The Night City sunset paints the streets a muddy red hue, reflecting off the towers and armoured glass of the storefronts nearby. Up ahead, you see the narrow shoulders of the joeboy moving through the crowd of evening city-dwellers. You aren't the best tracker, but you are hyper alert - and besides, you tagged the smirking little twerp with an IE-made transponder you can pulse into your Times Square Marquee display whenever you squeeze the broadcast unit in your hand.
That part was pretty easy - you picked up the joeboy outside Sullen Mike's, caught up to him and slid the transponder against the hem of his Image Fashionware jacket as you passed. The microhooks stuck fast to the armour and you slid away into the crowd. The tracker was one of a dozen or so goodies you picked up from Kyle, a pal who lifted them from Data Inc. Good to have friends sometimes, friends with sticky fingers.
Joeboy (the data packet said his street name was RazorKut, RazarCut or something equally stupid) stops to chat to a metalhead outside Tong's Laundry. You can see the recent stains on the pavement where some unfortunate was recently "laundered" from the roof. The two shake hands and bang fists, then the joeboy continues.
You follow now above and behind him on an upper walkway, moving easily with the rhythm of the crowd. You brush past a couple arguing over combat handball scores and step around a tall blind man in preacher's garb, his arms out to an uncaring audience as he declaims the imminence of fleshly salvation.
You're coming up to your preferred spot for the grab in this part of town. There's a Night City unit stationed nearby, a bunch of NCPD-approved food kiosks out front and loud music from the retrothrash dance club squatting above the minimall. Pedestrian traffic kind of bulges here, as people make their way down into the NCART entrance or head into the Maze, the neighbourhood nickname for the rebuilt cross-streets that the Aldecadoes mostly got right when they put NC back together again. The Maze street rebuilds mostly work, but some are dead-ends and some go underground for a bit. NCPD patrols them fairly often, but even so, out-of-towners are advised to stay out. You are not an out-of-towner.
So: distractions, people, movement, smells, sounds and even cops - always handy for overreactions.
You know the joeboy won't take the NCART and if he drives he can't be "seen" by his "people". It's not far from Little China now - the sooner you take the package the better. You've made some preparations - time to move.
That part was pretty easy - you picked up the joeboy outside Sullen Mike's, caught up to him and slid the transponder against the hem of his Image Fashionware jacket as you passed. The microhooks stuck fast to the armour and you slid away into the crowd. The tracker was one of a dozen or so goodies you picked up from Kyle, a pal who lifted them from Data Inc. Good to have friends sometimes, friends with sticky fingers.
Joeboy (the data packet said his street name was RazorKut, RazarCut or something equally stupid) stops to chat to a metalhead outside Tong's Laundry. You can see the recent stains on the pavement where some unfortunate was recently "laundered" from the roof. The two shake hands and bang fists, then the joeboy continues.
You follow now above and behind him on an upper walkway, moving easily with the rhythm of the crowd. You brush past a couple arguing over combat handball scores and step around a tall blind man in preacher's garb, his arms out to an uncaring audience as he declaims the imminence of fleshly salvation.
You're coming up to your preferred spot for the grab in this part of town. There's a Night City unit stationed nearby, a bunch of NCPD-approved food kiosks out front and loud music from the retrothrash dance club squatting above the minimall. Pedestrian traffic kind of bulges here, as people make their way down into the NCART entrance or head into the Maze, the neighbourhood nickname for the rebuilt cross-streets that the Aldecadoes mostly got right when they put NC back together again. The Maze street rebuilds mostly work, but some are dead-ends and some go underground for a bit. NCPD patrols them fairly often, but even so, out-of-towners are advised to stay out. You are not an out-of-towner.
So: distractions, people, movement, smells, sounds and even cops - always handy for overreactions.
You know the joeboy won't take the NCART and if he drives he can't be "seen" by his "people". It's not far from Little China now - the sooner you take the package the better. You've made some preparations - time to move.
Last edited:
