Genos 'Harker'
Little China, Watson, Night City.
15:43
"Thanks again for everything Misty, I'll see you and Vic in a couple of days." I say as I make my way out of the door, and into the street, parcel of goods in hand.
"See you then Genos." Were her parting words to me as the bell above the door gave it's usual chime as it swung shut behind me, my mind already wandering as I took the path towards home, I wondered mostly what I would do to pass the time for the next couple of days.
I wasn't a very social person before all this I don't think, but it would be a lie to say that I didn't mind my isolation, the big and short of it was, I liked being around people, having friends.
The sounds of Night City rushed in around me as I made my way out of the passage Misty's shop was tucked into, my eyes drifting to the dolls dancing in the glass of the strip club across the way.
'Maybe I should hit up Lizzies...or better yet, just try out a BD, you don't need any specific cyberware for that I don't think.'
The traffic of the city became a background noise as I made my way to the giant megabuilding in the distance, the now familiar rumble of an AV flying overhead, disappearing between the skyscrapers. Music coming from the many storefronts in mismatched rhythms, competing against the noise of people living.
I adjusted my grip on the parcel as people weaved around me on the crosswalk, the way back to Megabuilding H10 wasn't that unfamiliar anymore, the first time I had made this trip, I'd spent most of it relying on MK's way finder on my HUD, but maybe it was just me remembering exploring Night City back when it had been a game, I realized that I knew these streets.
My eyes roamed across the city as I went passed an old noodle stand with faded lanterns, and offered a nod to the old man that ran it, which he stiffly returned, as I took a shortcut down a market street full of vendors hawking their wears.
People moved around me in waves, salarymen rushing through the streets, Tyger Claws sitting on the hoods of their parked cars laughing to themselves, getting quieter as they kept a bead on me as I walked passed, before picking up their conversations as I get further from them.
Eventually I made it to the towering structure of of Megabuilding H10, the plaza outside as busy as ever, a foodstall I recognized from before caught my attention the air was filled with the smell of fried noodles and spices that my artificial sense of smell automatically flagged.
The vendor, noticing me staring at his stall, and apparently unafraid of me called out with a grin. "Hey! Chrome boy! I see you staring! Best street food you'll find this side of the free states."
I looked at what was on the grill and at the screen that had a menu on it in Chinese script that he could automatically read thanks to the translation software that had been installed by Laura. "What's good?" I asked him.
He laughed a bit at that, excited at having reeled me in, "Everything, but the skewers are what people keep coming back for."
"Do me a favor and get me five of them, and I'll do you a solid and not ask what they're made from." I said as I leaned against the bar.
"Ha! What you too good for SCOP? Trust me the way I make em, you'd think you ordered it straight from Embers." He said as he turned back to the grill, basting the synthetic meat in a sauce. "You can take a seat on the stool, anything under 500lbs, they can handle it."
[Structural scan complete.]
[Steel frame. Maximum recommended load: 227 kg (500 lbs). Estimated structural integrity: 94%. Probability of failure under current load: 0.02%.]
I took his advice and took a seat, the chair groaned a bit, but it held, he glanced at me at the sound of the chair groaning, "Damn, you're a heavy one, wouldn't think looking at you."
"Really way people been avoiding me all day, I was starting to think it was obvious." I said in response.
"Nah." He shook his head while turning another skewer. "It's probably that resting 'I'm about to flatline you' face you've got going."
I blinked.
"...Do I really?"
"Oh, absolutely." He pointed the tongs at me for emphasis. "Doesn't help you've got those eyes, either. You don't usually see that much serious chrome on someone who isn't an edgerunner, or running with a gang."
"None taken, I actually like my eyes, they stand out." I caught my reflection for a moment in the polished steel of one of the pots lining the stall. Black sclera, cybernetic yellow irises glowing faintly beneath the neon.
"That's one way to see it I guess." He said as he slid a paper plate loaded with five steaming skewers across the counter. "There you go, chrome-boy. Fresh off the grill."
"Thanks" I said as I looked down at the skewers for a moment. Steam curled lazily into the evening air, carrying a smell that was equal parts sweet, smoky and aggressively artificial, whatever it had been before becoming SCOP, the sauce had long since won the battle. I picked one up and took a bite.
...
"Huh."
The vendor folded his arms with a smug grin. "Told you." He says to me.
"No..." I looked at the skewer again before taking another bite, slower this time. "This is actually... really good."
"See?" he laughed. "People hear 'synthetic compressed protein' and suddenly they're food critics. Sauce fixes everything."
"I don't know if I'd go that far." I said as I grabbed another bite.
"You don't have to agree Genos, you just have to keep buying 'em."
