[21:02:21] <~AndroidBlues> The sun, marred by turning clouds, is beginning to settle along the brim of the ocean as Ana Ng entertains Minako, Toast and Gami in the scattered lawn furniture along the deck of the Fu.
[21:02:21] <~AndroidBlues>
[21:02:21] <~AndroidBlues> “What’s your deadline on this little Red Dragon gig, anyway?” says Ana, her voice acerbically snapping high on the -dead- in deadline. “I ask only ‘cuz it’s starting to get late, and sleeping on this kind of thing is a poor recipe.” She stirs up the last of her noodle broth and tilts the container back, a little dripping down her chin. She wipes it with the back of her hand. “Not that it’s any of my business.”
[21:02:21] <~AndroidBlues>
[21:02:21] <~AndroidBlues> Having deposited the Wild Man back in the dubious safety of the hideout, there to rest, Sam Jae is ready to regroup with the rest of the team. The narrow alleyways of waterside Truong Sa District seem to bunch around his shoulders as he makes his way through them, early evening casting deep shadows as the sun skates past the tops of the sprawl’s buildings. They probably both have a pretty significant story to tell each other.
[21:05:39] DOTClaw [~smuxi@DE82259B.F5FFAC9E.DF662F61.IP] is now known as Toast_
[21:07:09] <@ambivalent> uno momento
[21:07:32] <Toast_> "Short, I'd say. Auntie doesn't like to be kept waiting, I bet." Toast is impatient - he wants to get home, back to the hideout, so he can log into the Matrix. Had anyone contacted him? "I'm sure there's some nastiness that she didn't tell us about, too. If the job wasn't bad enough already."
[21:12:35] <~AndroidBlues> Toast's waited all week for a ping in his securemail account - finally, one had showed up this morning. Raw text, the stroking of his avatar's probe and malware mechanisms revealing nothing more to it than that. The words: "oni says youre in".
[21:12:52] ambi [~ambivalen@synIRC-301A731C.hsd1.ga.comcast.net] has joined #bluesclub
[21:13:02] ambi [~ambivalen@synIRC-301A731C.hsd1.ga.comcast.net] is now known as Mina
[21:13:06] <Mina> sorry
[21:15:06] <~AndroidBlues> So he's got a space in the black channel, which might be better news if he was super into discussing the ups and downs of the subscription program for Urban Brawl Simulator 2054. Even so, it's an in to uncovering the oni - and maybe finding out what that illuminated figure knows about the web of danger they seem to have found themselves embroiled in.
[21:16:13] Aeolius [~Jamie@synIRC-B6153D69.dyn.optonline.net] is now known as SamJ
[21:16:40] <Toast_> It was going to be riskier, going back - he'd tangled with the 'Oni' as himself before, unless it was just a really good impersonator. That meant, even with the disguise work he'd done on his avatar, he still might give himself away. You could change how you looked, but you couldnt change your code. Still, it was the best lead they had on the whole thing.
[21:19:03] <Mina> Mina agrees with Toast’s assessment, “Sooner rather than later seems prudent. I’d hoped it’d be a simple matter of finding a few of the chips in use - then we could question the user and… I don’t know, follow the trail, no?”
[21:23:54] <~AndroidBlues> "Well, if that's all you want, you're welcome to go exploring in the hold again." She wrinkles her nose. "Mind the corners. I do a full sluice before loading cargo, after I shunt them all out onto the streets again, but until the end of the week..." She muddles her hand. "Let's skip the details. Just saying be careful." This might be Ana's veiled way of wishing them good luck with the triads. On a charitable assumption.
[21:28:04] <Toast_> Toast makes a face - but this was the place to start looking. "Wish WM was here." Maybe he could get another skewer? "Let's take a look, then we can head back and talk it over with everybody."
[21:32:52] <Mina> Mina nudges the troll, then stands up herself, bowing her head to Ana, "Again, we appreciate everything you've done for us. We will, of course, endeavour to spare you any further trouble."
[21:34:59] <@SamJ> Sam wasn't comfortable leaving the Man behind, but the latter had insisted that he needed no "doting."  Great attitude, what with a skin-melting haunt repeatedly showing interest, but hey, what can you do?  He slinks out of the alley, a gust of sea air -- in this place, just "air," really -- only further cements the oddity of it all; saltwater, one of the quintessential purifiers, is pretty much everything out here.  Oh well.
[21:35:23] <@SamJ> He pulls out his communicator and dials Toast.
[21:35:50] <@SamJ> "How's business?"
