[The Sprawl IC]: Be Pacific: Finite Worlds

[Thanqol]

Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

- Kenneth Boulding



Be Pacific
A game of The Sprawl

STARRING
Mr. E as Watching Apostle (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23220258&postcount=33)
Elanorin as Trace (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23218116&postcount=31)
Anarion as Evelyn Davies (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23223050&postcount=41)
Eldest as Rose 013 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23216515&postcount=24)
Raine_Sage as Zephyr (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23213288&postcount=20)


The year is 2193. It is the future.

[Thanqol]

Let's talk brands.

It was once a time when only the corps had brands. They got a head start on their brands, as a result, and turns out a brand is only as good as the years you put into building it. By the time the consumers figured out they needed brands too they were hopelessly behind the race. Worse, humans sometimes die, and family branding is way trickier than you'd think - we've known that since Augustus (oh, speaking of, the month of August was renamed two years ago to the month of SLAM! *Click*. Most of the corps are just mad they didn't think of it first).

But even if your brand is fleeting and transitory up against the towering monolith of the corps, you've still gotta have one. If you don't have a brand then you won't be able to calc your market demographic. How you going to find a job, or get a date, if you just have to throw your net into the sea of Everyone? The right brand means that you can get the right data to target your personality at the most receptive demographics. You have to pull your weight a little too - it's no good if we go to all the trouble of branding you up as a flashy go-getter if the truth is you're a NEET.

Not to say it's impossible, though. Just gotta spend a bit more on marketing.

So, brands.

Evelyn Davies - you're probably the most brand conscious person here. You need to brand yourself and brand the team - and also your life literally depends on if your brand sticks. So tell me a bit about the rep you've sought to build for yourself and your group. What kind of jobs do you want to take, what kind of guarantees do you offer, what kind of person do you want to attract? Bored rich kids give you very different ops from put-upon middle managers.

Also, roll to Get The Job. You've got a client coming. What you know about them depends on what you pick on that roll.

Trace - you're a walking hardware display. It's inevitable that sooner or later someone's going to jack you for it. Let's say a corrupt Capitoline Auxilia - that's like a cop, but he's got a killer robot slaved to his brain as a partner. He's opted to freelance into organ harvesting a little, and is happy to stand overwatch while his 'rogue' auxbot throttles you in an alley.

What's your brand for dealing with a shakedown like this?

Rose 013 - you know what, we haven't really talked Matrix yet, have we? What's the wallpaper you've put up over that digital world of code and power? How does it look - animal, futuristic, fantasy world? How do you see the link between the Auxes and their Auxbots? What does a Swiss Guard in bleeding future edge heavy armour look like? What're the streets like in the hidden world?

Then, tell me about how your brand fits into that world. What's your av? What's your rep?

(Also, you've missed putting a price tag on your cyberware - I infer from context you're hunted)

Zephyr - you've got a brand already. It's rock solid. We know exactly what people think they're getting when they hire you - we know what people think they're getting when their security protocols bend around you. Your brand is backed up by the corp's and that's a hell of a brand.

So you choosing to do side jobs for extra cash is hella off brand.

Say you get paid, and then you get paid again half a dozen times. What're you saving for? What's worth going so far off brand in order to afford?

Watching Apostle - Oh, problem, honey. Your brand is toxic right now. Word's come down from above that Saints aren't an economically viable market segment and the Auxes reckon they've got free reign to take punches at you. We're pretty much one exec having a bright idea away from having people from your religion thrown into the Arestia ring to fight cyber-lions.

So how do you brand yourself in times of persecution? Out and proud? Sandwich sign saying the end times are coming? Or do you downgrade your brand into something a little less likely to get you crucifix'd?

[Anarion]

Evelyn Davies - you're probably the most brand conscious person here. You need to brand yourself and brand the team - and also your life literally depends on if your brand sticks. So tell me a bit about the rep you've sought to build for yourself and your group. What kind of jobs do you want to take, what kind of guarantees do you offer, what kind of person do you want to attract? Bored rich kids give you very different ops from put-upon middle managers.


Allow me to offer you one of the most classic brands there is: professionalism and detail-oriented competence. We offer a full service suite of competencies within reason: high skill at dealing with violence, fully competent Matrix load-out, consistent social infiltration, and even the ability at times to cause a specific target to take actions that are very out of character when it comes to their religious beliefs. We are a small team, you're not hiring us to be an army and you're not hiring a suicide squad of expendables. We are a precision scalpel with the unique combination of skillsets to get a very specific human-scale task done and done well in a comprehensive way. We dot our I's and cross our T's, and in a world where everyone cuts corners and acts sloppily, that makes us expensive and valuable.

[Get the job: 6+6+2=14. With aura of professionalism, that's 4 options. I choose
1. Useful assets [+gear]
2. Pays well
3. Does not attract attention
4. identifiable employer]

[Raine_Sage]

Zephyr - you've got a brand already. It's rock solid. We know exactly what people think they're getting when they hire you - we know what people think they're getting when their security protocols bend around you. Your brand is backed up by the corp's and that's a hell of a brand.

So you choosing to do side jobs for extra cash is hella off brand.

Say you get paid, and then you get paid again half a dozen times. What're you saving for? What's worth going so far off brand in order to afford?

"Retirement is kind of a pipe dream in this day and age, people don't really "die" anymore and eventually the money runs out. But man is there something to be said for making enough to get some actual vacation time.
Maybe a year or two saved up, where I can focus on my hobbies and not worry about getting shot. Of course I've got to reimburse Hono'Kiai for my tech before I can tell them to call someone else in for a job, so that's a pretty steep hill to climb. It helps that I find the work itself pretty engaging."

[Mr. E]

Watching Apostle - Oh, problem, honey. Your brand is toxic right now. Word's come down from above that Saints aren't an economically viable market segment and the Auxes reckon they've got free reign to take punches at you. We're pretty much one exec having a bright idea away from having people from your religion thrown into the Arestia ring to fight cyber-lions.

So how do you brand yourself in times of persecution? Out and proud? Sandwich sign saying the end times are coming? Or do you downgrade your brand into something a little less likely to get you crucifix'd?

You don't persuade people that the end is coming by waving placards. I mean, the late twenty-first century apocalypse cults tried that, and look how it ended for them...

No, in this age of progress and enlightenment (a word which is now redefined to mean the moment when the blinding lights of power overwhelm the last hiding places of independent thought), you persuade people of the end by showing them their own, possibly with a concealed mono-molecular carbo-durasteel whip. After all, this is the future, where pragmatism has multiple concealed weapons. Which, by the by, answers your question.

You see, there's no point fighting the corps on their own ground. Trying to out-advertise something like the Five-fold Path of Virtue and Diligence is never going to happen, not while the Combine pays them hefty donations each month. No, the Kasserine Saints are a bit more grass-roots than that. If you keep active, keep hitting the corps where it hurts, keep helping people when it matters, those that are worth meeting will find you. In some parts of town you declare your allegiance, but walking in front of some over-paid and under-stimulated corporate thug is how you end up being weapons testing for their brand-new rifle.

Which is why Watching Apostle has a patch of synth skin embedded in one wrist. The display costs only a few cents from off the shelf components, and can be configured to display a range of pre-programmed messages. Like, for example, the mushroom cloud and tree of the Kasserine Saints. Best of all, with the push of button, it can be wiped blank. This is almost borderline country for that kind of declaration, down by the docks, but Sally has always been a little too brave.

[Eldest]

Rose 013 - you know what, we haven't really talked Matrix yet, have we? What's the wallpaper you've put up over that digital world of code and power? How does it look - animal, futuristic, fantasy world? How do you see the link between the Auxes and their Auxbots? What does a Swiss Guard in bleeding future edge heavy armour look like? What're the streets like in the hidden world?

Then, tell me about how your brand fits into that world. What's your av? What's your rep?

(Also, you've missed putting a price tag on your cyberware - I infer from context you're hunted)

The Matrix has a variety of styles, overlays, and fashion modules: each person can chose (within reason) how to filter the landscape. Rose has lately taken to a city theme, vaguely Parisian, with narrow streets and high stone buildings. Auxes and Auxbots I do not actually know the reference for, so I'd need some clairification: similar with the Swiss Guard, but I'm figuring those are the baddest of the bad on corporate enforcement. To which I say: it strongly depends on which corporation is running them, but they universally have a crispness to them, a military precision that shows through. The one Rose is currently avoiding the attention of, for example, is standing ramrod straight, scanning the crowd from under his tan hat. Looks like one of the feds that fought the mob back in the 20th century, like you'd see in a flat-screen movie.

Rose, for a change, hasn't done anything wrong here, and slides on by. She's got her "normie" avvie on, an un-tatted woman in her early twenties that's got fiery red hair and a slim leather jacket. Just enough attitude to show that she's an individual, not nearly enough to stand out in the Matrix. Her business avvie, on the other hand, is what has the rep: looking like a wild fae noble, a mixture of the fairy godmother and the wicked queen. She's known for being a little capricious, not quite the best people-person, but for keeping her deals to the letter and, if she likes you, to the spirit.

[Elanorin]

Trace - you're a walking hardware display. It's inevitable that sooner or later someone's going to jack you for it. Let's say a corrupt Capitoline Auxilia - that's like a cop, but he's got a killer robot slaved to his brain as a partner. He's opted to freelance into organ harvesting a little, and is happy to stand overwatch while his 'rogue' auxbot throttles you in an alley.

What's your brand for dealing with a shakedown like this?


Deep specialisation.

Unlike the corps who grew from someone's single idea to enormous sprawling country-sized corporations insatiably devouring new aspects, ideas and markets and constantly belching out smaller slave corporations and companies until there is barely an aspect of human existence they do not taint.

I do one thing. One. And I excel at it. To the point that I do not need to advertise or prove myself, in fact, you tell me why I should hear you out.

Everyone can kill. Just like everyone can sing. Cook. Draw. But it takes dedication, knowledge, experience and tireless practice to do any of them genuinely well. And to make those who make a living from such skills look up, and even seek advice from you, takes very careful and subtle branding to boot. Mostly, it's acting the part they expect from you, including keeping private details very discreet. Many know my call name and alias, Silent Night. Some know the name behind it, Trace. Very few know my surname is still legally O'Malley. The more they have to work to find out what your real name is, what face you're currently wearing, who you are, the stronger the brand. Not being squeamish about meat swaps helps.

Branding helps but it is not built on a lie, I am genuinely very good at killing. My upgrades may be attractive but each serve a purpose and they are part of why few very rarely get close enough to touch me. Those who are competent enough to actually pose a threat to me ought to know enough about me than to try. Or at least realise there are greater gains to be had than the mere market value of my organs.

[Thanqol]

Right on, crew.


Allow me to offer you one of the most classic brands there is: professionalism and detail-oriented competence. We offer a full service suite of competencies within reason: high skill at dealing with violence, fully competent Matrix load-out, consistent social infiltration, and even the ability at times to cause a specific target to take actions that are very out of character when it comes to their religious beliefs. We are a small team, you're not hiring us to be an army and you're not hiring a suicide squad of expendables. We are a precision scalpel with the unique combination of skillsets to get a very specific human-scale task done and done well in a comprehensive way. We dot our I's and cross our T's, and in a world where everyone cuts corners and acts sloppily, that makes us expensive and valuable.

[Get the job: 6+6+2=14. With aura of professionalism, that's 4 options. I choose
1. Useful assets [+gear]
2. Pays well
3. Does not attract attention
4. identifiable employer]

There's something about execs from Sunnydale. Their brand seems to be 'bloated and unhealthy' and you're not really sure what market segment they're looking to connect to there. The guy sitting opposite you has yellow tinged eyes, like his liver is failing, and his flabby skin moves like it's been stapled onto whatever skeleton and muscles underneath. It's also met with an perfume that your negotiation chip tells you is probably synthetic gorilla urine - there's an ugly edge to it that it can't quite identify, but the overall effect is like a pipe leak at a gym. Sweaty, alpha, diseased.

Mr. Borok is his name. Negotiator in good standing. His social media feeds suggest minimal free thinking, which makes you think that this is a job from the corp itself rather than this one guy going off the reservation. Those jobs tend to be the scariest. But a proper corp-authorized hit pays well.

"There is an ImageFX network terminal," said Mr. Borok, showing you a map. "In the Capitoline zone around New Adelaide. I don't know exactly where, but it's recent. We're talking a major hub, so big and secure. I want you to upload this virus into the hub. Catch - caat," he pauses to release a wet burp into his collar. "Catch is that New Adelaide is secure as hell. No weapons in or out. Except this."

He dumps a big silver briefcase on the table. You take a look inside - you know what it is, tell us what it is when it's time to use it.

New Adelaide is the administrative capital of NeoTerra. The entire city is on absolute paranoid lockdown around the clock. Security scans at the airport are intense and they'll confiscate any sort of firearm they find. Smuggling weapons in is going to be a hell of a thing. Upshot is that this applies to the Corps as well - while you probably don't want to get into a fight with the Swiss while you're there, any dedicated ImageFX staff will likely be as lightly armed as you.

MISSION:
- Mark XP when you arrive in New Adelaide
- Mark XP when you locate the ImageFX hub
- Mark XP when you extract from New Adelaide
- Mark two XP when you Get Paid

Also everyone choose to stake one, two or three cred.
- Stake one if you don't believe you have what it takes to do this job. You'll lose one now and get three back if you complete it.
- Stake two if you think this is an ordinary job you want to turn a profit on. You'll lose two now and get six back if you complete it.
- Stake three if you think this job is going to be a cakewalk, or, if you're desperate for cash. You'll lose three now and get nine back if you complete it - but also, I'll advance the Legwork clock right now.

Then: go ahead and find yourself in Evelyn's office. Talk the job over, but keep it quick and to the point. You're on the clock. The topics should be more 'who's on what team' and less 'how should we...?' - you're all professionals, once you've got your missions we'll trust that you did all the small planning off camera.



The Matrix has a variety of styles, overlays, and fashion modules: each person can chose (within reason) how to filter the landscape. Rose has lately taken to a city theme, vaguely Parisian, with narrow streets and high stone buildings. Auxes and Auxbots I do not actually know the reference for, so I'd need some clairification: similar with the Swiss Guard, but I'm figuring those are the baddest of the bad on corporate enforcement. To which I say: it strongly depends on which corporation is running them, but they universally have a crispness to them, a military precision that shows through. The one Rose is currently avoiding the attention of, for example, is standing ramrod straight, scanning the crowd from under his tan hat. Looks like one of the feds that fought the mob back in the 20th century, like you'd see in a flat-screen movie.

Think of an Auxilia as a beat cop with a killer robot sync'd to his brain as both partner and sidearm. They work for the government but they're corruptible and bribable. They're not official corp security, but they'll often find themselves working corp jobs on the side. Auxbots come in a variety of shapes and sizes but the most common one is the Bad Cop - an eight foot tall brute that gives even an out of shape Aux serious muscle.

The Swiss are the G-Men, the antiterrorists, the output of trillions of dollars of public-private partnerships and military industrial spending. They're the stealth bombers of the modern age, with all the greatest tech of every corp crammed into their carapace. And they're bold bastards too. Sometimes they take their expensive suits for a stroll down main street to see if anyone thinks they have what it takes to tussle with them. Hacking circles talk about legendary hackers who cracked one of their suits - and obituary papers talk about wannabe legends in vastly greater quantities.

You ever felt the inclination to take a crack at a Swiss Guard?

[Eldest]

Think of an Auxilia as a beat cop with a killer robot sync'd to his brain as both partner and sidearm. They work for the government but they're corruptible and bribable. They're not official corp security, but they'll often find themselves working corp jobs on the side. Auxbots come in a variety of shapes and sizes but the most common one is the Bad Cop - an eight foot tall brute that gives even an out of shape Aux serious muscle.

The Swiss are the G-Men, the antiterrorists, the output of trillions of dollars of public-private partnerships and military industrial spending. They're the stealth bombers of the modern age, with all the greatest tech of every corp crammed into their carapace. And they're bold bastards too. Sometimes they take their expensive suits for a stroll down main street to see if anyone thinks they have what it takes to tussle with them. Hacking circles talk about legendary hackers who cracked one of their suits - and obituary papers talk about wannabe legends in vastly greater quantities.

You ever felt the inclination to take a crack at a Swiss Guard?

With that information, I'm going to suggest that each Swiss Guard has their own appearance, and it's unique and identifiable. That doesn't, however, mean that whoever's in that Swiss Guard body is the same person each time, of course, just that you (for instance) might dodge past the Marshall, as I just did, and know that the Marshall specifically is there. Doesn't say who's sleeved into the Marshall at the time, though.

As for taking a crack at a Swiss Guard, that seems like an easy route to Real Death or Worse. She'll stick with jacking Auxbots for her muscle if she needs it, thank you.


Also everyone choose to stake one, two or three cred.
- Stake one if you don't believe you have what it takes to do this job. You'll lose one now and get three back if you complete it.
- Stake two if you think this is an ordinary job you want to turn a profit on. You'll lose two now and get six back if you complete it.
- Stake three if you think this job is going to be a cakewalk, or, if you're desperate for cash. You'll lose three now and get nine back if you complete it - but also, I'll advance the Legwork clock right now.

Then: go ahead and find yourself in Evelyn's office. Talk the job over, but keep it quick and to the point. You're on the clock. The topics should be more 'who's on what team' and less 'how should we...?' - you're all professionals, once you've got your missions we'll trust that you did all the small planning off camera.

Rose arrives about half an hour after the job notification went out, drinking some crap coffee with a much-patched backpack slung over one shoulder. She found it best to look the part of a broke-as-dirt uni student when she could. But inside she's all business. "I suppose first priority is finding out what exactly we need to smuggle or acquire there. I'll find out if I need to make the physical trip or if I can "commute", as it were. I will then work on researching the node: does anybody have any intel they particularly need?"

Rose will stake 2 cred.

[Raine_Sage]

Zephyr arrives a little after Rose does, done up in pale greens with a plush shell shaped travel bag and a Suke Seaturtle character pin, one of Hono'Kiai's many marketable undersea friends. She looks more like she should be at a convention somewhere than sitting down at a table to discuss high stakes infiltration and sabotage, an impression that isn't helped when she breaks into a grin at the others.

"Heya, nice to meet the everyone I hadn't met in person yet, I'm Zephyr obviously but I'm super stoked to be working with you. So in terms of intel anything about security is obviously a huge help. Get me something juicy about the airport and I can probably sneak some gear through it. Fun right? I mean not sure it's worth risking given how tight everything is there but it's definitely an option!"

She leans back in her chair thoughtfully. "I guess I just need to know who needs to get in where and disable what, aside from that. If you can't commute I'll make sure you can go where you need to, not a problem."

OOC: Zephyr will front 2 Credits

[Mr. E]

Watching Apostle walks in slightly later, slinging a long coat over one arm and taking one genteely uncomfortable seat in the corner. She sniffs the air, her nose wrinkling slightly. It smells like greed, as Evelyn's office always does, the inevitable by-product of hosting too many corporate thugs. She folds her legs on the chair, leans back, and idly takes out one hair-tie, giving a polite nod and a smile to all the assembled participants. Zephyr brings up a question, and Sally hears her cue to speak up.

