| From: | Jaimie Nicholson <jaimie.nicholson@********.OTAGO.AC.NZ> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Report |
| Date: | Sat, 25 Jan 1997 14:55:22 +1300 |
>>>>>[One of our drones picked this up in the park on >>street
name<<
this afternoon.
The speakers were identified in their early comments as Evita and Ronin.
+++++Include picfile Ronin1.pic
+++++Include picfile Ronin2.pic
+++++Include picfile Evita1.pic
+++++Include picfile Evita2.pic
Here's the transcript of the important bits of their conversation:
(R = Ronin
E = Evita)
R: Okay, how much detail do you want?
E: [grins] You'd better tell me every last teeny-tiny, itty-bitty thing.
[Pause, half a minute or more]
R: Until I was about thirteen, I lived in suburban Tokyo with my mother. My
father, a gaijin, had run off years before, but I vaguely remembered him.
Because of my mixed blood...
E: Mixed blood?
R: I had some surgery, and training to get rid of the accent, so you can't
tell anymore. I'm about a quarter each Korean and Japanese, and half
Gaijin.
So, because of that and my lack of a father, I got into more than my share
of fights. That caught the attention of a local Yak soldier, called himself
Tetsu. He taught me some aikido... I think he wanted to get a little closer
to my mother, and that was his way in. I left home before he could though,
and joined up with one of the local Bosozoku as soon as I could fight my
way in there.
E: Hmmm? The who?
R: It roughly translates to "speed tribes"... they were gangs of a sort,
pretty tame compared to what we've got here and now, but we were almost a
go-gang. We thought we were so damn cool on our souped up 100 cc
scooters...
Anyway, when I was sixteen, we were riding around, scaring little old
ladies and pretending to be tough. Some wage-cops caught up with us
though... I got cut off from my chummers outside a 'Raku installation. The
rest of the 'zoku fled, and two of the cops started to rough me up some.
One got a nasty surprise from my shock glove when I grabbed him by the
groin, and I took the other one down with what I had learned from Tetsu. I
could hear the sirens of reinforcements on the way, but a patrol man in the
'Raku enclosure called me over. He told me that that was impressive stuff
for a kid, and would I like to apply for a job with 'Raku security. I
didn't believe him, but any port in a storm, right? Turned out all the
'Raku personel had been asked to look for nameless street scum like me to
see if they could be recruited for Black Ops teams. And thus I was picked
out of the sprawl.
They gave me a SIN, and an adopted father. His name was Damien Van Holde,
so I got his surname, and kept my own first name. Damien was a low-level
exec in 'Raku security, working out of the Tokyo HQ. He was fighting as
hard as he could just to stay in the same place. Thinking back, I guess he
made time for me though, and that cost him some in his career. Thing was,
being Gaijin, he had risen much farther than he could reasonably have
expected, through a combination of politicking, blackmail, and just plain
excellent service. He still had a few good secrets, but he knew his time in
the sun was just about over, it was almost time to retire. So he passed the
secrets on to me, but not in such a way that I would know it at the time.
When I went in for the surgery to get my headware put in, he had them add a
small chip to the encephalon, some ROM stuff that I could only access once
it became active. The activating signals were chosen so that when I needed
the info, it would be there. I'm not sure of all the indicators he used,
but I triggered it recently. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
He had planned out my career path for me, and he was grooming me for what
he saw as my glorious career. He expected me to get out of the street as
soon as I could, and move into the exec branch of the black ops division.
We didn't see eye to eye on that, I hated the fact that this guy who wasn't
even my real father was trying to run my life. So I arranged a transfer to
Seattle, way off the promo fast-track, and didn't tell him until it was too
late for him to stop it. From the ease with which it went through, I think
someone helped me get out of Tokyo, just to piss off Damien.
Anyway, after a few years doing black ops in Seattle, I got... I don't
know... soft? Whatever, I got sick of the ruthlessness required...