[21:36:03] <@SamJ> "In the neighborhood, just thought I'd check in."
[21:36:47] <Toast_> "Alright - we're going back to the really good skewer place, if you wanna come."
[21:37:06] <Toast_> Toast moves the phone away from his mouth to helpfully mouth 'Sam' to Mina and Gami.
[21:37:27] <@SamJ> "Hell yeah!  Meet you there."
[21:39:57] <@SamJ> A spring enters the erstwhile accountant's step as he pivots and wheels off thataway.
[21:41:22] <~AndroidBlues> "Sure thing, toots," says Ana, cracking her back with her palms as she stands up from her repurposed deckchair. "Just so long as you get that boat out of here before the end of the week, okay? I gave you the whole spiel about heat already, but really. Seriously. After a certain point money stops being worth it."
[21:41:22] <~AndroidBlues>
[21:41:22] <~AndroidBlues> They head down into the hold, the stuffy odour of the old metal rising and then being cocktailed with the pungency of metahuman habitation, old sweat and sour clothes. Easy to forget how bad the smell was: but as it rushes into your nostrils, the memory of their last excursion here is quick to come rushing back. One almost wants to look back, just to make sure the Bua Doan aren't on their heels.
[21:41:22] <~AndroidBlues>
[21:41:22] <~AndroidBlues> The crowding press of bodies isn't quite the same - maybe just a little thinner than last time. The noise is less, too, though it's still a dull hum that hits the skin and travels down to the heart. Stained trouser-cuffs and fraying shawls flick against the body as the runners make their way through the crowd. Toast can see the same skewer stand he risked his neck for before, being run by someone else now - a troll, not an ork, who
[21:41:22] <~AndroidBlues>  looks lank and disaffected. A nestling queue has resolved for the hold's single datajack, a couple would-be netrunners daisychaining their links in threes in a way that Toast -knows- is bad news for your braincase unless you have hardware blocks that people on this pricescale definitely don't.
[21:41:22] <~AndroidBlues>
[21:41:22] <~AndroidBlues> The circle of chipheads, eyes half-closed, zoning into each other, is intact - maybe a little larger. As Mina looks over it, she notices with a jolt in her heart that it's actually resolved by now into two circles, a sort of figure-eight linked in the middle that reminds her of something she can't quite place.
[21:41:43] <~AndroidBlues> music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6klvhV1zX4
[21:42:33] <Mina> pretty sure there's a spell to make things smell good
[21:42:36] <Mina> but I don't have it...
[21:45:06] <Toast_> "Wow, I didn't think this place could become more of a drekhole." Toast tries to sound light, but there's worry in his voice. Even for someone who grew up in a slum, this was ugly. "Whoever's printing these chips must be making nuyen like a dragon. No wonder our new friends want it taken care of."
[21:45:45] <Toast_> "Wasn't just users before, but now.."
[21:46:58] <Mina> "Oh, look, that's novel. No longer a circle...." She tilts her head at the curious arrangement, grasping about for the thing that tickles her mind about it. "But still the place we ought to start, right?"
[21:47:34] <Mina> Looking back to the others, "How do you distinguish the chips anyway? Is there a maker's mark?" She had never really looked very closely, honestly.
[21:48:47] <~AndroidBlues> Toast's right. That's the source of the reduced noise - and the reduced traffic. There are about the same amount of people in the overcrowded cargo hold, maybe more. It's just that bedrolls and a few of the more transigent business stands have disappeared - their space swallowed up by the double circle of zoned-in bodies, who don't talk, don't move but for rocking back and forth.
[21:48:47] <~AndroidBlues>
[21:48:47] <~AndroidBlues> No wonder Ana seemed uncomfortable. She clearly has few moral scruples about this little business arrangement, but you don't have to be in here for more than a few seconds to realise something's subtly wrong.
[21:49:49] <~AndroidBlues> sam can show up as he pleases
[21:54:53] <Toast_> "Depends. Most of the rings like to mark up their chips somehow - fancy colors, little stamps, whatever. Like a logo - that way you know what you're buying. Of course, that means other people can copy your mark, try and cash in off you. It's tricky. Dunno if the chips were looking for have one, though. That chip-head at the clinic didn't show one off, did he?"
[21:56:23] <~AndroidBlues> He didn't. They still have one chip from the line, back at the hideout - the Hong Kong hotpot WM purchased in this very hold. The vendor who'd been so eager to make a sale last time doesn't present herself at a glance now, though.