[Xetheral]

Snap orders a chai latte without making eye contact with the cute waitress, and then listens in mute horror to the cacophony of questions.

Crap, they're going to pester the rich elf with too many questions without committing to the job and he's just going to walk away. Damn it, I need this work.... He goes to interject, but stops himself: Stay calm, Snap. If you open your mouth it will just make things worse.

Instead of speaking, Snap puts his hands in his outside jacket pockets, the right one repeatedly gripping his collapsed telescoping staff as if it were a stress ball.

[The Big Peat]

Mr Johnson takes the stream of questions happily though, nodding to himself with a slight smile. The only sign of anything approaching annoyance he gives is a raised eyebrow at Durkon.

"The man in question is not without temptation - he's in Vegas, know what I'm saying? But he's been fairly careful. Callgirls to his room, gambling only in major casinos with only a few excursions to big tourist things out of town - and I should point out now that, despite any appearances to the contrary, all of the big places here take security extremely seriously and treat an affront to their big spending customers as an affront to themselves. Which makes staying there in the open fairly damn safe."

"It also means that if you get caught going for him, and the Mob decides it doesn't like your faces, please do not expect extra money from me. You've been warned," he looks around the table to see if there's any objection. "But, to go back to the original question, he does like pretty girls and gambling. He might make a fool of himself over that."

"He also, weirdly, really loves photography. So, he's going to be in the desert for a little while tomorrow photographing interesting rocks." Mr Johnson sounds like he's never heard a weirder thing in his life. "He's got an itinerary that I happened to get my hands on, which goes to the lucky winners of this job."

"I should also clarify that I do not care what happens to him. However, he presumably does. To the best of my knowledge, he is not Awakened, but he has had some fairly extensive self-defence training, and given his wealth I'd be surprised if his body is a 100pc his."

"Likewise, his bodyguards will be augmented and they are veteran. He's got 8 of them - all of them operating with discrete armour and either pistols or submachine guns, depending on what they can get away with at that moment. They're sticking to him pretty close. As in, if the man pisses, his guys are using the next urinals."

"Finally, the object itself. It's a briefcase, and it spends most of its life attached to his wrist. Please do not open it - as I am led to believe a certain amount of unpleasantness is triggered to off at that point."

"Is there anything else you'd like to know before accepting?"

"

[Mysteris]

"I see. I for one can think of nothing objectionable about taking the assignment then. Do the rest of you agree?" She took her eyes from the Johnson to survey the rest of the table for the first time.

[Xzylvador]

Silk slowly nodded in agreement. "If the job's as straightforward as you lay it out to be, I'm sure well all be happy to take this job.
Can I ask how you obtained the information you have so far? The itinerary, the callgirls, number bodyguards, personal information... If you've had someone keep an eye on this person so far, perhaps there's something more they could tell us. Things others consider a detail but may prove to be crucial to finding out the best way to get to the briefcase."

[HydroRaven]

Listening to the Johnson's details about the job, Francis remains expressionless. He listened intently, tried to soak in every detail he could. Details were often the important info in a job like this.

"Sounds reasonable to me. You can count me in. Just one question though: where do we drop off the suitcase once we have it?"

He looks around the table, namely at Durkon, Snap and Jade, waiting to see what they will say.

[lonewolf1210]

Durkon considers for a moment and then responds:
"The mission is accepted, and I agree that the 30k each is a fair payment. But since we havent worked together and I dont know anything about your reputation, I will need either one third of the payment upfront, or all of it placed in an escrow account with the fees for it coming from your end.
Nothing personal, but I have made bad experiences with this sort of thing."

Negotiation (15d6.hits(5)=4)

[Xetheral]

Snap nods acceptance, and then speaks for the first time that evening. "As for the item itself, is it fragile or flammable, or does it contain unhardened electronics? And the briefcase—is it armored, fireproofed, or shielded? Are either sensitive to extreme temperature or pressure?"

As he speaks Snap is mentally imagining how easy this job would be if A) the case were strong enough to survive an airstrike, B) he knew anyone who owned a plane capable of carrying a large bomb, and C) he had a large bomb.

[Xzylvador]

What? What kind of idiotic move is that, accepting a price for all of us without even trying to get a better deal? If that's his best bargaining skill, it's no wonder he's had bad experiences with being paid.

[farothel]

Jade simply nodded.  8 bodyguards was a lot, but they had some bad-ass people as well and maybe they could do it a bit more sneaky.  Depending on which type of call-girls the mystery man liked, she or Silk could pretend to be one and get close that way.  The bodyguards might take the next urinal, but somehow she doubted they would be in the next bed.


assensing on Jade:
She's a bit nervous.  As for the cyberwear, see my char sheet.  You see it all with four hits.

[The Big Peat]

The Johnson purses his lips at Silk's question.

"I have a contact. I am not willing to expose this contact due to their value," he tilts his head as he says this, openly considering something "If I get anything else from the contact, however, I will let you know. Don't count on anything. Likewise, if you have questions, I will ask and relay any answers I get - but again don't count on anything."

"Payment, I am happy to either make an up front retainer, or stick it in an escrow. That's the call of you people. The briefcase is armoured to a degree but the items are inside are fragile. I don't know how well armoured either."

"The drop off point - there will be two. One for if no one's after you, the other for if you're hot. If you've got off scot free, there's a janitor's area on the third floor of the car park at Lucky O'Reilly's. You'll need a code to get in, I'll message it to you in a moment. If you could look like you belong when you do the drop off, that would be appreciated."

"If however you're dragging a tail round, there's some out of use sewers under a building site on the north side of town. I'll give you co-ordinates. Even if it ain't the right place for a meet, it's not a bad place to lose people if you can't find anywhere better sooner."

"Either way, drop me a message when you're done with an ETA and I will be ready for the exchange."

[HydroRaven]

"That answers my questions" declares Francis. "I would move for a retainer, if everyone's fine with that."

He then looks around at the other runners, waiting to see what they say.

[Mysteris]

"I have no objection to a retainer." She looked at the others and then set about eating her food. It was always good to go into a job on a full stomach, she found. No distracting hunger pains to take her out of the zone when she was at home in the Matrix. It'd be nice not to have to worry about the meat body so she could spend more time in her true home, but sadly, she did have to tend to affairs in the meat world first before she could go play.

[Xzylvador]

He still hasn't given us the name of this person. Is it because it's someone we wouldn't know, or because it's someone we would know?
"It would seem that my partners are eager to start working on this job.", Silk said, quietly adding "Maybe a little bit too eager." with a quick angry glance towards Durkon.
"I do believe this is when you tell us who exactly the target is and where we can locate him."

[lonewolf1210]

Beeing not at all interested in starting an argument in front of Mr. Johnson, Durkon ignores Silks remark for now.

"I think we are in agreement. And I am also fine with a retainer."

Otherwise he waits until Mr Johnson gives them the last details of the job.

[HydroRaven]

Francis looks at both Silk and Durkon going at it. "Seems like this Silk has a tendency to be in the middle of every squabble so far" he thinks to himself, expressionless. "Not that she's wrong or anything, but maybe she's an argument magnet?" He then decides to pay extra attention to Silk, making sure to never get into it with her.