Anyone not at the table will need to make a threshold 2 listening check at -10 dice to hear the conversation. You can still get +3 for actively listening...
As Ghost opens himself up to the astral, he sees again several spirits flitting through the ether, none seemingly concerned about him. Steve assenses as a normal, mundane human being with no sickness and no cyberware, not even an old data jack. Emotionally, he is like a featureless slab of iron, but ever so slightly warm. There is a deep yellow glow of calmness about him. It's almost unnatural how calm his aura shows him to be, but you don't detect any drugs in his system. He's not radiating the murky calm of a bliss-head or a chip freak. As Ghost sits down, Steve turns to him and begins to speak. "Are you aware of what it means to be sitting at this table right now? I have to ask you, because... *sigh*" He first puts his palm to his face and then gestures to the scene rapidly unfolding in AR. "I had hoped you could be professional. That means if you're going to do something underhanded, you should try not to get caught at it." Steve produces a white noise generator, places it on the table and turns it on. He brings his hands up to his face and puts his fingers together over his mouth so as to block the view of any cameras.
"Listen. I know what kind of trouble you're in. Your faces are known to people who would see you dead, people who would kill your entire families to draw you out. I believe that you have what I'm looking for, and I believe that those aforementioned people share this belief. When I saw you in the streets outside of Vanian's, I thought 'Here's a piece of trouble, two teams after the same thing,' and I was ready to make sure that the trouble was yours and not mine. But then I recognized you Jink, and later you Switchback, and I thought to myself, 'I know why these two are doing what they're doing. They owe money all over town.' So, I figured, rather than start some sort of messy trouble and expose myself to those aforementioned people, I could simplify things a little for you. and we could help each other out. All of this while remaining under the cover of one of my regular occupations."
"So, I called a few of my friends, people the two of you might know, and I bought up all of your markers. So, now, what you owed all over town, you instead owe to me, personally. So, for Jink that would be the equivalent of 22,500 nuyen, and for Switchback, that would be 15,000 nuyen. It is a considerable sum of money. I am willing to waive it in return for the *ahem* eye-tem and a favor to be agreed upon later. You would destroy any copies of the data housed on it which you might have, and I would make sure that your knowledge of this data would no longer be seen as a threat to those aforementioned people. If that is not acceptable, we can still part as friends - slightly disappointed friends - and I will get back to you later about full remuneration of the debt. After all, neither of us wants this to fall to blood. If I move to kill you, I'm out a substantial sum of money, and if you move to kill me, then every organization or person in Seattle that lends money or makes book will be required to make a lesson of you and everyone you love."
He lets that last part sit in the air a moment before he turns to Ghost. "If you don't mind asking, I would like to know your name. Mine is Steven."