"Well, a couple of us are some form of unperson, so you could start with sneaking us through. I can probably get some fake IDs, but I was hoping to spend that pull on ImageFX documents. Or I can join Rose in telecommuting, but I'd be better in the meat, as it were."

She shrugs, looking around the room, cataloguing the participants. Her and Rose made two fighters, Zephyr and Evelyn to collaborators. Still, she'd done worse with less.

I'm also going to stake 2 creds on the mission.

Side Note: I think this a mission that further's my vision (since it's a job that's going to push to corps to fight each other, rather than oppress the people), so I'd like to trigger Driven, unless you have objections?

[Elanorin]

Trace, in her usual stark black uniform, anonymous save for the tiny Baratt's logo on her upper arm, caresses the outer corners of the silver suitcase fondly with a pleased little smile on her sparkly and colourful face.

"They've announced a gold edition to be launched soon," she comments, absently staring at the suitcase, drumming light but possessive fingers on the closed lid. "Holographic."

She draws a breath and snaps out of it, pulls up a chair and sits down, leaning her arms on its backrest.

"Well, I'll have to be on the away team," she said when the discussion started to move towards who was doing what, feeling like she was pointing out the obvious. "My flavour of backup is of the up-close kind," she smiled. "But we're going to need to get some hardware through because the target is too secure to rely on just a single point of defence." While she really did think this was the best course of action, her conviction was further fuelled by her reluctance to ever be unarmed. Being armed with only an unknown piece of weaponry ended up being the same thing far too often to be ignored.

"Shall I just head out and pick up the other half of New Adelaide airport's chief of security?"

[Raine_Sage]

Zephyr
Harm: 0/6
Experience: 1/10

"Mm so that's two so far for attempting to sneak gear past airport security. And people I suppose." she makes a mental note of that before glancing at Evelyn. "I think your vote counts for two since you're organizing everything technically. I don't mind either way, I mean I do kind of do this for a living. I'm not going to pretend it's not high risk though so I do want to get everyone's input before I start making plans."

[Anarion]

New Adelaide is the administrative capital of NeoTerra. The entire city is on absolute paranoid lockdown around the clock. Security scans at the airport are intense and they'll confiscate any sort of firearm they find. Smuggling weapons in is going to be a hell of a thing. Upshot is that this applies to the Corps as well - while you probably don't want to get into a fight with the Swiss while you're there, any dedicated ImageFX staff will likely be as lightly armed as you.

MISSION:
- Mark XP when you arrive in New Adelaide
- Mark XP when you locate the ImageFX hub
- Mark XP when you extract from New Adelaide
- Mark two XP when you Get Paid

Also everyone choose to stake one, two or three cred.
- Stake one if you don't believe you have what it takes to do this job. You'll lose one now and get three back if you complete it.
- Stake two if you think this is an ordinary job you want to turn a profit on. You'll lose two now and get six back if you complete it.
- Stake three if you think this job is going to be a cakewalk, or, if you're desperate for cash. You'll lose three now and get nine back if you complete it - but also, I'll advance the Legwork clock right now.


I'll stake two cred as well. No reason to attract attention, but I have every confidence in the team doing this job.



Then: go ahead and find yourself in Evelyn's office. Talk the job over, but keep it quick and to the point. You're on the clock. The topics should be more 'who's on what team' and less 'how should we...?' - you're all professionals, once you've got your missions we'll trust that you did all the small planning off camera.


Evenlyn's office (for this sort of work, at any rate) is nice but within reason for her location. A downtown loft, clean, soft carpets that your toes can sink into, shoes off when you enter the door please and thank you. Light gray walls, a few paintings, imitation of course but still striking the correct poses and feel of the impressionists, just a bit of Modigliani and Seurat to get the right feeling across: creative but not necessarily modern, learning from the past.

Evelyn herself steps out from the kitchen with a pot of tea and porcelain teacups and saucers for the room, which she pours out neatly and sets before each person along with a creamer and some sugar in the center of a low coffee table (faux wood, again we're not being excessive here).

"It seems to me that the core aspect of this mission is speed. The area is too secure to maintain a team of any size for an extended period of time, or to maintain a facade while we travel where we are not meant to be. To that extent, I think the majority should be on the away team. It's most important that it be prepared to handle any challenge. Rose will be responsible for ensuring that we have an electronic way in for a brief period of time. Preferably a way out as well, but I'm not expecting miracles dear and it's more important that you don't get traced back to us than it is that you keep our route absolutely and perfectly clear. The remainder of the team should, I think, establish ourselves at or near the location. If we can establish a reason to enter legitimately, that would be ideal. That would allow me to establish a Comms station for coordination and a timing for quick extraction. The rest, I think, should be our best efforts to get in, upload the virus, and get back out by whatever means necessary.

I would therefore, suggest the following next steps:" Evelyn begins counting on her fingers

"1. We spend a day or so acquiring as much information as possible about the location: technical, social, reasons for legitimate business there, everything we can about ImageFX's interest.
2. We travel to New Adelaide as tourists or workers and acquire further information to locate the hub and get its security set. We can communicate out to Rose on our encrypted channel.
3. Rose and Zephyr conspire to get our main group into the hub with the virus and whatever equipment we can smuggle through. The more the better in that regard.
4. We deposit the virus just before we're scheduled to leave, exit in whatever manner we can, and the instant we are clear, we return to our civilian guise and depart on schedule.

How does that sound to everyone?"

[Raine_Sage]

Zephyr
Harm: 0/6
Experience: 1/10

"Sounds like a plan to me." She takes an appreciative sip of her tea before leaning over and adding a generous helping of sugar and some cream. "This'll be fun, it's been a while since I had to sneak something onto a plane."

[Mr. E]

"I have no problems with that," Watching Apostle adds, picking up her tea, then putting it back down slowly. Gutter-scum tend to drink either water, or alcohol strong enough to strip paint, and Sally has always been something of a traditionalist. "If Rose and Zephyr are confident that they can get me into ImageFX without trouble, that's fine by me. I'll see whether I can find anything juicy in the garbage. You'd be amazed at what people'll throw out."

"Honestly, you'd think they forgot we existed." With that grimly accurate comment, she pulls her feet in and straightens up, looking around the group for final comments.

[Elanorin]

Trace looked up as Evelyn spoke, a smile spreading steadily on her lips. Well. Wasn't it a breath of fresh air to work with competency.

She might even enjoy this job.

"Sounds like a plan. I'm going to look in to how best to get hardware with us undetected unless you have a specific target you want me to take on first?"

[Trace stakes 2 cred, she has good feelings about this, but let's not get ahead of ourselves]

[Thanqol]

It sounds to me like there's two teams here. One doing research on the target network hub, one figuring out how to get the gear through an airport.

Let's get into both angles. Identify which team you're on firstly, and secondly, how you're going to start laying the groundwork for this job. Odds are really good that whatever your op is you'll be either Hitting The Streets or tagging along with someone else who's doing just that. If you're hitting the streets name and detail your contact, and this'll be the moment when things really start to move.

[Raine_Sage]

Zephyr is on team Crack Airport Security which requires [intel] on what she'll need to bypass, and potentially [gear] to help do it. I'll be hitting the streets so I'll go ahead and detail my contact while I'm waiting to see who else is on team airport.

Virus/Wyre: Hacker Contact

Virus is kind of a tool if his choice of screen name didn't already give it away. He's notorious for being reclusive and kind of anti-social with a very dry sense of humor and who spends most of his time frustrating other players on the numerous MMOs he occupies himself with when he's not taking jobs for fun and profit. He's like an internet cryptid, it's a semi-popular meme to claim to have actually met him in person. Things in the vein of "I met Virus once behind a convenience store where he flipped me off and phased out of existence." Or "Virus physically manifested in my home once just to tell me I sucked at stormcraft."

Zephyr ran into him completely on accident when his civilian handle, Wyre, wound up on her team in a random online match and the two of them struck up a conversation afterwards.
She didn't know he was a hacker until many months after their initial meeting when she was relatively comfortable letting him know a little more about her offline activities and asked him if, as a pretty in the know guy, he had any reliable people he could recommend for a job. So of course he recommended himself. Not directly though, he just told her he knew a guy and then gave her the way to find his hacking avatar. She still doesn't know they're the same person on an alt, since she tries to bother Virus sparingly (the guy is after all kind of a tool, not like her good buddy Wyre).

[Anarion]

Evelyn is on team hub investigation. She's going to need to figure out the location and the nearby layout so she can justify getting as close as possible and determine how they can get out and give the slip to any tail they might acquire. That said, she'd prefer to be the support here. Mission setup and planning is her forte, her street contacts are average at best, whereas one of the others would be the best follow up there. Her plan is to stick with Watching Apostle, maybe get to know some more of her contacts, they're an interesting group, even if they're currently not in vogue.

[Mr. E]

The rubbish dump, in this town, is like today's rubbish dumps in the same way that Mt. Everest is like a hillock. The valley of salt and ashes is larger than most towns, once a green space between two low hills to the north of the city. Today, the mound of detrius rises far above the height of either natural feature, overshadowing the shanty towns and worker camps scattered around its base. Plumes of smoke rise from the eternally burning trash fires that pockmark its surface, forming an eternal fog of yellow-grey smoke.

Up against the side of the valley, a row of warehouses stand, once a recycling plant, until the early 2000's environmental fad died off. Once they were miles from the rubbish dump, but now the waves of trash lap at their doorstep. The buildings are rusting and old, yet still grimly standing. On the outside of one, the image of a woman is painted, sitting crosslegged. Her eyes are closed, and her a faint, almost sarcastic smile is writ across her face. Held in both hands is a wheel, rats with ties around their necks running in an endless circle. Watching Apostle stops for a moment, gesturing with steepled hands, then steps forward, opening a small door at the feet. Stepping through, she smiles at the three guards on the other side.

