A Time For Introductions

A Time For Introductions is the second episode. It marks the first appearance of Burnout. Several members of the crew go to a poker game, while Nova takes her child to the Chihuly Glass Museum.

Snyopsis
This episode picks up where the previous one leaves off, with Finnegan repeating a variation of his final line, "I'm glad you're here. I've got another job. Crew of 5. Should be easy. Of course, if you aren't interested, I'll give it to Maggie Moonshine's crew..."

The crew meets up with the contact at a small diner called the Fission Chips. He is waiting in a booth and wearing a dark jacket and sunglasses with mirrored lenses. He greets them by saying "You can call me Mr. Hanaka. I understand this is a formality you are familiar with". Hanaka then informs the crew that something was stolen from him earlier that night, and that he would like it back. "What it is is not important."

At this point, the waiter approaches the table and greets Mr. Hanaka by the name Mr. Kobiyashi, offering "the usual". The client winces and insists that the waiter has confused him with some other customer. The waiter apologizes and takes orders for everyone.

He offers them 50,000 Nuyen to track down his prototype, saying that he has no interest in punishing the runners who stole the item, but does want to know the identity of the person who hired them.

The crew accepts and calls Finn for information, and he provides it for a fee of 5,000 nuyen, saying "Now I wouldn't be in business very long if I revealed everyone who worked for me for free." Finn tells the group that they were hired by an elf named Maelyss Sidonie Brown, an employee of Mitsuhana. "If you can get in there, you can find his personal directory information."

They strike after hours, picking a lock and entering into an empty lobby. Cybersloth jacks into the reception desk and downloads the personnel file in question. She also notices that there are a number of scientists in one of the labs, poring over a set of blueprints. Sloth tells the group that Maelyss last logged into work 17 minutes ago, and is likely still in the lab.

At this point in the run, Burnout gets a call on his commlink from his friend Gundrick, who has some extra tickets to a high-stakes poker game Friday at the Wiretap, saying that his chummers Mikey and Ulgrim 5 "caught a case of the deads". Gundrick invites Burnout as well as "that hacker chick" he knows, offering to sell the tickets for 100 nuyen each, or free with a promise to split any winnings with him. Burnout reluctantly accepts the tickets for free.

The crew leaves Mitsuhana, deciding not to engage with either the security guards or the scientists right now, and review the information they gathered. It showed that Maelyss was on track for promotion, and had a history of staying very late into the evening on the nights before his promotions.

Returning to "Mr. Hanaka", the crew receives their rewards and enjoys some much-needed downtime. Mothra is contacted by one of his gun-running allies with a chance to buy a Remington Roomsweeper for cheap "as long as you can keep it off the streets for a couple days". He accepts, and hides the shotgun in his apartment.

Mr. Hanaka makes another request: send the man they tracked down a message. When asked for clarification about the damage ("How loud?"), Mr. Hanaka blanches, afraid to get too specific. The Crew decides not to let Finn know about the deal, as they arranged it themselves. Burnout and Mothra perform the hit, with Burnout (whom Maelyss wouldn't recognize) beating him severely and taunting him with a voice modulator. Mothra serves as the getaway car.

Finn calls The Edgelord to ask why he got a call from Mr. Hanaka asking for a status update, and The Edgelord lets slip that they performed a job without Finn's knowledge. Finn seems upset about this, asking if they know no gratitude for his work. The Edgelord placates him with an offer of 5%, half his usual rate. Mothra suggests that they avoid specific numbers, and deal strictly in percents. This turns out to be wise, as Mr. Hanaka underpays them, having been turned off at the prospect of bringing violence to life. Nova takes her daughter to the Chihuly Glass Museum, and Burnout persuades an even more reluctant Mothra to attend the poker game with him.On Friday, The Edgelord goes out drinking at a bar and discovers a bloody body in the bathroom. He investigates, and finds a troubling note written in blood warning not to trust... someone. It's too obscured to tell who. He leaves the bar, certain that the note was meant for him.

During the poker game, Gundrick, out of money, offers up a datapad, claiming it is worth more than you can possible imagine. Cybersloth wins the hand (and the datapad), and three thugs burst into the room, demanding the winnings from the game. Cybersloth pockets the datapad, but pretends to offer it up with the rest of her winnings.

The next day, Finnegan calls The Edgelord again and says he needs a face for a simple job, telling him to stop by the dumpster behind the Stuffer Shack to meet Mr. Johnson.

Mr. Johnson is a small, weasly looking man in an ill-fitting suit who promises The an easy job. "Go to the train station" he instructs, handing The an enormous, heavy suitcase along with a pin and the current day's newspaper. Johnson says that a man carrying an identical bag will depart the train onto platform 7 at exactly 11:15. "The man will bump into you. You'll trade bags... at not point are you to look inside either of the bags." The Edgelord agrees to these terms, and receives a number to call "any time of day or night", being told that he should only use it if the matter is urgent, and that it should be forgotten as soon as the act is done.

At the train station, The Edgelord notices an unusually heavy amount of Lone Star presence, but keeps his cool No one departs off the 11:15 train, so he assumes Johnson had meant the next morning. He stays up reading the paper and waits again. Still, no one departs. The calls the number he was given, but there is no answer. The Edgelord calls Finnegan who assures him that nothing is wrong, the mix-up must have been a misunderstanding. He instructs The Edgelord to "wait it out" and asks for confirmation that he was wearing the pin. He promises to set up another meeting with the Johnson, and The Edgelord leaves the train station, heading to a back alley near his apartment. Once alone, he opens the suitcase to find the body of Ares Macrotechnology CEO Damien Knight inside, neatly chopped into several pieces.