Bryce appears, a rare visit from the pilot's room or his quarters. He says quietly to Arabella, Harold and Brook "I think we can do better than her. Let's look for someone who's had *no* bad things said about them."
What do you all do?
If you can come with me plz, we have to talk it over with everyone and then will get back in touch if we intend to use your services.
Harold gets up and starts to lead her off the ship.
"Well, ok, but keep me in mind 'cause I'm one of the best there is around these parts..." She leaves the ship and walks away.
What do you all do?
Wren is willing to help recruit, drawing on whatever contacts she might have in the underworld.
[ooc]Wren - unfortunately, in game terms, drawing on your contacts is a Persuasion roll, which you only have a d4 in. But hey, give it a shot, you never know what's going to happen!{/ooc}
"Maybe we can work together," Arabella says to Wren.
Shepherd: +2
Reroll from Charismatic Edge
Shepherd: +2
Best result = 6 + 2 = 8
Daisy will offer her help as she can be persuasive.
+2 if the companion and attractive are applicable.
Wren does what she can to assist in finding someone more reliable. Though she isn't terribly adept at networking, she knows a few things about finding folks willing to work outside the law - as her father once did.
Arabella, Daisy, and Wren go back on the streets to find a hacker. After visiting several seedy bars that hackers are known to frequent, they get a lead on a name : "The One". As they try to track down his location, the people they talk to have nothing but good things to say about The One, both regarding his skills and his ethics. You eventually meet someone who says they can set up a meeting. You arrive at the designated time and place (an open market), and meet The One. He is even younger than Surefire, maybe somewhere in his mid-teens. Once you've identified each other, he says
"So, whatchagot for me?"
"We have an encrypted datastick. We'd like you to crack it and help us identify what is on it, open and read any text files, explain what any programs do. It could belong to someone with ties to the Alliance, so we're counting on your discretion. We are would like to stay off the Alliance's radar about this."
"That should be doable. And I don't like the Alliance any more than you do. I guarantee that I won't copy anything I find - after all, I'd be in as much trouble as you if the Alliance found your data on my system. How about 1000 platinum if I can crack it all, with discounts for anything I can't get into?"
He seems like a young man of integrity.
Wren is willing to pitch in her fair share, if Arabella isn't able to haggle down the price. She'll cough up 200pp, figuring 1/5 the asking price is fair as her own share.
Daisy also agrees to put 200 in. Or whatever 1/5 of any reduction the Master can get. :)
Arabella knows that some merchants are offended if one does not haggle over the price, so she says, "That may be a little steep for our budget. How about we knock a little off that price and we'll post some good reviews on the dark infosphere about you, kid?"
Haggling: Persuasion roll
Charismatic Reroll
+2 from Shepherd edge
Best result = 6 + 5 + 2 = 13
"How will I know that you'll follow thru? Also, I prefer my reputation to stay word-of-mouth, there are rumors that the Alliance has access to even the darkest corners of the infosphere, and I wouldn't want my name to show up there. But, I can knock off 100 PP if it'll help."
"How will I know that you'll follow thru? Also, I prefer my reputation to stay word-of-mouth, there are rumors that the Alliance has access to even the darkest corners of the infosphere, and I wouldn't want my name to show up there. But, I can knock off 100 PP if it'll help."
"Not all programming is coded; if Lady Stormworth didn't haggle, she'd have a runtime error. It's just who she is."
Brook smiles.
It's clearly his"you don't know I'm a psychic" smile.
He also pulls a mega stick out of his shirt pocket.
"Here's the thing: I've been tipped way way less for doing a LOT more, and let's just say I'm not a registered "companion" by any stretch. Take the grand, we'll live. Fun story though, I won this in a Tall Card tournament. Went all-in; told my opponent that I just wanted a grand and some alone time with them. Wow. All I meant was that I thought we could have lunch ..."
Another smile, quite different from the first.
"So yeah, word-of-mouth, we've got you covered. Did you want to work here or do we need to go with you to protect our data and our investment?"
Arabella shrugs as if to say, 'As you with.'
She pulls out her share of the platinums.
Arabella shrugs as if to say, 'As you with.'
She pulls out her share of the platinums.