"Hey folks. I'd like to speak to Savras, if he isn't too busy..."

[Thanqol]

You descend into the city.

Descent is always the right word. Even if you're going up, even if you're going sideways, you're always going downwards. The topside of the city is clean cut through mountains, laser line bridges crossing the thick and sullen rivers, but nobody walks topside at this time of year. It's too bright, it's too hot, it's designed to look like a beautiful city to the black-glass cars speeding along the grid and pedestrian infrastructure is a distant afterthought. The skyscrapers sprawl onto the sidewalk, only kept at bay by the barricade of unseasonal flowers and closely trimmed trees. There are no native park benches, wastebins or even corner shops on these streets. The only approximation you get is when a skyscraper's design deliberately opens its gardens to street view, and for a moment the pilgrim walking through the concrete desert passes by weary looking salarymen nursing the remains of their boxed lunches.

So with the top sealed off people head downwards. Like water down the drain people are sucked into the subway stations - sprawling multi-level windowless bunkers that are more like shopping malls than train stations. The human water flows and slides along white-tiled corridors, catching on patches of Persian rugs, or bikini tops, or gold-plated ice-cream or any of the other things that people impulse-buy on their way home after an eighteen hour shift in the accounting cubicles.

So you descend, flushed down the meat plumbing of the city.



Zephyr is on team Crack Airport Security which requires [intel] on what she'll need to bypass, and potentially [gear] to help do it. I'll be hitting the streets so I'll go ahead and detail my contact while I'm waiting to see who else is on team airport.

Virus/Wyre: Hacker Contact

Virus is kind of a tool if his choice of screen name didn't already give it away. He's notorious for being reclusive and kind of anti-social with a very dry sense of humor and who spends most of his time frustrating other players on the numerous MMOs he occupies himself with when he's not taking jobs for fun and profit. He's like an internet cryptid, it's a semi-popular meme to claim to have actually met him in person. Things in the vein of "I met Virus once behind a convenience store where he flipped me off and phased out of existence." Or "Virus physically manifested in my home once just to tell me I sucked at stormcraft."

Zephyr ran into him completely on accident when his civilian handle, Wyre, wound up on her team in a random online match and the two of them struck up a conversation afterwards.
She didn't know he was a hacker until many months after their initial meeting when she was relatively comfortable letting him know a little more about her offline activities and asked him if, as a pretty in the know guy, he had any reliable people he could recommend for a job. So of course he recommended himself. Not directly though, he just told her he knew a guy and then gave her the way to find his hacking avatar. She still doesn't know they're the same person on an alt, since she tries to bother Virus sparingly (the guy is after all kind of a tool, not like her good buddy Wyre).

There's one place that it's consistently on-brand for douchebags to hang out at: video game arcades. Close-packed, Slam! *Click*, smoky labyrinths which are part test of skill and part one-armed bandit hideouts. For a while this place was the hottest thing in town but now the staff is down to a couple of security cameras and a janitorial company that comes by once a week.

Virus is playing the claw machine. He's a thin and gangly guy, red nail polish, skull on his shirt, hair tied into a greasy topknot and the saddest goatee smearing his pointy chin. On his back he carries an actual monomolecular-bladed katana, and he wears his deck on his wrist in the style of those card holder thingies from Yu-Gi-Oh.

The claw descends. It grasps. It slides off the face of Shimali Shark and catches on her black button eye. The claw yanks up, and a mountain of plush toys press down. There is a rip as the eye is torn off the face of the beloved mascot, and then the claw dutifully carries the severed hunk of cloth and plastic over to the dispenser. Virus swears bitterly and kicks the machine. A passing child bursts into tears at seeing the mutilated shark. Virus flips her off.

"Hey," he says, having seen you out of the corner of his eye at some point. He lights an e-cigarette. "What do you want?"

Roll to Hit The Streets.


The rubbish dump, in this town, is like today's rubbish dumps in the same way that Mt. Everest is like a hillock. The valley of salt and ashes is larger than most towns, once a green space between two low hills to the north of the city. Today, the mound of detrius rises far above the height of either natural feature, overshadowing the shanty towns and worker camps scattered around its base. Plumes of smoke rise from the eternally burning trash fires that pockmark its surface, forming an eternal fog of yellow-grey smoke.

Up against the side of the valley, a row of warehouses stand, once a recycling plant, until the early 2000's environmental fad died off. Once they were miles from the rubbish dump, but now the waves of trash lap at their doorstep. The buildings are rusting and old, yet still grimly standing. On the outside of one, the image of a woman is painted, sitting crosslegged. Her eyes are closed, and her a faint, almost sarcastic smile is writ across her face. Held in both hands is a wheel, rats with ties around their necks running in an endless circle. Watching Apostle stops for a moment, gesturing with steepled hands, then steps forward, opening a small door at the feet. Stepping through, she smiles at the three guards on the other side.

"Hey folks. I'd like to speak to Savras, if he isn't too busy..."

Three guards. Sweet Buddha. Savras must be in a bad mood.

Bison Hodge shakes his head. He's a big guy, slow to start speaking, but once he starts the words just continuously come out of his mouth hitting every corner with a forty five degree turn into a different topic. With so many sharp corners in his speech it's hard to find an edge to get a word in. It builds momentum, rolling down the hill in clunky spurts like a cube boulder.

"Hey Watchful Apostle - Can I call you Watch? - can't let you in, things are pretty grim - did you know that there's a new type of camouflage that can make someone totally invisible - or holograms that can totally change your identity - also I don't know your friend, she looks like a suit - you're not going corporate are you? - but maybe I shouldn't be worried about that - the prophet says that worrying about the rat race is what gets people burned out - can I really live my life in fear of the corps like this? - should we just trust each other even though we'll all die? - or maybe accepting death is the point? - or is that just what they want us to think?"


Evelyn is on team hub investigation. She's going to need to figure out the location and the nearby layout so she can justify getting as close as possible and determine how they can get out and give the slip to any tail they might acquire. That said, she'd prefer to be the support here. Mission setup and planning is her forte, her street contacts are average at best, whereas one of the others would be the best follow up there. Her plan is to stick with Watching Apostle, maybe get to know some more of her contacts, they're an interesting group, even if they're currently not in vogue.

These people are living in a literal garbage heap. You come to industrial wastelands like this often?

[Mr. E]

Bison Hodge, or "poor sod" to people who aren't his friends. Was a guinea pig for some Barrat's growth stimulant when he was a kid, or so the story goes. Anyway, not the cleverest of the Kasserine Saints, which Watching Apostle regrets. While Evelyn is not exactly a likely candidate, she'd prefer to offer a positive image of the faith to any outsider. A second later, feeling a faint thrill of shame for thinking badly of a brother, she shrugs emphatically, replying carefully to his string of questions.

"It is written, in the words of the prophet, that peace comes from accepting the nature of life; a brief spark of fire between two shadows. My brother, remember that to become attached to the now, to the corporate machine, the demand to resleeve, to rebuild, is to lose sight of the beautiful night, the night without stars that lies at the end of all our hopes." She steeples her hands in front of her, then twists them over, making a gesture not unlike the shape of a tree.

"Anyway," she continues, in less poetic overtones, "someone trying to impersonate me would'nt know that I have this." Holding one forearm up, she triggers the synth-skin in her wrist. Snapping into faintly pixellated focus, the symbol of the Kasserine Saints appears on her forearm, white against her dark skin. "My friend is not corporate, but if Savras would prefer us to remain outside, we can. Tell him that Watching Apostle needs some information for a job. Tell him that we need the money, or I shan't be able to buy this months medical gear."

If you want me to Fast Talk my friend the bison, then here is the roll for that:

[roll0]

I may have to spend my driven bonus on that, if you do want a roll.

[Raine_Sage]

Zephyr
Harm: 0/6
Experience: 1/10

Zephyr frowns at the claw machine, and by extension Virus as she slips the upset child a holographic sticker from a pack she carries around for more or less this exact purpose, assures them that Shimali is fine really ('look she's right here and you can wear her on your cheek!') and ushers them gently off before straightening up to get to business.

"What I usually want you doof, have I ever really bugged you for anything else?" She leans casually against one of the arcade machines to his right. "Though I guess in this specific instance it would be the layout and security info for New Adelaide airport. Easy stuff right?" She grins at him. They both know nothing in life is ever "easy" but Virus is also the type of person who never really admits to being outdone or over his head. She knows that about him, and it's kind of cute in a frustrating sort of way.

"So what's it going to set me back? I can probably get you all the stuffed sharks you want." She says, looking at the dismembered cloth eye. "Or tell Hono'Kiai that one of their vendors is mangling the merch. Well I'm probably going to do that last bit anyway."

Alright so +1 from style and +1 for following the plan right? [roll0] Sweet, since I'm already asking for Intel lets have the something extra be [Gear]

[Elanorin]

Trace doesn't hesitate to join Zephyr. The airport is by far the greater concern for her and if Zephyr knows a guy then all the better.

The video game arcade is an assault on the eyes and Trace tries to remember when she was last in one but fails to recall. This was not her usual scene and while it was plain enough that many seemed to like them (perhaps a bit too much) she struggled to see the appeal.

As Zephyr started talking to a guy Trace stood not far away, leaning back against one of the many games nearby. She fished out a watermelon-flavoured lollypop from a neatly pressed uniform pocket and began to unwrap it, content to watch and listen for now and pretend not to be bothered by the smell in here.

At the mention of reporting the damaged shark to Hono'Kiai Trace smiled and stifled a small chuckle without looking up.

