Singularity

[ze_kraken]

A hacker,

A hired gun,​

A con artist,​

and a crooked cop.
​

---

For their own reasons, an unlikely team of criminals has been brought together to complete a job for the enigmatic "Mr. White" involving a file known only as Latch. In the Night City, the unofficial moniker for Los Angeles, capitalism is the only law of the land and the city reeks with corruption, cutthroat business, and professional crime.

With a payout this big, the job could easily spell an early retirement.

The question still remains:
Who is Mr. White truly? And why does Latch matter at all?​

Christian Hale
THE HACKER
"Money's great, but I'm in it for the thrill."

David Mills
THE HIRED GUN
"Worked with White before: it's a favor for a favor.
​

Lorraine Jia-Xi
THE CON ARTIST
"It's a chance to start fresh, take the legitimate path."​

Lacey Turner
THE CROOKED COP
"It's time I disappeared."​

​

The Contract

​

"Today's a new day, September 23rd, 2065," Ephraim Grey beamed across the faded holo-screen that graced Lorraine's hab-block. "I'm your host for Today:Live, Ephraim Grey, here to promise you the absolute best in edutainment the market has to offer..."

Lorraine herself sat fixated to the screen, laying across her couch, legs bending up and over the arm rest. Ephraim Grey was a mockery of modern advertisement, a fabricated character if she ever saw one, but perhaps that intrigued her the most. He, a ray corporate sunshine. Part-time news anchor. A household name. Ephraim Grey was the sort of personality she had always imagined to be the most despicable human being off the screen, and odds were she was right, but she'd never have the chance to turn theory into fact.

It was early, near around six in the morning. Already outside, life in the Night City had spurred into life. Overhead, magnetic-levitators (maglev trains to the more colloquially inclined) zoomed to and fro. Below, cars blew their horns, revved their engines, and blared music to their loudest. Lorraine had learned to shut out the din, let it become background noise, a welcome choir of city life. Now, her PAD added its voice to the collective, vibrating and dinging from its perch atop the coffee table. Groaning with equal parts frustration and laziness, Lorraine plucked the PAD and answered the incoming call, adopting her voice reserved for clients.

"Lorraine Jia-Xi speaking," she chimed.

"We've got a new case in today," came her receptionist's voice.

"Criminal or civil?" Lorraine questioned, already rising from her prone position upon the couch.

"Criminal, miss. The client is waiting for your arrival. Shall I send you the trans-" the woman on the other end was interrupted.

"No, that won't be necessary. Tell him I will be there as soon as I can. Thank you, Eva."

Without a further word, Lorraine cut the line.

​

---
​

Twenty minutes later, after an exceedingly dull maglev ride through Los Angeles' slum districts, Lorraine arrived at the law office: a plain, two-storey building smashed between two tall, ad-board covered hab blocks that towered a good six storeys above the brick-and-mortar building. It, too, was positioned on one of the fringes of the city where space was cheap and lawyers were in high demand.

With a swipe of a security card, Lorraine entered the office and offered her receptionist a quick smile, well-meant if not truly sincere.

"I directed him to your office, miss," Eva remarked once Lorraine came within earshot. "He was quite patient."

"Duly noted," Lorraine nodded. "Did he say who he was with?"

"It was a...private matter, he said."

"Also noted."

When Lorraine opened the door to her office upstairs, she fought the urge to curse.

"I suspected they no longer needed you to relay messages, Mr. Mills," she remarked calmly, moving to take a seat by her desk.

The office was plain. A single window overlooked the street below, that was if it was ever opened. At the moment, it remained curtained with the blinds shut. Overhead, a ceiling fan creaked incessantly. The only article that separated it from just another 1950's office was the thin strip of metal that adorned the faux-wood desk, a holopad that currently projected a blank, moving 'screen saver' of blue and yellow lights.

David Mills, a large, broad-shouldered man, sat in the chair across from Lorraine's desk, looking to be a giant on a child's stage. His synthetic arm, a matte metallic color, whined along with the ceiling fan above as its fingers rapped impatiently across the arm rest.

