PRIVATE Eat the Rich I: Chubby Buffalo's

Jocelyn Tashiro

push it real good
Jocelyn Tashiro
Eddies
436
Character Bio
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Chubby Buffalo's - The Glen, Heywood
2039 Local Time
​
The fixer's text had been clear.

Meet the crew at Chubby Buffalo's in the Glen at 8:45 tonight. Far corner booth. No badges.

Jocelyn Tashiro arrived a few minutes early to scope out the place, but it looked like she was the first. The corner booth was empty. Joss looked around the diner, nodded a greeting to the waitress behind the counter. "Get ya something?" she asked, her voice surprisingly melodious for a woman who looked to be about seventy, and who had a lit cigarette dangling from her lipstick-smeared bottom lip.

"Coffee?" Joss said. "With synmilk if you've got it. And, um... what kind of pie is there tonight?"

The waitress took a lazy gander over her shoulder at the pie case. "Apple. Think that's lemon meringue -- or is it banana cream? Cherry and there's a chocolate cream banging around back there."

"I'll take the chocolate, please. I'll just be -- " Joss pointed at the designated booth. " -- over there. Meeting some friends."

"Aright sweetie. Be over in a minute." The old waitress turned to a diner at the bar who had lifted a finger. "What do you want?"

Joss made her way over to the corner booth and, after giving the cracked and somewhat discolored red vinyl a dubious once-over, she slid into the booth on the far side, looking toward the door. The waitress, whose nametag Joss noticed read Vickie when the older woman leaned over to deposit her order. Joss thanked her with a little smile. She glanced at the door briefly, then toward the little container of sweeteners, adding a few of whatever the fuck was in the yellow packets to the acrid coffee. After adding a bit of the synmilk, she sat back in the booth, watching the door in a fashion she hoped was casual as she slowly stirred the drink.

Waiting.

 
@Jocelyn Tashiro | @Salem

The next one into the establishment could have been unassuming if every step he took didn't trigger a metal detector several miles away. That is how much metal Nikolai Drexler had forged into his meat. He didn't do freelance jobs often. No need for them. Arasaka paid him handsomely and if he needed something off-the-book, he could get it handled when need be.

But the fixer on this job was a personal connect and she needed a favor from him.

In return she'd hook him up with an implant that would rock his world. Her words. Not his. Niko was skeptical it would be worth it, but in the past she hadn't disappointed him. The waitress was about to come over to him, but the cheery bubbly persona went out the window once she had to crane her neck to look up at him. Instead she cleared her throat and hesitantly asked for his order.

No sugar for his spice.

"Cappuccino. Rest's fine." Niko didn't bother to wait for a reply as he strode over to Jocelyn's table. Description matched the face. He sat down. The chair creaked under his weight as he settled himself in.

"The other one already here or still coming?" His fixer had said it would be a three-man job.
 
The man who entered Chubby Buffalo's after a few moments was tall and broad, and he looked somewhat worse for wear. His countenance had a look that brooked no nonsense, based on his conversation with Vickie -- if you could call it a conversation -- so much so that she found herself secretly hoping that he wouldn't be coming to her booth. Hoping optimistically that one of the pudgy Valentinos she had seen shooting dice in the parking lot would be the contact.

But it wasn't to be.

The man dropped into the booth like a sack of hammers, immediately questioned her.

"No," said Joss, her voice cracking. She hadn't realized that her mouth had gone dry. She sipped her coffee, licked her lips. "No, they're not here yet. Or they are and don't follow instructions."

Jocelyn leaned -- had to physically lean around the man -- to examine the rest of the BBQ joint. No one else had entered yet. There were two other tables occupied, plus the guy at the counter who seemed to be engaging in some well-intentioned banter with Vickie as she prepared the newcomer's cappuccino. Her slow, strolling gaze finally returned to the slab of man in front of her. She cupped her coffee cup, enjoying the warmth of it between her palms.

"I'm Joss," she said after a moment of awkward silence. "Jocelyn, really, but -- just Joss is faster."

 
@Jocelyn Tashiro | @Salem

A scrapping and grating noise she'd soon identify was Nikolai sighing.

"Then we wait." Pulling out cigarette, offering the carton to her as well for one, but lighting it up regardless of her desire or lack thereof. There was a "No Smoking" sign. The waitress looked over, frowning, but opted wisely not to say anything about it. "Jocelyn." He tried the name out in his mouth and shrugged. "Both are fast enough. I have heard longer names in my life."

The attempt at humor was apparently lost to him.

He blew the smoke out towards the ceiling.

"Nikolai. You can call me Niko, faster that way." Eyes flicking back towards her. Cold steel but was that a bit of humor? So maybe he wasn't a total humorless git, but was just amusing himself while being a pain in the arse.

"What do you know about the job so far?"
 
Jocelyn regarded the man curiously, her dark eyes narrowing a little as she took in his features. If you could look past the intimidation of it all, he might have been good looking, but all Joss could think was that he looked like he could fold her in half like a book without much effort. It took a moment, in her intimidation, to realize he had asked her a question.

"Oh -- ah -- well, something that requires a netrunner. That's me," she said, lifting the coffee to her lips for a brief sip. "Fixer said it requires a deft hand and an eye for stealth." Eyes cut to the side at that. Could this man even sneak? She dug in her pocket for her phone and went to the file that Fixer had sent over to her with the details. "The location -- " she began, but then fell silent and shook her head. It wouldn't do to out the details here in public.

