I stand stood in the Alleys of my ghetto 3 hours after my call to Kiera this morning, quietly vaping with my other hand in my hoodie pocket, holding my pistol as I wait for someone to walk up to me to get assigned a new job.
After another 20 minutes of waiting, a beaten looking man approaches me nervously, checking his sides with paranoid caution.
"A-aee you… Ms Lockheart..?" He asks quietly and nervously as he stands before me, shaking a little.
"Mhm. That's me. Why?" I ask, looking him up and down to try and discover if he's part of the NCPD but… nah. Considering his current state, he's just some random choom who got jumped and consider it a possible opportunity for a job.
"Y-yes… I was hoping you could do a job for me. You know, a merc job.." he speaks apprehensively and pained.
"Jesus Christ stop shaking will ya? You make yourself look like a fed like that you know. What did you have in mind?" I shake my head with a small smirk before kicking off the wall and putting vape away to give him my full attention.
"O-okay… sorry.. and th-that's… great. A group of Maelstrom guys, well… they jumped me a couple blocks down from here and demanded 10,000 eddies and my car keys or they were gonna kill me and take it themselves. I- I dunno where they are now but since you're a Netrunner, I hoped you could use your skills to find them and get my stuff back. I- I promise I'll pay you well.." he explains, looking around with paranoia as he outlines what happened and what he wants.
"You care what state the guys find themselves in after I acquire your stuff?" I question non-chalantly as he looks to me with a deadpanned expression.
"Yeah, fair enough; dumb question. Okay, I can get you your stuff back. How much were you thinkin' of paying me?" I query before he speaks again.
"Will 25 hundred suffice..?" He asks which I nod in agreement to, tilting my head to the side gently for a moment before back to normal.
"Sounds good. Could I have your OS info so I can contact you when I have your stuff?" I look to him expectantly, my eyes lit up light pink as I scroll my OS contact info.
"Y-yes of course. Daniel Reynes… my number is 027895440" he tate, saving the contact as he reads it before nodding to him respectfully.
"I'll have your stuff in a couple hours. In the meantime just sit around here. Sound good?" I ask, stretching quietly as he responds with a confirming nod.
"Okay, have a good rest of your day. Or try to at least." I reply before walking to the co-ordinates I was sent which outlines where he was robbed.
Upon walking for about 20 minutes, I arrive at a standard looking area of Little China in Watson, walking to an alley where he was robbed by a couple Maelstrom gang members.
I begin searching for an electrical box or camera system to patch into, my eyes bright neon pink as I begin scanning my surroundings with my OS and my light blue hoodie up. Thankfully, I end up finding a camera on the side of one of the buildings and begin taking control of it with my Cyberdeck, patching me through to the Camera system and displaying it on the Cornea of my robotic eyes, beginning to play back the footage at the time of the incident.
Unfortunately for me though, the footage Is out of view. The incident happened in an alley just a tad too far left so the camera's field of view cannot reach behind the corner. Despite this however, there's a brief couple of frames where 12 gang members with a large variety of cybernetic implants holding various weapons and robotic systems on their face such as 8 glowing red optical cameras as eyes, Gorilla arms and more is in view, confirming the theft of the man.
"Of course. Just my luck." I mutter before beginning to lean against the wall, moving the footage to the side on my Optical screen before patching into the main network system of this area of Little Chiba, frowning a little as I begin scrolling lines of code on 2 different new tabs and attempting to decypher and breach the Subnet before being briefly interrupted by dialouge between a man and a woman in NCPD uniform as they walk up to me.
"Fuck." I groan as I look to them, allowing the programme to run and trying to lower suspicion by standing up right.
"Officers. How can I help you?" I ask, mentally rolling my eyes as I remain focused on decyphering the code and breach the subnet.
"Sorry to bother you ma'am. I just couldn't help but notice you loitering over here with your hood up. Are you waiting for someone or?" He questions, awaiting a justification because of his confused suspicion.
"Yeah. I'm waiting for- uh…. The hell..?" I mutter quietly as I get locked out of the system, realising they have ICE measures in place.
"Who the hell-?" I mumble in questioning of why they have ICE measures on such a random network, moving the third tab to the side of my optical view as well.
"Sorry, we didn't catch that. Could you repeat please?" The woman now asks but with greater suspicion between the 2 of them.
"Uh… sorry, yeah. Just a guy I know sent a text to me, apparently he's cancelling our date tonight because he has to go to his sister's party. He does this a lot, the last time we had an actual date was like 2 months ago. I don't see why I'm at least not invited because I've literally met her but y'know; it's whatevs." I lie to them as I now begin breaching the thankfully weak ICE systems, providing a quick defence before returning to their line of questioning.
"I'm also waiting for my friend, her name's Kiera. We're supposed to get coffee at this new cafè just down town but she's running late because she forgot her bag. I just want one person with some decent time management sometimes, ya know? My friends, my boyfriend. Hell even my own family sometimes." I give a convincing fake laugh but the officers don't look convinced.
"You just said that you had a date cancelled by your boyfriend." He responds, almost alarmed now, crossing his arms as he points out the contradiction I just created through my lies.
"Y-yeah well the date isn't- wasn't now, It's at 8 tonight. I'm waiting for Kiera to go to the café with now." I answer, quickly solving the contradiction to lower suspicion again.
"Ah. I see. Well, I hope you're not waiting for much longer. And I'm sorry to hear about the date being cancelled." The man nods respectfully, seemingly wavering all aquired suspicion as my lies check out.
"Nah, don't be. Bastard cheated on me too, was gonna leave 'im anyways. He's just like "ooh one more chance, I'll change" and he blew it again. Shocker, right? I'm too optimistic for my own good." I roll my eyes, now finally having breached the ICE system and closing the tab; scrolling through available connected devices in the Local Area Network on the second open tab now.
"I see. Well have a nice day regardless." He nods once more before walking off with his colleague.
"Thank you officer. Take care." I respond neutrally as I continue to scan the devices, coming across a camera in the network with a view of the road through a traffic light. The footage shows a maelstrom member driving a car. I scan the licence plate before running it through a basic NCPD database and revealing the car model and owner which belongs to one Danial Reynes.
"Bingo. Got you now fuckers." I comment with a growing smirk, tracing the car back a warehouse near a highway using a triangulation software an hour away from my location; closing the tabs open on my OS and travelling to the location.