Downtime 6 - Sam

Sam spends the next few days resting and healing up from his encounters with the machine. He registers for a few of the larger upcoming tournaments, and just generally lounges around eating Eula sandwiches and playing video games.

Wujen doesn't seem like he's going to be fencing any of the loot from the cannery, or attempting to fence the machine. So, it seems like it will be up to Sam to squeeze some monetization from this last job.

He starts to think about who he would be comfortable selling the machine to. It would have to be someone wealthy enough to pay for it, but also someone who wouldn't misuse it, or let word of it get back to the Yamaguchi.

Sam doesn't know too many rich people. Or too many trustworthy people. Or, really, too many people. Auntie Muku knows plenty of rich people. Maybe some of them are even good people. But, if Sam asks her for a lead to sell the machine, he'll have to come up with a story about where he got the machine. Sam decides to call that plan B.

Sato knows rich people. Sato will be plan A, Sam decides.

In the meantime, he also wants to fence that fancy armor they brought back from the cannery. Sam remembers that Sun recently bought some fancy armor. He sends Sun a message:

>>>>>>Where did you get your new armor?
>>>>>>I have armor that I need to sell.
>>>>>>And armor that I would like to buy.

Sam also decides to keep tabs on Nam, in case WuJen gets distracted with his wife. Nam doesn't have any electronics, so Sam can't track her that way. He gets her current location from WuJen, and sends out the OpticX to follow her around. (staying out of sight. and perching on nearby rooftops when she is in a building. just keep track of her location)

After a few days of lounging, Sam heads back to the machine to plug back in and talk to NakaMats again.

Suddenly, Sam knows that he set the training program for weapons training last time. Weird that he set the training, but didn't know it until now. If he had known it, he obviously wouldn't have chosen such a dangerous training. He changes the communication interface that he programmed from the weapons training to etiquette training, and then heads in to talk to NakaMats.

Roughly an hour and a half after Sam sent Sun a message, he receives one back:
"B(am Zt Sinjis'plac]6 I ae coming xoer'right anZy"
It's quickly followed by another message, an audio fragment of a door closing, steps on a staircase, Sun muttering: "Apartment or community center..." another door, and street noises.

Deciding that, after the mishap with the fake cops, Sam probably wouldn't be in his apartment, Sun heads to the community center.

When Sun arrives, he finds Sam eating a sandwich.
Sam has Eula prepare another sandwich for Sun, who eats it on the way to the armor shop.

Sam, Eula, and Sun all pile into Sam's Americar and head to the location as Sun indicates. ((Sam would have fixed the Americar and at least installed morphing plates on it before taking it back out on the road))

All along the ride, Sun keeps looking at Eula.
"You SURE she's a robot? She doesn't LOOK like a robot. If she's a robot, does she feel like metal? Is... ahemmm... EVERYTHING functional? Will we be getting little baby cyborg Sams in the future?"

Luckily for Sam, they arrive at the shop soon enough.

The inside of the shop is rather crammed. Two people and a robot would be a bit much in there, so Sun offers to stay outside and keep an eye on the car.

Sam and Eula enter the shop.

"I would like to sell this armor," Sam indicates the armor that Eula has brought into the shop.
"And I would like to purchase a new set of armor."

"I do not think that is a fair price for this armor.
I will try to find a different buyer.
I will return if I am unsuccessful."

Sam and Eula return to the car, and head back to the community center, avoiding Sun's robo-genital questioning as much as possible.

On the ride back, Sun is giddy about what Sam got.
"What did you order? I bet you're getting something cool. You ordered something amazing, didn't you? So what was it? What did you buy?"

Sam was just polishing off his third sandwich of the afternoon and playing another round of ________ to train for his upcoming tournament, when he noticed n incoming message from someone he hadn’t thought about in a long time.

Kenta
>>>>>>Sam, I have a job for you.
>>>>>>Meet me at Noodles & Company.

Sam ignored the message, at first. Fuck Kenta. He had been everything that Sam wasn’t, back in school. Popular, and charismatic. But dumb.

Sam hadn’t thought about Kenta in years. He had made a decent amount of cash back in college by doing Kenta’s assignments, though.  That was the only way Kenta had made it through. Kenta would fail his tests, but Sam would get him As on his projects and assignments. So, it tended to work out to Cs, with the occasional B here and there if Kenta lucked into some extra correct answers on a multiple choice test.

After college, Sam spent the next year and a half applying to and interviewing at major and minor corps, and being turned away from countless positions after unproductive interviews.
Kenta, on the other hand, was hired straight out of college. He had his first job secured at Denso even before graduation day.

He’s got a job for Sam, now? It’s been five years since they graduated, and a little bit more than that since the last time Sam had to talk to Kenta. They must have finally given him some work to do over at Densu that he couldn’t pass off to someone else. That must be it. Reaching out to Sam again to do his work for him.

Sam would love to just ignore the message. But, rent is coming due. And it’s not looking promising that they’ll be able to sell this machine. And the armor seems like it’s going to fetch them quite a bit less than they expected. So, like in college, Sam needs the cash.

>>>>>>Okay.

Sam and Eula pile into his Americar and head to the noodle shop near campus. When they arrive and walk in, Sam scans the small dining area and immediately spots Kenta waving at him from a booth near the back. Sam and Eula make their way to the booth.

