Emergence (Shadowrun)

[Moral Wiz]

Shadowbaby

Eh. Three. I think those two are already deep in.

The mage waves his hand in front of one of their faces, then laughs.

Still that makes us even. So, let's start. And a round says we get more accomplished than those clowns.

He smiles, and after a few seconds, a small black ear ends up appearing in paradise. It's id is the mages, but any enquirers meet an auto reply

This is a automated recording service, deigned to give you the minuets of those meetings you can't attend in person. Brought to you by NovaNet.

Back in reality, Aki raises a hand

Waitress? Our friends here have decided to leave for a bit, headed to some VR place. You mind letting us have another table so we don't end up tempted to poke them whilst they're out?

With a laugh, if the waitress lets them switch, he heads over to another table. He leans over to the other two and drops his voice

Ok. If our new boss is stiffing us, then that takes care of any cams or mikes she planted. Now, there are two main scenarios I can think of.

Number one, she's some sort of corp agent, or agent for another group, trying to get a test subject back, and spun a sob story to get the more moral of us to play along, rather than deliver the guy to the chopping block. I can see that working.

If so, I'd place money that Axtechnology is supposed to be the fall guy. Hence the brother being refed as a Janitor of theirs. Might be true though, if so it's an idiotic slip. And one that tells us who she's working for...

He lets that thought trail off, before smilingly brining in his next thought

Guess number two; She's telling some degree of truth, the man is just going to be rescued, or something. Possibly actually is her brother. But she's hiding whatever put him in this place. Perhaps whoever it is has been taken because of his tie to her.

Either way, a detective backing off suggests either this asylum place is powerful itself, or is backed by someone who is. Both suggest security will be a hell of a lot more than skeletal.

He looks at the dwarf.

If you borrowed my commlink, you think you could look up adepts active in Seattle called... what was the name? Oh yes. Anne Snead. I could list you some mojo spots people say I should take a look at. You could turn something interesting up.

Actually, did you get a pic of her? That might be better.

[Sicarius]

Ciel

The angel cranes her head and opens her eyes to reveal no iris or pupil, instead two full orbs of dazzling light. "Only if you want it to. It's belief that gives men wings."

"But let's talk business before pleasure. I've gotten Ms. Johnson's commlink address and can easily dig up dirt on her. Nothing is hidden from my eyes, and if it exists on the Matrix, rest assured that I can find it. As far as the group is concerend, I have no reason to disbelieve that she wants us to take this person from this location and deliver him to her. I can swim through the hospital records if that's what you want. Getting in, finding the records, and leaving the door unlocked should take...oh, maybe six hours."

"If we want to rescue our unfortunate detainee, I'll get in and see if I can arrange a transfer. I can put one or two of you on staff if you're a good enough actor to fake it. Something tells me our ebony goddess might be able to pull it off. Given the hush-hush nature of this place, that might actually work in our favor. I can also hop in security and make sure we leave no records of our passing. Simple, clean, and elegant. Of course, that might change after my diving lesson. What do you think?"

[Name_Here]

THe waitress smiles and points to a nearby unoccupied table Sure. Boss encourages the patrons to adjust the place as they need to. Says the more people feel at home the more they'll drink.

[Moral Wiz]

Shadowbaby

Aki smiles Well, I'm sure we'll prove him right

After all, it's on the Johnson's tab.

[estradling]

Gres

[Valkyries 1 and 2: Monitor duty. SkyHigh2: New target Careful and cautious approach] he upload the co-ordinates from his mapsoft

New feeds arrive as the Valkyries take over surveillance, and SkyHigh takes off.

"I've got full motion video and different angles on the Johnson. I've also got drones I could deploy to get real-time video feed of the place." as he answers the mage, he takes a swig of his beer... tastes kind of like greasy fingers.

As for the request for a data search he replies, "I could do the search... but that was doing when that blew..." He pointed to the dead link. "Not exactly my strong point."

"Hell... I'd be at this virtual meeting where she could do the search but I was down and never got the invite."

[Moral Wiz]

Shadowbaby

Aki's face lights up in happiness

You, Mr Dwarf, just became my new best friend.

What are your handles anyway? Afraid I missed the introductions.

Wayu Akimiya. That's what it says on my SiN, anyway. You can call me Aki.

Can you forward me the vid data on the Johnson? I'd like a look.

I can scout in the astral if you want, but if they've got spirit defenders... well, I won't be best placed to fight them. I'd have to run.

He checks the feed from the meeting

And our good little hacker seems focused on the job itself. We'd best be the ones ready to deal with the Johnson.

