Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - Vested Intrest

Gash's shoulders slumped and a sardonic grimace marred his features as he replaced the holster and shotgun, shrugging into his jacket and scooping up the backpack from the ground at his feet. He had thought perhaps the kid's request for a firearm had been a 'test' of sorts from the Exchange. Now he realized the kid just wanted a gun...any gun...for reasons Gash preferred not to know. Too many young punks ran around with guns as it was.

"Tell ya what, kid," he said as he prepared to go. "You get yer 'uncle' to teach ya, and get 'im to find yas a gun too. Better ya learn that way. Ya gots to learn to walk fore yas can run, right? Get yerself somethin a bit less...er...complicated, ya grep me?"

With that he turned on his heel and headed for the front of the bagel shop and his bike. He was angry with himself for even entertaining the idea of giving the kid his only weapon. More for the prickling at the back of his neck, a sensation he knew was the memory of how he himself had gotten started running the shadows...a memory he conveniently refused to let come fully to the surface of his mind.

At the public parking lot, he slung the backpack's straps over his arms and mounted his Mirage. The roar of the engine coming to life was soothing to his anxious nerves.
Soon he was rolling smoothly through the Seattle streets once more, putting the encounter with the kid far behind him.

Once he was on the road 'with his tusks in the wind' as he and his fellow orks liked to say, Gash felt better - the disquieting scene with the 'bagel-kid' far behind him. The speed and responsiveness, along with the vibration of the engine - were soothing, and the ork soon let his thoughts turn back to the job he was currently involved in. He needed a place to hole up for a little while...at least long enough to give the contents of the backpack a more thorough scan.

Spotting a likely motel - he didn't want a coffin-hotel; they weren't private enough - Gash rolled into the parking lot and, parking the bike, entered the office.
He approached the customer service counter and announced his request to the bored-looking clerk.

The clerk looked up at Gash for a moment, studying the man and perhaps trying to decide if he was going to be trouble or not. Clearly deciding not he simply drawled out "Standard room is 80 a night." Of course there were larger rooms than the single bed setups should Gash instead prefer that, but overall the place didn't exactly have anything particularly 'high end' or even really 'middle class' to offer. It was however a place that offered the bare bones of a half decently sized room, a single bed, small shower/bathroom combination, very basic matrix access and an outdated but still serviceable entertainment system that didn't even have an AR interface.

Higher priced rooms for the most part simply offered larger beds, a bit more space and then there was the 'honeymoon suite' which actually offered some slightly higher end amenities including a hot tub and kitchenette.

Judge Intentions (Clerk) Cha+Log= 8 dice
1 hit

Gash withstood the clerk's scrutiny with aplomb. These places were usually crawling with vermin only a step or two above the gutters and the clerk just seemed to be doing his job. Besides, Gash wanted nothing more than to pass through like a

ghost; leaving no trace and little to incite recall. He beamed over the listed cred, adding a ten nuyen tip. He eyed the clerk knowingly and said:

"Just need a couple hours shut-eye. You c'n get another full night's fee once I'm done. Privacy's all I'm askin' for, ya grep me?"

'Charm' the Clerk= 3 dice
2 hits

Keeping his face expressionless, Gash maintained direct eye contact. If he looked away or fidgeted, the clerk might get nervey. He knew the tip would attract the guy's attention more than the new short-time tenant...and just in case this guy was running some kind of grab-n-run racket with the local gangers, Gash would have just purchased his immunity. Standing relaxed and loose, the big ork waited patiently for the clerk to make up his mind where his best interests lay.

"What ever floats your boat pal." The clerk responds in a bored tone. He'd probably gotten that sort of pitch before, but then small motels like this tended to attract the occasional 'hourly' client. It was simply something to be expected and he didn't seem to care what Gash's reasons were, so long as his creds were good for it.

Taking the proferred passkey, Gash left the office and its bored clerk and drove around to his room. He powered down the bike and set its alarm system to notify his commlink of any unauthorized tampering. Then, grabbing
the backpack and slinging it over one shoulder, he approached the door of his newly-rented motel room. The place looked pretty nondescript on the outside; resembling at least a hundred other overnight flops around the
area...in a word, perfect.

Gash slotted the passkey in the door's maglock, noted the dull chunk of the released mechanism, and went inside. The room was relatively small but adequate for the ork's purposes. Sleep being the furthest thing from his
mind, he sat on the bed and opened the backpack, laying its contents out on the thin coverlet.

Gash went through one item at a time, meticulously scanning and even copying images and making notes on his Airware commlink, and eyeing the package marked for Neuro the whole time. He wondered if the guy was at
that moment still sitting in his house, face practically plunged into the Matrix. He decided to zap a message to the human hacker about the package.

