Connections:
Handsome Jack encountered Shade a couple of years back when Jack was contracted by the gangster Slick Sammy, who had his driver, Shade, take Jack to a meet with a rival gangster to deliver a package. During the trip out Handsome Jack engaged Shade in conversation and learned that Shade was being coerced by Slick Sammy, his life held in thrall by a cortical bomb. On the return trip Jack offered to connect Shade with a trusted street doc who could remove the bomb once Shade eliminated Slick Sammy, as well as helping to plan Shade's escape from Slick Sammy's vengeful associates, but that he would not assist Shade in killing his boss nor did Jack want to know any details of how the hit would take place. Jack could truthfully say that he was not involved in Slick Sammy's death, other than having foreknowledge that it would happen and by whose hand. Since Slick Sammy wasn't paying Jack for anything more than being a messenger, Jack wasn't ethically bound to report to the gangster that his days were numbered. Jack's reputation would remain clean of any allegation of betraying an employer.
Jack met The Professor at Jack's favorite night club a few weeks ago. The fellow, perhaps a tad too inebriated for discretion, was showing off some of his rather special talents to a girl he was not having much success in impressing. But he did impress Jack, who had only heard rumors of the existence of technomancers prior to that night, and Jack quickly swooped in to steal The Professor's attention. Treating the man to a nice steak dinner, and in the process sobering him up enough for a lucid conversation, they chatted for several hours until the restaurant closed for the night. Being potentially useful to each other, the new friends agreed to keep in touch and parted company, one sated and in much need of sleep, the other a bit wiser and somewhat lighter of coin than when the night began.