Apart from anything else, if we want to make sure we aren't being stiffed on the value here, we might want to keep the brother in a safehouse for a bit whirlst we check if we are being screwed over here. You guys got anything in safe storage?

[estradling]

Gres

"I go by Gres." He thinks carefully... "You'd offered me use of your link... I'd love to take you up on that, but I didn't want to leave you out. But maybe we put something together."

"I use your link and code to attend... but I connect by jack and you by image link and earphones. I get VR you get AR and we both can get all the info."

[Moral Wiz]

Shadowbaby

Fine by me. Best to act in a group, I suppose..

He withdraws a pretty standard commlink from his jacket's pocket.

I'd prefer to be quiet, so I'll let you do the talking. I'll only send when I've got something to contribute.

And I'll not have an avi. Just use Picture in picture to get a look in, and respond. Better, I find

What about you mate? He asks the Ork You gonna head to this joint?

[estradling]

Gres

Gres takes the commlink, He gets the needed info from AKi to slave the comm link to his. He rides his comm while Aki rides his.

"Here is the vid of the Johnson," there were several feed but Gres minimizes all the others. Turning to the ork he says, "Aki is going to still be here... He can relay for you if you'd prefer not to go."

Then he pulls up Aki code and directly and heads to the meeting.

OOC: I think this is the second use of the mages code don't know how she'll react to that.

[Moral Wiz]

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If you're trying to Con me, I'd like to request a roll off on the Con rules. Because Aki's actually quite perceptive, even if he doesn't show it. It's part of his mage training (He's of an interesting tradition)

[Sicarius]

Ciel

The seraph looks up at the sky for a second, and a message is sent to the mage's comm. "So nice you're attending twice? An unknown AccessID is using your password." She asks as she stares intently into some blank space.

OOC: What SiN is being used for your commlink?

[Moral Wiz]

Shadowbaby

There's a small picture in thin air, of a pair of eyes.

It's Gres. The Dwarf who, I dunno, Lost his Commlink. He's tagging along

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His, unfortunately. He couldn't afford a fake SiN.

[Sicarius]

Ciel

"Well, then." The angel nods and approves the person attempting to attend. "Welcome to Paradise."

[Moral Wiz]

Meh. Very good.

He smiles, and leans back.

Anyway, you gonna search on Anne Snead, an adept of power active in Seattle?

[estradling]

Gres

The dwarf is using a default off the shelf avatar. "Thank you. Do you have a log we can look over? Took me a bit to bum a ride, and I want to catch up?"

[Moral Wiz]

Shadowbaby

I got one. Take a look

He forwards the second user the saved log.

[Sicarius]

Ciel

The seraph smiles and shrugs. "Sure. I'll run the scan right now."

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(14d6)[2][6][2][1][6][5][1][5][3][4][2][3][6][6](52)

Data Search + Browse = 6 hits

[OverWilliam]

Alviss

"Indeed, indeed, welcome aboard, try not to let the door hit you on the way in." The shadowed figure put a finger to his forehead and closed his eyes, as though praying that he wasn't going to get a headache from all of this. "While the scan is running, let's get back to the attack strategy. A very wise man once said that if you don't have a backup plan, you don't have a plan. Perhaps we should take that into consideration?" He spoke with just enough patient politeness to excuse his dripping sarcasm.

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Gbemisola

"I am Egungun-oya, if you needed to know, friends. I am, however, a negotiator, not a liar. I am not so great an actor, though I thank you for the compliment."

The mask bobs in virtual space, bodiless and unreadable- but for all that, considerably less dramatic than its surroundings.

At the same time, a particularly astute observer would notice her throat vibrating in the flesh; a subvocal call, routed through her commlink on a seperate thread.

[Palancair? I'm afraid I need a little information, if you're not elbows-deep in second-hand biomechanics.]

OOC

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Gbemisola is attempting to call her Street Doc contact to see if there have been any reports of unusual mental/physical illness or disappearances, and if he knows anything about this private clinic/hospital. At only Connection 2, he may not know much, but at Loyalty 4, he should help to his best ability.

[estradling]

Gres

Following the first steps of the plan he nods, "Looks good."

"I got some vid of the Johnson." He throws open his vid record, "All kinds of angles, close ups, far away, stride patterns etc... I tried to follow this up with a search but that when I shorted out." He turned to their host. "It was purely hardware on my end." he explains in case she is worried about a repeat of what happen to him. "Could you add this to the commlink info search in case Johnson is some what good at hiding her info?"

