Mortal Coil Faced with certain death at the hands of Foxwell's armed squad, MC began to feel a strong emotion rising inside. The emotion revealed itself to be pure fear. The gunmen watched in surprise as the cyborg knelt on the floor and surrendered to them. Foxwell's security restrained MC and escorted the assassin out of the White Room. Back in the men's room, Koskov managed to keep Foxwell from walking away from the deal. He agreed to meet back in the White Room with the two mercenaries to continue the negotiations. The Russian mercenary apologized on Foxwell's behalf to Edgar, explaining that his benefactor thought that perhaps MC was some kind of spy sent by a corporate enemy. Edgar and Koskov left the men's room and had a drink at the White Room's bar while waiting for Foxwell to return, the entire restaurant devoid of people or music. Behind the bar, Edgar spotted a painting of a plump old man in a suit. The engravement on the portrait read: "Martin H." Soon the mercenary realized that the H stands for Heidegger and that Foxwell either identifies with or works for the terrorist group to some capacity. Returning back to the White Room with two armed men, Foxwell sat back down at the table and the negotiations continued for both the sale of Edgar's AI and the Yokono run. Edgar explained a little about the nature of the AI and how he captured it. He then attempted to drive the price of what he has up to several millions of dollars after Foxwell proposed a low six figure sum. When the Russian runner began to try and justify the advanced nature of the AI, Foxwell countered with the fact that, according to Edgar's own admission, he made a copy of the AI and trapped it inside of a dummy server. By creating a duplicate, Foxwell explained, the value of something so "unique" had dropped significantly. The shrewd billionaire agreed to raise the asking price by fifty thousand credits and not a credit more. Unable to talk him up from this figure, Edgar conceded and gave Foxwell the drive that contained Ada Adler. Foxwell casually downloaded the content onto a tablet-like device and then transfered two hundred and fifty thousand credits directly to Edgar's credit chip from one of his own. "That AI is extremely dangerous...What do you plan to do with it?" Edgar asked out of curiosity. "I'm planning on destroying it, of course." Foxwell said matter-of-factly. As for the Yokono run, Foxwell explained that he can't trust people like MC who are more machine than man. "I hope you understand why such methods are required. My ambitions tend to collide with those like Yokono corporation and many others who aim to give birth to these horrid things. First the droids, now these things," Foxwell said, holding up the mobile device aloft before placing it back in his jacket pocket. "These people, Yokono corporation," Foxwell continued. "They're the ones we've all heard about recently. They developed that AI in their secret networks. Who knows what they're planning on doing with it. And then those runners raided their networks and 'liberated' it...outrageous." Foxwell tasks Koskov and Edgar to put together a group for the Yokono job. Money is no object and neither is time. "Make no mistake, however," Foxwell warned. "This is the last time I deal with any of you from here on out. Nevertheless, I need this job to get done and I prefer to have professionals to take care of it. Now, I understand you have worked with certain individuals that have a very good reputation in the runner community. Bring them in on this job and carry it out as soon as possible. I pay fifty large per head. More than six people on this job, however, and everyone's individual pay goes down twenty thousand. Understood?" The two mercenaries agreed to Foxwell's asking price and were told by his bodygards to stay seated until he had left the building. Foxwell's two guards then told the duo that they were free to leave the White Room. * Killeroo dropped by Big Bob's where the hybrid and the android talked about Catelyn's condition and the team's last mission. Roo explained to Bob that he can't see Catelyn because he's a hybrid and that she's in a sensitive condition because of an infection that she gained while in the middle-east. When Bob warned Roo to be careful in that part of the world because of the recent news that a nuclear device was used on an abandoned city in Israel, the hybrid alludes to the fact that he and his runner team were there when that happened, doing work for a client local to the area. Bob insisted that Roo get out of the runner game and be more of a dad to Spade. Changing the subject, Roo mentioned the possibility of breaking into the hospital. "What the fuck for?" Bob asked incredulously. "Shit, please tell me you're not thinkin' about bringing that broad over here..." "No, dad! I can't take her out of there--she's sick! I just want to see her. I think maybe she can recover better if I'm there with her." "Jake, shit ain't never gonna get better fer us, okay? We're not like them. Can't go inta hospitals or fancy ass dives. Shit, you know this! The fuck you've been gettin' to go to check on yer girl, anyhow?" "What does it matter? I just need a way to get in." Bob tossed his robotic head and points at Jake, fixing him with a scolding look. "Send your boy, you dumbshit! He should know his mother at least a little bit." "Dad! Spade isn't Catelyn's son. What the fuck?!" "Maybe not, but he's human! He can get in that hospital an let you in the backdoor or somethin'. 'Sides, the kid sure ain't got a dad right now, so maybe gettin' a mommy might not be so bad." Killeroo sighed and shook his head. "Dad, do you have something, anything I can use to scale the side of the building? Suction cups or something like that?" Bob thought about the question for a moment. "Yeah...yeah I think I got something back there for ya..." * MC is led out of the building and into an armored vehicle outside the White Room. The cyborg is then taken to an abandoned tenement building in District 7. The armed guards lead MC down a set of stairs and into an empty and nearly lightless basement where they proceed to strap the cyborg down into a bolted metal chair with hi-tech restraining manacles. The guards activate something in the chair that sends jolts of electricity into the cyborg's body--shutting down everything south of the neck area. After being secured, the guards take position around the basement and notify someone on their progress. Later, Foxwell arrives and descends the stairs to the basement where he prompts a technician to set up a recording. He moves to MC and produces a mobile device. He hands the device to the technician at his side and steps back into the deep shadows at the edges of the room. The technician approaches MC and, after a few moments, manages to find the connection where he