Downtime 5 - Sam

"I do not need your services, at this time." Sam responds. "I am looking to buy some specialized autosofts for a new drone I recently purchased. But I am having trouble finding them. Do you know anyone who may be able to help me?"

Sam wires Tammy the money. He'll pay himself back, at least partially, from the others' shares, he reasons.

"It is done," he tells Tammy.

In Jeremy Bearimy time, Sam gets to work upgrading Eula.

He buys her some shiny new autosofts to go with the new pilot he has procured:
R6 Evasion 3,000¥
R6 targeting (pistols) 3,000¥
R6 targeting (long guns) 3,000¥
R6 Lockpicking 3,000¥
R6 Sneaking 3,000¥
R6 Hardware 3,000¥
R6 Desian linguasoft 3,000¥
R6 Maneuvering 3,000¥
R3 Smartlink 1,500¥
(subtotal - 25,500¥)

He also picks up some gear for her:
Silenced Ares Predator 1,225¥
Concealable Holster 150¥
Grapple gun with rope 550¥
Data Tap 300¥
Toolkit 500¥
Lockpick set 250¥
Chameleon Suit 1,700¥
Satlink 500¥
(subtotal 30,675¥)

While he's out shopping for Eula, he also picks up some new mods for his deck:
3 hardening modules  3x 1,500¥ = 4,500¥
Multidemensional Coprocessor 1,400¥
(subtotal 36,575¥)

Lastly, he gathers the parts that he thinks he will need to upgrade Eula's cyberarm to give her some extra agility.
(19,500¥ list price for R3 agility. subtotal - 56,075¥)

On his way back to the community center, he pays all of his monthly bills
Community center share - 666¥
Half lifestyle cost - 1,000¥
Luxury Matrix Access - 10,000¥
DocWagon - 416¥
(Total - 68,157¥)

He gathers all of this new gear, and sets Eula up on the workshop to install it.

Sam has little trouble opening Eula up and removing her old pilot chip, and replacing it with the new fancy one. He connects her cable to his deck, and loads all of the autosofts into her ROM. Then he gets to work on modifying her cyberarm.

He is able to put most of it together, but at some point he realizes that he doesn't really know where to go from here... Rather than either soldiering on and risking damaging Eula's arm, or else just giving up on the project entirely, Sam calls FouChou Gou and asks if he wouldn't mind helping him out with the final stages of the cyberarm modification.

When he finishes making the modifications to Eula, Sam loads the Design linguasoft into her memory, and turns her back on.

Her eyes open, looking up from the workshop table into Sam's eyes.
"Hello," he says.

More Jeremy Bearimy time shopping:

Sam also picks up a bigger gun for Eula, and a bunch of various ammo:

Cavalier Arms Crockett - 10,300¥
-100 rounds regular ammo - 200¥
-50 rounds stick and shock ammo - 400¥
-200 rounds gel rounds - 500¥
-20 rounds APDS - 240¥
-100 rounds explosive rounds - 800¥
-a sling - 15¥

Ares ammo
-100 rounds regular ammo - 200¥
-30 rounds stick and shock - 240¥
-100 rounds gel rounds - 250¥
-50 rounds explosive rounds - 400¥

When he's browsing for the rifle, he can't find one that has an internal smartgun system. So, he also picks up an external smartgun system. He can probably figure out how to mount it on there, he thinks. 200¥

He gives it a try when he gets home: He muddles his way through it for an hour, not quite sure what he's doing. (1 hit) But, near the end of the hour he feels like he's got the basics figured out. 15 minutes later, he's got it mounted and fully wired up. (5 hits)

(subtotal - 13,745¥
running downtime total - 81,902¥)

Sam considers letting Eula do what she is beginning to do. But he quickly decides not to. Even though she's just a robot, he doesn't want the first thing that she does with her newly powerful brain to be performing based on an evil sex slave program.

"No," he commands. "Stop. Enter standby."

Once she enters standby mode, Sam has a look at the personality currently loaded. Sure enough he sees the same menu of personalities that he remembers choosing from at the Delicate Daisy, plus an extra option labeled "Eula." "Girl Next Door" is currently selected.

Sam selects the Eula personality, which is the personality that came preinstalled from the personality package he ordered the i-Doll with. He highlights all of the other personalities, intending to delete them. But, right before hitting the delete command, he changes his mind. He copies the personalities over to a folder on his deck, and labels it "EULA taxes." Then he deletes them off of Eula.

"Hello, Eula," Sam says. "How do you feel with the new pilot, and the new software?"

"That is good," Sam says. "I am glad that you like your upgrades. Now, can you go make me a..." Sam trails off, as the last thing Eula said registers. "Burrito?" He finishes, lamely.

As Sam watches the Ken Sato's coverage of the factory break in, he becomes increasingly annoyed at the way that it's covered. At least none of the three of them are identified. But it looks like the police also didn't do anything to save the women in there, or stop the factory from running.

Sam continues watching the coverage, and suddenly the screen cuts to an image of a woman, heavily masked in static. But, Sam recognizes the woman as Michiko! And she is trying to get the real story out!

But, just as suddenly as she appeared, the heavily staticked image disappears from the screen, replaced with a test pattern.

Sam has a pretty good memory, but he can't remember the last time he saw the news just go off the air in the middle of a broadcast.

"Oh no," He thinks. "Now this is going to be a whole thing."

First thing's first, he is concerned that Michiko may be in trouble. He doesn't know if the station was unable to lock her out of their feed, and so just cut the entire feed. Or, if they somehow found her while she was sending her pirate transmission....

He sends her a message:
>>>>>>I saw the broadcast.
>>>>>>Are you in immediate danger?

Michiko replies:

>>>>> Thanks for the concern, but I'm fine for now.
>>>>> Not sure how healthy my career is, but it's not the first time I've tried pushing a story the powers that be didn't want published.
>>>>> Were it not for my body's pesky demand to eat regularly, I'd do pirate news full time.
>>>>> At least you don't have bosses trying to squash the truth all the time.

Sam gets a message from Emiko

>>>>> Hey Sam. Do you know anyone that can get me a really good mnemonic enhancer?
>>>>> I'm trying to get a hold of one

Michiko replies:

>>>>> Sure. Meet you there in an hour?

>>>>>>I will see you there in an hour.

Sam finishes eating his burrito, and heads to the noodle shop to meet up with Michiko, as promised.

"I am not here for the noodles," Sam says. "I will have the Tonkotsu. What happened at the factory?"

"They are just as likely to have crushed those girls as they ar to have transported them," Sam says. "Doctor Nakamats seemed like a willing prisoner. We found out that he was being held in there, and what he was doing. And we went in to put a stop to it. But we did not realize how many girls there would be. We did not have time to get them out. And Doctor Nakamats did not want to leave. He wanted to continue his work. He is a crazed maniac."

Sam takes a bite of his noodles.

"What is the next step?" he asks. "If we do not do something, they will keep kidnapping and brainwashing these girls. How can I help you? You said you got pictures. Can you send them to me? I will also see if we have any helpful footage."