"Yeah, of course I'll pay extra to get the stuff. I ain't expect you to do it outta the kindness of your heart. Ten grand goes in escrow. You grab my stuff, I push the button, and you're paid. You show up and spot trouble, we leave, I push the button and you're paid. You show up, don't spot the trouble and walk into it, I'll tack on hazard pay, provided you didn't botch it. Agreeable? As for Clean Steve, geesh. He's looking for the eye too? On top of you guys? How the hell does that make sense?! Loose god damn fragging lips man! Shit is disheartening..."
He folds his legs under each other and stares off for a second, blinks, and then starts from the beginning.
"Okay, so this punk named Breaker struts into my shop, all puffed up like he just knocked over Aztechnology or something. Right off, I get nervous. His kind ain't my usual clientele. Gangbangers have trouble understanding the unwritten laws of supply and demand, and they have no tact. Dangerous bunch of fraggers in general, but, to top it off, this Breaker's wearing chains and warpaint to tag him as a soldier with the Iron Legion - also bad news."
"All part of the biz though, so I put Lou on alert with the silent alarm and ask the kid what I can do for him. He gives me this stupid grin like I'm King Arthur and he has the grail in his duffel bag. Guy pulls out a wad of napkins from his jacket and starts unwrapping something. Noticing the blood and chunks of meat dropping out of the napkins, I start to worry a bit more and move my hand to the gun I got stashed under the counter. His grin gets bigger and I'm about to take it all the wrong way when he comes up with this eye."
"That cybereye, thank the spirits, not meat. Not that you could tell right away. The thing is a piece of work. Nothing groundbreaking, but it ain't come off a shelf, to be sure. Designer made it roll, flex, and react like a real eye, despite the fact that it was packed with microlenses and more. I run a scan and see there's an image still stored in the eye recording unit's front end memory buffer, waiting to get written. Got me pretty curious."
"So, I ask Breaker what he wants for the tech, since I never done business with him or his club before. He pulls this little act for me, pretending to think about it. He wants to come off like a player, coming to me and all, but the poor sap ain't got a clue. After some melodramatic eye rolling and chin scratching, he gives me a figure. Biting my cheek to keep from laughing at him, I haggle a little to make him feel better and finally accept his terms, telling him what a tough dealer he is. "
"After the punk clears out of my shop, I tell Graham to watch the front while I slip into the back office. Right away, I connect the orb to a dummy socket hooked up to a data printer so I can find out what's inside. The printer spits out this blueprint that I can't make head or tail of."
"I have a couple of chummers on retainer who can tell me what I have and what it's worth, so I sent the blueprint for analysis. He ain't sent it back. Instead what I get back is a strike team who kick in my door and murder my friends like they're nothing. Lou, Graham, they never had a chance. The hitters gotta be the corp. Only guys who don't wanna ask questions are the ones who think they already got the answers. Can't quite figure out how you fit in. One guy knew about the eye, one guy knew about the blueprints, and now three teams are trying to get their hands on both. Like I said, it's discouraging."
