Well, that happened

I’m writing this from a makeshift hammock on board our Cargo plane as it flies across the Atlantic. None of these things are by choice, I might just add. How I got here is a classic case of people taking things just a bit too far.

See, in the shadowy world of corporate espionage that us Runners live in, there comes a point where you have to take a loss and walk on it. When a Runner team makes a mess of your stuff and gets away, there’s only so far you can pursue the matter before it comes back to bite you. Most corps will take their losses and accept them, and then try to move on. But some are worse at letting it go then others.

Never deal with a company run by a dragon either

Gah. Not sure how the hell I'm going to write up the last few days. I am so angry on so many levels and feel a need to punch people around me a lot so maybe, just maybe, this will help.

Okay, stepping back. We'd gotten back from Atzlan and operation screw people over to double dip on the pay. Things had been pretty quiet since then. I'd been getting more and more quietly frustrated because, while I’m flush with cash, I’m also very much nearing the end of my upgrade cycle on my Augmentations. Most of them are at the a stage where improving them will eat more essence then I have (my Cyberdoc pointed me to an essence calculator app) to the point where whenever I add an item to the list and the result is 'you're dead'. My best bet is to go backwards and then start replacing what I have with the same thing only in an higher grade. Either that or somehow manage to gain access to Deltaware. Not likely.

So to blow off steam I’d been spending a lot of time clubbing and making sure I avoided anywhere that Blindsite might be because that would be so many levels of awkward. It also meant that I was spending very little time at home.

Deck-Con report, days three and four

Strictly speaking this report ends at the end of day two with the visit from the Jonson who had hired us asking for our status check. She also bought in a small surprise in the form of Abbey who had been added to the roster with her own brand spanking new fake SIN complete with VIP access and paycheck. So that was good, as we now had an extra set of eyes that had the advantage of being absurdly sneaky which would doubtless come in handy for dealing with what was ever increasingly looking like a pre-staged assassination.

Day three rolled around and we were now in action, as this was the day that De La Mar was supposed to arrive, give her keynote address and hopefully not be assassinated. (Well, hopefully for us. Not so good news for the Shadow community, but a job's a job, right?). Today we were in full swing with our plans, keeping a close eye on her schedule and movements throughout the con, as just about anything could be a clue as to what was about to unfold. Protect the VIP apparently means being pants on head retarded paranoid after all.

Deck-Con report, days one and two

Just when I thought that our jobs couldn't get any stranger, they go ahead and manage to become stranger still.

The Job started off on an odd note. The Johnson arranged to met us at the nightingale Clinic, a high-end body shop in the heart of Downtown Seattle. Intrigued, me, Freddie, Captain Cancer and Neon headed there to see what was going on and what this job was all about. On arrival, we were greeted by the receptionist who was expecting us, but addressed us by aliases and then showed us through to a consultation room. Things didn't get any better after that.

Inside we met with our Johnson, a woman who was taking the oddly anachronistic step of wearing glasses (Rather then just getting new eyes, because with the expensive suit she was wearing she certainly could afford it). She explained that she was hiring us for a very specific reason. We were going to be attending Deck-Con, the biggest Matrix and Tech expo in the world, because Danielle De La Mar, architect of the new "safe" Matrix would be there as one of the guest speakers. More to the point, there was going to be an attempt on her life as she made a keynote address on Saturday, the third day of the convention, Our job was to prevent that from happening.