“Sam!” Kenta bellows when they near the table. “And who’s this gorg— Oh.” Kenta lets out a laugh. “You’ve got an i-Doll?” Kenta examines Eula a bit more. “Wow,” he says. “She’s a realistic one. What, did you spring for the realistic features 3?”

“Yes,” Sam says. “Her name is Eula. What do you want?”

“Right,” Kenta says, refocusing away from Eula and back to Sam. “Straight to business. I remember.” Kenta flashes a big toothy grin at Sam, who sits staring at Kenta and waiting for him to continue.

((And then Evan got tired of writing this as a short story. Summary from here on out instead)):

Kenta explained to Sam that he had recently accepted a new job at Brightstar, and that he had lied on his resume. Brightstar specifically wanted to know his grades in his telecom courses, and Kenta had lied and said they were all As, when they were actually Cs. Now he wants Sam to hack in to the college records database and change those grades. He hadn’t heard of Sam getting a job anywhere, and he probably would have known if Sam had. And then he saw Sam on the news, and he put the pieces together and figured Sam must be running. He is willing to pay Sam pretty well for this job. Sam accepts the job and gets to planning.

Sam has been inside the campus system lots of times before. And he knows that the security is pretty tight, because the school expects its engineering students to be tryin g to hack into their systems. They have a pretty significant host, and they always have a couple spiders on the lookout.

Sam decides to do this hack from the Noodles & Company. It’s nearby the campus, so he won’t have to worry about noise. He sets up the next day in the same booth where he met Kenta, and jacks in with Eula watching over his body.

Sam is able to mark the host with the help of Lycos and Jeeves. He enters the cavernous library of the University host, and looks around. As expected he immediately spots two spiders making their rounds. They are dressed as librarians. Sam recognizes one of the spiders from previous runs he made inside this host. The other, he recognizes as another classmate of his: Ichika. Sam always wanted to get to know Ichika better, but she was incredibibly uninterested.

Sam suddenly feels an urge to send her a message, and say hi. But he doesn’t. He gets back to the task at hand. In addition to the librarian spiders, there are at least three green reading lamps floating around looking for intruders. At least Sam knows what he’s looking for, and doesn’t have to spend time searching around the shelves. He heads directly for the card catalog and locates Kenta’s records. He’s able to hack into them and replace kenta’s Cs with As reasonably quickly, and without drawing the attention of either the spiders or the reading lamps.

Sam decides to press his luck. He’s always been annoyed about his sub-4.0 GPA. He heads back to the card catalog and looks up his own records. He hacks into them and finds the offending C in his speech course. Why was that even a requirement? Oh well, it's an A now.

Unfortunately, as Sam is changing his grade, he 's spotted by Ichika who immediately throws a literal book at him. Sam is unable to dodge the book, and the ink from the words inside it bleed out and surround him.

Sam is pretty confident that Ichika wouldn’t recognize him, as he is using his running icon and not any icon Ichika would have seen before.  But he's link locked. The only way he would be able to free himself now would be to reset Ichika’s deck. Sam doesn’t want to hurt Ichika, but more than that, the other spider and the IC are now starting to converge on him as well. Even if he was able to reset Ichika’s deck, someone else would probably link lock him. Sam knows this is a losing battle. He sends a message to Eula to pull him out, and prepares for the pain of the dump shock.

Before the pain comes, Ichika throws another book at Sam that Sam is also unable to avoid. This one is an atlas.

And then there is a blinding pain, and Sam is back in the Noodles & Company.

Sam stumbles out of the noodle shop and he and Eula get into the Americar and speed away. Sam sees, in the rearview mirror, the flashing lights as campus police show up to the noodle shop.

His head is splitting, but he successfully altered his and Kenta’s grades, and got away without Ichika recognizing him. It was a job well done.

Sam messages Kenta to let him know the job is done. Kenta thanks him, and lets him know that he will transfer Sam his money.

When the transfer comes through, it's half of what they had agreed. Fucking Kenta.

Sam tracks down Kenta’s commlink, and hacks it. It isn’t the easiest thing to hack. Kenta has some nice gadgets, and its firewall is reasonably difficult.

But, it’s not like Kenta is there defending it himself, and even if he was… it's just Kenta.

Sam madkesit into the commlink, and wires himself the rest of the agreed upon fee. Then he wires himself an extra 5k, and puts in the comment field of the wire transfer “asshole fee.”

((Rolled 6 on downtime mission roll thing))

As soon as Sam receives the message from Ichika, he responds.
>>>>>>Yes. I am Sam.

To: BookNinja
From: B@llzDeEp696969
Subject: Re: Hey

Hello Ichika. I am well. I have been competing professionally in matrix games tournaments. As you apparently have determined.

Sometimes I provide technical assistance for some friends. We take jobs to help around the city. We operate out of a community center.

It is okay. Most people were cold to me in college. Or mean.

Sam attaches a picture to the message of WuJen, Chougou, and Sam being interviewed by Michiko with a chiron underneath reading "Local heroes capture Mingmei Murderer"

Ichika confirms the time and place. ((we can skip to Wei's unless there is something Sam wants to get done in the mean time))

((Sam is still waiting to be put back inside the computer to talk to NakaMats))