Chapter 3: Quick Meet
The character creation room went black, and then reality faded in. No, not reality, but a virtual one. The ‘memories’ told me that we were in Club Crystal, a Matrix club hosted in Atlanta. I looked around, and saw that I was sitting at a booth, and I was not alone. There were five other avatars at the table, and I knew they were my team. More importantly, I knew that we were all here to meet a Mr. Johnson for work.
“Everyone in OK?” I asked.
“Mmm, better than OK, Pussycat,” Tigress said. Her avatar was an anime-style tiger-girl. Which was fair, since mine went full catgirl. The others all had similar looks to them.
We quickly shared our builds, so we could work effectively. Obviously, I was a Human Face with some Street Samurai abilities. TechKat was a Human Hacker, though she had enough skills and mods to at least be helpful in a fight on the physical. Tigress was a Human Combat Adept focusing on ranged attacks, though she could easily go hand-to-hand if needed. KittyKat was the lone non-human in the group, having chosen to be an Elf combat mage, but she also had a spell called Metahuman Form that let her shapechange into any metatype, which had interesting possibilities. Lioness was our Human Rigger, able to do things in vehicles that looked as though they should violate several laws of physics.
Then, there was Cougar. She had gone with a Human Ghoul, who was primarily a melee attacker, but had ranged options in the form of archery supplies and throwing weapons, and had invested in cybereyes and bioware mods to regrow hair, and turn her gray skin to a more normal color. That let her look like a normal person, but the disease meant the treatment needed to be redone on a roughly annual basis. That left a great many possibilities, but also dangers.
We’d just finished when a man comes up to our virtual table. His avatar was a human, tall, refined-looking. However, something about it made me think it was… off, somehow. A mismatch, more than avatars normally were. Not the look, but the personality. “Ah, you would be the team I requested. Excellent.” He seats himself at the end of the booth, and says, “The job is a relatively simple one. Congressman Nicholas Anderson is an up-and-coming member of the Southern Conservative Party. Known for his moral purity, amongst other things. Unfortunately, his policies have the potential to be rather costly for certain business interests, and his moral stance has left him… antagonistic to traditional levers of influence.”
I nodded slowly. “I see, then, the job is to arrange a means for Mr. Anderson to become more amenable to conversations that he would otherwise ignore?”
“Precisely,” Mr. Johnson nodded. “Either that, or to seriously endanger or destroy his reputation, so that he has to accept support. The exact means are up to you, though it would be best if the APD were not involved, at least not directly. Coercive correspondence becomes less effective when there are official records to deal with, after all.”
“Of course, of course. Though arranging for an uncompromising man to become compromised in a more controlled way, and with discretion, as it seems you wish, is not something that can easily be done. Such things can be done quickly, or cheaply, but not both. Especially when the target is so high profile. So, the first question we should ask is what timeframe you wish this to be done within?”
Mr. Johnson nodded once. “I can understand that. However, there is a critical vote coming up in the Defense Oversight Committee, which Congressman Anderson is a part of. The vote is scheduled for one month from now. It is necessary for the job to be complete before the vote. The earlier the better.”
I nodded, as well. “That will not be easy, or cheap. Especially if you want it done properly, instead of just arranging for the congressman to be found in bed with a dead prostitute, or something equally graphic and likely to attract the immediate attention of the APD. However, it can be done.”
The man took a breath, and said, “My employers understand this, and your team has a reputation for getting things done. They are prepared to offer thirty thousand nucred for the job. Half now, half upon completion.”
Pussycat’s modified Negotiation test: 10d6 = 3 Hits, 3 Miss
Mr. Johnson’s Negotiation test: 10d6 = 2 Hits, 2 Miss (1 Net Hit)
Having a meet in the virtual world was working against me, here. Normally, my Glamour and Tailored Pheromones would add six more dice to the test, but those didn’t apply in the Matrix. Of course, the place was chosen because Mr. Johnson had information about me, which meant my Street Cred, thanks to the karma we’d brought over from our last lives, added in, raising it to 10.
“Thirty thousand is too low. Forty-eight, with half up front, and half on delivery.”
Mr. Johnson shook his head. “No, that is unacceptable. However, my employer is willing to do thirty-six thousand, with up to twenty-one thousand in advance. The full dossier my employer collected on Congressman Anderson will also be included.”
I glanced to the others, and they nodded, just enough to be seen. Turning back to Mr. Johnson, I nodded. “That is acceptable.”
“Excellent,” Mr. Johnson said, before transmitting the funds, the contact address for when the job was done, and the dossier. “In that case, I shall depart, and allow you to go about your business. I look forward to hearing from you soon.” And then he disappeared in a flash of digital light, disconnecting from the node.
