[Mercy Merchant]

Snow cares.  She did not know the girl, but it seemed that she was troubled.  She looks at the Pito feeds to see if the cause of death is mentioned.  She also sends a private note to Sammy.  >>Sammy, you knew this girl, right?  I am sorry for your loss.  Is there anything I can do?<<

[farothel]

Sammy didn't know Christy Daee, at least not personally.  In fact, yesterday was only the second time they had been in the same room, the first being the Oscar ceremony she had been at and where Christy had done a song.

"From what I can see there are some people who know," Sammy said, "first is the group we took that footage from, but they will not tell as that would bring too much attention on their own operation.  The other is her manager.  Maybe Snow can check to see if there was a copy of that footage and that it was released.  Other than that we can't do much except keep our eyes open.  And wait until they release the cause of death, as it is probably totally unrelated to what we've done yesterday."

[Mercy Merchant]

Snow nods to herself and begins cruising the lanes of Pito feeds from earlier in the day.  >>Team.  Snow.  I just had this really crazy sort of conspiracy idea.  What if the agent is the bad guy here?  He works with the people setting up the sex tape but is double-crossed.  he hires us to get the tape so he can blackmail the girl with a copy of it.  Sounds crazy, but the guy seemed slimy to me.<<

Snow stretches and goes for a bathroom break while running the scan of public Pito feeds.  On the way back, she spots Crenshaw and gives him a smile and a wave, putting the fingers of one hand to her ear and mouth in the universal symbol to give her a call.

[Necrogigas]

O'Connor rolled his eyes, "Y'all need to calm the frag down. Clem, our connection to the now rotting meat is that we were strong armed into doing a job by her agent at the insistence of her best friend. I think we're fine. And Snow, no, just no. This may be Hollywood, but I really doubt the guy is a b-grade villain with murky motives and a shaky plan."

[Crossbow]

With everything going on, you haven't given it much thought, but in the minutes after the announcement of the singer's death some strange traffic seems to be coming down.  Being members of the matrix age you are all used to the occasional spam that comes your way, but the addition of the Pito traffic on your links has taken this stuff to the point of distraction.

O'Conner has had a steady stream of gun safety links and PSA's about gun violence statistics popping up in his feed that seem to coincide with checking his gear, and the night before there were some weird bits about drug use and unprotected sex that tried to mess with his party.

Clementine has noted that ever since coming back from with the sandwich shop she is getting a pop-up showing calorie counts on every RFID'd package she looks at.

The local matrix is abuzz with news of Daee, but any searches Snow initiates get redirected to tribute sites and promotional material, it is taking extra work to get to any hard news sites or investigation links.

Sammy keeps finding parts of the footage she is putting together on the team's run getting refiled to her recycle bin,  and the spectacular shot she had of the stripper's arm getting broken seems to be gone entirely.

Sam hasn't really had any problems, mostly because his comms have been out all day other than direct texting.

[farothel]

"There's some weird shit going on on my commlink," She said, "Time to switch to the back-up."
She shut down her main commlink and started up the back-up.  That one only had her SIN information and the Pito login (which she had put on both commlinks) and not much else.  It would be annoying as it was a slower model, but that couldn't be helped right now.  And even the best hacker couldn't do much with a commlink that was physically shut down, except maybe use it as paperweight.

"Snow, can you check this one tonight in a ... Faraday cage, wasn't it called like that?"

[Mercy Merchant]

Snow feels a bit silly after Con's jolt back to reality.  *Another fragging embarrassing comment from your fragging big mouth.  Why can't you just learn to keep your mouth shut?  Just frag and drek.*  "Sure.  I will check.  Maybe my techie friend can hook me up.  Let me go ask him.  I have switched to my secondary comm as well.  Lots slower but.......  I will go look for the guy.  Leaving the room.

She leaves the room to go look for Crenshaw.

[Crossbow]

…or at least she tries to.  As she is walking away from the storage room she is met by Richard Fermin, “I need to speak with you and your team.” He says in a voice that doesn’t seem to acknowledge the existence of a negative reply.

He gathers up the rest of your group and takes you to the same office where you last saw Christy Daee alive.  After you are all in, he locks the door and moves past the windows, activating the polarization for privacy, before sitting down at the head of the table.  From his pocket he removes a shiny silver disk  which he places on the table and lightly taps the top of.  The high end white noise generator hums, the quickly goes supersonic.  He rubs his fingers on the table on either side of the device and is distracted momentarily by the slight indents in the imitation wood.

“You probably have heard the news that Miss Daee is dead,” he says. “What hasn’t been released yet is that police consider it murder. Daee was found an hour ago, having died of asphyxiation due to a defective CHN in her apartment. Police have brought in para-forensics to the crime scene, which leads me to believe that magic was used.

He puts his link on the table and pulls a news headline. “In two hours, this news will be released. Andre Guiles has also been found dead. He was found at the bottom of a ravine southeast of The End of the World. “

He adjusts his suit in his seat. “I’ll be frank with you. Guiles hired you for some other job while down here. It doesn’t matter to me what the job was, and I don’t hold you responsible for Guiles’ death because of it. My problem is Daee. Guiles kept her home life very private. So much so, he employed several Daee look-alikes so the media wouldn’t know where she lived.”
He adjusts his suit again, obviously agitated by this event.

“I want to know how the killers found Daee. Did they torture Guiles or have some other inside information on our clients? Are the murders related to the job that Guiles wanted you to do? Is this retaliation against Guiles?”

He finally just stands up and walks around. “All of Charisma Associates is on high alert because of this. I’m offering you double your retainers to get me answers.  This is your job now, your only job.”

[Mercy Merchant]

Snow is quiet for a bit, then asks, "Is it certain that the real girl is dead and not one of the look-alikes?"

[Crossbow]

Fermin looks at the runner in a little bit of shock and then smiles, "A very good question, but unfortunately yes, we are sure.  When both Andre and Christy were found dead, Charisma Associates accessed his files and contacted all of the hired lookalikes and confirmed their well being."

[HydroRaven]

*Now our job description just changed to "detectives"* thought Clem as their Johnson was explaining things to them. She didn't want to spook him or put any unnecessary thoughts into his head, so she spared him her theories and simply asked "Do we have "carte blanche" on this investigation?"

[Crossbow]

"I don't ask about your methods, as long as it doesn't come back on Pandora and I, Charisma or Horizon, in that order.  Get some answers about this, quickly."

[Necrogigas]

O'Connor asked, "Got any leads besides yesterday's run? Known stalkers that might do this? Anything? And once we find the killer, are we bringing them in, or taking them out?"

[farothel]

"Can you get us on the locations," Sammy asked, "if there are magical auras, I have to check as quickly as possible.  Or have access to the police reports checking the same."

[Crossbow]

O'Connor asked, "Got any leads besides yesterday's run? Known stalkers that might do this? Anything? And once we find the killer, are we bringing them in, or taking them out?"

"I don't have any leads to offer you, because you are already in possession of the only leads that the police don't have access to, the run that Guiles and Daee hired you for.  I don't know what they are, and I don't want to know, I just want you to run them down." Fermin looks somewhat troubled, "This may seem a little cold, but I really don't care what happens to the killers, I need to know how they found Daee, it was supposed to be damn near impossible."

"Can you get us on the locations," Sammy asked, "if there are magical auras, I have to check as quickly as possible.  Or have access to the police reports checking the same."

"No, I can't.  The point of using you is that there is no public connection between us, if you absolutely need that kind of intel or access you will have to find a way to get it on your own, I can't be involved.  The point is I need you checking the leads that the police don't have, the ones connected to your run night before last."