0.4 - Flipper Not Floppy

0.4 - Flipper Not Floppy

   June 03, 2023       Darrell S.

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Deng Yi, an NPC, but a well known NPC. He's the richest NPC by far, responsible for founding several billion dollar companies within the game world. Yi also has alleged ties to the underworld based on his character profile. He hasn't hired us for anything beyond the law. We've been hired to retrieve what he called his, "most prized posession." The meeting with Yi was brief but he gave me bad vibes. Extremely posessive and doing a lot to remind everyone in the room that he was in charge. The way he talked about his "posession." From the way he was announced before he entered the room, then flanked by two huge bodyguards and then exited without anything more than telling us what he would pay.

"Crazy how he thinks someone took his daughter," Kai says as we're left alone in her bedroom. "It's even crazier that there hasn't been any ransom request yet."

Kai summons a few drones that do the hard work of searching for clues. DNA samples that don't match the daughter, things that aren't where they should be, things that don't belong. Nothing looks crazy to me. Looks like every other young adult woman's bedroom I've been in. A few pieces of art that don't really form a cohesive theme, stuffed animals from childhood that have sentimental values. Clothes all over the place, some of which that have never been worn before. The drones do their work and Kai either saves or discards them based on if they're useful or not.

"Did Li give you bad vibes," I whisper hoping not to alert the guards outside. "He didn't even tell us his daughter's name."

"Zhang, it was on the bedroom door. But yeah, but I don't think he killed his daughter and is using the chaos in the city to hide her body," Kai jokes. 

"Wow; I wasn't going that far. I just think he's kind of an out of touch asshole. He thinks of his daughter as a posession, not a person. It took fifteen minutes of him rambling until mentioning that his most valuable posession was his daughter not some object. That just screams she ran away to me. I'd run away if I was her."

"Were you a runaway too," Kai asks passively.

"She's a little old to be called a runaway. Let's just say she chose to leave. Wait, were you a runaway?"

"For a few weeks before they caught me trying to hop on a bus headed to San Francisco."

"Why San Francisco?"

"Heard it was a cool place."

I don't press the issue. Kai has a tendency to over share, and then expects me to do the same. I'm sure he had a good reason for running away, but it's probably good if I don't hear about it. I don't ask more and he doesn't explain. Instead I start to snoop through her diary. Real detective work, not TV magic.

There's nothing surprising. She dislikes her dad. She's a grown woman who has her own dreams and aspirations. His need for control is why she never wants to be around him anymore. A little childish for someone her age, but nothing surprising. At least not until the part where she spends 20 pages describing how much she loves her boyfriend and his new splicer modifications. She didn't love the scales at first but they sparkle now and it's great. I skip the next five pages about their love making and pass the journal to Kai to examine.

"Woah, didn't know that was possible," Kai says as he turns a page and quickly reads the next page.

"What is it," I ask.

"He's got the dolphin upgrade, can do some crazy stuff with that. I thought it was a myth."

"I'm not up on my splicer modifications, what can dolphin DNA do?"

"Well they're smart creatures, they can do a lot. But the one he got, woah. It's a jaw dropper."

"Get to the point."

"Dolphins have a prehensile penis and this guy has been doing some things that can only be described as incredible."

"Thanks, that's enough."

"They're big too. Like a a pool noodle and he's just rearanging her insides. He's massaging parts you probably can't even reach."

"How do you know I can't reach?"

"I'm just saying."

"Just saying I'm small because I'm a big man."

"But are you big where it counts?"

The two of us burst into laughter at the aburdity of the whole situation. She's basically writing erotica in her journal, and her dad doesn't know where she's at.

"Dickmatized," Kai continues to laugh.

"We got a name for this guy?"

"Wade Dolphin Dick Calvert."

"Think you can track him down?"

"Does a dolphin piss in the ocean," Kai asks causing us to have another fit of laughter. It's only a few seconds before he has a whole profile pulled up on the guy. A chronic splicer, high ranking member of an NPC gang. Nothing else important. He's our first stop to getting Zhang back home. At least long enough for us to get paid.

"Daamin's still in this," Kai says as we exit the mansion.

"I got 5 dollars that says he wins it all."

"I got five on it."