Part 3
Let's start snooping around and see what we can find out, maybe take care of that hotel bill.
Comlink 1.0... that's no good. We can get an upgrade from Shin if we find some caviar, I bet we get it from the hotel.
Well, that didn't exactly make me feel like a hacker...
Trying to order room service gives this message.
Some advertisements for local companies and a new link code to check out.
Oh dear... I'm gonna go ahead and leave that alone for now, we're doing pretty badly with money as it is.
We'll snoop around the local joeboy base, see if they know anything about what's going on.
That's me, I fit right in.
Ah, a messageboard. Since this game is extremely text heavy, I'll highlight the most important and amusing messages only.
Matt's an old-school cowboy who believes in sharing the software he makes. This should benefit us.
Good to see that newbies are treated the same in 2058 as they have since USENET was invented.
Score
Thanks to our cryptography skill we can figure that one out.
I'm hightlighting this just for fun, Deathangel's Shadow has messages all over every board, and he's a complete noob.
We'll get these two. Scout 1.0 is a database only program that's used to determine how many levels of security one base has. That way we know if we need more passwords or need to attack the base in cyberspace to gain top-level access.
Now let's see what havoc we can wreak in the cheap hotel.
Let's start by adding 1000 credits to our account...
... then ordering two bottles of sake and a can of caviar and adding the charges for that to our account. Now we have access to the cheap hotel. This is important because the cyberspace jack in there gives us access to zone 0 of cyberspace. Even with the best deck we won't be able to break the ICE on the bases in zone 1, which we can reach from the Loser.
Let's play chess!
We'll sign up for a full membership, I have feeling it'll pay for itself.
We've got a long way to go before we can crown ourselves Victor.
Upload Matt's software...
...and we're 600 credits up.
We also check out the consumer evaluation board. Our deck, the Yamamitsu UXB got the following review:
Manufacturer: Yamamitsu
Model: UXB
RAM: 5
Our experts agree that the Yamamitsu UXB is the absolute worst of the worst. When our test deck powered up, it exploded and put our expert operator in hospital downtime for two weeks.
I could have sworn that was top of the line when I got it.
We've also got a choice of the best cyberspace decks:
The Ono-Sendai Cyberspace VII with 25 RAM
The Samurai Seven with 25 RAM
The Ninja 5000 with 25 RAM
The only noticable difference between these decks is the price, with the Ninja being the cheapest and the Ono-Sendai the most expensive.
We collect our caviar and sake...
...and drop down to see our old pal Shin.
One day has passed in-game, so we head back to the hotel and read the news.
Apart from us being in the news, the Fuji-NASA deal is of interest, it never hurts to keep an eye on everything for a professional cowboy.
Vagrant? Savage?
We've got some new messages too.
...right.
There's also a message from the IRS, telling us we can log into their base at IRS with password TAXINFO and access consumer-level information.
Being desperate for cash, we decide to reply to the message from Armitage, maybe we can do a job for him, make some money. Con types up a professional sounding coverletter.
He replies right away, saying he's deposited 10k!
On our way to meet him, we bump into somone.
One of Lonny Zone's working girls is standing here in the street, leaning against a light tower. She carefully looks you over.
I guess cowboys = nerds.
OH SHIT 
You find yourself in a Justice booth. On the wall in front of you is the huge image of a frowning compu-judge. On the smaller monitor is the serious face of a Compu-lawyer.
Next time: Do we get out of trouble and into some more?