New Message:
Select Contact: Neuro
Encryption Keys Generated...
Message:
"Got a package addressed to you from the Exchange. Want me to scan it for ya? I'd feel better knowing I'm not scootin 'round the city with a bomb on my back, ya grep me?"
Send/Save Draft...Send
Message Sent
New Message/Close...Close

That done, Gash set Neuro's box aside, at least until he received a reply from the man, and went back to studying what the Exchange had sent him personally.

Gash got a fairly swift response from Neuro though it was a fairly brief, short and sweet affair. 'Sweet, just drop it off when you get the chance, no need to open it though The Exchange wouldn't be dropping off stuff that's unsafe. I'm still trying to dig around and see what I can find.'

Once he'd actually had a chance to look over all the figurines from the contents of the envelope, Gash soon noticed a trend. The figurines were easily identifiable as being two different distinct colours, in this case a dark grey and black. Some were clearly identical copies of others. (Please make a Logic + Intuition roll at -2)

Intuition5 + Logic4 + Edge5 -2 = 12 dice
5 hits

Gash studied the various sculptures closely. He was looking for anything; some unifying mark or signia, a common theme such as animal species or perhaps geographic location, size, material...something that would spark an idea of what the figurines signified. But stare as he might, nothing seemed forthcoming.
Then, thinking he might be missing the forest for the trees, he pushed the small pile away from him and, letting his eyes just gaze upon the pile without focusing on any one aspect, it hit him. The items were of two colors - black and gray. Could that be it? Could these two colors be the significant factor? He considered what he knew of black&gray combined...gang insignia, sports team uniforms, commercial and corporate logos...there had to be a connection somewhere, if he could just find it...

Then another thought struck him...why was he wracking his brain? Neuro was the geek of the pair.
Gash considered sending another message to the human hacker but decided not...he needed to drop off the package from the Exchange anyway...
Gathering everything up and stuffing it back in the pack, the ork decided to make quick use of the small shower facility before leaving. He'd not gotten an opportunity to wash since before prowling through the Underground - and fighting dire rats - and he was probably pretty ripe, to put it mildly.

Feeling refreshed and revitalized after a good bit of semi-hot water and soap, Gash threw on his leathers again - they were all he had despite their serious need of cleaning - and in moments was roaring out of the motel parking lot. He had a feeling between Neuro and the Exchange's parcels, a break in the mystery was close...very close.

As Gash was driving away from the motel, it finally hit him. He even realized why he'd not thought of it sooner.

Chess. Two opposing colours, traditionally black or white, though many modern sets used either simply lighter and darker shades of the same colour or wildly different colours entirely, or hell some were full on painted miniatures with little coats of arms. Usually you only saw those in AR these days but the odd gift or game shop still carried the odd real set. People still liked real things, just they tended to be more costly than most people had the money for. It even made sense, each figure represented a chess piece of one sort or another, and though Gash had no real knowledge of the game nor could think of all the names of the pieces, it wouldn't be hard to look up and he could at least tell that the numbers of figurines roughly corresponded though they'd still be short, not enough for a full set but some one was clearly putting that entire set out there somewhere.

Of course that didn't tell him who was doing it or even why, but it was something.

As the sidewalks and alleyways of the Seattle sprawl, rife with wageslaves dressed in corp-approved business suits, shop owners and street corner vendors hawking their wares, and the bedraggled and downtrodden

homeless wandering with vacant stares that no longer registered the disgust-filled glances of the 'beautiful people', streamed by, Gash paid little heed. He navigated through the streets as if on autopilot, his disturbed mind

plagued by visions of a gigantic chessboard with towering chess figures being implacably moved and counter-moved by unimaginably enormous hands. And whose hands moved the pieces? He could not help imagining one

hand vested in corporate attire, for whom else played the game at this level. But who was the opponent? The Exchange? Another corp? Or was there some unknown gamer attempting to influence the board?

With visions of giant horsemen, bishops and castles all trying to crush him, Gash rolled grimly up to the gate of Neuro's estate home. One pawn to another, perhaps they could find out whose game they were locked into...and why.

When Gash arrived back at Neuro's place and was let in by remote, he found the Hacker jacked in full VR to the matrix, though still communicating through a holo display of his avatar while he was no doubt doing several different things at once. "So I think I found a lead out of all this drek. There's a building here..." A link poped up on Jagger's pan, though it was copied by a holo window popping up next to Neuro's icon as well. "Cant seem to dig up any information on who or what is there but The Exchange was taking some interest in it and at least on the outside seems lightly guarded, was hoping you might drop by tonight if you think you can manage and check the place out? Just scope it out a little, poke your nose in if you think it's safe. I can't seem to do much with it Matrix side right now, they've got some pretty serious security in place trix side and some of their systems seem to be off grid. If you look in that drawer behind you I've got a pair of small drones in a box along with some cabling and a disposable comlink. If you could try to sneak in and just leave em near a vent or something I think I can sneak a link up and get a better look."