[Beta]

Jawsey returns his attention to the physical room, takes a sip of the caff, then straightens up and demands "How long have they had him, and what else have you done to recover him?  We need to understand how big this mess is before we take the job."

The questions and comment are deliberately provocative, as he wants to watch how the man reacts.  But he's also curious about how the man came to this brand new agency, and if others have either walked away from the job or failed.

(OOC: will buy 3 successes on judge intentions)

[Lorebane24]

The ork looks away, but continues speaking.  "We... had a fight three nights ago - I found he was stealing from me.  I haven't seen him since - I assumed that he wasting time with his friends, but then yesterday, I received the demand for his ransom in my inbox - I was instructed to render payment at a bar two days from now, in certified credsticks."

Jawsey & Mato:  You don't get the impression that he's telling you any outright falsehoods, but he is choosing his words very meticulously whenever the ransom demands come up - it would seem that he doesn't want anyone to know exactly how much the Halloweeners are demanding of him.

[Tecumseh]

Mato nods, not from sympathy - which probably disappeared four cyberlimbs ago - but from factual acknowledgement of the situation. Ultimately it didn't matter what the Halloweeners were demanding; it was a simple supply-and-demand transaction. If anything, Mato was thankful for the Halloweeners being so unreasonable.

He falls back onto the language he remembers from his parents.

<<Let's see if we can scare up the price with performance bonuses and scope-of-work additions. Delivering ahead of schedule, sending a message to the captors, things like that. Anyone know any good Halloweener stories we can use to upsell the risk factor?>>

[Beta]

Jawsey fires off an ARO to the team <<Any of you good at image searching?  I'm pretty sure that this guy is worth a lot more than 25k, so I'm curious.  Mato, we'll get to the price shortly; I want the ugly details that justify the price first.>>

To their client he gentles his posture and voice, but carries on with questions  "I don't know that we'll need to know the information -- but I don't know that we won't either.  Can you tell me the names of any of his ... associates, shall we call them?  You mentioned a gang, I believe?  Does he have a personal vehicle that he was apt to have been using, and if so have you tried to get it traced yet?  And do you know if he is a regular user of drugs or BTLs?"

[Lorebane24]

His brow furrows.  "His friends - they call themselves Nova Rich," he grunts.  "They spend most of their time squandering their potential and smoking bliss downtown, I believe.  He does have a bike - a tasteless one.  I can give you access to its Grid Guide information if you wish to track it down."

He sends another ARO your way, including the user's manual and serial number  for a bog-standard Suzuki Mirage, as well as a picture pulled from p2.0 of the bike heavily modified and painted blue and gold.

"This is what he rides.  It appears to be..."  He pauses as he scans an ARO before frowning.  "Gone?  I can't get a location on it, I can track the vehicle's movements over the last three days.  That may be helpful."  He swivels his thumb, and your commlinks ping with a new message.

[gilga]

AM listens intently to the conversation and nods,  she texts back to Jawsey -">> Of course... I'll do a deep search once we're done, but let's see if anything pops up."
She said  "Nova Rich... now, why would they call themselves that... The bike is something though... Shiny enough to make an impression. Do you want to salvage the bike as well?" She suggested.

She pauses and says "What kind of other augmentations does your boy have? I am asking as it would make it easier for us to spot him quickly with magic."

She drinks from her coffee and thinks, making a quick search for the boy's picture, and the bike to see if anything surface. That kind of boy - must have some social media presence.

Computer search (quick): 11d6t5 2

When the information from her contact finally arrives she shares it with Jawsey - to better prepare him for the negotiation.

[Tecumseh]

Mato is self-aware enough to know that he has the personality of a bag of doorknobs, and even if his mind can form a coherent argument his tongue or his personal character will get in the way. He internally shrugs and moves on, leaving Jawsey and AM to do the bargaining.

He sends a DNI command to his commlink to run the boy's picture - along with the father's - through the MonaLisa program to see if it can generate any clues as to who the Johnson might be. Hopefully the same P2.0 account that featured the blue-and-gold Suzuki Mirage would also identify the boy they're supposed to recover.

[Jack_Spade]

Bobby knew quite well that he had no talent for small talk, negotiation or friendly relations. What he brought to the table was the anvil of intimidation. Scaring up the price was something he could do...
"Helloweeners. Nasty bunch. They like to torture people they catch. Branding them with glowing red irons. Working their way up to the genitals.
There's a reason people cracked down on them so hard.
Still, you are coming to us instead of KE which means the background of what your son stole from you isn't exactly legal, right?
What have we to expect here? And don't bulldrek us. We are a bunch of fragging detectives."

[Lorebane24]

The man is easy to find via his son's P2.0 page.  He is Arthur Liu, a local accounting director for Fidelity Mutual Insurance.  He is by all appearances a single father and corporate lifer.  His son, Brian (though he apparently prefers the moniker "Yin"), has a considerably larger Matrix footprint.  His P2.0 profile is filled with pictures of his bike and detail work he's had done on it, boastful posts about all the chrome he'll be sporting someday, and pictures of him joyriding and committing petty crimes with his gang.  His most recent post, dated three days ago reads: Stepping into the big time - just one easy score and I'm leave this kiddy drek behind!.  There is a single reply from another member of Nova Rich: Get fragged, you faithless slot.  Hope they jack your wheels and chop it for parts.

