Martin Iliev "Marto":
It was just another night in the ordinary life of Martin Iliev, working as a security guard at the docks of Varna. He made a decent living, a mid-tier corporate health subscription - good enough for stitches, not good enough for chrome, and even had the day shift off, which let him pursue his true dream. Being a boxer. He heard stories of the brilliant boxers of the NUSA, but given the kind of chrome they had access to, he could only dream of being like them one day.
Checking the cameras one last time before going on his routine patrol, he sees a crate that looks out of place. He checked the manifest for the night and saw that the crate he was looking at didn't exist. His curiosity was piqued, and as he went on his patrol, he took a close look at the crate from the outside. Knowing how much trouble he could get into, he walked on. On his walk back to the security booth, for some reason, he gave in to his curiosity.
Opening the crate, he saw it was practically empty, except for one box. Opening the box, he sees some cyberware. Not even sure what it was, he took a closer look and could make out what seemed to be gorilla arms, with some type of neural connection that linked the gauntlets. He was like a kid in a candy shop, even though it wasn't his, just seeing this type of chrome was enough to make him feel like he had a chance of fulfilling his dreams of being a boxer.
As he continued to inspect the chrome, he heard someone talking outside, making it sound Japanese. There should not be anyone on the dock at this time. He takes out his taser and slowly walks over to the doors of the crate. Right before he opens the door, gunfire erupts.
A mix of English and Japanese is being screamed as the sounds of bullets flying and bouncing off the container. He jumped back to where he was standing a moment before. He couldn't believe this, given that the most action he had dealt with was a ragtag smuggling group that he dealt with fairly easily, not an all-out firefight.
From what he could make out, the fight outside was moving away from the crate, so he was about to make a break for it. As he cracked the door open, seeing the coast was clear, he stepped out. Something stopped him from taking another step, however. He couldn't tell if it was greed, stupidity, or survival instinct — but he grabbed the chrome.
Taking the chrome and running to his car, he turned the key in the ignition and took off. Thinking that he was going to be followed, for the theft of the cyberware, he headed to Sofia, looking to lie low, or maybe even go over to Greece or Serbia. Little did he know what he was truly carrying in his car and what he had gotten himself into.
Kristiana Petrova "Krisi":
Krisi never had it easy. Given that she grew up in group homes and the like, the deck was already loaded against her. By her late teens, she was already taking part in BD's, and while the eddies weren't bad, it wasn't what she wanted for herself. She found herself more intrigued by the production behind the BD's rather than being the production itself.
Starting off working in a studio, she got enough experience and saved up to open her own. However, owning a BD studio comes with its own problems. The type of business the studio attracted caused her issues a number of times, so she decided to get protection. And not the types that come with badges and official documentation.
This would end up putting her in a tough spot, however. One day, two members of the Zheleznitsa gang, whom she paid for security, came into her studio with a chip. They told her that the content of the file was semi-corrupted and that they needed her to piece it together. The Zheleznica gang didn't work with BD's, so she was already a bit confused. Once she started working on the chip, however, she realised that this was part of something much bigger. What she saw was Kang Tao officials torturing what seemed to be both Arasaka and Militech agents. Waterboarding, ICE attacks, blunt force trauma, and the removal of cyberware without anaesthesia.
Not knowing what to do with this information, she realised that even knowing what was on this chip put her in danger. Even more than this, she always had good in her heart, taking care of the BD models she worked with, and taking a real interest in her long-term clients, characteristics that are hard to find in general, let alone in the criminal underground. Given this, she told the gangsters that this was a bigger job than she could take on and that she could give them a few names that might be able to help her. What she didn't tell them was that she had made a copy of the BD on a local chip.
The gangsters seemed to believe her, but were still on edge. Krisi, seeing that the situation could go wrong at any moment, kicked one of them in the nuts and took off running. The gangsters gave chase, and she just barely made it to her motorbike and took off. Not knowing where to go, she could only think of one place that she could disappear, Sofia.
Vasil Chakarov "Vasko":
Vasil Chakarov, barely seventeen, had made a name for himself in Sofia as the best up-and-coming NetRunner you could hire for less than 20,000 EuroDollars. At this moment in time, however, he wasn't in Sofia. He was near Kazanlak, in the Buzludzha monument. The Buzludzha monument is a remnant of Bulgaria's communist past, which used to reign over the Eastern Bloc. However, he wasn't visiting to learn about the history of his country. He was visiting because of the potential Soviet tech underneath the monument.
Making his way pretty easily into the basement, he starts to search. He was used to the unexplored and abandoned. Old Sofia Metro tunnels, abandoned malls and underground parkings were his bread and butter since it was an easy way to find hidden ports to the Net all across the city. Finding a soviet era port, his eyes lit up. This was pre-DataKrash and could still carry fragments of the Old Net, before the Blackwall existed. Plugging his Neural Link into the access point, he gets to work. Exploring what seemed like echoes of a Net that once existed, he came across something. He couldn't make it out at first, but he identified it as a dormant Soviet AI.
Cautiously, he came into contact with the AI. While trying to scan any information he could get from it, he felt something off. The AI didn't respond normally, didn't give off any readable signals; it seemed to be dead, more than dormant. Suddenly, he was attacked by something, his neural processors starting to be fried. Realising it was a killer Black ICE program, he quickly disconnected.
Finding himself curled over on the floor, head banging like he had gone 12 rounds with Adam Smasher, he realised that it wasn't safe here. Unsure whether it was the AI, NetWatch, or some other entity, he was sure about one thing. He needed to leave. Only knowing one place where he could be sure he could disappear, he got back in his car and set his navigation for Sofia.