Brook's look is quizzical, "Not sure what that is for Lady Arabella, I certainly don't need anyone else's money, I'm just interested in the data. If you're tipping the young man another 200 credits, well I imagine word of mouth about YOU will be positive as well."
The boy looks at Brook oddly, and says "Hey, if you want to pay the full grand, I won't object. I'll need to take the datastick with me, alone, to my place. That's where all the equipment I need to do the job is - it ain't portable. And no one else ever sees my place. I don't know how long this will take, but I'd guess a day or two. I'll come back here when the job is done."
"How about you leave something of value with us as collateral," Arabella suggests. "Whatcha got that's worth more'n what might be on that stick?"
"Who knows how valuable the information might be? Look, my reputation depends on my keeping my word - if I say I'll be back, I'll be back. When looking me up, did you ever hear of my breaking my word? Do we have an agreement?"
Harold having spent the last 2 days in his bunk recovering from a flu makes his way for a coffee.
"Well hello sleepypants! Ya want some ship supplied coffee or are ya feelin' up to a run to a nice shop? I'll go with you."
"Can we make a copy of the files for safe keeping? Even if we trust you, something could happen to you or it."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Wren shrugs. "As you say, rep is everything in the black. From what we've heard, you're good as your word. Still, check in with us tomorrow night, just to give us a progress report if nothing else. We're investing a fair amount of coin here. Well, he is, anyway." She grins and points to Brook.
The One takes the stick and plugs it into a small tablet-sized computer he pulls out of a pocket. He motions all of you to gather round, and initiates a copy of the data from the stick to the tablet. It fails, producing a cryptic error message.
"I didn't want to plug this into your ship's computer in case it had a virus. As you can see, the OS on the stick prevents any unauthorized copying - it probably needs a specialized OS on the receiving end.
I'll come by tomorrow night to give you a progress update. Are we good?"
"We will be waiting."
"Sounds good. Thanks fer taking a gander it it."
The One comes by the next night as promised, and gives a progress report. He's gotten thru several of the many firewalls and encryptions that are on the stick, and should be thru the rest of them in another day.
If anyone wants to ask any questions of him at this point, feel free.
Arabella is polite and friendly, but has no questions.
Daisy is also polite and friendly and encourages the hacker.
"We heard you are the best!You can get it!"
"Any names or anything? Does it seem familiar to you at all - Alliance maybe? Or some big underworld type? Thanks for the update anyway, it sounds like there should be something interesting in there."
"Good faith is in short supply, thank you for coming back to give us an update."
In answer to Wren's question, he says "I haven't even gotten to the contents of any files yet - I'm dealing with encryption codes and bit-chain blocks at this point." With a nod to Brook he says "I'll come back tomorrow evening to keep you informed of my progress."
Harold re-enters life tries to figure out what is going on.
He still currently looks a bit pale from the bout of stomach flu he got from somewhere.
He comes back the next night and says "This is a tough nut to crack. I'm making progress, but it's slow. Hopefully I can bring back the raw files sometime tomorrow..."
"No worries, hon. Can I buy you a coffee or anything to help?"
He makes a big, sincere smile and says "Thanks, but I have a ton of energy drinks back at my place. They keep me going."
"I prefer the old fashioned way to caffeinate. Good luck on that task!"
He comes back the next night, later than the previous two times, and says "I did it! Boy, was that tough, I enjoyed the challenge! I've made all the folders available for viewing their contents, but I haven't looked at any of the contents myself. Here's a tablet to view the contents with, I would *not* recommend that you plug the stick into your ship's computer. Anything else you need, or I can help you with?"
"Well, hon, I'm glad we could challenge your skills. Thanks again for doing this. We'll keep this off the ship's computers fer sure. I don't think we have anything else for ya right now but if we're ever in need and on planet, we'll know who to go to!"
Daisy takes the tablet back to the crew to look at the contents...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Sitting down at th main table Daisy tries to gather everyone around.
"Well, come on all. Lock the doors and make some tea, we need ta find out what Brook spent all his money on!"
Once everyone is comfy,she'll open the file...
Arabella looks over Daisy's shoulder to the extent she can or relies on her to relay summary information as she absorbs what is present.
I was not feeling the best today, but lets see what is up