"You know how it goes," Mills shrugged. "One day it's gunnin'-and-runnin', next it's talking to some wángbā xiǎo lǎopó."

"You have always been a man of refined social habits, Mr. Mills," Lorraine ignored the profanity aimed at her, offering him a fragile, insincere smile. "What may I do for you today? I'm afraid I don't take many criminal cases involving the idiocy of clients who should have known better."

"It's not about me, this time," Mills grinned. "Or your debts. You, darlin', you've got a job offer."

"To whom do I owe the pleasure of receiving such an offer?"

"Mr. White 'imself."

"Well fuck me backwards," Lorraine spat, allowing herself a grin. "Who could say no to him?"
​

​

 

[Rae]

"Some people never learn."

It was an ironic statement coming from Lacey Turner, the cop whose name everyone had at least heard of. She was one of the few in the city who had decided to actually do her job as an officer of the law, not that she could ever dream to somehow better the situation. No one would even dare to think that she was being hunted down by what could only be referred to as a drug cartel: a ruthless group of people that her brother managed to piss off. And if her brother wouldn't pay? Well, there was always his dear sister to convince him. She had managed to keep them at bay for a while, but she was slowly being suffocated. She wouldn't be able to last much longer.

As she practically threw the young man in his late 20s behind jail cell bars, she had a strange sense of foreboding. Walking back to the east wing of the station, she immediately saw a plain man with no indication of his age standing in front of her quaint little desk. At barely six in the morning, she was the only one there. A hand on her gun, Lacey cleared her throat. The man turned, his grey eyes noting her threatening position. He seemed unconcerned.

"I have a simple message for you, and I think you would be interested in hearing it." His voice was monotonous, almost robotic. She narrowed her eyes and merely nodded. If it had anything to do with her brother, she'd shoot the man and discard the body with the rest. That was the irony behind her statement. She wasn't some perfect little cop dealing out justice. No, criminals didn't end up in prison with just that. Rather, she had her own sense of influence, and she didn't need a warrant for that.

The man smiled, as if he knew what she was thinking. "Mr. White has a job for you, and I don't think you'll easily refuse." Lacey's mouth dropped open for a mere second before she snapped it shut. Mr. White? The Mr. White? This man couldn't be serious. This had to be some prank. What would Mr. White want with her? She was a cop. A crooked cop, but still a cop. Setting her jaw, she tightened her grip on the gun before snapping, "And what does he want me to do?"

----​

Christian Hale had never been so bored in his life. Every day he had someone new asking him to do such simple jobs like hack into a bank's security system or erase security footage from a crime scene. It was just so...boring. Spinning around in his chair, he took in all his tech surrounding him. The largest computer screen had a constantly updated stream of code running through it, monitoring fluctuations in security preferences and other such things. Another showed his constant monitoring of police radio frequencies, as well as various news stations. The final and second largest screen showed his own personal security system, monitoring everything within five blocks of his home. It had infrared scanners, regular cameras, microphones, and about everything else you could think of. It had been a while since anyone had even tried to catch him unaware in his own home.

Until today. Well, the man certainly wasn't trying to hide himself as he made his way towards Christian's front door. He was a plain-looking man with slightly grey-black hair but a face that looked like he should be in his late 20s. The infamous hacker stood on his feet, his mind instantly thinking up the various ways he could deal with the intruder. Finally! Just a little bit of action would satiate him for a short period of time, no? He felt no fear as he grabbed a simple but effective pistol.

At least, he didn't feel fear until the man looked straight into one of his cameras. One of his perfectly hidden cameras that no one had ever looked into directly. It was even more terrifying when the man held up a note. A simple but clear note that sent an adrenaline rush through Christian's veins. This was simply perfect! Finally, a job worth doing! Christian laughed. No, he almost seemed to cackle as he grabbed his portable AI that could hack into practically anything.

The note was simple but important enough to capture the bored hacker's mind.

