Finding a Redheaded woman in a slum was surprisingly less work than the Netrunner had thought it'd be. One of the problems with dealing in visual media is the inability to digitally isolate the things you needed by key word or phrase. If he had obtained a picture through his informant, he could feed the image to the security display and cross reference facial recognition across the entire network. Considering the circumstances however, such a thing wasn't possible. As a result, he was forced to scroll through the feeds by hand... relatively speaking. Even running four inputs at once, each at 16 times their normal play back speed, the process was arduous. Just when Jacob had begun to consider the scope of the task, it seemed to fall right into his lap. Sure enough a Red head with a healthy frame and hair to her back passed along the road none the wiser. Apparently the Tykes weren't playing some half brained joke this time. He couldn't make out the eye color from this angle, but the match was close enough for government work.
Headjack minimized the feeds from the other cameras set over his display and focused intently on the one. Occasionally the woman would stop and ask something to one of the chummers along the street. They'd banter back and forth before she'd head off into a random direction to repeat the process. The entire lot of Netrunner territory was basically back alleys and slums, but the lass kept to the main roads. If someone was shadowing her, they were good enough to not to establish a patterned trailing procedure. For all practical intents and purposes, the woman seemed to be here alone. If such was the case, this ginger was either bat shit or brainless. In this end of the city, the pair often sided together awful close. All it'd take would be an itchy crew of opportunist street thugs chances are and no one would see her again. Considering the time frame, it was surprising no one had done so already.
As the netrunner began to synchronize his steps with the woman, the gap between the pair grew closer. Headjack kept to the ends of the streets as to keep as much distance as possible in play. The woman would pass along an ancient bus stop that hadn't been used in centuries before turning down a side road. Seconds later, the netrunner would pass that same bus stop. It was a cat and mouse game where the requirements of visual stimulus were outdated. Each time the female stopped to question another, the faces of both parties were recorded and segmented into an allocation of their own. No pattern seemed to arise in her actions, but it was possible another go over of the information would reveal one. Even if shifting over an hour of visual media wasn't an ideal way to spend an afternoon.
What Miner hadn't expected was when the woman shifted from this end of the Upper East Side and moved towards central park. Neutral territory was touchy grounds. Roaming security patrols, armed volunteers and a little to non existent amount tech outside the street lamps that dotted the place at night. The grounds had seen it's share of wear but it was one of the only open locations in the city and people tried to keep it that way.
Even if it was a perfectly good waste of a few hundred acres.
Regardless of anything, pretty soon Miner's improvised set of extra eyes would come to an end. Had she seen him? That couldn't be possible as they were rarely ever on the same street. Gal didn't look augmented and any sense of paranoia she might have been sporting was diminished considering how visible she was in the open. It was possible the woman might had given up the search but that possibility was questionable. Finding the ginger was just to simple. Moving outside the territory could be a lure of sorts. A means to pull the netrunner from his comfort zone and make him vulnerable. All the same, she'd have to be stupid to start shooting in the Neutral zone. The both of them would be turned to Swiss before anything was drawn. Jacob was sure his record was clean as far as general authorities went. Even if he was brought in for questioning, the only thing they'd find on his false identification would be a few paid off tickets. Reluctantly, Miner closed the distance to keep the Girl's hair within eye shot. The prospect of breaking off was tempting, but he needed something more tangible if he had to find the woman in the future.
The road into central park was a hub of sorts, bringing into play all manners street merchants that dotted the path. They weren't allowed too far into the park grounds, but the prospect of free trade without the worry of street thugs was too good to pass up. Small fees were paid to various organizations of the city who would in turn provide benefits, equipment and training to the volunteers that kept armed eyes on the grounds. It was a sort of private security co op run for and by the people. A tiny slice of civilization in a chaotic world. When the ginger decided to stop at the stand of one of the merchants, Miner shifted to one side of the street and pretended to make a phone call.
The merchant in question was a man who looked like he should have died a decade and a half ago. Wrinkles cut into his face as if they were set there with a farm plow. The pair talked for a brief instant before the woman pointed at something and credits were exchanged. From the look of the old man as he moved to retrieve the item, you'd think he'd might break. It took him a moment before he returned back with a brick of an out-board processor. From the size it looked like a 12 core, but he'd have to get closer to really verify. Decent enough system overall, but it got a rap on the net for letting off a fair decent amount of heat. Even though the prospect was ridiculous, people joked that if it ever got bogged down by spam and viruses, you could still use it as an electric grill. Failing that, you could always drop it on someone.