[Thanqol]

Bison Hodge, or "poor sod" to people who aren't his friends. Was a guinea pig for some Barrat's growth stimulant when he was a kid, or so the story goes. Anyway, not the cleverest of the Kasserine Saints, which Watching Apostle regrets. While Evelyn is not exactly a likely candidate, she'd prefer to offer a positive image of the faith to any outsider. A second later, feeling a faint thrill of shame for thinking badly of a brother, she shrugs emphatically, replying carefully to his string of questions.

"It is written, in the words of the prophet, that peace comes from accepting the nature of life; a brief spark of fire between two shadows. My brother, remember that to become attached to the now, to the corporate machine, the demand to resleeve, to rebuild, is to lose sight of the beautiful night, the night without stars that lies at the end of all our hopes." She steeples her hands in front of her, then twists them over, making a gesture not unlike the shape of a tree.

"Anyway," she continues, in less poetic overtones, "someone trying to impersonate me would'nt know that I have this." Holding one forearm up, she triggers the synth-skin in her wrist. Snapping into faintly pixellated focus, the symbol of the Kasserine Saints appears on her forearm, white against her dark skin. "My friend is not corporate, but if Savras would prefer us to remain outside, we can. Tell him that Watching Apostle needs some information for a job. Tell him that we need the money, or I shan't be able to buy this months medical gear."

Hodge looks like someone hit him in the face with a Baratt's AirFrying pan. "Woah," he says, "that's deep and practical. Yeah, yeah, I'll go tell Savras - I'll tell him now - and I'll tell him about the medicine - he shouldn't make you wait outside though - it's cold out here - have my jacket," He gives you his jacket and goes inside, still cube-rolling his way through the conversation.

Savras emerges a bit later, Hodge looming behind him. Bad mood indeed. His thick face is stormy and his voice is wet, words curling around his tongue piercing. He's a bit of a tool - the kind of guy who couldn't make middle manager at a Baratt's Burger and joined the resistance so at least he could get someone under his boot. He gets things done, though. Not in healthy, good for the long term health of the organization ways, but there are days you need a petty dictator with a chip on his shoulder.

"What the hell do you want?" he snaps.

[Choose two from the list to detail exactly why Savras is angry today]


"What I usually want you doof, have I ever really bugged you for anything else?" She leans casually against one of the arcade machines to his right. "Though I guess in this specific instance it would be the layout and security info for New Adelaide airport. Easy stuff right?" She grins at him. They both know nothing in life is ever "easy" but Virus is also the type of person who never really admits to being outdone or over his head. She knows that about him, and it's kind of cute in a frustrating sort of way.

"So what's it going to set me back? I can probably get you all the stuffed sharks you want." She says, looking at the dismembered cloth eye. "Or tell Hono'Kiai that one of their vendors is mangling the merch. Well I'm probably going to do that last bit anyway."

Alright so +1 from style and +1 for following the plan right? [roll0] Sweet, since I'm already asking for Intel lets have the something extra be [Gear]

"You're in luck Zef, I have recently decided to convert all of my hard currency into Hono'Kiai QA reports," said Virus. He coughed on his e-cig like he wasn't used to it. "But sh*t, tell you what, if you can get that f*cking shark out of the f*cking box you can keep it - and the prize I stashed in the centre for safe keeping."

He then leans over to the side and eyeballs Trace all the way up and down. "Tell you what," he says. "Hook me up with that amazon chick you've got backing you up and you've got a deal."

[Raine_Sage]

Zephyr
Harm: 0/6
Experience: 1/10

Zephyr rolls her eyes and shoves him playfully to the side in order to get at the machine. "She will absolutely break you six different ways from Sunday Virus. But hey if you're into that sort of thing go for it. Worst she can do is remove your spine."

She's familiar with this model. Normally the grip strength on the claw isn't high enough to support the weight of the stuffed animal, let alone take an eye off. They were designed to impotently nudge things until the program inside decided a sufficient amount of profit had been reached to pay out a prize. Either one of the slam-click employees fat fingered the settings, or Virus had messed with it himself to ensure he could retrieve his stash. And it looked like management had compensated for this by absolutely cramming the thing full so that even the super claw would have trouble dislodging it.

His previous attempts had succeeded at slightly shifting the shark. "Hey Trace help me tilt this thing a little to the left."

With her companion's help Shimali was jostled the rest of the way loose, and from there Zephyr tapped her credit against the machine's reader and neatly scooped up the shark and deposited it in the prize tray. She's not surprised Virus couldn't jostle the machine effectively on his own. The dude was 90 pounds soaking wet. She just cheerfully holds it up, ignoring some of the stuffing leaking out of the empty eye hole.

"Tada! Zephyr, claw machine master at your service."

[Anarion]

Evelyn isn't normally in the business of going to trash dumps, no. But she didn't grow up corporate. She grew up in a trailer park, and she kept those friends. They're the reason that she isn't merely settled into her corporate work, in fact. So, she didn't dress for this because she didn't want to look like she's pretending to blend in here. She dresses a bit nicer now and letting the Saints know that someone like her is a friend is worth doing as well. But she can walk a little less crisply and speak a little less sharply when it feels right to do so. Now, though, she's merely falling in behind Watching Apostle, ready to help if need be. Hopefully, easing Savras anger is the first step on improving the Apostle brand as a whole.

[Mr. E]

Watching Apostle wears Hodge's jacket, although it smells like burnt plastic and slightly expired Sunnydale Happy Pills™, a common drug in the 'burbs. She hands it back as he returns, throwing him a wide smile.

"Thanks, but now we're both outside, so you ought to wear it."

Savras, meanwhile, gets a slightly colder expression, before she rallies with another grin. "Hello brother! So sorry to take up even a fraction of your busy time, but I need some bits and pieces." Stepping forward with a mock conspiratorial air, but also lowering her voice enough that Hodge won't hear, because she's not stupid and he is a little, see? "Files from ImageFX, new Adelaide hub. Fresher the better, but I'm really interested in floor-plans. Get me that, and I'll have the funds for next month's supplies, brother."

There's a hard edge to the final word, even as she steps away. Spinning on one heel, Sally ends up alongside Savras, partly to present a unified front, and partly because it tends to wrongfoot people, she finds.

I'll pick, in that case, that it'll take time to put it together, and that'll it cost more than usual. I'm gonna suggest (feel free to ignore to this), that the camp has a disease problem, so Savras is short-staffed and needs more medical goods than normal.

[Elanorin]

He then leans over to the side and eyeballs Trace all the way up and down. "Tell you what," he says. "Hook me up with that amazon chick you've got backing you up and you've got a deal."

Having just finished peeling the wrapper off the lollipop, Trace looks up and directs her luminescent violet eyes straight at this... Virus. Her eyes sparkle with mischief and dare, half-smile still on her lips. She pops the lollipop in her mouth, still holding his gaze.



Zephyr rolls her eyes and shoves him playfully to the side in order to get at the machine. "She will absolutely break you six different ways from Sunday Virus. But hey if you're into that sort of thing go for it. Worst she can do is remove your spine."

She's familiar with this model. Normally the grip strength on the claw isn't high enough to support the weight of the stuffed animal, let alone take an eye off. They were designed to impotently nudge things until the program inside decided a sufficient amount of profit had been reached to pay out a prize. Either one of the slam-click employees fat fingered the settings, or Virus had messed with it himself to ensure he could retrieve his stash. And it looked like management had compensated for this by absolutely cramming the thing full so that even the super claw would have trouble dislodging it.

His previous attempts had succeeded at slightly shifting the shark. "Hey Trace help me tilt this thing a little to the left."

With her companion's help Shimali was jostled the rest of the way loose, and from there Zephyr tapped her credit against the machine's reader and neatly scooped up the shark and deposited it in the prize tray. She's not surprised Virus couldn't jostle the machine effectively on his own. The dude was 90 pounds soaking wet. She just cheerfully holds it up, ignoring some of the stuffing leaking out of the empty eye hole.

"Tada! Zephyr, claw machine master at your service."

When Zephyr calls her name she stands away from the game she'd been leaning against and heads over to lend a hand with the shark problem, but doesn't break the eye contact with Virus until she has walked passed him and turned to lean down to help lift the claw machine.

Even as Zephyr shows off the price, Trace throws him a wink. "Got what you need, Zephyr?"

[Raine_Sage]

Zephyr
Harm: 0/6
Experience: 1/10

"Mm depends on if he's going to be stubborn about the date I guess. I mean if you're game go for it, I just feel like I should have him sign a waiver or something first. Like 'Zephyr is not responsible for damages that occur in the pursuit of your romantic shenanigans.' Also see if you can get him to ditch the man bun as a condition for agreeing. I've been trying for ages to no effect."

[Elanorin]

Zephyr
Harm: 0/6
Experience: 1/10

"Mm depends on if he's going to be stubborn about the date I guess. I mean if you're game go for it, I just feel like I should have him sign a waiver or something first. Like 'Zephyr is not responsible for damages that occur in the pursuit of your romantic shenanigans.' Also see if you can get him to ditch the man bun as a condition for agreeing. I've been trying for ages to no effect."

Trace watched Virus, up, down, up again. Playing with her lollipop as she thought it over. “Two questions,” she finally asked to Zephyr without taking her eyes off Virus. “One; would it help the mission? Two; how much do you care about what happens to this... very fine pillar of the community?”

[Raine_Sage]

Zephyr
Harm: 0/6 Experience: 1/10
[gear:1]

She shrugs fluidly. Virus had made getting Intel on airport security contingent on being set up with Trace, but there was a fifty fifty chance he'd just been trying to rile her up when he said it. It was up in the air on whether he'd stick to it now that the game had been turned back on him like this, with Trace looking at him like she was calculating the easiest way to dismantle him for fun and profit.

"Ball's in his court on whether it helps with the mission or not. But for the record I like him upright and functioning with everything mostly intact. I dunno if he's as good as Rose but he's still good you know?"

