to show it to one of them anyway."

"No way any of my contacts will know anything about this," Doc Shadow adds, before putting his commlink away.

"Brackhaven...bastards if I ever met them. Whatever this is, someone's getting turned into chum. I have a...friend at KE. Let me see what I can get from him. Anyone up for some tea?"

Contact roll: 11d6 = 5 hits

"All right, lets go see what we can dig up on this. Meet up at, say, 9PM, at wherever the tea place is?" Netizen suggests.

"Works for me" weatherman says. "I'll see what I can scrounge up on the net."

"I'll be there, with whatever intel I can get from my acquaintance."

"Sounds like a plan."

A few hours pass, and everyone goes off to get information from their contacts before rallying at 9PM in Olga's Tearoom, located in Tacoma on Old Military Road. The group is seated in a secluded, partially walled-off booth towards the back of the building. Even from this far back in the small building, you still have a clear view of the people walking along the sidewalk outside. Tea is served, and everyone starts to share what they've learned.

"I got nothing," Doc Shadow says, speaking up first as he commits a crime against his tea by adding soymilk to it.