[Evita holds Ronin close]
E: You aren't that way now though. You did leave.
R: Not soon enough...
[They start to walk on again]
R: Anyway, as near as I can guess, Damien must have found out I had run
off, then gone to the possible victims of the black mail, showed them what
he had and suggested they co-operate to track me down. They want me alive
now, I guess when they caught me in mid-57 they hadn't gotten the "take him
alive" order yet.
[Pause, half a minute]
E: Ummm. What about the info on the chip?
R: It's a record of long term defrauding of the company by a few execs in
the security divison of Tokyo HQ. If it gets out it's not going to bring
down the company, just those involved, so they have to be careful about use
of corp assets in capturing me. There was more on each of them too, enough
that I could find them and check what they were up to... the power of some
of them scares me, but they still have to hide everything they do from the
corp... and the 'Raku directors have a thing about security execs,
especially the Black ops guys... they don't entirely trust them, so they
tend not to allow them into the mainstream business areas.
There was also a matrix address and a passcode... I went there, used the
code, and behind it was a host located physically in 'Raku HQ, Tokyo. There
was a hugely powerful Smartframe lurking there, just waiting for me to come
and use it. I did, and I put a few copies in various hidden areas of the
matrix. Unfortunately the host shut down shortly after. I figure that the
'frame had been hiding itself from the Tokyo sysops, and when I took it out
for a ride, the unauthorised activity going on tipped them off, and they
shut the host down.
[Pause, twenty seconds]
R: In my wanderings under the cover of the frame, I found out that there
was another hit team headed for SanFran... it's only a matter of time
before they figure out that they need to come up here to find me. I guess
Damien has changed his mind about retiring...
E: So Damien and his victims are after you to stop the info getting any
further... why don't you just spread it around? Make it pointless?
R: I'm not sure who's in their pocket. I can't send it directly to the top
suits in Tokyo, there's too much scrutiny of incoming e-mail for viruses
and so on, all done by the security people, so they could intercept it. I
could publicise it all over the newsnets, but who would care enough to
publish it? And I'll never get a physical meet with anyone important enough
to be above these guys.
E: Is there anything we could do? Maybe negotiate? Surely they'll listen.
R: I don't think so... do you negotiate with a wasp, even when you're
allergic to its sting? No, you just kill it. The only way for them to be
certain I'm not handing the info out is to kill me.
E: We better find a safe place, get some gear ready. We can see if the rest
of the shifters can help us...
R: Ice won't be too eager, not after the ear incident.
Transcript ends.
Analysis...
Half the corp-spooks in Seattle have meetings at that park at some point,
this could be a set up by one of our rivals, with the aim of wasting our
time or damaging our credibility. Do we care enough to take that risk?
Can we use the info? Ronin doesn't mention any names, but we can look into
all the 'Raku sec-execs to find out what went on, or we could follow the
termination order back to its source. We could of course just ask Ronin for
it, mention that we're into industrial espionage, offer to get the info to
the top execs at 'Raku. I don't know if he would believe it, but that would
be the easiest way. Or we could make that offer, then sell him out.
As to selling it, the info would be useful to 'Raku _pour_encouragez_les
autres_, but still, I don't know if they want to hear about this. They buy
info from us that hurts the opposition, not that hurts them.
We could sell it to some lower exec who wants to get in on Damien's
leverage game, but the pay there would be us speculating on the favours he
can do us if he wins the gamble, he won't have enough to cover our price
immediately. As a long term investment, it could be worth it.
I'll make inquiries as to who the shifters are, and on Ice and the ear incident.
Leave reply at drop number 7.]<<<<<
-- Geo <18:43:14/01-24-58>
>>>>>[Info request... anyone know of a gang, urban tribe, military unit, or
whatever called the shifters? >>amount<< nY offered for info that leads to
me finding them... contact me here.]<<<<<
-- Geo <18:45:47/01-24-58>
