Drug Run

It is a little after sunrise, with pale streaks of light filtering down to the street that Yancy is strolling down, looking a little dejected after another night without any work. The crisp morning air and colourless rays of sunshine would make the scene beautiful, if it weren't this street. Or any street in this neighborhood, to be fair.

Rubbish piled up, waiting for some government agent who gave a shit to organise a pickup. The salt from the sea, not far away, had rusted through most of the exposed pipes, causing there to be a seemingly constant drip of stale water splashing down somewhere nearby. There was nobody to be found at this time of the morning, aside from the odd disheveled party-goer, coming home on their walk of shame, which Yancy knew made it one of the safest times to walk the streets alone. Even the cops and gang-bangers were asleep in their beds this late at night / early in the morning.

That's when he heard a gunshot. Adrenaline rushed up his spine and he took a defensive stance, looking around for the source of the sound, ready to bolt. A black van, rusted and old, as most of them were this close to the sea, flung around the corner, driving a little too fast for these close city streets, and backfired again.

A wave of relief washed over Yancy's body. Just another idiot driving too fast in a car that couldn't handle anything.

At that moment the van skidded to a halt, right in front of Yancy, who realised that he had reflexively hidden in the shadows. The side door opened and two thugs threw a man out into the street. His metal arms clanged loudly as he rolled to a stop, directly in front of Yancy, as the van door closed and it sped away.

He looked beat up. His face was bruised and bloody, his clothes were in strips from the cuts that had gone deep into his flesh. Panels of his cyber arms had been torn off and there were exposed wires shorting out against his skin. He convulsed slightly and his eyes opened, letting out a deep groan as he rolled on to his back and stared at the sky. His whole body rocked as he tensed up and turned to the side to cough up blood on to the side walk at Yancy's feet. Seeing feet in front of him, he looked up at Yancy.

"Please," he said, "Please, do you know a doctor that can keep this quiet?"

Jesus, Yancy looks at the poor beat-up bastard, then off at the retreating van, trying to note a unique detail about the beater in case they come back around to check on their handiwork. "Oof, bud. Looks like you've had better days, huh?" Yancy walks to the man's side without hurry, this is unfortunately commonplace on a street like this. He kneels down and takes stock of the man's injuries, "Yeah, I know a guy, but he's not into doing charity work if you get my drift. Don't know that I much am either." Yancy raises an eyebrow at the man, feeling the emptiness of his own pockets very acutely this late evening. "Fortunately for you, I deal in favors as much as kred. Might need a loaded kredstick on his end, though. Let's take a look at you to make sure you'll make it to his office." Yancy looks the man over and tries to take stock of any injuries he might be able to stabilize until he's able to get him to get in touch with White Rabbit.

"What happened to earn you this little concrete dismount, anyway? I'm not putting a price on my head talking to you, am I?" Yancy gives him a wink, the seriousness of his question hiding under a layer of manufactured playfulness.

Yancy looks through his pockets and found a scrap of cloth that he used to soak up the worst of the blood. His gentle manner made the man a little more at ease, and he was thankful as Yancy helped him get to his feet.

"Don't worry, I've got the kreds. Not on me, but I'm good for it" He dusted himself off a bit. "The name's Durian. Which way to this doctor friend of yours? I should probably get off the street in case they come back. As to why it is that I've been brought here so unceremoniously, well, to be honest, it seems I have a reputation for knowing things and people think that means I'm a snitch."

I pull out my commlink and tap off a quick message to the White Rabbit, Hey, you up an around? I got an unfortunate customer who's looking for a stitch-up.

"Unfortunate reputation you have. At least when the wrong people catch wind." I wink. "Let's get a car. He's a bit past walking distance," I hail a ride on my commlink and face him as we wait. "Who were those guys anyway?"

After receiving a response, I give my new friend a once over, A bit more involved than usual I'm afraid. I plugged up the big holes, but I think there's some structural damage. I type back as we climb into our taxi, We'll be there in a minute. As always, your discretion will be appreciated.

