The Gig Workers Guide

The Gig worker's guide is an informal fakebook. An informally distributed amalgamation of pirated documents, tips from professionals, and general advice that gets passed around the community.

## Before the job.

It's best to secure a place to work out of. A local bar is the usual choice. Just be sure to pick one that isn't owned by local organized crime or you might end up taking a 20% pay cut.

Often clients will come to your bar by reputation or looking for some group that used to work out of there. Either way the first move is to provide your CVs. If the client is satisfied you can do the work then negotiations will begin.

## Negotiations

The most secure way is face to face in your home bar. Until you’re established you should stick to that. Most clients are an established hustler themselves, so they will use a local cryptolect. A way of discussing matters without actually discussing them. This gives them deniability and thwarts any monitoring or surveillance they’re under. Sometimes you may need to secure a translator, but having a hustler in your group removes this need as they will be fluent.  Once you’ve made a name for yourself you might start getting contacted by cagier-than-usual folk. This is usually bigger power players, but sometimes it's something more insidious, a rival setting you up, a loss reclamation group from a corp you once wronged or even something worse. Point is to never take a job from a phone. Know your boundaries as the one getting their hands dirty. Always meet face to face at least once, you don’t wanna end up a pawn in some harebrained AI’s machinations. I’ll only say this once, never work for an AI, they go about their goals in strange ways. Last thing, you don’t always have to be hired. It's bad form to reject a job and try to complete it yourself, that's the kind of scam that gets you permanently blacklisted and ejected from your bar. However, if you hear about something on the street there is always coin and reputation to be found by striking out on your own. Don’t have to split the bounty that way either.

## Obstacles

You will come across many types of corporate security. But trained humans are costly to replace, and thus rarely used as a first line of defense. You’re more likely to come across hostile automated defense in the structure of the building, or in the systems of it’s network. The most common are listed below.

### Passive Security

#### **Brick and Resin**

Never underestimate the amount of times some management lord decides a thick wall is the economical solution to all their security problems. Unfortunately they're half right. Walls are hard without an expert, explosives rarely penetrate more than a 2ft wall, and drilling takes elbow grease and way too much time.

* Concrete, old mortar and sand design [DUR] 10
* Structural Resin [DUR] 8
* Plascrete, concrete using microplastics. Strong and cheap.  [DUR] 8
* Metal gates: often secured with a lock. [DUR] 6
* Reinforced plastic gates: about as secure as a line in the sand. [DUR] 4

#### Surveillance

A camera pointed at the entrance is likely the second line of defense for a target building. An active threat that "if we don't get you now… we'll come find you later". Thankfully surveillance grids are rarely complete, as hiring a security-smith often results in costly recommendations like "failsafes" and "no blind spots" that would really cut into their bottom line. Still it's good to keep an eye out so you don't get some corporate door kickers visiting next time you fall asleep.

* Cameras

* CCTV- monitored by a person. [SEN] 5 + Skill
* ScryCams- automated alarm tripping computer vision [SEN] 5
* Thermal vision cameras [SEN] 6

* Sensors

* CO2 - gas sensors  [SEN] 6
* Vibration - from walking [SEN] 4
* Motion pressure plates -  [SEN] 3
* Laser tripwire - Binary

* Threshold Trips

* Threshold passing
* Door opening
* Door breaking

#### Locks

The prototypical security. If it isn't broken don't fix it I guess…

* Mechanical
	+ Sometimes the old ways are best. Key locks are cheap and fairly effective. Often constructed flush with doors, drawers, and ports. With keen senses and a lockpick kit you can get through… or just grab the janitors keyring.

* Magnetic
	+ Magnetic locks are maintained by an encapsulated or connected network hub. The trick is getting the electro-magnet to co-operate and open the door. Keypads, keycards. Without access to the guts of the machine it's usually easier to trick whatever tells the magnet to open the door instead of the magnet itself.

* Network
	+ Network locks are any locks that require network stored information to determine who to let through. Fingerprint scanners, facial recognition body language sensors, all fall under this category. Frankly without a Wiz, a doorcracking drive, or a saw and a lot of time... these are tough to break.

#### Traps

Only a real fucking psycho would put deadly traps in their office building, people running gigs tend to report seeing them fairly often though, i wonder if that says more about the city execs?

### Active Security

**S.P.E.C.T.R:** *System Patrol Entities Corporate Trained Routine.* These are bundles of pre-trained neural networks, well below the threshold of an AI agent. Unconscious and systemic, they are fairly predictable, but detect and respond violently to intruders in both the network and real space. Acting through doors, gun turrets, seeing through cameras and sensors.

**Polts:** Malefic traps that summon a enduring residue. Unpredictable results, with security system triggers. Can be identified by their system’s use of a transmitter or antenna, hidden in the same room where they act.

**SKELLY**: Training routine exoskeleton without a pilot. Full reinforced exoskeleton converted to autopilot. Using networks as target guidance. Slow and unbalanced on their own, but cheaper than paying someone to pilot it.  Will only attack on the system’s instruction.

**Ghoul:** Vat grown bodies, or more likely recycled corpses, with system control units embedded where the heads once were.  Hard Plugged into a wall for fluids and power. Balance using the thick expanding cable.

**Chimera**: Creatures woven from gene fragments left by old AI. Closely guarded secrets of the holding corps to ensure maximum value is extracted from their vat grown creatures. Monstrous and mutated beings are the guard dogs of their corporations.

**Minion**: A fanatic, but Ill equipped employee obsessed with the security of an area. Violent and unyielding. Desperately hoping for upward mobility through devotion.

**Guard**: A low-level employee hired with the security in an area.

**Rookies:** unpredictable… It is usually best to find a way around through blackmail or bribery rather than violence. Many security interns work multiple locations, so this strategy may be reused.

**Posted Knight**: A trained and equipped guard, sworn to protect a certain thing.

**Green Knight**: An elite knight of the board. Can be distinguished by their overconfident swagger and absurdly expensive gear.

**Black Knight:** A malefic wielding knight sent for special operations. Has the best corporate-written programs and computers. Run.

## Loot

**Datadrives**: methods of storing data that can surely be sold to someone for profit.

**NuCoins:** Cryptocurrency saved and loaded onto small disks to be exchanged like cash.

**NuCoin pouch**: standardized NuCoin wallets containing integrated verification and transaction history, usually with an integrated display to display how much they contain. However, digital displays are prone to breaking so you may have to wait until you plug it in.

**Data Stone:** Often engraved into synthetic gems, this multidimensional form of data storage is incredibly dense, used by AI.

**AI Relics:** Ancient weapons designed and produced by AI agents using methods long lost. These objects are extremely powerful and valuable, often endowing their users with unique effects lost to time.

## After the Job

Delivery and Getting paid.

Safe house