Meanwhile, Liu turns to Bobby.  "I said I caught him stealing from it.  Obviously I put a stop to it.  And I said some things that may have been... harsher than usual.  He may be a dissapointment, but he is my son nonetheless, and I've been given a two day deadline.  Knight Errant would not handle this quietly or quickly - if I were to involve them, the odds of me seeing my son alive are very low."  His voice wavers ever so slightly as he rubs his nose, stifling what may be a sneeze or a sniffle.

Jawsey observes his aura darken.  Despite his relative composure, his discomfort is give way to an intense anxiety.

[Lorebane24]

Gonna go ahead and wrap the meet up.  Also, how do I roll dice on this forum?  The only PbPs I've ever done were on Paizo, and those were like 5 years ago.

The back and forth with goes on for around half an hour before you're satisfied you know everything he does, or at least everything he's willing to tell you.  And offer for 25,000 (presumably on a four-way split) is on the table for the safe return of his son, with a deadline of two days.  Now is the time to negotiate the price.

[Beta]

The set-up to drive up the price was there, but when it was time to get serious about the cost of this, Jawsey struggled.  He wasn't the best negotiator, but he knew he was decent and that the team had set him up with some good material.

But the right words wouldn't flow.  Maybe it was a Father trying to protect a son.  Maybe it was nerves.  But he knew he was not being convincing.  He went back and covered the same ground again, this time working from basic negotiating approaches instead of trying to be subtle, and it made their case better. But he couldn't help but be disappointed at his underwhelming performance.

He wondered if a hit of Psyche would have kept him sharper, let him put the case together more tightly?

[gilga]

AM stepped in to helped as much as she could, sharpening some of the points after Jawsey.
"At the end of the day what you are requesting is much more than detective work, detective work is to find out where the kid is, but you require an extraction. A much more expensive service, demanding, and involved service and the price should reflect it.

Second, the extraction target is not the average gang, Nightmare their new leader is ruthless, his followers are fearless. They are likely to be actively guarding your boy and alert to any extraction attempts, considering how much money they expect to make out of him. They'll guard him carefully!

Third, it is a rushed job. You leave us with 48 hours to find and rescue your boy. This is difficult and forces us to abandon anything else we are doing, and forces us to more direct, and risky approaches to get information. We are your best option to save your boy, and you are unlikely to find any better team given the ultimatum you are facing. Quality is worth paying for... Look around you, we are a team of hardened professionals. e." - she gestured at her team. "Much more than detectives, expensive augmentations, fighting skills, magic, matrix and social skills, we are your best chance!" 

"Now we don't take offense, you clearly are new at this business and were not aware of the actual pricing, let's agree on some number that would make all of us satisfied? You are asking for quite a lot, with a very modest paycheque... Perhaps 40k would make everyone happy.?"

[Lorebane24]

Liu's lips purse tightly when he hear's AM's figure.  "I take your point, but 40,000 is too high, and, more to the point, more than I can afford right now..."  He leans back in his chair and issues a heavy sigh.  "In nuyen, at least.  I can raise my offer to 32,000 but that all I can pull together right now.  Or..."  An ARO pops up before you, showcasing a sleek, black, and by all appearances new Hyundai Shin-Hyun.  "In addition to the 25,000, I can give you my car - the nice one, with title.  I bought it two months ago after settling a major account, but another project will come along, and the situation being what it is, well, my Xenon will suffice until then."

[Tecumseh]

Mato glances around the room, watching for reactions. The team is so new that they don't know everything about each other, but enough comments had been made on all sides to understand that they were all in debt to different parties... parties that took their debt-collection seriously. Mato's hole was modest, but he had no desire to have any of his cyberware involuntarily repossessed.

He tries to think of the proposal as his parents would have. Before their deaths, his father was in accounting and finance while his mother was in marketing. There are concepts that Mato vaguely understands, like depreciation, but can't fully articulate or apply. He fires off a mental command to his commlink to help him with some math.

<<On the surface that's ¥7,000 for a car that retails for ¥28,500. Even if it loses half of that value when it drives off the lot, it's still a fair trade. Add in the fact that the car isn't taxed, unlike the monetary portion.>>

Mato isn't sure who in the room is paying taxes, but he sure is, and he'd prefer not to get audited.

<<Paying 15% of 32k brings it down to 27k, which isn't that different from 25k. Even if we sell the car used, we'll make up the difference.>>

[Beta]

Jawsey had been running numbers of his own, and responded <<I can make ends meet for a while on my share of 25k, even if we have to drop some small bribes.  And a second car is useful for everything from easier tailing someone to getting two things done at once to not being too often in the same place.  I'm in favour of the offer, if we can all afford to take it.>>

Then he got up, asked their guest if he'd care for some 'caff now, prepared a fresh cup for himself, and tried to be unobtrusive about loosening up his back a bit.  All the while he sent small talk around the room, to fill in the time while the team completed their AR discussion.