I give the driver an address a block away from our actual destination, planning to walk the remainder, and look over to the man with metal arms, "How 'bout it? Start from the beginning."

Durian winced as he got into the cab.

"Afraid it's not much of a story, really. As I said, I tend to know things. Apparently somebody got wind of that and sent some people looking for some answers. Now, information being a precious commodity in this here society I lay down my price and what do they do?"

He spat blood out the window, smearing a little on the door in the process, enraging the driver. "Calm down, calm down, I'll buy you a detail." He said before returning to Yancy.

"They pick me up, literally, and explain that they're government agents and that if I wanna stay alive then I had better tell them what they wanted to know for free. As I said, I know things, and I make deals, but I ain't no snitch. So I clam up. Give them nothing. That's when they get to hurting me. Nothing fancy, mind you, you'd think in this high tech utopia of ours they would have come up with some more advanced torture techniques, but all they did was hit me, cut me, then hit me some more. After a while I let something slip that apparently impressed them enough to let me go."

I give a low whistle. I've got a bad feeoing that I'm stepping into something that's gonna be tough to wipe off my shoe. I think to myself. "Sounds rough. Guess even the coppers can appreciate the classics. Jere, drop us off here." I tap on the back of the front seat, eager to get out of earshot.

Once we're on the sidewalk, I turn to Dorian, "You good to walk? I think the 'fresh air' is worth the privacy." I throw scare quotes around fresh air as we walk. "Feds or state? Did they even bother showing you a badge? No chance you wanna share what they were asking after withal a new friend, is there?" The question guns are loose as we walk to White Rabbit's clinic.

Durian shuffled along the sidewalk slowly, "Nah, never showed me no badge, just kept yelling at me, telling me how bad my life would be if I didn't let anything slip." He chuckled under his breath. "Guess I'm not as hardcore as I thought I was, didn't take me long to break. I didn't know anything, though, that's the funny thing. I never heard about the job they were asking about. Something to do with drugs stolen from the high and mighty. I told them, there ain't nothin' that I've heard, but they didn't accept that."

I shoot q bit of small talk at him, "Hardcore's just a made up term to sell stuff." before going on a bit of a diatribe about the capitalist state as we close the rest of the distance to White Rabbit's. When we get there I press the buzzer and wait for a response.

The camera fades to black as Yancy presses the doorbell, panning over to reveal Goodie standing on a train. The warm yellow sunrise streaks in to the cold steel interior of the carriage, city officials still haven’t spent any serious money upgrading the public transport beyond serviceability factors. There are a handful of commuters coming out of the outskirts of the city around him as a message pings his HUD from an old friend.

Hey, how hooked in are you to law enforcement channels? - Krishna

No, not my only call, but you're on the list ;P I just can't seem to get a straight answer from any of my usual contacts. Makes me nervous that I've already said yes.

Don't worry, I'm sure it's nothing. How are you going lately?

Well, it’s just that I told a friend that I would put aside a shipping container for some short term storage, you know, not on the books. Now I’m having trouble getting outside confirmation of any kinds of law enforcement looking anything, so either I’ve made a sweetheart deal with legal wares or something's going down that I’m unable to put my finger on. Me being the eternal optimist that I am I tend to think that anything that’s too good to be true usually is, so now I’m worried that I’ve gotten myself into a mess that I don’t even know what I can do to get myself out of. And it’s not like I can back out of a deal to house illegal wares because I have learnt that the wares are illegal. But it’s probably nothing, right?

... Ok, I guess you're right. Ask your contact to see if anything big's been reported missing or stolen recently. I'll meet you at the Black Bean Cafe, you know the one where they make the great iced teas? I'll give you and your guy a day or two to figure something out. If it's nothing, then I'll sleep easier, but if it's something, then maybe you just saved my life. I'll remember that.

A notification pops up on Trevor's HUD, noting a change on a shared file. It was a file that recorded the amount of debt that Trevor owed to Krishna, and the notification read that it had just decreased by 1 kred.