I took another bite, considering it. "I think the sauce is doing about ninety percent of the work."
[INCOMING CALL- MEGABUIDING H10 LOWER FLOORS- MANAGEMENT]
Our conversation is interrupted by a call coming through for me, I held up a finger for him to realize I'd be taking a call.
"Mr. Harker." Kuya Jun popped up in the corner of my vision, this time in more clothing then the last time we had talked, he looked a bit worried about something.
"Hello, Mr. Jin." I said. "Is there a problem?"
He sighed at my question. "Well, normally this would be an email, but given the circumstances I thought it would be better if I called." A pause here, like he was gathering himself before he broke some bad news my way. "We've recently had a data breach on our end, and before you try and say anything I'd like to remind you subsection C of the rental agreement you signed, EZ Estates cannot be held liable for any personal information accessed or compromised as a result of a third party security incident affecting our network infrastructure."
I looked at the remaining on my plate. "Yeah," I said. "I read the contract, Data breaches happen, you've covered yourself legally what's the rest of it?"
"The attack was targeted," he said. "It's why I'm even calling you instead just sending an email you're way, which I'll still be doing for legal reasons." His voice got a bit distracted like he was trying to remember or read something. "The breach wasn't aimed at our general tenant database, I mean they still combed through it but they started with the parking registry, specifically the one rented to a modified black Shion, your slot, and they worked their way up from there."
"What did they get?" I asked mind already running through what I'd have to do, if this was who I was thinking it was.
"Payment records, building access logs and what information we had on file about you and your unit." He said. " I don't know who you pissed off, but whoever it is, sure put a lot of effort into tracking you down, I would watch my back if I were you, actually I'd prefer if you sorted it out before whoever this is comes knocking."
I looked at the Megabuilding entrance, the busy crowded lobby and the elevator shaft visible in the distance. "Yeah, I've got an inkling on who this might be, I'll deal with it."
"Right, again please deal with this before it causes trouble for me...and the other residents, it's half the reason I'm even calling you." He said as he hung up.
Guess Rex finally came knocking, though I shouldn't be making assumptions.
That was the obvious answer, but obvious answers in this city had a way of leading somewhere unexpected when you pulled them, and a targeted data breach starting from a parking registration was a reasonably sophisticated opening move for a grief-motivated 6th Street retaliation.
I turned back to the stall, the vendor looking at me with a questioning look on his face. "Trouble?" He asked.
"Nothing I can't handle." I said, finishing the food on my plate, watching him work, when I realized I didn't know the mans name.
"I never did ask for your name." I said.
"Cho," he said. "Sung-min Cho. Most people just say Cho."
"Genos, Harker" I said. "Most people just say Genos." Eventually after more idle conversation he handed my food, and I paid, I picked up Misty's parcel from where I'd set it on the corner of the counter and headed for the elevator, it was luckily on the ground floor already, so I didn't have to wait for it.
I eventually made my way to my apartment, after restocking on some ammo from the 2nd Amendment on the way in, Robert was a bit disappointed I didn't buy anything else, but I promised him I'd swing by the range to pass the time later.
I scanned the apartment before entering, the Search Eye running an active sweep of the corridor and the room beyond the door, checking for anything that hadn't been there when I'd left that morning. Seeing that everything was alright, I made my way into apartment 804, it was exactly the way I had left it. I set the food container down on the low table by the TV and opened up Misty's parcel.
The wrapping came apart easily enough, inside where three incense burners on top, wrapped individually in bubble wrap, the smell still strong enough for me to pick them apart even without lighting them. I set them on the desk like stand that ran behind and around the couch.
The dream catcher was underneath, the geometric pattern of it catching the apartment light in thin silver lines, the wire and thread work intricate enough that I spent a moment actually looking at it before I crossed to the bedroom and found a place for it on the wall above the bed. The frame was lightweight, easy to mount on the single adhesive hook Misty was thoughtful enough to pack for me.
I stepped back and took it all in, while not much of an improvement, it at least looked like someone lived here.
I made my way back to toss away the packaging when I realized the bag wasn't empty, there was something rectangular still sitting in the bottom of the parcel wrapping, I picked it up and looked inside.
A deck of tarot cards.
The same kind she'd used for the readings, the cards were a bit heavy and slightly textured, the artwork on the back cover a repeating geometric pattern of black and gold. I turned the deck over in my hands.
Huh...guess she noticed how much stock I put in them, I should get her something as a thank you.
I set the deck on the stand beside the incense and lit the first bundle, the palo santo compound, the way she had shown me, holding the tip to the flame until it caught and then letting it settle into its slow burn. The smell moved through the apartment immediately, warm and slightly resinous, nothing like the chemical undertone that had been sitting in the air since I moved in.
