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September 30, 2045.
Dear Anastasius Foch,
I am under no illusion that you handle suspense poorly, but wouldn't you admit that it is getting to you?
Anyway, it was wednesday noon when Shark woke up at his normal time. Zona was already at the Clinic so he and Kid Stealth proceeded to do a high powered workout. Bench pressing four or five hundred pounds over one hundred times. After flexing their muscles they proceeded to the regualr morning meeting place: The Web.
Since it was noon somewhere they ordered drinks and talked with Spydr about a job she had recieved. The prospective employer had asked for a meeting that day at 2000 hours. The short notice and lack of details annoyed Shark but any amount of time and any amount of details will do this, so both Kid Stealth and Spydr paid him no heed.
In the interem, Kid Stealth set off to secure the surrounding blocks and did so quite effectively. Unfortunately for the thirty-three bums and vagrants that called the area home it was at the cost of their lives. Shark used the time to prepare his weapons and leave a message for Mr. Jiovonazo regarding the bodies and evidence, he would recieve a return on the call at 0100 the next morning, more on this later.
The meeting place was a street corner up in Coon Rapids. I can remember when it was not a hole like it is today, but merely a section of town that was considered the boondocks where friends would not go to visit friends. "Friends don't let friends move to Coon Rapids" as the saying went.
When a local bum began rolling around his can cart they knew the meeting was about to begin. This was one of the small benefits of Kid Stealth's little escapade. The other was that he discovered three of the "bums" were not urban unfortunates but really agents of Arasaka who were unwise enought to carry their ID's.
This bum eventually rolled up to where Spydr and Shark were waiting by one of Bear's trucks. Note: Bear is my driver, and a good one at that, who always has an extra beater truck sitting around. When the apparently drunked bum got near them, both heard him mumbling about "Rosa." This did not bother them appreciably but were I there I do not know what I would have done for obvious reasons. After some threatening and badgering the bum left behind a vid phone and promptly departed. One comment the "bum" made was that Shark would not shoot him because it did not match their "profile" of him; this infuriated him to no end.
Spydr and Shark then watched quite a little video display. It energized and began to communicate with them. In the background was Mount Fuji, in Japan, before the 2010 eruption, making it obviously fake. The foreground was a pagoda, with red beams and a lacquered black desk. Seated at it was the man they would come to know as Mike. An indescript caucasian man approximating middle age would make them an offer they could not refuse.
The deal was to recruit one assassin, break and enter into one 3M Corporation archology, and then assassinate one person who needed assassination. Each job would net each participant one half of a million nuyen. The person was unnamed, the recruit also, and the subject of the B&E also undetailed. This caused Shark to rant at Mike about the professionalism behind being a Johnson. He expounded on the mutual risk between the contractor and the contractee, and that no one takes jobs unless the specifics are named. Mike, he said, would just have to risk his precious security on offering them the job and that if he thought we might decline he would be wise to take his Jap ass elsewhere.
Shark must have been having a bad dey because he hadn't had sex with Zona or not shot anything, because Spydr reprimanded him to no avail. In response, Mike assured them that they could decline any phase at no risk, should it's terms be unacceptable. Just like Book of the Month Club!
In the end they acquiessed, and recieved the details to the first job. Recruit an assassin named Kazure. He would be at The HOL, on 78th street and Fox, on thursday nights at 2000. A phone number was given to reach this Kazure, as well as a number to call Mike at upon completion of the job.
By 2330 they wrapped up the meeting, and returned to the Compound. Shark left Half-pint to watch Zona at her apartment because he had loads of work to do. He and Legs researched FabCon (3M) on their own and compared notes. Shark located Corporate COC, and public information. Legs went to Mo and began to dig up more shadowy information.
They found basically two interesting things: a micro-dot on Shark's picture and Urban Renewal in Coon Rapids by 3M. Moriarty found the micro-dot on Shark's picture which required a trip up to Mo's pre-pubescent shrine dedicated to the pair of fantasticly beautiful women he had wet dreams about: Spydr and Zona. The dot contained basically a profile and dosier' of information on Shark. Before Shark left Mo had promised that he would look into 3M. It would be his undoing.
Around two or three in the morning, everyone was asleep. Like normal people they all devoted as little time as possible to the wasteful practice of sleep. But they needed it.
The following day, thursday Shark had a meeting with Mr. Jiovonazo of GenTech. There he found out the following: The computer imaging was too good, too fast, and too real from the murder at The Web. The guns and car itself had no fingerprints on them. They are only 80% sure that the driver could have killed all three from the ballistics. Finally, that skill chips had been found in the driver. They had signs of a lingering virus, which was effectively an initiation sequence to his cybernetics. In effect the Driver had become a robot waiting for the command word. All in all a scary prospect. Every piece of the driver's cybernetics had come from ZetaTech or TTI, except pieces that the virus had control strings for, those were of unknown manufacture. The code was a string of numbers that spell TRAITOR in a butchered Japanese to English translation.
I hope I am keeping your intrest; I know it was keeping theirs. But I will admit that I am not putting the effort into this letter (or the others) that I do when I write a Best-Seller under a pseudonym for some spending cash.
Until later,
Richard Raven
Also, C8-SV-ZH-NL-3L-ED
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