Gunhead, Fennec, Rez and VC head back to the Recyclands office in Fennec’s car, while Rama detours via a local police district to drop off the gangers he picked up from their last job. He arrives a short time later and speaks with the officer on duty, who lets him into the police compound. Rama fills out the necessary paper work, then asks to borrow the car to finish up a few errands before he heads out to city of Stateline.
Rama meets up with the rest of the crew at the Recyclands office, and meet with Victor Anyov. He briefs them on a long-term contract proposal, which is to assist with ongoing reclamation efforts with a government agency for a town called Bakersfield, located in Southern California. Victor explains the contact for the job is a man named Evan Briggs, who is operating out of a city called Stateline, out east on the border of Northern and Southern California.
Collectively, the crew decide to hit up a night market to spend their wages from their first reclamation job. Travelling around, they find a small market in a parking lot, and hit up vendors to make purchases. Gunhead contacts a friend, Echo, who gets him sorted with cyberdeck upgrades. Rama purchases Kiroshi cyber-eyes, and Fennec organises with a family member to swap out his vehicle. After their shopping, they all head to Rez’s container housing and meet her brother Rick, a street cyber-tech surgeon. Rick handles the installs for Rama, which goes well, and they call it a night.
The next day, the crew finish up lingering tasks and decide to hit the road at night, to avoid the increased traffic on the highways. A short time into their drive, they realise they are being tailed by a set of motorbikes that trail behind them. The crew enter into combat, with Gunhead attempting to maintain a high-latency wireless connection to one of the motorbike’s localNETs. After a few more volleys back and forth, Fennec attempts to brake suddenly to deter the motorbike riders.