After I transferred everyone their cut, 3500 nucred, and a copy of the dossier, Cougar frowned. “That… was too quick, too easy. Just, barely into the game, and already got a job, organized ahead of time, and with a rep attached to us? What gives?”
KittyKat shook her head. “It is likely a combination of the ‘new life’ and ‘group start’ bits. We had a substantial influx of Karma, nucred, and a free contact, each. We have Street Cred, as defined by the System. The simplest way to resolve all that, from the game world perspective, is to pre-build a reputation for us, based on our choices in character creation.”
Lioness chuckled. “Makes as much sense as us all spawning into the middle of a digital nightclub together. Wouldn’t be surprised if the devs set things so that when people died, they got an easier time getting back into the action. So long as they weren’t doing stupid shit, and playing like this was a murderhobo MMO or mindless idle-battler game, or some of the other things the newbies did in those first few weeks.”
“Haha! Yeah, I remember how fucked everything was, back then,” Tigress laughed. “Feels like another lifetime. But I guess it was, literally. So, moving to this life, how are we going to make a congressman open to a little blackmail?”
TechKat was already going through the dossier, reading at digital speeds. “Well, he’s really big on the religious angle. Like, old-school Christian. No pictures of him taking anything harder than communion wine. Never seen alone with a woman other than his wife and daughter. No vices on record. His finances, according to this, are all aboveboard. His campaign keeps the donor lists public, with names and amounts. Almost insultingly transparent.”
I turned to her. “Any entertainment out of the house at all? We need some way to get close enough to him before we can even think about making some blackmail material on him. The good stuff won’t stick with just some fabricated images put out on the Matrix. That will be easily handled as a smear campaign.”
“Yeah, he has experience with those,” TechKat nodded. “Three separate attempts over the last four years. His staff have good tech and PR people. They shut those attempts down, hard. Including one where they had a doppelganger on trid doing some questionable things with a lady troll. Not quite full porn, but definitely not something a married man should be doing.”
“What about the wife and daughter?” Cougar asked. “Could they be used against him? Not in the threatening their lives kind of way, but maybe they aren’t as ‘pure’ as he is. Big enough scandal on them will still affect his image.”
“How badly do we want to ruin this guy’s life?” KittyKat leaned in. “Because looking at this dossier, he has some very distinct and direct things to say about the Infected, talking about them like it is a moral and spiritual failing.”
The group went still. They all looked at KittyKat. I took a breath, and said, “You want to infect the man, and maybe his family? I’m guessing you’d want Cougar to be part of that?”
The Magician shrugged. “It is an option that can be put on the table. Between his rhetoric, and the way his party works, there’s no way that they’ll let him continue serving, once it comes out that he’s Infected. Especially when he’s fully a ghoul.”
Cougar leaned back in the booth, and says, “That’s a big ask, Kitty. The memories they put in about ‘my’ life say this isn’t a cake walk. Killing them would be cleaner, and more merciful.”
TechKat frowned. “That’s one play, but maybe we don’t have to completely destroy him. From the sound of things, Mr. J’s people want him in place, and compliant, rather than removed. So, let’s put turning them into ghouls as a Plan D or E?”
Lioness looked over to TechKat, and said, “I agree it isn’t a great option. But it is an option that we can put in motion. You find us an in on something else? Something that will work with?”
TechKat nodded slowly. “Yeah, I think I have.” She paused, and then said, “The daughter is the weak link, I think. Eighteen, might be a good way to slip inside the gates, so to speak. Maybe encourage a little rebellion.”
I nodded slowly. “I like that. TechKat, dig into the daughter, see what you can get on her. Social media, all of that. But that’s one option. I want more. Ideas, people?”
Tigress looked up from her copy of the dossier. “There is a big gala next week, celebrating ‘Liberation Day’, when the NCSA split off from the old USA. Congressman and his wife will be there, along with a bunch of big names from all the parties, and entertainment, business, and so on. Big time social gathering.”
“Ugh, I know,” I said, bitterly. “I got an invitation, but I wasn’t sure whether or not I’d attend. Looks like it’ll be a bore.”
Cougar chuckled. “But it would give you a chance to meet the target, and maybe his wife. At the very least, meeting the target will help us figure out a play for going forward. And since it will be in the flesh, they will be more susceptible to your charms than our Mr. Johnson was.”
“There’s an idea,” Lioness nodded. “A seduction, with the congressman and his wife, perhaps? We can work it at the same time as looking into the daughter. The congressman may or may not be a true believer, but who knows what his wife and daughter might think about things?”
“Subvert someone in the family, to make the evidence hit home? That could work. We’ll need to see what we can dig up, but at least we have options, now.”