I got a bottle of soda from the vending machine in the corridor and came back and sat on the couch and let the smell do what Misty had said it would do.
'MK.'
[YES.]
'Can you track where the hack originated from?'
[ATTEMPTING TO QUERY EZ ESTATES NETWORK LOGS REMOTELY.]
About ten minutes passed with me channel surfing when text filled my HUD.
[LIMITED SUCCESS. THE BREACH COVERED ITS ENTRY POINT COMPETENTLY. STANDARD OBFUSCATION PROTOCOLS. HOWEVER.]
A map of Night City popped up across my vision, centered around Watson , the familiar grid of streets rendered in amber overlay. A point of origin lit up at H10, my building, and from it a line began to trace backward through the network routing, the path the breach had taken to get to EZ Estates' servers.
I watched it draw itself across the map.
The line wasn't random, it was scattered a bit, but it was mostly centered in a route I recognized, tracing it back I realized the line originated from a street camera not too far away from the parking lot in Arroyo.
Someone had tracked me down using the cameras on my route I took to the Megabuilding after I killed Freddie and Sam and then using that as a starting point for the breach to get information on me.
[ASSESSMENT: BASED ON THE ROUTING PATTERN AND THE ORIGIN POINT OF THE BREACH, IT IS FAIR TO ASSUME YOUR EARLIER HYPOTHESIS WAS CORRECT.]
MK's text sat steady in my HUD.
[THE NETWORK INTRUSION ORIGINATES FROM THE SAME ACCESS VECTOR AS THE INITIAL BREACH. THE HIGHEST-PROBABILITY ACTOR IS THE INDIVIDUAL TEMPORARILY DESIGNATED "REX." ATTACK PATTERN ANALYSIS INDICATES TARGETED FORENSIC RETRIEVAL RATHER THAN BROAD-SPECTRUM SURVEILLANCE. THE 'NETRUNNER' POSSESSED PRE-EXISTING KNOWLEDGE OF THE INCIDENT AND WAS SEARCHING FOR SPECIFIC DATA, NOT DISCOVERING IT.]
I leaned my head back into the couch.
The incense smoke moved through the room in thin pale threads, the dream catcher caught the light from the window. The tarot deck sat on the stand beside me 'I've put this of long enough'
I ran my hands over my face, the calming smells now filling my apartment grounding me. I had been putting this off since the parking lot, telling myself it could wait, that Viktor was more urgent, that there would be time to deal with it after the neuroport, that maybe it would just resolve itself if I gave it enough space.
'Put me through to Regina Jones'
The connection took a few seconds, then her avatar populated the corner of my vision.
"Genos." Her voice carried the slight edge I was starting to assume was permeant. "I don't have anything for you right now, when I do I'll reach out, that's how this works."
"I'm not calling about work," I said.
A short pause. "Then what are you calling about?"
"Information," I said. "I need a line on someone. 6th Street, Arroyo chapter, goes by Rex. Should be reasonably high up in the hierarchy. Has a brother." I paused. "Had a brother."
"This personal?" she asked.
"Becoming that way," I said. "Someone ran a targeted breach on my building's data network today, started with my parking registration and worked up from there. The routing traces back to Arroyo and the timing lines up with an incident I had a couple of nights ago that Rex would have reason to be unhappy about."
"Already making enemies huh? Well I guess you wouldn't be much of an Edgerunner if you didn't piss in a couple of peoples boots."
"To be fair," I said, "I didn't start it."
Regina made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "They never do." she shifted a bit. "Alright. Give me a day max. I'll see what I can pull on your Rex and what kind of problem you've actually got on your hands." A beat. "This is going to cost you, Genos. Information on internal gang hierarchy isn't free."
"I know," I said. "What's the number."
"We'll talk when I have something worth charging for," she said, and hung up.
I sat with the quiet agent and the smell of palo santo and the amber map of Watson still fading from my HUD.
The tarot deck sat on the stand, I picked it up, turned it over in my hands, and started to shuffle.
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Authors Note: That's it for the Nine of Pentacles, hope you guys enjoyed it, I know it's a bit shorter then what I usually put out, but I got shit on for being to descriptive with my writing, and I thought I'd test the waters with a low stakes chapter, tell me what you guys think of this writing style.
As for the name; the Nine of Pentacles is the card of solitude and self-sufficiency, it represents someone who has built something stable through their own effort and is now standing in it alone, taking stock of what they have and what it cost. It's a card of earned comfort, the apartment, the incense, the small domestic details of someone making a place their own.
As always leave a like and a review if you enjoyed this chapter, and any thoughts on what you think I could improve upon are always welcome, see you in the next one.