Mother's Little Helper
| Mother's Little Helper | |||||||||
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Absolute Zero Black Samurai Vip3r | |||||||||
Summary
Piper and Akira Mori have a series of difficult and dramatic conversations with family members and drag Absolute Zero with them on an impromptu vacation to Montreal.
Background
During their last meeting with Finn Mori--who is Akira's sister and Piper's cousin--she told them that she's currently working as an intern with Ace Powers. After Piper's |recent run where Ace served as the Johnson, she has some concerns about her safety, which she and Akira conversed about. They eventually come to the conclusion that Finn deserves to know that they're runners, and invite her out to Akira's cabin south of the sprawl.
Kids are Different Today
Vip3r & Black Sam take Sam's Shin-Hyung out to the cabin on a disused Ancients smuggling route. A pair of Ancients on bikes cut them off, telling Sam that they've seen him take this route multiple times in a vehicle that wasn't meant to travel it, and in the interest of not bringing heat down on their turf they'd like something in return. While Sam thinks about how easily he could butcher the go-gangers with his katana, Vip3r decides to take a much more diplomatic route. Having been approached by both Babylon and Duchess in the past to contract her hacking services and having discussed the issue at length with Freya, she knows that the gang is sorely in need of hackers. She tells one Ancient that she's willing to work out a trade, slyly flashing her "cyberdeck" where it's holstered under her jacket. The favor seems like agreement enough, and the gangers hand Ether's business cards to each of them.
The cabin is sparsely appointed and still very much under construction, with one of the four walls completely torn down and in the process of being gradually rebuilt. As Black Sam is showing Vip3r around, Finn drives up in her Fun One. They all sit down on the floor of the cabin, opening a pizza box and a bottle of bourbon, and begin to talk for a while until Black Sam finally cuts to the chase.
He asks Finn what she thinks he does for a living, and she responds that she's sure it's something violent and illegal like beating up people for a gang leader (which is not entirely untrue, given the work he's done for Warboss to clear his debt with him). He admits to being a shadowrunner, and she stares in stunned silence for a minute before pulling up videos of recent acts of terrorism, asking if he does things like this. Sam desperately attempts to walk the conversation back and explain, saying that he tries to mitigate the violence that occurs in this line of work. Finn isn't satisfied by this. Why doesn't he just kill people who cause these things to happen? Why doesn't he just kill the people who pay runners to commit acts of terrorism? Why can't he just get a normal job doing something legal instead of persisting in a line of work that could get him killed tomorrow?
Vip3r, who up to this point has been swirling her bourbon in her glass and wondering if it's better to just keep her cover as a cybersecurity contractor with S-K, finally interjects to say that not everyone who becomes a runner has a choice in the matter. She tells her that her career as a shadowrunner began after she was released from prison and couldn't find work or housing because she was saddled with a criminal SIN, and was offered the chance to get rid of her problems if she just put her skills to work. This still doesn't satisfy Finn, who maintains that since Vip3r has the skill to do what she claims to do, she would be able to easily get a GED and get fast-tracked through college if she went to work for a corp. As Finn grows more and more insistent, Vip3r grows more and more distressed, realizing that she has to continue to reveal more about her past. She tells Finn that she can't go to work for a corp, because then she'd need to get licensed as a technomancer--which is how she got sent to prison on trumped-up charges to begin with--and that having her identity out in the open would put her in incredible danger. Finn still doesn't buy it, saying that she knows people who are technomancers who are employed in corporate positions and are paid well for their skills. Seeing no way around a full reveal, Vip3r finally breaks down and tells her that the reason she can't have the normal job or life that she's been trying so desperately to present to Finn is that she spent two years as a test subject in a black site. She continues her tirade about how she has to try so desperately to fit in and seem normal despite having to live with unbelieveable trauma and knowledge that sounds like conspiracy theory-level drek, when Finn catches her off guard with an apologetic look and a hug. Not having expected to disarm Finn, and unsure what to do now that all of her pent-up emotion is suddenly being redirected, Vip3r breaks down crying.
When she finally calms down, the conversation resumes in a much less heated tone. Finn still doesn't understand why her brother and cousin continue to live as shadowrunners. Black Samurai mentions the freedom it affords to turn down jobs, and Vip3r holds up the fact that life in the shadows allows her a chance at rebuilding the other half of her family. While Finn still doesn't quite get it, she's begun to see their side of the issue. They finish dinner, Finn heads home, and Black Samurai offers to share some novacoke with Vip3r while they hang out at the cabin for the rest of the night.