All the same though, Miner now had an in. With eyes on the processor, all he'd really need to do would be to come back to the vendor at a later time and bribe him for his sales records. If he kept VIN numbers on any equipment bought and sold, the hardware could be tracked to an ISP. He'd have to come back, but the vendor wasn't going anywhere. Unless of course he died between then and now...
To an oncoming viewer, the netrunner probably probably looked like some manner of anal business man. Stopping every so many feet to make another phone call to a potential client. The reality probably wasn't far from the truth. The female in question stopped at a food vendor and bartered for a bite. What exchanged hands however caught the netrunner's eye. He couldn't be sure from the distance, but it looked like the gal just passed along booze as tradestock. It was here that curiosity got the better of him and the courier broke off from his trail. Slowly, Miner placed a pair of gloves on his hands and made his way up to the vendor.
"Good Morning!" the man began with a smile as he approached the stand.
"Or something like it." Miner replied with a smile of his own, all the while activating the recording feature of his augmented eye and paying very close attention to the placement of the man's hands.
"I'd like to purchase something from you if I may."
"Of course!" The man had an accent of sorts that the netrunner couldn't quite distinguish. Possibly Germanic of some form or another.
"What can I get you?"
Miner was on a time frame now, so he skipped the small talk. "A red head just came up through here and handed you a bottle of sorts. I'd like to buy it from you."
The stout man's eyebrows narrowed for a moment as he looked Jacob up and down.
"I do not know what you're on about bud."
Jacob's smile widened at one end at the man's attempt at a fib. Customer loyalty perhaps? Who knows. One way or another, it didn't really matter. Most things had a price tag these days.
"I figured as much might be the case," The netrunner replied opening a transaction application off his phone and punching in a few numbers.
"I was hoping this might be able to jog your memory."
The vendor glanced down at the screen for a moment and his eyes widened.
"Oh that bottle..." he replied taking the phone in hand and connecting it to his accounting terminal to finalize the transaction. Shortly following the man moved to the back of his stall and removed an amber bottle from behind one of the shelves. Scotch, and not the synthetic crap that tasted like it was distilled from motor oil. How on earth did that woman managed to get her paws on something like that? The stout merchant trotted back with his thumb and fingers placed around the bottle's label on each end. The man handed over the glass treasure with a smile.
"This what you're looking for?"
Miner carefully took the bottle at the awkward angle of it's base with a gloved hand. As the man released his grip on the booze, the slight outline of a fingerprint was left on the surface of the glass. It's a little considered fact, but prints stick to bottles pretty well so long as the surface isn't marred or cleaned. The netrunner wasn't a forensics specialist, but he knew enough about the process to determine that the merchant's own print was a double helix. It was a long shot, but it had a better chance of a match to the woman than blindly following her into a trap.
"You sir are a gentleman and a scholar." The runner replied as he fished out a plastic bag from his coat pocket and slipped the bottle into it's folds.
"A pleasure doing business."
The merchant's eyes grew cold as he looked upon the man with bewildered sense that he might have found himself in something he'd rather have not.
"You a cop?" he replied with a sense of worry about his voice.
"Is nothing about bartering that's illegal. I run respectable business."
Miner laughed and shook his head. It had been a while since he'd been asked that, but it hadn't been a first. If such was the case, the Manhattan Five O had drastically reduced their standards.
"No no... I just take my drinking very seriously." Miner gave one final grin before making his way back to the Computer merchant passed not long before. If he rushed, he might be able to track back down the girl along the way but it wasn't worth the effort. After all, he had everything he needed right here.
****************************
He4dJa([email protected]_base.com> CONNECTION ESTABLISHED. COMMAND?
