Soren had never been one to sacrifice his humanity, but some recent events are making him be on edge. He brought his FPV HMD goggles and his cyberdeck, which was a keyboard with modular extensions and space for a small screen in case he ever lost his goggles, and he would not want that to happen. He stands out too much in his regular spots if he rocks the goggles, raising suspicion, and it sometimes gets him into confrontations with the cops that he's had to bounce from. So much for privacy. However, there's this one spot that he's been hearing about: Cyberdeck Cafe. A little on the nose, but it's been sounding like the place for him. A unique hackproof network, Faraday'd walls, and a bunch of people that use decks similar to his. At the front door, there's few windows to be seen, and one could mistake it for some sort of commercial form of solitary had it not been for the neon sign, reading Cyberdeck Cafe. He goes in and is greeted by users of high tech glasses and budget VR users in the dimness of the cafe. He sits down at one of the tables to the right after being greeted by a backpack guy that held open the door. Looking around as he powered his deck on, he notices that the cafe's expansive yet sparse. Most of the customers here were hooked into the net with top shelf net glasses or VR headsets, with the bartender being some sort of AI in a moving box with its logo being a cup with a skull face on it, and it dawns on him that he's the only one using an FPV headset, the cheapest option of them all. He didn't mind, though. He just wants privacy, and that FPV HMDs were his best bet physically. He sets his go bag next to him, keeping it close in case those power hungry cops arrive. His deck was warm now, his interface showing up in his FPV's display with the signature orange on screen, giving him some recent going on via RSS V2 feeds from independent sources. Another day, another fullborg going nuts and being put down. Something caught his eye however. He mouses over to the feed entry, but before he could read the whole thing, he was approached. "Hey, a newcomer.! Welcome.!" He lifts the headset to witness a fixer from Night City. "Where do you come from?" the fixer asked. "I'm from Ninsei. Why do you ask?" "Yeah, I see. I see you're rocking something pretty unique." He points at Soren's goggles "It's just a pair of FPV goggles designed for HDMI. Nothing like those VR headsets except for how it mounts." He gets it off and turns the screen towards the fixer. "Huh. You're not keen for the fancy, eh?" "It's a cheap physical privacy solution, 60 eddies if you know where to get it, lest you pay 80." "You know how to find deals, I like that." He put it back on. "So, you here to strike up some business or what?" "Not really. I'm just here to chill and have mocha." "Sit down, then. I'll ask for mocha and hot cocoa." He puts down the HMD and moves to order. "Name's Rick, by the way."

"Soren." Something that seems like tradition happened as he walked up to the counter. "How about Pops?" Some middle aged man asked that. "You win, man", said a cowboy that had the cup at the time, getting sugar and cream for the man. This "Pops" figure thanked him and left as the backpack guy held the door open with a smile. He returned to his deck with mocha and hot cocoa, still nethooked with the same report he saw earlier. Only change was that the RSS V2 updated. Then his feed was replaced by a call notification. He moves his headset's mic down to address whoever was calling. "Hold up a sec, Rick. Got a call from someone." "Soren, you there?" "Yeah." He recognized the voice. "Any police bots around?" "Nope. Maybe this joint's not registered." "Maybe. Look, some cowboy's gotten past my initial security protocols. Can you help?" "Sure. Where's he at?" "Third ICE line. I've already tried to ban his IP, but he's jumping around with a VPN." "Shut the system down. He's everywhere from what I'm seeing." "Uh- right." Initial security protocols, yeah right. This guy was in trouble. The connection dies with the system. He can see the fool now. This was a first. Whoever this guy is, he must be using military level hardware. His Tamagotchi was bouncing towards the location to sniff out the IP he was at currently. Yep, he's definitely using a VPN. Wasn't long before his wireless connection was pwned so that Soren could get in. He knocks out the connection and sneaks his friend's IP into his hosts file, making it Read Only to the perp, but Read/Write to him. He finds that the system's on again, so he makes the call. "Hey, I'm taking care of the perp right now. I put your IP into his hosts file and made it redirect to local. Don't worry, he won't be able to edit it. I also removed all of the blocks he had in place against military tracking systems. They're gonna be pissed." "Thanks again. You have saved my hide twice now." "No problem." He disconnects. The Fixer was impressed. "I could use a hotshot cowboy like you. What happened back there?" "My friend's server was attacked for the second time in a row. I nearly lost control, but my Tamagotchi managed to pwn his wireless connection." He types something in his deck, and he saw his Tamagotchi thank him for the praise. "Twice now? What's he holding in there?" "One item it contains is a scheduled backup of his deck's OS. He also tests a lot of his own scripts against it, since it's pretty sturdy, even including illegal ICE." "ICE? He flatline any?" "He did flatline once or twice, but a quick shock from his deck resusticated him." Soren's starting to like this Fixer. "You know what? You're a nice dude. Do you have any proposals to put on the table?" He gets his hot cocoa and drinks it. "Before I do put one on the table, I think your friend's scripts are becoming popular. What do you think's going on?" "I probably didn't respond fast enough. That's on me." "Don't put yourself down like that. S--- happens, but there are ways of rectifying that." "Do tell."

(CREDIT) Zero Senki