"The Bargain" - Reboot.exe - S1 Chapter 1.

## The Bargain

Jenn

"The Bargain" is the first chapter of season 1 of Reboot.exe. It was released on 19 December 2020 and is narrated by Dave.

## Episode Synopsis

The campaign starts out in the year 2090 in a dystopian future world with heavy cyberpunk elements and technology and focuses on three main characters from different walks of life: Pr0\_D1gy, or Pro as he is referred to by his friends, a 19 year old hacker with cybermancy implants, Sebastian Allen, a Bespoke scholar who goes by the nickname Seb, and Eve, a Nin-Yao medical drone who's become sentient and gone rogue.

The episode starts out with Seb leaving the beautiful inner city of Melbourne and stepping foot into the Venn, the world between worlds where the slums meets the city. In this industrial world where wage slaves and corporate workers keep turning the gears that keep running the major corporations that operate in the inner city, this Bespoke has spent weeks studying the slummers. Through bartering and bribing, his travels eventually take him to a run down attic where Pro is hiding out from an international criminal organization he has just escaped from. Seb is not the only one who has tracked down Pro, however, as two surly looking gangers lurk in the alleyway just outside Pro's attic home.

Pro, who had adopted an Eve medical robot since his escape and sent her out for food and supplies, is shocked when it is Seb instead of Eve who returns, demanding to know who he is and what he wants. Seb dodges the question, but quickly informs Pro of the gangers who are now banging on his door just downstairs. Perturbed and not willing to get caught by the organization he escaped from only weeks prior, Pro and Seb flee from the roof unnoticed, and claim an even dirtier space about the size of a small closet.

Eve comes to their new place, having briefly encountered the surly looking gentlemen before they disappear into the Venn, and Pro and Seb have a conversation about what they can provide for each other. Through conversation and Pro subtly hacking the information network, Seb manages to convince Pro that with his connections to rich and powerful people in the city he can begin to give Pro what he wants; at least medicine for his cybernetics which he has run out of and will quickly die without.

But nobody survives in the slums without connections, and Pro knows the only way to form a network with Seb and fulfill eachother's interests is to make contact with a nearby workshop that exists at the center of all the gangs in the Venn. They're going to have to go to Ugly's Motors.

> "Something tells me the next few weeks are going to get ugly." --- Pro
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## TL;DR

* Whilst studying people in the Venn, Seb has managed to track Pr0 down to a run-down attic where he and Eve have been staying.
* Upon Eve leaving to get supplies without locking the door, Seb enters and informs Pr0 of two gangers at the door seemingly intending harm.
* Pr0 checks the cameras around where he’s hiding and confirms this before fleeing with Seb to a storage closet.
* Once Pr0 and Seb settle a bit, they have a short conversation about what they can do for eachother. Upon Pr0 researching Seb, he realizes that Seb has connections that are useful to him.
* The episode ends with Pr0 realizing that he is in need of Fusion, and a potential way for Seb to obtain it for him.