[Thanqol]

Watching Apostle wears Hodge's jacket, although it smells like burnt plastic and slightly expired Sunnydale Happy Pills™, a common drug in the 'burbs. She hands it back as he returns, throwing him a wide smile.

"Thanks, but now we're both outside, so you ought to wear it."

Savras, meanwhile, gets a slightly colder expression, before she rallies with another grin. "Hello brother! So sorry to take up even a fraction of your busy time, but I need some bits and pieces." Stepping forward with a mock conspiratorial air, but also lowering her voice enough that Hodge won't hear, because she's not stupid and he is a little, see? "Files from ImageFX, new Adelaide hub. Fresher the better, but I'm really interested in floor-plans. Get me that, and I'll have the funds for next month's supplies, brother."

There's a hard edge to the final word, even as she steps away. Spinning on one heel, Sally ends up alongside Savras, partly to present a unified front, and partly because it tends to wrongfoot people, she finds.

I'll pick, in that case, that it'll take time to put it together, and that'll it cost more than usual. I'm gonna suggest (feel free to ignore to this), that the camp has a disease problem, so Savras is short-staffed and needs more medical goods than normal.

"We don't need next month's supplies," snaps Savras. "We need last month's supplies. Turns out that Slam-click crap you got us was laced with potassium benzoate and we only found out about the recall after two people had died. You want those plans you get me two months worth of real medicine first."


Zephyr
Harm: 0/6
Experience: 1/10

Zephyr rolls her eyes and shoves him playfully to the side in order to get at the machine. "She will absolutely break you six different ways from Sunday Virus. But hey if you're into that sort of thing go for it. Worst she can do is remove your spine."


Having just finished peeling the wrapper off the lollipop, Trace looks up and directs her luminescent violet eyes straight at this... Virus. Her eyes sparkle with mischief and dare, half-smile still on her lips. She pops the lollipop in her mouth, still holding his gaze.

"Uh, hey princess murderface, I totally meant for a job and not for like a date date," lied Virus through his teeth, breaking out into a bit of a flopsweat. "Like. Breaking people in half is totally what I need her to do. So if she's good at that then totally good. Better, even. You want my in or not?"

[Eldest]

Rose sits down in a small cafe near the office. She finishes off her crap coffee from earlier, and gets a sandwich, passing time till she can politely drop into the matrix. Plus, the sandwich isn't bad, and she's been told it's real rat, not something vatgrown. Great in a Bánh mì. After she finishes off the food, she excuses herself to the back room, and drops into the matrix, where her real work begins. Amusingly enough, she's staying legal so far, snooping around LinkedIn (only old foggies and the desperate use it, but hey, some network admins are that old), social media, and the job postings for ImageFX itself. With luck, she can find out where the location is, at least.


Research: [roll0]
"Where would I find the lovely facility we are breaking into?"
Extra intel on a hit from my cyber.

[Raine_Sage]

Zephyr
Harm: 0/6 Experience: 1/10
[gear:1]

"Intel for some muscle work? Sounds like a deal to me." She grins at him playfully. "Chin up though I bet there are totally a bunch of not professionally trained assassins out there for you to be your good old abrasive self at instead. Like, probably better for your health to try dating them."

[Elanorin]

She shrugs fluidly. Virus had made getting Intel on airport security contingent on being set up with Trace, but there was a fifty fifty chance he'd just been trying to rile her up when he said it. It was up in the air on whether he'd stick to it now that the game had been turned back on him like this, with Trace looking at him like she was calculating the easiest way to dismantle him for fun and profit.

"Ball's in his court on whether it helps with the mission or not. But for the record I like him upright and functioning with everything mostly intact. I dunno if he's as good as Rose but he's still good you know?"

"I can work within those parameters," Trace said with a smile.



"Uh, hey princess murderface, I totally meant for a job and not for like a date date," lied Virus through his teeth, breaking out into a bit of a flopsweat. "Like. Breaking people in half is totally what I need her to do. So if she's good at that then totally good. Better, even. You want my in or not?"



"Intel for some muscle work? Sounds like a deal to me." She grins at him playfully. "Chin up though I bet there are totally a bunch of not professionally trained assassins out there for you to be your good old abrasive self at instead. Like, probably better for your health to try dating them."

"I'm game," Trace nods and walks up to Virus, looking down at him and reaching out to straighten his tasteless clothes a little. "Yeah, we want your in."

"Name the job."

[Thanqol]

Zephyr
Harm: 0/6 Experience: 1/10
[gear:1]

"Intel for some muscle work? Sounds like a deal to me." She grins at him playfully. "Chin up though I bet there are totally a bunch of not professionally trained assassins out there for you to be your good old abrasive self at instead. Like, probably better for your health to try dating them."


"I'm game," Trace nods and walks up to Virus, looking down at him and reaching out to straighten his tasteless clothes a little. "Yeah, we want your in."

"Name the job."

"I got Swiss'd," Virus grudgingly admits. Swiss'd is like 21st century Swatted, where a rival hacker tells the Swiss Guard that there's an active shooting in progress - and so the target's door gets kicked in by armed invisible goons in power armour. Super embarrassing and potentially fatal. "And I want to return the favour. This loser named Mars did it, I want you to return the favour. Give her a scare and let her know not to mess with me."

He clearly does not know what to do with his clothes getting mom-straightened. But he does look a lot better with his collar un-popped.

[For this kind of short-form sub op there's a special move called Conduct an Operation. This is a Capture op, which means there are three steps to it:
Determine location of assets and approach routes
Establish matrix overwatch
Take positions

These can all be done with no roll at your leisure. Freeform through these stages, don't feel the need to rush to it now. I'll give you some detail about potential complications and when everything's set then we'll make a roll to see how smoothly the execution side of things goes.]



Rose sits down in a small cafe near the office. She finishes off her crap coffee from earlier, and gets a sandwich, passing time till she can politely drop into the matrix. Plus, the sandwich isn't bad, and she's been told it's real rat, not something vatgrown. Great in a Bánh mì. After she finishes off the food, she excuses herself to the back room, and drops into the matrix, where her real work begins. Amusingly enough, she's staying legal so far, snooping around LinkedIn (only old foggies and the desperate use it, but hey, some network admins are that old), social media, and the job postings for ImageFX itself. With luck, she can find out where the location is, at least.

You don't get the location - the location's a secret, Rose, and you're not going to find it on ImageFX's own search engine. And surprisingly enough, the company that was founded on the core business of deleting embarrassing search history has censored the hell out of the wider internet. You want a street address and GPS coordinates and you need to break into a real database. Scratch that roll, it does you no good here.

You could try cracking ImageFX from here. There'd be red ice in the way - corp databases are secure as heck, and you'd be putting your deck at risk. If you can think of a less secure hacking target that might have a line on that information you want you could get it much easier, but that might involve a little legwork. What do you do?


For reference:
- Blue ice: cops, local government, high end civilian gear, stuff that used to be red-ice but has passed its use by date, someone was cutting corners, stuff no one thinks is worth hacking
- Red ice: active corp protection for stuff they consider valuable
- Black ice: the corp is willing to commit mass murder and face potential lawsuits to protect this

[Mr. E]

F***

The thought is followed immediately by the action, as the Watching Apostle swears profusely before rounding on Savras.

"Why didn't you mention this sooner? This, brother, this was a thing I needed to know!"

Sally adds a few of the more colourful Kikuyu slang phrases to finish her thought off, then sighs and rubs her face. Two shipments she could afford, after all. After a pause she spits on the ground, flicks her hands around in the sign of the Kasserine Saints, and looks back towards Savras.

"Fine, but one before and one after, like normal. I'm not made of money, and neither are my employers." Grimacing, she turns her thoughts to more important matters. "Who died - I should visit them - are any of the others sick?"

Can I fast talk him into a slightly more generous repayments schedule? If so:

[roll0]

If not, ignore the roll, and I'll edit my post accordingly.

[Raine_Sage]

Zephyr
Harm: 0/6 Experience: 1/10
[gear:1]

The first step is to figure out who Mars is in meat space of course. Zephyr's personal experience with the matrix begins and ends at running a few fashion blogs, and swapping ASMR files in chatrooms. As luck would have it though there's Rose who definitely knows how to do the whole internet thing a lot more efficiently. Zephyr puts in a call to their teammate.

"Rooose, buddy, compadre, listen this is going to sound super random and like we got a little off task but we're still on point I promise. But like, you know how to dox people right? I mean of course you do, but I don't, so that's why I'm calling. Cause I'm trying to locate this Mars person but all I've got is a screen name and the link to her Overwatch game account. I don't think they've got it linked to a social media account? I mean they might but I don't see any buttons on the user page."

Rose gets a little popup as Zephyr sends her the link to the profile page. "She's been hassling one of my contacts and I need to be able to tell her to not do that in person."

[Elanorin]

"I got Swiss'd," Virus grudgingly admits. Swiss'd is like 21st century Swatted, where a rival hacker tells the Swiss Guard that there's an active shooting in progress - and so the target's door gets kicked in by armed invisible goons in power armour. Super embarrassing and potentially fatal. "And I want to return the favour. This loser named Mars did it, I want you to return the favour. Give her a scare and let her know not to mess with me."

He clearly does not know what to do with his clothes getting mom-straightened. But he does look a lot better with his collar un-popped.




The first step is to figure out who Mars is in meat space of course. Zephyr's personal experience with the matrix begins and ends at running a few fashion blogs, and swapping ASMR files in chatrooms. As luck would have it though there's Rose who definitely knows how to do the whole internet thing a lot more efficiently. Zephyr puts in a call to their teammate.

"Rooose, buddy, compadre, listen this is going to sound super random and like we got a little off task but we're still on point I promise. But like, you know how to dox people right? I mean of course you do, but I don't, so that's why I'm calling. Cause I'm trying to locate this Mars person but all I've got is a screen name and the link to her Overwatch game account. I don't think they've got it linked to a social media account? I mean they might but I don't see any buttons on the user page."

