Assembling a Cyberpunk Heist Team by Jodi L. Milner

As part of a blog swap (see my last post), Jodi L. Milner wrote these fun instructions, which I think you’ll enjoy.

Assembling your Cyberpunk Heist Team

By Jodi L Milner

Listen, if you’re reading this you are already up to no good. Kudos. I like your moxi. Chances are you’ve got plans, big ones, the kind that needs cash. We’re not talking about rummaging up enough coins to sleep in a real bed, that’s nothing. If you take my advice, you’ll never have to sleep on a pile of cardboard again.

We’re talking credits. Those penthouse-dwelling corporate yes-men got ‘em. You need ‘em.  The cybernetic enhancements you want won’t pay for themselves, and without ‘em you might as well start selling your brain space to the highest bidder.

To pull off a successful heist, you need a team.

The Mastermind – That’s you, sweetheart. Someone must know what’s really going on and drive this crazy bus all the way across the bridge. If you’re reading this, you better have a plan and charisma. You’ll need both to pull this off.

The Money – Great plans need credits. You’ve got to have credits to steal more. Watch out for this guy, he’ll be the first to stab you in the back. The best place to find Mr. Money? The DMV. Thanks to papa government’s stubborn insistence to cling to last centuries tech, all license and ID renewals still require in-person biometric data gathering.

The Metal – Get yourself a robot, the dumber and stronger, the better. They come in handy for carrying heavy bags, breaking through doors, and blaming stuff on. My personal favorite place to find one is at Walmart. Ever since they replaced the senior citizen greeters with robot thugs there is a whole new population of underpaid disgruntled robots to choose from.

The Motherboard – You’re smart, but you’re not that smart. You need a regular wiz kid, or even better, one with integrated fiber-optic circuitry and a high-speed network connection. If you play your cards right, this kid will crack codes, hack passwords, and hunt down all the intimate details of your mark. Find your motherboard anywhere where the drinks are cheap and the network is fast. I recommend choosing a teenager young enough to still believe they know everything and old enough to not get themselves killed.

The Magnet – Every organic being has a weakness and your magnet is there to exploit it. Both smart and sexy, the magnet must to be irresistible to your mark as well as completely loyal to you. Don’t use one of your exes, trust me on this. I personally prefer using restaurant staff working to make ends meet between movie auditions. They tend to be the perfect combination of desperate and good looking.

The Maniac – Every brilliant plan has a dash of crazy, and this guy is your man. He is essential for when things go wrong, his ability to improvise and adapt to ever-changing conditions can make the difference between success and failure. Interestingly enough, these guys tend to be good with explosives, go figure. Finding a good maniac is quite a challenge as every single one of them tend to be very different from the next. However, scammers and heist planners out there all tend to know at least one dependable maniac. Use your connections and find yours.

There’s one more person that you have to consider when assembling your team, and this person is quite possibly the most important person to put research into.

This person is your mark.

If you do your job right, the mark will never know he’s been had. If you do your job poorly, he’s the guy who will dog your every step until you’re behind bars, or worse, erased.

The ideal mark is someone who has staff who cares for his mundane needs. He has people who go to the bank, to corporate meetings, and pick up his current girlfriend from her flat for him. Bonus points if you’re mark just happens to be the head of the company that sells the drug which destroyed your family.

Research your mark well, know everything about him. Know his weaknesses, his strengths, his favorite candy bar, and his favorite brand of toilet paper.

With a solid plan, a skilled team, and an ideal mark, you are set to pull off a successful heist.

About the Author

Growing up, Jodi L. Milner wanted to be a superhero and a doctor. When she discovered she couldn’t fly, she did what any reasonable introvert would do and escaped into the wonderful hero-filled world of fiction and the occasional medical journal. She’s lived there ever since.

These days, when she’s not folding the children or feeding the laundry, she creates her own noble heroes on the page. Her speculative short stories explore the fabric of dreams and have appeared in anthologies and magazines, while her novels weave magic into what it means to be human.

She still dreams of flying.

Check out Jodi’s blog & website.

Follow her on Facebook.

Look her up on Twitter.

Also check out Jodi’s book, Stonebearer’s Betrayal.

A secret society of immortals tasked to protect the world.

A demon bent on revenge.

And a girl brave enough to fight for her family when the two collide.

When Archdemoness Wrothe stirs the ashes from a long dead war, it rekindles a fire that threatens to burn the world. The immortal Stonebearers have the power to bring her down, if they learn of her awakening in time.

Katira didn’t believe the legends. It wasn’t possible for a person to bend the very fabric of reality or live forever. She didn’t believe in the dark mirror realm either or that forces were at work to destroy the waking world.

That was before the first demon shadow hound came for her.