Kirill is an asshole.  An overweight, over confident, overly connected asshole.

Which makes it all the more concerning when Nyx finds him sitting on a chair in front of her rented cargo container waiting for her to come home.  Cigarette in one hand. Dostoevsky in the other.  Playing at being the sophisticate.

Bastard.

“Ah,” he says, defaulting to well spoken English, here in the good ole’ broken up, fractured, once upon a time US of A.  That he’s using an Oxford accent is just icing on the fake cake.  Nyx knows he didn’t graduate from secondary school.  God knows he spent enough time talking about it in Russia. “Ksenia.  How lovely to see you again.” He folds the book.  Doesn’t stand.  Just makes it impossible to push past him and slam the door in his face.

This is a development.  Nyx has been dodging her SovOil past for years.  Successfully (since otherwise she would be on the rough side of dead).  And now the fucking Mafia finds her?  Either her tradecraft is slipping or someone out there has been talking.

Option one seems unlikely.  Option two is rather impossible since she’s told exactly nobody about her past since arriving in Night City.

Kirill makes circles with his cigarette in the air.  “Yes, of course you want to know how I found you.  No.  I will not spoil the surprise.  Suffice to say, we always keep our investments in mind.  And you, my dear, are quite an investment.”

”Kirill.” The smile is as fake as the Tommy Hilfiger gear the kid on the corner is selling. ”Nice to see you too.”

Actually no, it really isn’t. Just the sight of him makes Nyx’s skin crawl. In a perfect world she’d draw her katana, part his head from his body. But the fat slug has connections. With the Bratva. Messing with him was inviting a level of retribution Nyx didn’t particularly want to deal with. The absence of flickering red dots on her chest does not mean that no one is on overwatch. And besides, she’s not carrying the katana. Not that it wouldn’t have been kulturny. But she can do without the attention. The pistol that is tucked under her leather jacket at the small of her back is more discrete.

”So you found me. Congratulations.” A brown paper bag is tucked under her left arm. A baguette is sticking out of it. Even contract killers have to eat sometimes. Tri idly wonders if she could batter Kirill to death with it.

”What do you want?” She shoots him a look. ”Besides the obvious. Because trust me Kirill. that is never going to happen.”
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:33, Fri 15 July 2022.

Kirill’s smile freezes for a fraction of a second.  Anger flashes through his eyes so fast that Tri wouldn’t have seen without her reflexes tuned to 11.  Then he smiles again, tension melting away into forced humor.

“Oh Ksenia, how you girls enjoy telling me what I cannot have.  Yet in the end, I find you all begging for my help.  Always.  What what will I say?  What will wish you had said to me?” The Russian fixer stands and tucks his book under his arm in an exact mirror of Tri’s baguette.  He takes a puff on his cigarette and tosses it away, the butt disappearing somewhere down in the stacks of cargo containers below this level.  “I will leave that as a mystery to you.”

A plain brown envelope is produced without fanfare.  “My dear, we do not require much from you.  Now.  All we need is to know about what this man does.  What his crews are up to.  Simple.  For you, there is no danger at all.”  Kirill pushes the envelope into Nyx’s unwilling hands and starts to walk away.  “I will be in touch,” he adds without looking back. “I find Night CIty delightful.  It will make and adequate second home.”

The envelope contains a picture and an agent ID.  Black Jasper and the address to dump her information on him.

In hindsight battering Kiril to death with it would probably have been a waste of a perfectly good baguette. Tri reflects on this as the fat bastard manages to brush against her as he pushes past, the envelope left in her hand. She tries to find.a witty retort when he says how delightful Night City is but humour isn’t really her forte.

Her expression doesn’t change when she opens the envelope. Kiril maybe has someone watching her. Or a drone hovering high above her head, where she can’t see it, capturing every facial gesture with a camera. Da, she’s careful. Or maybe it’s just being paranoid. but if she wasn’t she reckons she’d be dead by now.

Jasper? Seriously? Several questions go through her mind. What’s Kiril’s interest? And does it overlap with the gig she’s just pulled? Does Kiril know that she was working for Jasper? Must do. Tri thinks that this is not fucking coincidence.

The agent disappears into the back pocket of black pants so tight they might have been sprayed on. Leather, like her jacket. It holds up better in a fight. The photo goes back into the envelope, to be properly disposed of later. She’ll decide what to do later as well, what - if anything - to tell Kiril.