MuttPlease tell me in OOC how you're "looking for drones within a block" of the meeting. I can think of several ways, some requiring major tests. I will allow retroactive action on this - put it in your next post and note where in the story it fits.
To continue the story I'm going to assume you do a basic matrix perception to look at the local node and non-hidden nodes connected to it for basic information. I'm going to present this two ways.
a) Nothing stands out.
b) When you do so you see a few dozen drones; identifying themselves as cleaning and maintenance and toys and security and education and medical drones.
Clue: You've done the equivalent of a mage running "detect life" outside an apartment building. In a better neighborhood you'd probably see magnitudes more as every family would have at least a couple, and the apartment complexes and storekeepers would have a few, plus the street maintenance and advertising and law enforcement drones. There might be something there, but you have to tell me how you intend to narrow it.
With everyone present, the dark-skinned dwarf begins to speak.
"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. I am, as I am certain you have surmised, Mr. Johnson. We have a problem, and we need your help overcoming it."
He pauses, closing his eyes briefly. Opening them again he leans forward slightly, placing his clasped hands on the table. "I am 72 years old, ladies and gentlemen. I was born within a few blocks of where we now sit. I was ten when VITAS swept through. Two years later a lynch mob killed my baby sister because she wasn't human. Killed my father who was trying to defend her. My mother survived only because we were still a neighborhood, barely, and someone cared enough to try.
I left early to join the marines. Ran away, really, and that probably saved my life since I wasn't here when I changed. But I never forgot Mrs. Adel, or Mr. Shwartz. I didn't become rich but managed to make a little money. Three years ago I came back to try to do for my home what the Adels and Shwartz's did for my family. To care. To try and help it recover. I have no more money; it's gone to a thousand and more things big and little here. And it has been making a difference.
When I came back, what had been my home was divided between two feuding gangs fighting over a pair of suffering ghettos. I persuaded - bribed, bullied, pleaded, and even forced - a truce between the greenbacks and the gallos. Persuaded them to be part of their home instead of parasites. I encouraged their mothers and uncles and the other refugees to quit hiding; to teach, to reach out, ... to hope. And it was working. Until the Red Circle got involved.
We've dealt with gangs trying to expand before. We've dealt with the ones doing it because they want more territory, the ork haters and the troll haters and the humanis and the rest. The truce forged got a boost as both gangs realized it doubled their manpower and ability to withstand these. In the past year, until a few months ago, all the neighboring gangs had given up. heh - one's even considering joining us in more peaceful fashion.
The Red Circle is a humanis gang, and at first we though it was going to be just the same. Then they ..."
He pauses again, and his throat works a couple of times.
"They're armed. And they're trained. And they're competely amoral. They don't fight like gangbangers. They fight like soldiers, almost like marines, except they hit shops and homes as well. They came in and put up signs saying this was their territory now. They hit the greenbacks, and ambushed the gallos who responded. A quarter of the kids are dead, and half of those left are walking wounded. They hit some of our shops. Then they burned out one of the schools we tried to start. We lost more kids, this time children.
"They left an ultimatum at the rubble. The left me an ultimatum, as leader of the community of Venetian Hills. Surrender. Accept our place as animals and servants under 'real' humans. Give up, or die."
"Lonestar won't help. To them it's just another gang war and as long as it doesn't spill into the sinners it doesn't matter to them. Not unless we can pay their fee, anyway. And we can't.
We don't have much. We pooled our nuyen, sold some things, and I've got 13,478Ą. It's all we have in cash. We can offer you some benefits; a place to sleep, to hide, to unload things that are too hot to keep. We are a recognized Atlanta community, we can issue some local level IDs and licenses saying you're one of us. It's not huge, I know, but it's all we've got.
We're asking you to stop the Red Circle, in any way you can, so they cannot stop us from being a community of people.
Please."
