Week 66: Mandatory Awkward Email Hour

In one of the Oracle HQ's many lounges, Stephen Lincoln sits hunched over in a luxurious armchair and stares at a PDA screen, occasionally tapping in a few characters on the on-screen keyboard. From time to time he looks up and surveys the room, but he has not yet been given an order or instruction and nobody seems inclined take charge of him yet, so he is left to his own devices. After a while, he seems finally satisfied with the message he has been composing, and he hits send before dropping the PDA on the sofa and wandering over to the drinks machine.

Sender: s.lincoln@oracle
Subject: Introduction.
Recipient: all-agents@oracle
Message Body:
Seems right I should introduce myself to you all, seeing as how we're hopefully going to be working together from now. My name is Stephen Lincoln, and I'm a new hire here at Oracle, thanks to Mr. Lee. Came here from working for the Federation, who for various reasons I did not feel like continuing my career with, and seems Mr. Lee figured I might be able to make myself of use to you all instead, so here I am. If there's anything I can do to make myself useful while I'm learning how things work, just drop me a line and let me know, and I'll do my best.
For those as are curious, my skills are primarily in the field of shooting people with guns, especially from a long way away, and I know a thing or two about the art of stealth, but I wouldn't ask myself for help negotiating a business deal or anything like that. Anyhow, that about sums it up.
Thanks for your time.
S. Lincoln

FROM: T.Kay@Oracle
TO: s.lincolm@oracle
Subject: Re: Introduction.

Hey Stephen, my name's Tansai, I'm one of the active Oracle agents, mainly specializing in investigatory groundwork and grenades. A couple of things you should know about Oracle.
1.) We are awesome. We've broken into EI's top secret hotel, walked into one of the SY's underspires and stolen information on their cyberlin, and just last week (with one week of preparation) we exploded an Ai Jinn space station and sent it into the pacific ocean. We are crazy rich and do crazy things.

2.) We have just broken into the SY cyberlin manufactoring base and deorbited an Ai Jinn space station, and we are about to piss off the Western Federation. We have a lot of enemies, and you've joined just as we've really started to piss them off. Be careful.

3.) We are fantastically rich, as noted above. Send me your details and I'll send you a couple of hundred thousand credits to get you started.

Other than that, welcome aboard and shout if you need someone to go into an old city and ask questions, or if you need information gathered from online or whatever. If I can't do it myself, someone will be able to.

Tansai.

FROM: s.lincoln@oracle
TO: T.Kay@Oracle
SUBJECT: Re: Re: Introduction.

Howdy to you, Miss Tansai, and a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I hope we'll get a chance to talk in person sometime soon. Believe you me, I'm willing to brave a little danger if it means upsetting the Western Federation some, and I know it's a risky business we're in generally. Makes it exciting, at least. And a couple of hundred thousand credits just to get me going? I see the rumours about the kind of money you guys make weren't exaggerations. Heck, they're probably underestimates. Much as I'm feeling the urge to say thanks-but-no-thanks to the act of charity, I reckon I'm going to need to tool up, and fast, to stay in this game. So I'll accept your offer, so long as you let me promise to pay it back sometime.

Thanks,
Stephen Lincoln

[attached are financial transfer details.]

FROM: T.Kay@Oracle
TO: s.lincolm@oracle
Subject: Re:Re:Re: Introduction.

Don't worry, you're going to need it. Most of us will be in Jerusalem this week if you want a face to face meeting.

Tansai.

[Stephen's account receives 500,000 credits after this goes through.]

FROM:s.lincoln@oracle
TO: T.Kay@Oracle
SUBJECT: Re:Re:Re:Re: Introduction.
Mighty kind of you. I expect I'll be spending most of my time in the immediate future getting some upgrades installed and doing shopping, neither of which Jerusalem is exactly the best place to go for, so we'll just have to meet up later. But I promise I'll put those credits to good use.

Stephen

Lincoln looked at his PDA in mild surprise for a moment. People still sent text messages these days? Whatever. He shrugged and started to compose a reply.

Good to hear from you, Miss Coraline. I must admit I'm a bit curious how a fashion-designing plague-doctor-aspirant finds herself in this line of work - must be an interesting story behind all that. Anyhow, I got a lot of my time booked in for some self-improvement work this week, but if our schedules got us free at the same time I wouldn't mind a friendly face to show me around the place, specially if you know where the good places to get kit are. Though as of late it seems people are just throwing great piles of the stuff at me.

Lincoln checked his latest email, and nodded in thought as he read Hugo's mail. It'd be good to have fellow ex-Feds to talk to, at least; a bit of familiar grounding in an unfamiliar situation. And the nukes he'd known back in the federation had always been refreshingly direct and easy to talk to, even if they only ever wanted to talk about one thing; but it wasn't as though Lincoln couldn't hold his own in a conversation about guns. The Spanglish was a bit confusing, though; maybe Hugo preferred to use Spanish? He shrugged and began to compose his response.

FROM: s.lincoln@oracle
TO:huguna@nukeedu.wf
SUBJECT: Re: Introduction
Hey man, it's good to hear from a fellow expatriate. Seems a lot of you folks are busy in Jerusalem at the moment. Pretty good place to lay low, I suppose. Anyhow, generous souls have given me more money than I really know what to do with right now, so I think I'm covered in that respect. Looking forward to meeting you, seems we might be on mission together soon.

Later,
Stephen

P.S. What's her name?

FROM: s.lincoln@oracle
TO: huguna@nukeedu.wf
SUBJECT: Re: Re: Re: Introduction
1 in 2 isn't bad odds, and I've been having the itch to exercise my right to gamble now I'm outside Federation turf. Nice name, anyway. I'm sure she's a fine weapon.

FROM: s.lincoln@oracle
TO: huguna@nukeedu.wf
SUBJECT: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Introduction
Thanks for the heads up, I'll make sure to get my armor grounded. Not like I can't afford it now.

From: Ace.Nizky@Eros.wdn
To: s.lincoln@oracle
Subject: Re: Introduction

Welcome to Oracle. You will find quite quickly that we do not run like most corporations. We are more independent than most and are more of a collection of free Agents than cogs in the corporate machine. I look forward to working with you on your first mission and showing you how we operate and what we do.

You will find a welcome pack in Oracle HQ; look for the memorial fund. If there is anything else you need please feel free to ask.

From: Karishmachine@Eros.wdn
To: s.lincoln@oracle
Subject: Re: Introduction

Hello Mr. Lincoln.  It's a pleasure to welcome you to our happy little (slightly crazy) group!  I'm Karishma Pillai; reverse engineer, telepath and expert in all things mechtronic (almost).  I'm looking forward to meeting in person, although that will probably be on mission since I spend most of my time at Eros on the Moon.  I'm sure you'll fit in brilliantly; everyone here's really good at their jobs, and very nice people to boot!

If you ever need a hand financially (although you'll have plenty soon enough; trust me, I was set after my first mission), or with some technological problem, don't hesitate to ask!

Regards,
Karishma

FROM: s.lincoln@oracle
TO: Karishmachine@Eros.wdn
SUBJECT: Re: Re: Introduction

Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ms. Pillai. I'll be sure to keep that in mind if I ever need a hand with some stubborn piece of tech, and I'm sure it won't be too long before we get a chance to meet.

Stephen Lincoln