Zach the Hot Dog Maniac
Overview
A contact of Fix-it-Felix’s who appeared at the Duke Boys race during Session 02. Scruffy, enthusiastic about hot dogs, and apparently wired into something considerably larger than his appearance suggests. Approached Felix privately with a proposition involving the Escalante data cube — swap the real one for a fake and sell the original to his employers for 3,000 EB. The deal closed in Session 04: Felix handed over the cube, the agreed EB landed in his account, and the crew split 600 EB each (plus 95 EB to Broker for expenses).
Works for someone. Still doesn’t say who.
Appearance
Messy. Eating a hot dog when he showed up. Has a cyberarm — bare chrome except for one index finger, which has a partial wrap with a single press-on nail. Kenny noticed. The kind of guy who looks like he’s always between jobs. His bosses, Felix noted, are probably “the kind of guys who don’t put ketchup on their hot dogs.”
Known Facts
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Knows Fix-it-Felix — found him at the race, said “I’ve been looking all over for you”; presented himself as Felix’s “inside source on all things hot dogs”
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Pitched a deal: swap the real Escalante data cube for a fake one (which he provided), hand the real one to his employers, collect 3,000 EB — Felix gets to split it however he wants
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Explicitly didn’t ask for secrecy — the deal is Felix’s to handle as he sees fit
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Employers’ identity unknown; Felix’s read: serious people, not small-timers
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Appeared while the Duke Boys were still present at the race; was at or near their side when introduced
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Kenny’s observation: “I like how Zach couldn’t afford the full cyber arm wrap and just has one lead press on” — bare chrome cyberarm, one partial wrap, one press-on nail on the index finger
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Session 04: still running his hot dog cart at his usual corner in the University District; paid the crew as agreed and threw in free hot dogs and sausages for the whole crew (ten servings) as a bonus, no hard feelings
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Kenny joked about having “secretly modified the contents of the cube” before the handoff — played as a joke at the table, but never actually walked back or confirmed false
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Session 07: turned up at the post-raid party at Goose Salvage, complimented the crew on their low body count against Continental Brands, and gave Felix a bump of synth coke before pitching a new job — his still-unnamed employers want CB to fail, and are willing to pay 1,000 EB each (expenses covered) for the crew to sneak up to the Moon, steal a sample of the low-gravity chemical CB has been shipping down as Nonh, and gather intel on the operation. Explicit about the motive: “my bosses aren’t looking to save your spooky friends because they discovered compassion. They just want Continental Brands to eat shit”
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Session 07: pointed the crew toward a decommissioned CB spaceship sitting derelict near Port Fantôme, and toward the Pacifica Confederacy as the current holders of an orbital engine it would need
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Session 07: receptive to Mr. Zip’s suggestion of bringing members of The Calling along to be exiled off-world rather than cured locally (“I’d rather they be up there than down here”); offered to fund cryostasis for the collective as a fallback if the Moon plan falls through
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Session 07: accepted ten hot dogs (plus toppings) up front from Felix as a show of good faith; timeline given as roughly a month before the job needs to get moving, with the engine itself not reaching the Confederacy’s camp for 7-8 days
Open Questions
- Who does he work for? Still unnamed as of Session 07 — only known trait is that they want Continental Brands to fail
- How did he know about the Escalante data cube before the crew found it?
- What did his employers actually want with the data cube?
- Did the crew actually hand over the genuine cube data, or did Kenny tamper with it first?
- Will the crew actually take the Moon job?
Relationships
- Fix-it-Felix — his contact; the one he pitched both the data cube deal and the Moon job to
Appearances
- Session 02 — Approached Felix at the Duke Boys race; offered the data cube swap deal; provided Felix with a fake cube
- Session 04 — Deal closed: Felix handed over the cube, paid the agreed 3,000 EB, threw in free hot dogs for the crew
- Session 07 — Pitched Felix a new job: procure a sample of Continental Brands’ lunar chemical and intel, 1,000 EB each; pointed the crew toward the derelict ship near Port Fantôme and the Pacifica Confederacy’s engine; open to exiling The Calling off-world or funding cryostasis as a fallback