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All five of them stare at the wad of cash in abject confusion. They seem confused on whether they should be insulted or not by the cash offered. Mr. Cyan glances up at you with a half-smirk. "Shit, that's basically half of a mission payout from the boss. What you want?"
"Two things. One: I overheard that shit about SHIFTers-" You stare Mr. Cyan right in the eyes with your own bright pink eyes. He narrows his own eyes upon seeing it. <<span class="mu-b">"Just my luck. Let's see how much she knows."</span>> "-and considering some of the rumors I heard, some of my friends might be them as well. What do you know?"
"Second-" You place down one of the SPACE AGE CHIPS and SATELLITE TILES each onto the table. "What do you know about the satellite that fell outside, like, probably not even a quarter of a mile away? You probably saw it."
The Cleanser scrunches his gas-mask covered face like a god damn muppet upon hearing more SHIFTer talk but he relaxes a bit upon seeing the space age tech. "QUAINT. HAVEN'T SEEN SOMETHING LIKE THIS IN A WHILE." He pokes and prods at the ancient technology with the help of the two drones while Mr. Cyan and Ms. Jacket (the third one seems to be asleep now) turn their attention to the SHIFTer question.
"Frankly? We don't know much." Ms. Jacket half heartedly shrugs. "We do know this: One, it's a very recent development. While one off rumors of people like them have been around for 15 years now, confirmed manifestations of anomalous abilities in humans is like...only a thing that's happened within the last three months? There's a lot of rumors about it originating from P, L, and/or U-Corp's singularities."
"Two." Mr. Cyan pulls out a small notepad and begins to flip through it. "Each of them has three specific psychological quirks. They need something they strongly believe in, they need to have the motivation to want to achieve said belief, and they need to undergo high stress and very traumatic experiences in order to fully awaken it."
"Three." Ms. Jacket grabs the notepad and scribbles a few lines out before handing it back to him. "We know of people who have the potential to awaken it but for one reason or another, they've failed to. The most common reason that SHIFTers fail to manifest is <span class="mu-b">typically a lack of human interaction or social bonding.</span>"
"For whatever reason, every SHIFTer we know gravities hard towards making allies with as many people as possible. That or just trying to be friends with as many people as they can find. It's quite surreal to see in person."
"The social element is very bizarre given how, well, that's just not really something that's wise to do in our industry. To be quite honest, these four jackasses-" Mr. Cyan gestures towards his group of Cleaners. "-are probably the allies I've been with the longest. They're god damn anomalies with their survival rate."
Those last few words out of Mr. Cyan are laced with an oddly thick layer of shame and bitterness.
