October 21, 2070—Tuesday
16 February 06 - 6:03 pm
First thing in the morning, Lou insisted we go down to Orkland to see what we might see. I was cranky as hell. I had really been looking forward to seeing Victor, and here I was stuck in SF, forced to be celibate and professionally steely for another three days, minimum. I was almost tempted to tell Lou to let the big, strong orks and trolls take care of themselves. After all, we had already done the job we were sent here to do, and more to the point, been paid for it, so why were we still in God-forsaken CalFree? But in the end I held my tongue and slid sullenly out of bed. I liked Brick and Jazz.
Brick was happy to see us. It seemed Phillipa Shade had contacted him last night and arranged an interview with him for that afternoon. He was grateful his people’s grievances were finally going to be aired in a forum where people would listen. “Now we’re going to see some changes around here,” he grinned with that touching spark of hope and civic feeling I’d seen in all the youngsters at the community center. He also mentioned that thanks to our warning, they had been able to hire Knight Errant security for the fair.
“Well, see there?” Delta said after we’d left Brick. “They’re set for the fair. We can go home now.” And she gave the same arguments that had run through my head this morning. But now that I was awake and had already committed myself, I shook my head, and Lou started saying some rather impolite things about KE’s competence.
“Let’s at least take a look around,” I said.
So we cruised through the neighborhoods of Orkland, on the lookout for anything out-of-the-ordinary like PANs too technologically advanced for the area or activity in supposedly empty buildings. We split into two groups to cover more area, Tomi and I taking the rest of the softies under our protection. I had Jerk with me, so I figured we would be the first to find something suspicious, but all we saw was a series of abandoned lots, folks cleaning the area up for the festival, and even a few pavilions being erected. It was Tomi who spotted something disquieting in a deserted office building and called everyone in. It looked like some kind of incendiary device hooked to ceiling. No actual accelerant or explosive element yet, which meant someone intented to finish assembling the bomb in the next couple days. We might be able to catch the fraggers if we could keep an eye on this thing. So Lou summoned a watcher to keep an eye on the thing and gave it the following instructions: “If meat touches this dark spot, come tell me. And don’t die.” The little blob of light giggled and said, “Ok, boss!” and started hovering around the device like a distracted fish, humming to itself. I am thrilled that I did not pursue a magical career that would force me to engage with such idiot creatures on a regular basis.
We finished our sweep of the area, and, finding nothing else of interest, headed back to SF for the night. I hadn’t had any exercise yet that day other than trudging around Orkland, so my feet hurt but the rest of me was still trembling with tension. As soon as we checked into the hotel I propped one of the mattresses up against the wall and started pounding on it as an impromptu punching bag. It didn’t work as well as a real one, but it served to let out some of my aggression without harming anyone. And it was easier on my manicure than punching bare wall.
I called Victor before hitting the sack, making me all the more irritable about having to endure an empty bed. Damn, I miss him. How long has it been now? Four nights in a row and another two ahead of me. I am so not getting paid enough for this.
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October 20, 2070—Monday (later)
16 February 06 - 3:59 pm
We got the hell out of there. After ditching the taxi and finding a new one, we checked into a hotel in San Francisco. This time I insisted on having a real room, not a coffin; my nerves could not take another night in such suffocating closeness. Jerk immediately dived into the system he stole from the chapterhouse and Delta looked up the LTG numbers she found in Omegu’s commlink, so I left them to their research and took an icy shower to clean out my wounds and reduce the swelling in my shoulder. That earth elemental smacked me good; no spaghetti straps for me until this bruise disappears. Ugh.
By the time I’d finished my shower, tied up my hair, and went through my stretching exercises, Delta had finished working on the commlink. It had a very basic transaction log and 3 contacts. They were: Miss Odessa Winter of Mitsuhama; Lance Winland of Wuxing; and Lisa Pipman of Saeder-Krupp.
Jerk had also unearthed some information from the chapterhouse system. There were spreadsheets organizing kids into community projects for things like providing shelter for homeless, helping displaced SF citizens find jobs, etc. This sounded sweet and dandy on the surface, but digging a bit deeper found somewhat more ominous verbage, such as “relocation centers” for said homeless, and something about shipping new members across borders, but only those who have no family to notice. That can’t be for their own good. Jerk had also found a particularly encrypted file in his pile of data which he eventually determined held very specific notes about a dozen monetary transactions of about 2k each and invoice of Humanis’s service for Phoenix, including a future dates for clearing areas for construction. One of those future dates was in four days.
Before we could discuss or react in any way to this information, someone knocked on the door. Del peered out the keyhole and reported subvocally a human woman and a troll male. Jerk told us her PAN claims she is Phillip Shade who reports for KSAF. I’ve heard something about KSAF, even in Seattle. It’s an incredibly successful new organization with an uncanny knack for being in the right place at the right time. There’s even a rumor that Dunklazan feeds them their information. Could someone have told her we have a story?
She immediately confirmed this after Delta greeted her through a chained and partially open door. “Hello,” she said pleasantly, though a little uncertainly. “This might sound kind of strange, but I was told that the people who are in this room might have some information useful to me.”
“I see…” Delta replied. We had a quick subvoc conversation before deciding to let her in. “Have her bodyguard come in too,” Lou muttered. “It will look odd if he is just loitering in the hall.”
“Boyden, come in,” Phillipa called when Delta relayed this to her and the giant man ducked in. After determining that the door would hold his weight, he leaned back against it, his elbow casually propped up on a 2x4 walking stick.
“I am sorry to come unannounced,” Phillipa said after she had made herself comfortable on the sofa, “but it is KSAF’s policy to go where the news is.” She smiled that famously sweet smile and asked if she could record our conversation. Delta made it clear that we have no wish to be identifiable in any way and that the tape could not be used in the televised report in any way. Phillip agreed.
“Now what do you have for me?”
“We have indeed recently come into possession of some information indicating deep corruption in the area of Orkland,” Delta replied, then added as tactfully as she could, “However, we are a commercial enterprise, so we would require some amount of remuneration to hand over this hard-won data.” I touched my shoulder tenderly and frowned to make her point.
Phillipa eyes focused close like she was reading notes scrolling across her contacts. “If you give me the encrypted file, the file from shelter, and a first-hand account of your encounter with the thugs, I am authorized to give you this certified credstick.”
She had no idea how much was on the credstick or even what her instructions meant, but since we hadn’t been expecting to get paid at all anyway, we agreed to it. Jerk transferred the info to her commlink and Delta allowed herself to be interviewed. Lou hid in the bathroom and watched Phillipa astrally to make sure she wasn’t bluffing. He told us afterward that she had seemed genuinely shaken and troubled by our news, so we believed her when she promised to do all in her power to prevent any more unpleasantness.
“Whatever you do, it should be soon,” I warned her in a low voice. “They hit next in four days.”
“I see,” she said softly. “It will be soon, then.”
We checked the credstick immediately upon her departure. 17,500. Not bad.
Lou put a call through to Brick at the Orkland community center.
“Hey, wazzup?” Brick greeted him.
Lou cut right to it. “Something bad is going to happen in four days.”
“What?” Brick said in some confusion.
“Humanis has employed someone to do something destructive in four days.” Lou clarified. “We don’t have a location, though.”
“I do,” said Brick. “We are having a street fair in four days.”
Looks like our work’s not quite done yet. I sighed and left off packing my bags for a return trip. In the meantime, Tomi called up the front desk to lodge some spurious complaint about our quarters, and we all change rooms for the night.
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