Admin:/>Deactivate_Contingency_Protocol_18679
He4dJa([email protected]_base.com> RESTRAINT OVERRIDE CODE CONFIRMED. DEACTIVATING SECURITY PROTOCOL. EXPLOSIVES DISARMED. WELCOME HOME J :)
Miner stepped back into the single bedroom with a small bag of groceries in hand. Cornstarch and clear tape taking up the bulk of the content. Moving over to the rarely used desk in the corner of the room, the netrunner cleared off a space and removed the plastic bound bottle from the pocket of his coat. Getting a hold of the bottle was an easier task than a copy of the near dead vendor's sale's log. The man couldn't speak a lick of english and it didn't help that he had some issues with the prospect of handing over information of the style. Like everyone else in neutral territory, they were there because they wanted to avoid the drama of any potential under the table conflicts. All the same, a wired net translator rigged through his phone and the appearance of a fairly deep pocket book loosened the old man's tongue. Truth be told if miner had to keep this up, he'd need to start contracting again to build back up his coffers. The value of hard currency was about as flighty as a mid life crisis these days with the economy the way it was. As a result it was never a smart idea to keep too many resources in one basket. Just made you all the more vulnerable.
The merchant had come into contact with the device about a month prior through a second hand source. Someone had used it for trade stock apparently for a cyberdeck. The item was made by ZoCom, which was pretty much a subtle way to say it was manufactured by Zetatech and licensed under a different name. The bad news was it seemed the item had been on the second hand market for quite some time. The good news was the netrunner now knew both the serial number of the device and the exact time it was sold. One of the nice things about second hand vendors is more often than not, their sales aren't traced especially when payments were made in barter stock. It also just so happened that ZoCom sported a fairly spot on customer service line, being it a sub branch of the corporate computer giant..
Miner removed a net barrier from his pile of equipment laying against the wall and set it on the desk. Two chords were connected into the device which fed into a slot onto both slots on his phone as well as the main line into his skull. Routing through a proxy server, he connected himself to the Zetatech database. He'd have to play this carefully but it wasn't as if he was breaking into a particularly sensitive branch of the corporation.
He4dJa([email protected]/customerservice> CONNECTION ESTABLISHED. COMMAND?
Visitor:/> Employee_Login
He4dJa([email protected]/customerservice> PLEASE ENTER VERIFICATION ID AND PASSWORD.
Visitor:/> C:/Open/root_command/Crack_Protocol
He4dJa([email protected]/customerservice> LOGIN: ********* PASSWORD: *********
He4dJa([email protected]/customerservice> EMPLOYEE VERIFICATION ACCEPTED. CONNECTING TO VIRTUAL DATABASE...
It was a relatively simple process and so long as I didn't start routing around poking things half hazard like, I wouldn't draw much attention. It wasn't at all an uncommon practice for people to work Customer Service calls from home. Overhead became a write off and the company could run a wider branch of employees using less funds to house them. It also gave the excuse to monitor service members and sell personality demographics to data think tanks like Infocomp. The netrunner set the proxy on his phone line to a designated point prestablished on the other end of the city and dialed the ZoCom service line. It rang twice before the automated service line answered. After pressing through several options, the calm voice of a woman sounded over the line.
"ZoCom Customer service Branch, this is Kathy. How can I help you today?"
Employee_Login:/> Locate_Customer_ISP: 198.775.0.6
He4dJa([email protected]/customerservice> CALLER IDENTIFICATION CONFIRMED, CALL ROUTED TO EMPLOYEE ID: KATHY06.
Employee_Login:/> Training/Monitor_ServiceCall
He4dJa([email protected]/customerservice> ADMINISTRATOR RIGHTS REQUIRED. PLEASE ENTER VERIFICATION ID AND PASSWORD.
Employee_Login:/> C:/Open/root_command/Crack_Protocol/Moderator
He4dJa([email protected]/customerservice> LOGIN: ********* PASSWORD: *********
He4dJa([email protected]/customerservice> EMPLOYEE VERIFICATION ACCEPTED. SYNCING SERVICE CALL.
"Hello?"
"Yes sorry about that," Miner replied snapping back to reality as the data that shot across his display HUD matched that of the agent performing his own service call.,
"I need to report a stolen 12 Core Out-board processor"
"I'm sorry to hear that sir. Do you know when the device went missing by chance?"
"Yes I do. Got mugged about 11 AM this morning."
"I'm sorry to hear that sir. Do you have the Serial Identification Number for the Out-Board Processor?"
Miner referenced back to the accounting log of the old merchant he had bought earlier that day. Slowly the Netrunner read off the identifier.
"EO6WKK4-975-E8O2C Looks like." As soon as he read off the number, a trace protocol flashed in the corner of the Agent's screen. As it was, the customer service rep couldn't give personal information out over the phone, but in this circumstance she didn't have to.
"Let me see what I can bring up... Do you have an insurance plan with us sir?"