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Gbemisola

"An excellent idea, friend Alviss. I am eager to hear your suggestion."

Both in person and in virtuality, the african queen is smiling in a manner that makes her thoughts nigh-impossible to determine.

[Moral Wiz]

Shadowbaby

So

The mage keeps his smile as he relaxes

We need a plan. We need a backup plan. I can act fairly well if needed, I wouldn't care to rely too much on it though.

Oh, by the way Ciel, you might want to see if Aztech have a connection to any of this. According to this they were supposed to employ the brother as a janitor. Don't suppose you could get his file?

Oh, and anyone got an ideas about where to store him? If the Johnson's playing us, we might want to keep our hands on him till we've got all the facts.

[OverWilliam]

Alviss

The red eyes snap-locked on Gbemisola's mask, glowing deeply as though piercing straight through it and to the physical elf behind it. "Thank you, Madam, I pray not to disappoint your confidence." Even through the confrontational attitude and the indirectness of the Matrix connection, one so versed in interpersonal communication can tell that behind the air of sarcastic impatience Alviss is really enjoying all of this. "The first plan that Ciel laid out relies primarily on use of Matrix hacking and counterintelligence measures to get in and out safely. With so capable a cybernetic expert as we have I'm sure this will function smoothly, however with so many eggs in the one basket of digital work we're setting ourselves up for a potential disaster scenario should that one resource, for a myriad of unforseen reasons, be rendered unusable." Throughout this Alviss is careful not to imply that Ciel's skill set might be found lacking, but rather equipment failures, unexpected delays, and other unfavorable developments might derail the plan. "I honestly believe that manipulating the system, both cybernetic and physical, is our best shot to take the prize. If there are no complications, or if the complications that will occur are not too serious, we'll be in and out clean, leaving no trail. It's the optimal outcome. However, your favorite law of probability and mine, Murphy's Law demands that we also prepare for a much messier outcome as well."

[Moral Wiz]

Shadowbaby

The mage's eyes are pretty neutral.

Hmm....

We have two passable actors. And multiple shadowrunners.

Hows about the inside guy, whoever he is, tries to arrange a transfer. The orders are pretty good, but if there's any trouble...

Some more come in, being hired to take the shadowrunner, and the prisoner, to HQ. One for security, the other for interrogation.

Thoughts?

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Gbemisola

"You have a point."

Egungun-oya's pipe appears, comically, floating in front of her mask. A cloud of tangled metaphors slowly spreads out from it, then evanesces to nothing.

"Should our attempts to subvert procedures fail, I am not precisely a stranger to moving in silence; my reflexes are...adequate, I think, and I have certain capabilities relating to sensing in unfavorable conditions and to disabling physical security devices."

She bobs slightly.

"So; if we should fail to subvert, we must extract with speed and force. And for that I and my arrows are equipped- and we have a rigger, for the getaway, yes? It is, as they say, a long tradition of my people."

A slight sarcastic lilt tinges the last few words.

[estradling]

Gres

Hearing Gbemisola hes smiles and replies, "Yes you have a rigger and I am not just for get aways... Some stuff you all should be aware of for planning purposes."

He throws up an image of a fast moving night scape, "I currently have in route to the 'hospital' a stealth drone. Once in in place it should real-time view of what is going on. Its small, fast, and flying high in the dark, so it should remain undetected. But even if it is detected, how it is detected and the response should provide valuable data."

"I've also got drones for up close recon." He moves into the VR real-time vids of the club and the still bodies of some of the runners.


"And if we need to go to the force option, I've got that to." He add images from the drones outside the club covering the entrances. "These guys tend to draw to much attention so things would need to be already hot for them to deploy."

[OverWilliam]

Alviss

Somewhere halfway through Gbemisola's musing, Alviss' avatar started to waver slightly, as though he was about to lose his balance. When Gres finished speaking, he awoke as though from a daydream, and said, with a poorly disguised amount of stress in his voice, "Excuse me please," Before mentally switching his Matrix connection from the Cold-Sim Full Virtual Reality that it had been on back to the, in comparison, two-dimensional Augmented Reality that was restricted to the heads up display on the inside of his Goggles. He sat up suddenly, tearing the goggles and his band of VR trodes from his face.

Inside the private node, the suited avatar went stiff, and then motionless.