Rose gets a little popup as Zephyr sends her the link to the profile page. "She's been hassling one of my contacts and I need to be able to tell her to not do that in person."

Trace glances over to Zephyr as she places the call. While she sorted the logistics out with Rose on how to find this... Mars, there was one question Trace needed clarifying.

"So, Virus, just how much of an impact are we looking at making here? Is this a lesson that is to last a few days? A few weeks? Or are we looking to put her in the market for some fresh meat?"

[Thanqol]

F***

The thought is followed immediately by the action, as the Watching Apostle swears profusely before rounding on Savras.

"Why didn't you mention this sooner? This, brother, this was a thing I needed to know!"

Sally adds a few of the more colourful Kikuyu slang phrases to finish her thought off, then sighs and rubs her face. Two shipments she could afford, after all. After a pause she spits on the ground, flicks her hands around in the sign of the Kasserine Saints, and looks back towards Savras.

"Fine, but one before and one after, like normal. I'm not made of money, and neither are my employers." Grimacing, she turns her thoughts to more important matters. "Who died - I should visit them - are any of the others sick?"

Can I fast talk him into a slightly more generous repayments schedule? If so:

[roll0]

If not, ignore the roll, and I'll edit my post accordingly.

"Birch and Rabbit Rome are dead, Apostle" said Savras. "But take your time. Not like anyone has anything better to do than lie around and wait for you to get your act together. But no one's going to say I didn't do my part. Come back later, I'll have your damn information."

[Clock created and advanced: Savras' Power Play.

12:00 - 15:00 - 18:00 - 21:00 - 22:00 - 23:00 - 24:00

At 21:00 he will launch a bid to take total control over the Saints. This clock will advance as time passes without you getting the supplies they need. Your roll means it won't cost you up-front but it's still going to take some time to put together.]


Trace glances over to Zephyr as she places the call. While she sorted the logistics out with Rose on how to find this... Mars, there was one question Trace needed clarifying.

"So, Virus, just how much of an impact are we looking at making here? Is this a lesson that is to last a few days? A few weeks? Or are we looking to put her in the market for some fresh meat?"

"Just, like, scare her so that she doesn't mess with me again," said Virus, clearly having not thought about this very hard. "This is about respect, not revenge."

[Eldest]

"Rooose, buddy, compadre, listen this is going to sound super random and like we got a little off task but we're still on point I promise. But like, you know how to dox people right? I mean of course you do, but I don't, so that's why I'm calling. Cause I'm trying to locate this Mars person but all I've got is a screen name and the link to her Overwatch game account. I don't think they've got it linked to a social media account? I mean they might but I don't see any buttons on the user page."

Rose gets a little popup as Zephyr sends her the link to the profile page. "She's been hassling one of my contacts and I need to be able to tell her to not do that in person."

There's a scale that Rose uses, an unofficial "how fragged are we", that directly runs off how many synonyms for "friend" is used in a message asking for help. A 2 is, well, it's not nothing, but it's nowhere near the top of it (which was a legendary 7 different synonyms, from somebody who was 6 hours away from having his meat legally reposessed). So she listens to the call, a quiet grin spreading across her face in the Matrix, before nodding once. "I can do that. It just requires back end database access to the site the username is from to start with, or getting the credit card info from Overwatch. Cake."

[Mr. E]

Sally bites her lower lip, then nods slowly.

"I'll miss her - Rabbit Rome, that is. There's been too many..." The Watching Apostle looks at the painted figure of the woman above their little huddle, then turns away. "The supplies will come soon enough. One before this job, and one load after." Shrugging, she sniffs the plastic tinged air, looks at the yellow sky, and brushes her foot in the ashy soil. "I should go. I'll drop in on Rabbit Ronson - owe her my apology."

Turning to Evelyn, Watching Apostle looks at her curiously. It was surprising that she even came, really. "Don't know whether you want to stay for this. Probably not going to be much fun."

[Anarion]

“I want to stay for this. For these people. They remind me of...well a good cause.” When they’re out of earshot of Savras though, she adds, “You should have them doing more, I think. Idly waiting for supplies while you’re busy running errands in shiny new buildings on my behalf will make them resent you, and it’s not very on brand for a saint. Teach them ways to help themselves too.” Evelyn looks away from the Apostle suddenly. “I’m sorry. It’s not my place to be telling you how to teach your own people.”

[Mr. E]

"Nah, I don't mind," Watching Apostle listens to Evelyn with a mild expression, picking her way up the sloping side of the rubbish tip. "You're right, anyway. It would be better if they were out of this place. But," Sally says, stepping over the spiny back of a rusting Volshoi VCC goods truck, "none of them have any skills worth talking about, and they're not fighters either, so what am I supposed to do about?"

"You see," she says, with something that's almost a snarl, "this place is still used as a rubbish tip. It's where society throws the people it's bored of." There is a momentary pause, before she steps off again, shrugging slightly. "Sorry, I shouldn't take it out on you. But anyway, it's not like most of them, except Savras, have the time to hang around. You stop working 'round here, you probably die. I do what I can, but there's not nearly enough credits, nor enough of anything, really."

[Elanorin]

"Just, like, scare her so that she doesn't mess with me again," said Virus, clearly having not thought about this very hard. "This is about respect, not revenge."

"You're wrong. You're wrong or you're lying." Trace sucked on her lollipop and watched him with narrowed eyes, trying to decide which.

"Sending a heavy to shout 'Boo' at her is basically the equivalent of having nothing more than 'oh yeah and you smell' to shout back at being subjected to public ridicule. It's lame. It doesn't pave way to respect. All it tells her is that you have enough pull and cred to hire some fine muscle for an hour, and, well, who the hell don't."

"To scare her so she really won't mess with you again... that's gonna take some blood. The more the better."

[Anarion]

"Nah, I don't mind," Watching Apostle listens to Evelyn with a mild expression, picking her way up the sloping side of the rubbish tip. "You're right, anyway. It would be better if they were out of this place. But," Sally says, stepping over the spiny back of a rusting Volshoi VCC goods truck, "none of them have any skills worth talking about, and they're not fighters either, so what am I supposed to do about?"

"You see," she says, with something that's almost a snarl, "this place is still used as a rubbish tip. It's where society throws the people it's bored of." There is a momentary pause, before she steps off again, shrugging slightly. "Sorry, I shouldn't take it out on you. But anyway, it's not like most of them, except Savras, have the time to hang around. You stop working 'round here, you probably die. I do what I can, but there's not nearly enough credits, nor enough of anything, really."

"Hmm." Evelyn taps a gloved finger to her chin, thinking. "Do they want to move? What is your brand for them? If being a saint means you need a bunch of dirty, ragged, followers, you've got that going, but why not aim to improve that, so that on-brand for you becomes something like 'skilled and persuasive leader of fine people' or 'head of a powerful force for destruction' if you prefer something a little more aggressive for your people. Upgrading your brand would open some doors for your philosophy and theology, I think."

Yes, Evenlyn has her corporate problem solver hat on right now. She thinks she's helping, and if you've got some experience with corporate buzzwords, you might recognize her approach a little: 1) set goals 2) identify resources and synergies 3) operationalize relevant resources.

[Mr. E]

"Look," the Watching Apostle says with a hard edge of frustration creeping into her voice, "two things: firstly, these people are not 'mine'. They're not anyone's, except themselves. I could ask them to move, but this isn't some kind of corporation where you sell blood and flesh and meat for money, and I won't force them to do what they don't want to do."

"Secondly," she adds with the underlying anger of a true believer, "you think these people want to live here? That they want to sift through trash and litter and overflowing vomit of the filthy rich, the festering excess of wealth? Let me tell you," Sally says with something of a rhetorical flourish, " that you don't end up here because you wanted to. You end up here because you have nothing, because you can earn nothing." Breathing heavily, Watching Apostle continues to storm up the incline, half wading through the scum of torn paper and plastic packaging that forms the froth on top of the rubbish sea.

"And, if you're about to tell me that education is the path to success, the way out, then believe me, I know." One foot descends on something metal with a clunk, then a rattle, as the object slides down the hill, bouncing off other protrusions and splashing through the plastic bags. "Believe me, I know," she repeats, stopping to watch it's progress downhill.

[Thanqol]

"You're wrong. You're wrong or you're lying." Trace sucked on her lollipop and watched him with narrowed eyes, trying to decide which.

"Sending a heavy to shout 'Boo' at her is basically the equivalent of having nothing more than 'oh yeah and you smell' to shout back at being subjected to public ridicule. It's lame. It doesn't pave way to respect. All it tells her is that you have enough pull and cred to hire some fine muscle for an hour, and, well, who the hell don't."

"To scare her so she really won't mess with you again... that's gonna take some blood. The more the better."

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right," said Virus, nodding along. "I can't let people push me around. Yeah. Yeah."


[Clock created and advanced: The Red Revenge

12:00 - 15:00 - 18:00 - 21:00 - 22:00 - 23:00 - 24:00

When this hits 21:00 then an angry, hostile hacker will decide she's going to wreck your mission at the worst possible moment]

[Anarion]

"Look," the Watching Apostle says with a hard edge of frustration creeping into her voice, "two things: firstly, these people are not 'mine'. They're not anyone's, except themselves. I could ask them to move, but this isn't some kind of corporation where you sell blood and flesh and meat for money, and I won't force them to do what they don't want to do."

