The Fixer
Bond, James Bond: This Fixer uses their network to bring them cutting-edge gear and gadgets, a high-tech specialized solution to every problem you can imagine. A high Edge should ensure they’re grabbing gear during Get The Job, and their Hustle jobs should bring in 1-2 gear at the beginning of every mission. Sales Engineer will give them +1 to use that gear. Later, consider the Hunter’s See the Angles for an additional gear and intel to pull out during the mission. Assess will benefit from that high Edge, grabbing another handful of +1s. If the infiltrator runs into a problem he can’t solve with a gadget (usually a problem made of meat), Hardball makes up the difference. This Fixer always has the right tool, the right way to use it, and the right insight to apply. They wear a black turtle neck and their wristwatch is a registered WMD.
The Spider: A high-Style approach to the Fixer, emphasizing Facetime, Hard To Find, and Deal of a Lifetime, to translate that huge list of contacts into a huge list of chumps ready to do whatever the Fixer asks for. Hard to Find and Deal of a Lifetime means that list of contacts is a nearly-free directory of specialists.
Legwork just became a lot safer – which means you can push harder, and accrue more gear/intel for your crew before your clock gets too high. You might also translate these contacts into fictional effectiveness with Fast Talk. Unlike Hit The Street, Fast Talk doesn’t come with a price, so the player needs to be proactive in maintaining those relationships. In this case, the Hustling jobs should overlap with the Contacts network: gear/intel/cred can be freely swapped out for debts by the Fixer, and the disasters are debts owed.
The Spider will massively expand the game world, though: by always having a friend-of-a-friend to call, a job to get (or make right), a thief to punish, a worker to recruit, a debt to repay or call in, the crew’s world is going to get a lot bigger than just “run this mission, get paid, sleep it off.” This isn’t the build for a one-shot; this is for a campaign, where you explore the setting.
Local Leader: It’s easy to think of the Fixer as someone who puts criminals in need in touch with criminals with supply, but that’s a mistake. The Fixer just helps people who can get things done find people that need things done. Sometimes, it’s your community that needs protection and leadership – and you’re the one to provide it. Your Contacts will likely come from the local circle of community leaders, bureaucrats, and itty-bitty businessmen and local kids that “made it.” Your Crew is local; your hustles are, too. You’ll roll with your Backup, local boys that have your back, and when you meet with other civil leaders, they know your Reputation. Your Edge ensures that they know not to push you. The needs of a community crushed under the Sprawl’s boot-heel can be a source of a lot of missions, though outside the usual thumb-print of dark industrial espionage. The target corp might be the civil administration outsourcing conglomerate, with the raid being on water utilization records to get the flow of clean water turned back on to the community. Or the crew will be hitting the records of a local media corp., getting hushed-up records of wrong-doing on your political opponents, to give you the leverage you need to allocate grant funding towards your community – just enough to get the quarantine program swapped out for immunizations. The crew will make their cred, but it’ll be pooled from the mattress stashes of a few hundred grateful citizens. And, you know what? Maybe some of them aren’t so grateful. Maybe they’ll happily turn you in for a chance to go salaryman, and get the fuck out of this hole. Definitely ask the players questions about how the rest of the crew knows this fixer, and why they give a shit. Maybe they’re local boys too. Maybe they owe some serious favors. As the other PCs earn the gang’s trust / debt, the Fixer can more plausibly bring his power to bear on missions unrelated to the community’s immediate needs. For future moves, consider Hunter’s “Human Terrain”; your enemies are lot more likely to be groups than individuals, so it’ll pay off. For a more charismatic leader, the Pusher’s “Famous” will also work. Your most loyal supporters may also be the Pusher’s “Inner Circle.”
The Local Leader can easily be built, with some slightly different flavoring, as a local crime boss or gang leader.