The good part of authorizing someone's passion project was that everything was [i]ready to go[/i]. Bulk unit purchase contracts deploy immediately, regional sectors are reclassified from safe to contested, contacts cultivated over decades get phone calls telling them that the check just cleared and it's time to go hot. Admiral Scipio has, in fact, been embezzling - but the funds she was misallocating all went towards making sure that this operation would go off as smoothly as possible the moment the funds became available. The gun was aimed and loaded for you already.

A wave of hostilities has been unleashed - but to be clear, this is not a full on corporate war. No headquarters are being bombed, no flagged tankers are being sunk, nothing [i]experimental [/i]is being deployed. What's being hit is a vast network of overextended grey zone assets as Lhotse Security empties its arsenals in the secure knowledge that resupply is coming. As you check in over weeks and months you will continue to see a steady beat of low-level signs that things are going well. Your reign begins with a show of force and a successful defensive operation.

*

Paradisia is hanging out at an InfoBar. Bit of a trend, recently - cashed up retired netrunners and street samurai open front bars with overpriced drinks and unfriendly service. They launder money, give connected underworld types a hangout, and represent a sufficient concentration of force that law enforcement doesn't look too closely. This one's all done up in seafoam green and blue tiles, indoor trees and vines, the sound of a mournful trumpet providing backing music. Despite being happy hour on a weeknight there are only four customers present.

Your cybernetic eye identifies some of them immediately. Sitting at the bar, slightly off center in what feels like an almost deliberate show of normality is Unity Samson, Esquire, a public defender who has taken on some high profile cases. She is talking to a - a literal horse? No, a literal unicorn. A quadruped animal unicorn with a rainbow mane and glittery hooves, covered with scars and cuts that have been covered up by colourful children's bandages, wearing a black leather coat with metal studs. Your eye loads the name as Sapphire Wind. Apparently she's involved in some sort of underground deathmatch circuit. 

Further along, at a table, Paradisia is playing reijong against a middle-aged man who has been completely data-scrubbed. Nothing on him at all. That's a hard thing to maintain - even if SLAM! *click* sells that service, the moment you buy tech from a rival company they'll open up a corresponding file, so it locks you into their ecosystem for everything. Either way, he is losing hand after hand in businesslike silence, the two of them going through the charade of the game to avoid having their transaction being flagged. Everyone looks at you as you enter. Everyone knows that you mean [i]trouble[/i].