n2020  Check-in [8be4aa4dca]

for why the friend would be at Alley's home, because the latter is less
"coincidence" to deal with.  In novels, there should basically be no
coincidence unless the coincidence is itself a key part of the theme, and not
just a mechanism to use to reach the goal of illustrating the theme.

### Alley seeks answers from George.

Alley gets in touch with George and end up getting a Deliv gig to courier boxes of books to a used book store in Newport Beach before heading north into Huntington Beach to meet up at George's home again.  They talk about stuff, including Alley's ex (Dalton Schaeffer-Hearst) and science fiction authors, which is actually how we learn about the ATF thing.  It turns out George knows about Dalton













### George helps intimidate potential problem customers for a courier gig.

Alley 

for why the friend would be at Alley's home, because the latter is less
"coincidence" to deal with.  In novels, there should basically be no
coincidence unless the coincidence is itself a key part of the theme, and not
just a mechanism to use to reach the goal of illustrating the theme.

### Alley seeks answers from George.

Alley gets in touch with George and end up getting a Deliv gig to courier boxes
of books to a used book store in Newport Beach before heading north into
Huntington Beach to meet up at George's home again.  They talk about stuff,
including Alley's ex (Dalton Schaeffer-Hearst) and science fiction authors,
which is actually how we learn about the ATF thing.  It turns out George knows
about Dalton, and about the COIN Corp MIBs who came to harass Alley.  They're a
very serious existential threat to their targets, and George answers her
questions about what he does with his time that requires him to buy frames for
handguns by telling her that he supplies things for people whose lives largely
revolve around illegal and potentially dangerous work that, at times, includes
helping innocent people like Alley escape from shitty evil technocratic
corporate agents like those at COIN Corp.  He advises her on that, and gives
her some reading material.  They have dinner at the end of it.

### George helps intimidate potential problem customers for a courier gig.


Alley goes to pick up a package for delivery for a courier gig.  George knows
the neighborhood, and offers to provide some backup because it might be a
little sketchy.  He follows in his own car, then when she makes her pickup and
heads out they part ways before he goes home.  At the other end of the
delivery, Alley finds that the people receiving the package are somewhat
respectful despite also seeming criminal, and everything goes well.  She then
goes home and opens one of the books George gave her.

### Alley reads and thinks and maybe decides to "prepare".

* Alley finds agorism interesting, in theory, and agrees with it, in principle,
  but is not comfortable with the idea of trying to dive into that head first.

* Alley finds some of Underground OpSec pretty extreme and irrelevant to her,
  but she learns some things from the stuff she thinks is more applicable and
  chooses to try incorporating some basic skills from it into her life.

* Alley is not fully convinced that the worst will happen.  That was her
  uncle's friend, after all!

* Alley is still too invested in getting "back" into the mainstream economy
  herself rather than going the other way like George suggested.

### Alley goes out to do some deals.

* Alley has stuff in her trunk in case she has to bug out, thinking that this
  is a good time to prepare that even if she's trying to convince herself it's
  not going to happen now.  This is all just about being prepared in general,
  or at least that's what she tells herself.

* Alley makes some money, of course, and her deals edge toward the legally
  sketchy side of things somewhat.  She also does some more Deliv work, though,
  so she's still doing work that's more on the legal side, if only gig economy.

* The prioritizer actually advises Alley that, despite being ostensibly somehow
  connected to the legal and white market world, this COIN Corp situation
  really does rank in the very high risk severity realm that the prioritizer
  was previously led to believe was a definite no-no for Alley's goals.  This
  may cause some reassessment.

* Alley should get directed to a deal with another study participant.  That
  could be a problem, of course, because that other study participant's
  activities won't have logs redacted as much as Alley.

* I need to backfill some stuff in the story about Alley and the prioritizer
  carefully balancing the privacy and appearance of copious logging aspects of
  things.  I don't think that has been properly handled, really.

### Alley gets her hands on a secure mobile telephony device.

* Alley needs to install MaximOS on her new secure mobile telephony device.
  She actually gets one from the company that sells MaximOS, I think, or maybe
  she gets one used and goes to experts for replacement of key hardware to
  avoid getting screwed by potential for surveillance compromised internals.

### Alley breaks down and goes to a mechanic while Men In Black raid her home.

* Alley finds out the Men In Black are raiding her home.  It may be that the
  prioritizer has a fellow study participant in the area as a way of ensuring
  the prioritizer can learn about the meatspace world around Alley's area and
  keep an eye on things.  It should turn out that the prioritizer has been
  using other study participants to do other things to help her out without her
  knowledge because Alley is being a little too willfully blind to the danger
  of the Men In Black who are coming for her.

* Once the car is fixed, the prioritizer has her searching classifieds for
  something she can use, and it ends up guiding her to trade her car for a
  motorcycle she can use for a while without having to register it or let
  anyone in government know about it.  The prioritizer also starts feeding the
  Men In Black even more inaccurate log data than before as a way to protect
  her from their digital surveillance and tracking.

* Maybe Alley actually needs to abandon the car and get a ride from someone the
  prioritizer directs her to find, or someone who is a fellow study
  participant.  This could be the beginning of the very earnest false trail in
  the logs and so on.  I like this idea, and it kinda sorta parallels some of
  the potential for a character to become a MacGuffin without actually turning
  her into one.  Yeah, I really like this idea.  She'll end up getting the
  motorcycle later.

* The prioritizer can arrange for a fellow study participant to pick up Alley's
  car and arrange the sale of the vehicle, and get a cut of the sale price.
  The remainder, then, goes to Alley, of course, and that in turn can be used
  for her to get a motorcycle later.

### Alley seeks help, but she can't get George to come.

* Alley *might* actually get in touch with George, but get told she needs to go
  to ground somewhere and he'll find her when it's safe.

* Perhaps the George situation is that he contacts her about the time she's
  just finding out about the raid and says something like "I've been burned.
  My place is getting raided right now.  If you're not at home, don't go back.
  If you are at home, and you haven't been hit by COIN, get out now.  Get out
  and make absolutely sure it's safe before you ever risk going back.  I'll try
  to get in touch later, help you out, but right now I have to go dark.  I'm
  sorry.  Find someone you can trust who they won't know about or who has
  enough influence and money to keep them at bay."  That seems like it might be
  a great idea.  Maybe George drops out of the story for a little while.  He
  might come back later, when it's time for her to start looking into
  connections in the underground, the cyberpunk world, because of the
  eventually need for a shadowrun to recover or liberate the prioritizer or
  something like that.

* Alley may go back to Carmen at this point.  I'm not sure what that'll entail,
  why she's doing it, or whatever, but it seems like a fun idea.  This should
  probably be fraught with danger, though.  I might need to backfill something
  about Alley not wanting to carry a gun with her, then perhaps deciding she
  needs one after all when the fit hits the shan, so Carmen might be a good
  contact for filling that need.  That, however, may lead to Carmen and Cliff
  getting burned, thus showing Alley that her past decisions resulted in Carmen
  and Cliff getting hurt.

### Alley goes to ground as the prioritizer mobilizes its network.

* Alley has to figure out what she's going to do in the short term, and ends up
  hunkering down somewhere with her motorcycle and the prioritizer as she tries
  to figure it out.

* The prioritizer explains to Alley that it's shifting video records between
  study participants to confuse the Men In Black and create a false trail that
  should help keep them off her back.

* Alley probably needs to do some things herself at this point, and maybe she
  gets a ride.

### Dalton smuggles her to somewhere safe "for now".

* Alley ends up having to get in touch with Dalton to get help.  That should
  lead to some fun and interesting scenes.