Muffled chatters..
Two guys wearing half a shirt with matching mohawks arguing in the distant... smelly, muddy street with piles of trashes on almost a post apocalyptic land scape, anxious, rushed, cheap saftey shoes slamming the road...
"Bzzzz... bzzzz..., SLAP!!!" the palm hits the side of a neck, the drain fly buzzing near a set of ears for a bit too long to ignore. His secondhand contact lenses linked to a portable cyberdeck strapped around his wrist emitted a waypoint sig toward the Black Sapphire Casino. This colossus of a building stands ninety-nine stories tall with a luxury club, casino and AV landing pads at the top. The ground floor contains warehouses and barracks for BARGHEST soldiers.
Everything in between remains a matter of speculation according to the locals, a prison for VIPs held for ransom, maybe a zoo for endangered animals that Hansen serves to dinner guests at lavish parties, a server room that puts Arasaka Tower's to shame... It's no surprise the rumors that circle the Black Sapphire grow more and more farfetched every year. Yet one fact is undeniable – the Black Sapphire is Hansen's pride and joy. It is an impenetrable fortress, a palace where he can play King of Dogtown and host dignitaries from the world over, but especially the who's who of Night City's political and criminal landscape.
Waypoint signal buzzed, the software jammed in his right ear failing to tell him the directions and whereabouts. A fustrated frown later... The alley it suggested reeked of smash, dorph and something weird he can't name. He squinted. Hard. It was a bad path, half-lit, one exit, a perfect mugging zone."Shit's glitching again, you gotta be fucking kidding me," he muttered in crisp English, swiping a finger over the earpiece. Burmese curses words came out of his mutterings, "lee" literal meaing dick! used as an substitute for the f-word, the reminiscences of a childhood in Yangon's squatter camps and Arasaka labour camps in Dala Dockyards. Poverty had taught him to patch code, haggle for black-market textbooks, data shards, to not poke his nose around and disappear.
Here, in the city of dreams, those skills kept him alive.
Shoulders hunched to minimize his silhouette. At his height of 5'5", with a baby face that drew "Hey, kid!" from corpo suits to random homeless gonks, Invisibility was his armor.
As he walked toward the tall colossus, the glitterati, the flexs at the casino doors, expensive threads, augments, flashy coats, well they screamed wealth, and Vincent's lack of them screamed not worth the bullet. He got an decent headpiece, smart lenses, and an old Cyberdeck on his wrist. He exhaled, adjusted his jacket, and moved toward the Black Sapphire's entrance, thinking, "Don't get noticed by the wrong people."
Outside, bouncers scanned the crowd. One, a mean looking tall slab with chromed-up eyes, locked eyes on him for half a second too long. Vincent slowed. Casino security didn't like errand boys. One bad nervous twitch, and they'd pull you aside for a 'random check' where you either pay up or got 'fucked up so bad you drown in medical bill' in an alley. He stepped aside, pretending to check his earpiece, letting corpos and mercs funnel in first.
He took his time. Night City was all about pace. Move too fast, you look nervous. Move too slow, you get pressed. His turn. The bouncer's glare was a "What the fuck do you want from me" question to Vincent. Vincent flicked his wrist up, shoved a chip into the bouncer's pocket, his balance pathetically low after dropping some eddies on new threads yesterday, and said in a perfectly neutral tone, "VIP pass." The bouncer barely glanced at the details. Vincent looked like a nobody. He was supposed to. A dismissive grunt later and he was waved in.
Inside, the casino, bougie interiors, grimy decors, holo-tables, decked up mercenaries, Barghest soldiers, as expected of one of the most riskiest combatzone within Night City.Following the hallway, walked past a bar counter looking for his client.
He walked right through a VIP corridor, where a bored-looking escort letting him in while someone in a neon suit talked something about Arasaka to their partner at the table beside the VIP corridor. Vincent kept walking. Didn't look too hard. Just acted like he had somewhere to be.
The booth was up ahead. He reached a side lounge, empty except for one person, a woman.
Sitting with her legs crossed, a sharp grin on her lips, French accent thick as her purse. Aurore Cassel, the less eccentric half of the infamous netrunner duo known as Skylight in the underworld. Dangerous, someone you don't want to mess around with, She didn't look up right away. Just flicked her mind over her neural link, codes reflecting in her lenses. Then, finally, her gaze snapped to Vincent. One sharp inhale, she smiled like she'd already sized him up. 'huh... purely organic in this place? now that's interesting...' she thought to herself before opening her lips..
"...You got lost?"
Vincent's expression didn't change. He knew better than to lie to someone like Aurore. So he just gave the truth "Only for a second."
She looked at him, tapping her lacquered fine nails against the table, eyeing the synth wine glass, eyeing him up and down like a puzzle she'd already solved. "So you sure you didn't take a peek?" she asked, her lips curling up a bit, half amusement and half disapproval. Tapping her nails against the table, looking at his unkept hair.
Vincent reached into his jacket, pulled out a slim black leather case, unwarped it and placed it on the table.
No extra words.
Aurore's fingers barely grazed it before she smirked.
"No small talk? , you're no fun kid." she chuckled.
Vincent met her gaze, flat tone, anxiousness behind his eyes and a forced smile. "Well....you paid for a delivery, not a conversation." one hand scratching his neck.
For a second, she studied him, letting the words hang, rolling them in her mind like a well-aged cognac. Then, her smile sharpened. A nobody she thought, he adjusted his smart headpiece, lens twinkles on his corneas, pupils dialate to adjust to the light.
Then she huffed out a laugh. "Efficient. I like that. Well, go get yourself something nice, will you? Non? But still... here you are. A courier, small, vulnerable, perhaps cute." She chuckled. "Tell me, mon chou, do you ever get curious?"
A soft beep. Funds transferred. Vincent gave her a short nod, then turned and walked away. No wasted motion. No lingering. No replies.
Aurore watched him leave, watched Vincent disappear into the crowd, she glanced at him, cheap jacket, frame too small, fully ganic in a place like Dog Town, she couldn't tell if he's dangerous or simply a lucky idiot. Her fingers brushing the smooth leather case. She flicked it open, eyes scanning the data shard inside. Then she smiled.
"Well isn't this a surprise..." Her hands opened the shiny small leather black case, looking at a piece of data shard inside.