Mr. White has a job for you.​

 

[ze_kraken]

Can Never Say "Not What I Signed Up For"

​

"You know," Lorraine began as the Maglev train sped through middle Los Angeles. "I was about to do some casework before you sauntered in."

David Mills shrugged and scratched at his chin with his human hand. "Frankly, I don't give two backward shits about your casework. I could've gone to half a dozen other fixers or cons, and I came to you. Call that a win."

"Yet I feel that no matter who you approached, you would have used the same sales pitch," she remarked dryly.

"That's a fancy way of saying 'bet you tell all the girls that', isn't it?"

"Mr. Mills-"

"My, when'd I become anything other than a brute with chromeware, Lorrie?"

Lorraine bit her lip at "Lorrie", fighting back a sharp retort.

"You are full of surprises," She said instead.

"I'm a real fucking Pygmalion," David agreed. Lorraine snorted.

---
​

When the pair left the Maglev, the Night City was no less busy or crowded despite the hour of the day. Though rush hour had ended, and the station was situated in a relative fringe of the city, cars and people swarmed in droves. A single flashing ad-board depicted none other than Ephraim Grey across a curved, bright LED screen meters tall. His face dominated the station square more than the towering buildings, the sea of humanity, or even the loose outline of Los Angeles' city center in the distance. There were no speakers, instead a constant stream of text ran across the bottom edge of the screen, charting his every word.

"Where we meeting this contact? Nowhere too shady I hope," Lorraine said as David called over a cab. "We look like your stereotypical corporate spooks as it is."

And she was right. Lorraine,clad in a black-grey pantsuit with a crisp,clean edge that bespoke of frequent cleaning, looked the part of corporate suit. David stood in a white sleeveless shirt, frayed jacket cut with short sleeves, and combat boots. A pistol hung barely concealed at his hip, and either he had gained weight since their last encounter or he wore a layer of bullet-proof armor beneath his shirt. The shine of metal chromeware where there should had been an arm didn't help either.

"You think a cabby's going to give a fuck?"

"Might be government," Lorraine shrugged: it had not been unheard of for extra-governmental agents to operate withing Los Angeles.

"If they can afford to stuff an overqualified agent in a cab to watch us, then no one's safe."
​

---
​

The meeting area was a small warehouse on the very outskirts of Los Angeles, well past the slums and apartments that lined the area known as "the Edge." It was the very location Lorraine had been wanting to avoid, but it was too late now.

"You never took us here," David muttered to the cab driver, slipping him an extra cred-stick. The cabby nodded once and backed out of the warehouse parking lot, immediately rushing off. The concrete beneath their feet was so old that it resembled gravel more than a solid whole and the paint marking individual spots had long since worn. Blades of grass and weeds wormed their way through the cracks, coming up to Lorraine's knee. As the two strode onward, the ground crunched beneath their feet, mingling with the distant din of the city behind them.

The warehouse itself stood at two floors tall, plex-glass windows breaking up the otherwise solid outline of the building. Its logo had long since faded away, leaving only faint green traces of what would have been the Weylink Medical logo across a sprawling metal wall, one now covered in a fine layer of brown-orange dust.

"This is exactly the type of place I would've wanted to avoid," Lorraine protested as David attempted to wrench open the front doors.

"This isn't my first job, Lorrie. Besides, White's above killin' potential employees."

"And what if-"

"Lorrie," a pause. "Do me a favor. Shut up."

With one last heave of his shoulder, David shoved the door in and sent - and himself it swinging into the corridor. Lorraine took a cautious step into the hallway and glanced around. After David recollected himself, they continued into the hall and opened another set of doors. Before them, an empty warehouse floor towered, the light of day filtering through grimy windows and holes in the wall. In the center stood a faux-wood table, five chairs, and a rug. In one of those chairs sat a man, spick and span in a suit and tie.

"My, you could have taken the proper front door, saved yourself the trouble," he remarked plainly. "No matter, come, sit. We have much to talk about once your crew arrives."

"I don't like it," Lorraine muttered.

David ignored her and went ahead.​