Meet Mr. Johnson

There are a lot of people named Mr. Johnson in Seattle, and all around the world. In other countries they are probably not called Mr. Johnson, but something similar.

I have understood that Mr. Johnson is quite common name. It is never the real name. Actually Mr. Johnson is an occupation. It is not like a doctor or a fixer, because Mr. Johnson doesn't do that for a living.

Normally Mr. Johnsons have a lot of contacts. They also have something that needs to be taken care of. Mr. Johnson can be a person working for a megacorporation, or he can be a concerned father looking for his kid. Mr. Johnson can be an elf, a human, even a dragon. And Mr. Johnson can be a woman. The only thing that connects all Mr. Johnsons is that they have something that needs to be taken care of.

I have met my share of Mr. Johnsons. Some of them are ”better people”, wanting to meet in some downtown restaurants, and others don’t mind meeting in a trashy pub next to Barrens. Some of them mean what they say, but normally they keep to themselves. They have hidden agendas, and they are not obligated to tell the reasons to the runners.

A basic job goes like this. At first a Mr. Johnson for example has a co-worker gone missing. He needs to find him because the missing person has some important information, and it is possible that a rival corporation is trying to get its hold on the information. He doesn't know why his co-worker went missing, but he needs to find him. It could be that he took off on his own, went to another city, moved away, was assassinated, hired to the rival corporation, was kidnapped, you name it.

At this point Mr. Johnson doesn't want to contact the police. Probably it hasn't taken so long that they would even consider filing a missing person report. Probably the whole situation is so delicate that they don’t want it to become public. So he makes a few phone calls and talks to a fixer.

A fixer then thinks a while, what the job needs, and calls one of his contacts, tells about a possible job and asks to put the team together for the job. He knows some information, normally only that there is a missing person that needs to be found. Then he arranges a meeting with the Mr. Johnson and the runners, or sometimes the fixer meets the runners first to discuss the job.

The runners decide which ones go to meet Mr. Johnson. Normally the runners that go are good with people, they have good manners, and they know how to negotiate. The whole team rarely goes to meet Mr. Johnson.

The meeting is arranged, and Mr. Johnson talks about the job and the pay vaguely, because he can’t give the details before the team agrees to do the job. When they have made a deal, and settled for the amount and methods of payment and the conditions, the runners either agree to do the job or then not. If they don’t want to do it, Mr. Johnson finds someone else to do it.

If the runners agree to do the job, they get all the information they need. Who the person is, where he was seen last, to whom he works for, etc. Then Mr. Johnson leaves his contact information and leaves the team to plan their actions.

The runners then do the job. If they fail, they won’t get paid, and probably get some more enemies. The fixer thinks twice before calling that team again, and if they have failed miserably, perhaps Mr. Johnson hires another team to pay a visit to the original team.

If the job has been done properly, the missing person is found, the information is saved and Mr. Johnson is happy, he can proceed to the payment. If the Mr. Johnson is honest, he gives the payment to the runners, and everyone goes on to live their unhappy lives as they were before the job. But if Mr. Johnson has some truly hidden agendas, and he doesn't want to pay, it gets interesting. He might not have liked how the team has done their things. He might want to eliminate the team because they know too much. He might hire another team of runners to eliminate the original team. It has consequences, of course. If the team survives and finds out why the other team has been there, they will be angry. They most probably want Mr. Johnson dead, no matter the cost. I don’t think the fixer feels happy about the situation either. For runners everywhere this is just life. Simple life in the shadows. Nothing is certain. Not even death.