"Let's just say if we're seen it will be a rather frigid reception," she said quietly, slipping the phone over the table to him so he could see that the location was none other than the Soviet consulate in Night City. "Fixer specified it has to be very hush-hush, right?"

 
Speaking of hush-hush.

A throaty engine rumble came from outside the diner as a bike pulled in. Moments later the driver came into the burger joint, wearing a biker's leathers. He peeled off his helmet, dark sweat-soaked hair tumbled free in a mess. His eyes wandered around for a minute before finding the booth. He made his way over and gave the pair already seated the once-over before sliding in beside the woman - facing the door.

Always face the door if you can.

"What's up, gatos."

He leaned forward, elbows on the table, jacket falling open to expose the butt of a pistol under one arm.

The guy across from him looked like a corporate hatchet man, if ever there was one. And the woman? Had to be their netrunner, right?

Which made him their punchout option if things went sideways.

"Sal," he said, then turned and waved at the waiter, "Hey, I'll klep a coffee. Black, thanks."

@Jocelyn Tashiro @Nikolai Drexler
 
@Jocelyn Tashiro | @Salem

"The fixer did." Which was exactly why he was wondering why he was asked for this job. Stealth was not his forte. But looking at Jocelyn and then at the man joining them soon after, the answer was already given.

Nikolai was here as an insurance policy.

If they fucked this up and didn't get the data, it would be up to him to extract it. Afterwards he'd have to clean up the scene. Kill these two. Scrub the embassy and make it seem like something else, so they wouldn't notice the data gone missing.

That made sense to him.

"Nikolai. Jocelyn." Gesturing towards the girl next to Salem as he spoke their names. "You a stealthy person, Sal? Because otherwise we are rightly fucked."

Eyes flicked towards Joss again.

He had not murdered a young girl in a while. He wondered if he'd hesitate if the moment came.
 
Sal -- what kind of name was Sal? -- did not inspire great confidence in the young netrunner, if truth be told. She watched him approach, knowing somehow that her hopes about one of the Valentinos in the parking lot was over and done with. He looked worse for wear. Christ.

Then Nikolai asked a question that Joss had already answered for herself when she heard Sal approaching from approximately three nautical miles away. They weren't going to be sneaking anywhere with that motorbike. The consulate was in the city, so some traffic noise was to be expected, but that thing would be too much. And then he went on, and Joss felt her blood pressure spike.

Joss's eyes narrowed at the big man's assessment of the situation. There was something calculated, something chilling in his gaze. "Now wait a minute, Nikolai," she said, defensiveness overwhelming her intimidation. She was damned if she was going to let this brick house of a man try to undercut her abilities before the thing even started. "We're not fucked, rightly or any other way. I'm decently light on my feet, and I know my way around a surveillance system. They're basically all the same these days anyway. I can get us in the building. We can plan around the security patrols."

She indicated the map with a chipped dark blue fingernail. "Trouble's gonna be here. Once you get on the third floor there's nothing available in terms of security roster. Doubt the place is ungarded, which means they keep it on the QT. Any thoughts?"

 
"Hang on," replied Salem, leaning away and resting an elbow on the top of the booth's back.

"You're telling me you can crack through Ruski security like that?" He snapped his fingers.

If she could do that, it begged the question of why she needed either of them at all.

"If true, wow. But all we would need here is a corridor. Knock out the cameras as we go, we stay behind the patrol path. Easy. Might be even better if there was a distraction at the gate though, eh? Something drawing all eyes to the street?"
 
His fingers tapped against the cantina counter while watching them both.

It was more aggressive than it had any right to be, but that was what you got when you cut your flesh off and replaced it with metal that could punch through concrete. They were eager to prove themselves. That much was clear.

Nikolai also wondered why they were even needed if little miss cyberwonder here could just slice into their security. What was stopping her from retrieving the package from outside and covering her tracks afterwards? It was certainly more efficient than trying to infiltrate the building physically. She seemed so eager to prove her worth. "So if you are so fucking good at slicing what's stopping you from downloading the package from outside?"

"Then we don't need to 'knock out cameras as we go and staying behind the patrol path'."

He looked back at Sal.

"A distraction? We can't leave any trace that we were here, Sal. Otherwise we can whistle our bonus goodbye."

This was going to be a mess.

@Salem | @Jocelyn Tashiro
 
Jocelyn watched the two men coolly, leaning back against the cracked red vinyl of the booth. She folded her arms over her trim midsection.

"According to the photos the fixer sent, they aren't using Soviet tech for their security system. Best I can tell, it doesn't interface with the NC without a bunch of gonk adapters that would make the network even more insecure than using local tech," said the Netrunner, flicking through her phone til she got to the appropriate details in the fixer's brief, then turned her phone around to show it to first Salem, then Nikolai.

"Their mainframe -- different story. That'll be Soviet tech." She turned her dark eyes to Nikolai, eyes as black as they were cool. "I should be able to hack it, but the mainframe doesn't interface with a network I can get to externally. Nothing to do with how fucking good I am at slicing, Niko, no one can manifest a connection where it doesn't exist."

Her fingers tightened against her sides.

"Place has a fucking eight foot wall and secure external gates. There's plenty for us all to do to get us inside." Jocelyn frowned, chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully. "Unless you think we could get to the roof somehow? A lot easier to evade security going down a floor from the roof than going up three floors. Thoughts?"

 
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