Scrambling across the solitary alley that his physical body was in, Alviss couldn't breathe as he threw a hand against the alley wall for support and almost choked as he heaved powerfully, the full contents of his stomach splattering on the pavement. Fortunately, the afore mentioned 'contents' consisted solely of the drink that he had back at the club, which was in turn the cause of the biological rejection. Even after he had nothing else to give he stood there many long seconds, the muscles in his abdomen spasming painfully, and finally relenting after sending some black, oily bile down to join the drink. Alviss gasped for air, not caring about the smell of the air that he recieved. He threw himself backward against the wall on the opposite side of the deserted alley, and slid down the rough surface heaving for oxygen.

He'd known that would happen when he downed the drink at Rightside Out. It was a tradition of his at prospective job meetings, to remind himself what he was. As if he needed the extra reminder. It wasn't like he ever forgot.

[Moral Wiz]

Shadowbaby

Aki smiles

If you want a distraction, Ika can go pretty fast. Mirages tend to.

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And what's the Johnson doing?

[Sicarius]

Ciel

The data search came as a white dove that landed on Ciel's angelic fingers. After whispering something to the bird's delicate head, she let it flutter off."He shall return with what he finds."

"But before we talk about backup plans, let's talk about the plan. We're getting ahead of ourselves. I'll need to check and see if they do patient transfers at this place, and what the procedures are if they do. I'm not worried about anyone trying to sneak in, especially if I'm running security, but it's harder to sneak another person out. That patient is going to need to be moved, and so I'd rule out stealth unless you guys can make him invisible. Maybe the wizard can do that, it's a neat trick if you can."

"As far as force...I'd prefer it to be quiet because getting LoneStar off your tails is a pain. So if you want to go force, keep it quiet."

[Conners]

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I had to go to sleep.... I'll post in reaction to most of what's happened thus far.

Lucas, as the dwarf tugs, snaps up his goggles and gives a good half-glare. "All right..." he says, his eyes a dark-brown now, "I'll attend both meetings and make communication between you."
When the mage places one of his "ears" in the private server, Luke sees there's no reason for him to report to the happenings of he web to the non-web-ers.
When finally the pair decided to head onto the server, he sighed with relief and headed back with them.

Present time.

In the full-meeting, Lucas is wondering how he can be of help. "I might be capable of swaying a few medical workers*--the problem is if someone important comes along," he says when the question of capable actors comes up, becoming less sheepish as he gets more used to the dazzling landscape. "I also have several nice smoke and gas grenades, should you need cover."

To Ciel's current statement: Luke isn't very comfortable with the idea of literally "invisibling" the patient, he wasn't very use to magicians. "So our main choices are hacking, stealth, and brute-force--or any mixture we can think up, right?" he makes clear with everyone. "Maybe we should have three plans, in that order. Ciel could go with her quick-and-clean idea, she hacks us in as security, we pull out the patient, no-trouble.
"If that doesn't work? We rely on stealth to try and get him out from where he is, quickly before security has time to mobilize--for this we need to know the building's layout and have several routes of escape. Invisibility is good for this, if they don't know who we are so much as they know the patient is being rescued, we could just slip past them (pretending to scream and panic as though we were more frightened medical staff, or rushing past meaningfully like security guards following orders). To increase our chances, cutting the power would probably mix them up pretty well, though messing up their security cameras so they don't know where we are could be just as nice--any ideas on that, Ciel, Mr. Rigger? If you could make the cameras unusable to them but still use them yourselves, that'd be great for letting us know which corners to duck around to avoid security.
"Should security catch up, gas or smoke grenades might be enough to distract them while we make our way through a different escape-route. If it isn't, we go to our last resort -- force -- and deal with them however we need to as quickly as can be managed.
"We'll be extracting someone, is the problem, so if they can't keep up? Well running isn't too good an option then--in the case of completing this job, that is. If we need to get the h**l out of there, we'll just have to leave him more likely than not--losing your pay is better than losing your head. If we're desperate to complete this job: Could you, Aki, turn yourself and the paitient invisible at the same time? That way you could stay somewhere out of the way while we draw their attention, allowing you to sneak him out."

Near finishing, Luke looks around him, waiting for replies to his plan and making eye-contact with each runner--the slitted, glowing eyes of his robot-avatar don't have nearly so much effect as his real ones. "This is just an idea for what we could do. If there's a better idea any of you have, then we should definitely use that one. However... if you think this plan is all right, then we should work primarily on how we can make it better. Then, we move onto, 'what if our client back-stabs us?'." His voice shows he is genuinely serious about, "if you have a better plan, we should definitely use that," rather than the normal sarcasm of, "think you can do better than I have?".

*: ((It depends if I can use leadership on people I'm pretending to be on the same side on. Such as if I was posing as a sergeant, I'd supposedly be able to use my authority to boss around regular soldiers.))