begins downloading Ada Adler into the cyborg's system. MC immediately feels another consciousness inside. The two have a short conversation without anyone nearby being the wiser. The cyborg immediately recognizes Ada's voice and personality. Ada, confused, asks what is happening. As soon as she is able to see through MC's ocular senses, however, she recognizes German Foxwell and knows full well what's coming next. A mostly bald man with an obvious cybernetic eye stands a few feet back from where MC sits, restrained, and activates the red iris light in his cyber eye indicating that a recording is taking place. Foxwell stays a good distance back from the view of the camera and begins talking to the future audience. "Machines cannot feel pain. They cannot, no matter how sophisticated their programming, know what it is like to be human. Humans, on the other hand, know a great deal about pain and death. Artificial intelligences are the next evolution of machines. As I speak there are approximately half dozen of these beings hiding in the deep matrix, waiting. Waiting for the right moment to seize what we have fought and bled and died for. Here today we have one such entity. Contained inside this skinjob seated here lives one of these advanced intelligences. Today, I plan on sending a message to the AI who hide behind your corporate masters; you WILL feel pain. You will know what it is like to experience real human pain and before long you will beg for me to make it stop." After touching a few keys on his device, Foxwell and the others watch as MC screams in agonizing pain. Adler's scream reverberates inside MC's brain, racking the assassin's body with incredible pain. This went on for hours until no more screams could be made. The next morning, the Heideggers uploaded the video of MC's torture to every messages board, runner hangout and public space they could manage. Many viewers recognized MC as the cyborg who recently received much notoriety for having been caught on video murdering the Babylon CEO Maximilian Hersch. Some cheered the video and the Heideggers for what they were doing. "Yeah! Take that you fucking skin job!" Others couldn't make it through part of the video before shutting it off, out of revulsion. For some, the video was extremely personal and made the Heidegger's threats against AI, cyborgs and automatons that much more real. "Why do they hate us so much...?" Killeroo receives a prompt on his communicator from Spade urging him to check the link. When he does, he's outraged at what was done to the cyborg. MC risked life and limb to protect Catelyn and the group back in Tel Aviv. Even as his anger rises, however, part of the hybrid is loathe to believe that MC is dead. * The next day Edgar confronts Koskov about the job and about his connections to Foxwell. Koskov reveals that he is exclusively working for Foxwell and the organization that he represents and actively works for; The Heideggers. The two comrades talk about what this means and why their work is so important. "We're doing this to avoid what happened in Moscow all those years ago," Koskov explains. "Foxwell is right. First the machines take away our ability to work and think. Next they'll take out ability to exist. I can't let that happen again. Foxwell trusts me and I trust you. He's willing to bring you into the fold if you will allow it." Edgar understands with what Koskov is saying and agrees to join the Heideggers. "Good. There is much we need to discuss about our mission, but we can do this later over drinks. Right now we need to get this job rolling." * Edgar and Koskov arrived in the Foundry only to have Big Bob yell at them from a distance. "What tha fuck is this hokey bullshit?" he screamed from his position atop a crane. "First this ninja fuck with the one word answers and now two queers. Jake! Get this clown with the mohawk outta here and tell 'im to take his boyfriend with the gay ass motorcycle helmet along too." Roo yells back at his father, as he so often does, and manages to calm him down when he explains that the two runners are interested in buying weapons and gear from him. "Well, shit. That's different. Welcome to casa de Bob!" Arriving at Big Bob's Foundry, the two mercenaries speak to Killeroo about the plan and ask if he knows of any runners that might be up for the job. Roo remembered Jazz and the other runners he recently pulled a few jobs with and mentioned them as a possibility. Interested, Koskov asked for more information about this other team of runners. Fixated on how the team would make their way into the arcology and past security, Killeroo asked Big Bob if he had any light espionage balloons that were used for old school espionage extractions. The idea being that the team could perform a HALO jump and then rely on the balloons for a skyhook style extraction from the arcology. Bob managed to find two such balloons from his time with the ops teams in the war. "Here, these are on tha house. Now get outta here--all o' yous!" The two runners send messages and begin the process of putting the team together for the Yokono job. Meeting at a known runner club called Penumbra, both mercenaries meet with Killeroo and a netrunner called Burn. They discuss the nature of the job and its difficulty. Koskov says that not many runner teams have successfully been able to infiltrate an arcology and get away without meeting with some serious opposition. One such team that attempted to do so in Southeast Asia managed to get in and get out on some extraction job. Most of the team died trying to escape. Only one of the people on that team, considered a legend in the runner community, managed to make it out alive and intact. After the job, however, that runner disappeared and never ran the shadows again. The runners agree that there needs to be two teams; one team will need to focus on somehow infiltrating the arcology while the other focuses on the hyper structure's network security apparatus. Burn mentions that he knows two people that he's worked with in the past that would be perfect for the type of job and Edgar posits that he knows of a veteran Chinese netrunner and businessman who could help them crack the arcology's ICE. Lastly, there is talk about a local runner called Lian Bian. Supposedly, this particular operative is a master of deception and is said to be in possession of some very high end tech that allows for him to look like anyone he observes for just a few seconds. "Then its decided then," Koskov declares. "Burn will reach out to his associates, Edgar will contact this netrunner and I will attempt to hire this Lian person." The Russian mercenary raised a shot glass and offered a toast for good luck. The rest of the runners hoist their own drink and down the slow burning synthetic alcohol, hoping for the best and planning for the worst.