"Secondly," she adds with the underlying anger of a true believer, "you think these people want to live here? That they want to sift through trash and litter and overflowing vomit of the filthy rich, the festering excess of wealth? Let me tell you," Sally says with something of a rhetorical flourish, " that you don't end up here because you wanted to. You end up here because you have nothing, because you can earn nothing." Breathing heavily, Watching Apostle continues to storm up the incline, half wading through the scum of torn paper and plastic packaging that forms the froth on top of the rubbish sea.

"And, if you're about to tell me that education is the path to success, the way out, then believe me, I know." One foot descends on something metal with a clunk, then a rattle, as the object slides down the hill, bouncing off other protrusions and splashing through the plastic bags. "Believe me, I know," she repeats, stopping to watch it's progress downhill.

Evelyn takes a step back. "I...I'm sorry. I didn't...there's something here I don't understand. That man, Savras, he seemed to think that you had responsiblity towards these people, didn't he? You're doing this mission to get them supplies and he was angry that you're leaving them all there, that things are happening while you're gone? What is your role to them?"

[Mr. E]

Watching Apostle
XP: 2
Vision Thing Holds: 1 (over Evelyn)

"Of course I have a responsibility," the Watching Apostle snaps, glaring out at the valley of salt and ashes, "it's in my name. I watch, and listen, and wait, and help as I can. You really don't-"

Her eyes flick over to Evelyn's bewildered features, and she sighs, then shrugs her shoulders emphatically. "I should start again. My name is Watching Apostle, and I'm a member of the Kasserine Saints. We believe in that every person has a responsibility to help those who cannot help themselves. That's the only responsibility I have. I try and bring medical supplies to these people, because they cannot afford them," Sally pauses for a moment, before continuing with a shrug, "and I can. Of course, you know as well as I do what kind of work I do for that money. But Savras doesn't see that, so of course he'd think of me as over-entitled."

"Hence, he said what he said," Sally finishes, "but he wasn't entirely wrong. I don't bring them nearly enough, for the time I spend in the bright lights. I can't, no matter how much I earn."

[Raine_Sage]

Zephyr
Harm: 0/6 Experience: 1/10
[gear:1]

"Rosey you're the best, hang on one sec..."

Zephyr turns away from the phone to glance back at Trace and Virus. "Hey don't go giving him weird ideas Trace, he already has trouble making friends." She was not keen on Virus deciding to get grandiose ideas about revenge on a regular basis. Or the inevitable trouble something like that might bring. She turns back to the phone.

"Right so name, address, if you can figure out something like their daily schedule that'd be super neat. Trace just needs to menace them a bit so one of my contacts will cough up intel about airport security."

[Anarion]

Evelyn
1 plan comes together hold
1 gear

Evelyn bows her head in humility. "I really had never looked at it that way before. I just...I think I let myself fall into the corporate world of only helping people with the hope that they change in some way you want. You're right, and I need to think about this more."

She walks in silence with Sally for a few minutes collecting her thoughts and dwelling on what she learned. But, there is still business to be done. "So, where to next?"

[Eldest]

Rose 013

You hear muttering over the open connection. "So let's see about that overwatch account... and then we need to get into their payment database... I swear to god why does everyone leave the default password in place... and now for un-hashing stuff... ah. Well then. So! Good news and bad news. Good news is, got the address and a name. Bad news is, unf, she's gorgeous. No hitting the face." She throws a data packet together. Mars, aka Stephanie Pham, is a graduate student at the local big-name university. No prior citations, which means she's generally good at covering her tracks. Lives in a third floor studio about two miles away from school. Need anything else?

[Mr. E]

Watching Apostle
XP: 2
Vision Thing Holds: 1 (over Evelyn)


The conversation enters a natural lull after Evelyn's question, as the Watching Apostle applies herself to the last few meters of the ascent. Stepping onto a more level surface at the peak of the trash-hill, she turns around, admiring the view of the yellow-tinted sky, and, in the distance, the rising needles of inner city. Shards of sunlight catch on the glass windows, sparkling and glimmering in the afternoon sun. Turning her eyes away from the sight, she shrugs slowly.

"A few things. Firstly, I need to visit Ronson Rabbit." With a jerk of her head, Sally gestures towards a conglomeration of tin roofing that stands nearby, atop a small mound of discarded server racks. "Then, I need to pick up a new load of medicine, to replace the contaminated batch. After that, well, I'll do some more work around the place. Savras can't or won't get me the intel for a while, anyway..."

Not sure how much of these scenes we want to play out. I don't know what Anarion thinks, but from my end it seems like Evelyn won't have a lot to do when Sally's busy doing charity work.

[Anarion]

When they're done with the Saints, Evelyn's contact for this job will be a friend of hers named Rosemary. Rosemary is a systems architect freelancer. The kind of person who gets hired when somebody needs something big built, bigger than any one person can comprehend at a nuts and bolts level, and they don't have someone on-hand with the combination of the vision and the eye for detail in a vast system that's needed to make it work. Rosemary, of course, has a literal eye for detail, one of her eyes is a top of the line multi-spectrum, telephoto piece (with hot pink irises, which she claims improve the infra-red, but personally Eve think she just likes the color). She tends to dress in wild, clashing colors as well, and I couldn't tell you when I text her whether she answered back that she's at a loud bar or one of those tiny art galleries that can only be properly appreciated with augmented vision.

Rosemary is an old friend of mine. We started out at the bottom rung of the ladder together, and Eve moved up a little faster doing the human resources, leadership pipeline sort of stuff, and paid it back to Rosemary by directing business her way when she went independent. I recently got her a big fish contract with the Hono'Kiai folks building up some kind of new market segment identification database or something when I directed a contact her way from the same business deal I had worked on, so I'm hoping she'll be available to help me out now.

The hope is that Rosemary has some info about what went into the new facility design, and maybe where they didn't do the best job and left some holes in their vaunted state of the art security. I'm particularly interested in the sort of enduring problems that might be hard to fix and can therefore be tools not only for us to get in, but also to get back out.

[let's Hit the Streets here. Looks like it might be a rough one. I got a 1+2. Even with the plan and all, that's way off the mark. So, Evelyn herself is off the plan now, and we'll see what we got into.]

[Raine_Sage]

Zephyr
Harm: 0/6 Experience: 1/10
[gear:1]

Zephyr lets out a low whistle. "Wow yeah I'll see if I can't get Trace to avoid the face. This is great Rosey, you're the best. Lemme know if you need anything on my end. Aside from settling nerd grudges I'm plenty available."

She hangs up the phone and turns to her companion cheerfully. "Got a name and location, and see if you can't be like, just a little discreet about any injuries ok? Someone paid a lot for a designer body and honestly pulping that would be such a waste."

Infiltrating a college campus isn't exactly difficult, especially since Zephyr is small and lithe enough to easily be mistaken for a student and her wardrobe checks out. Trace is another story but no one is really looking too closely and as long as she's close to Zephyr no one asks too many questions. And it only takes a little bit of hunting and a little bit of asking around before someone helpfully points her in the direction of the library. And after thirty minutes or so of loitering they see their target exit the building, heading off campus and clearly heading home for the evening.

Tailing is something Trace is a little better at, something she's had a little more practice doing, so Zephyr lets her take the lead here. And eventually when they've hit a stretch of quiet office buildings and thinning pedestrians the two of them overtake Mars who suddenly finds herself being strong armed by two strangers down a blind alley.

"Hey, Virus wants you to know he says hi! And also that siccing the swiss on him was a super bad idea. I'm not sure what you were thinking really."

I think we've reached the 'roll' point of this to see how it all plays out? I don't know if there's modifiers aside from the Plan so let me know if I need to add or subtract anything from this. [roll0]

[Elanorin]

Zephyr turns away from the phone to glance back at Trace and Virus. "Hey don't go giving him weird ideas Trace, he already has trouble making friends." She was not keen on Virus deciding to get grandiose ideas about revenge on a regular basis. Or the inevitable trouble something like that might bring. She turns back to the phone.


Trace glances away from Virus for just a moment as she hears Zephyr address her from somewhere behind amid her phone call.

"Oh I think Virus and I understand each other perfectly well," she smiles and gives Virus a wink. She tucks in a label poking up at the back of his neck and pats him on his back like an old buddy. "She'll be sorry, alright," she adds before returning to Zephyr just as her colleague finishes her call.


[B]
She hangs up the phone and turns to her companion cheerfully. "Got a name and location, and see if you can't be like, just a little discreet about any injuries ok? Someone paid a lot for a designer body and honestly pulping that would be such a waste."

Now this catches Trace's attention more than any single sentence said since they walked in to Evelyn's office.

Designer body.

Trace sucks thoughtfully on her diminishing lollipop. It will be gone soon, but no matter, she had at least sixteen more tucked in to various pockets and empty ammunition slots about her person.

"Any word on specific upgrades?" Trace asked casually as they went, "just asking. For tactical reasons." Her fingers itch.


Infiltrating a college campus isn't exactly difficult, especially since Zephyr is small and lithe enough to easily be mistaken for a student and her wardrobe checks out. Trace is another story but no one is really looking too closely and as long as she's close to Zephyr no one asks too many questions. And it only takes a little bit of hunting and a little bit of asking around before someone helpfully points her in the direction of the library. And after thirty minutes or so of loitering they see their target exit the building, heading off campus and clearly heading home for the evening.

While Trace looks like a night club dancer on laundry day, when her boring guard duty day job uniform was all that was left clean enough to wear, she knows enough about infiltration to escape too much scrutiny. Universities were hubs of weird and wonderful people after all.


Tailing is something Trace is a little better at, something she's had a little more practice doing, so Zephyr lets her take the lead here. And eventually when they've hit a stretch of quiet office buildings and thinning pedestrians the two of them overtake Mars who suddenly finds herself being strong armed by two strangers down a blind alley.

"Hey, Virus wants you to know he says hi! And also that siccing the swiss on him was a super bad idea. I'm not sure what you were thinking really."

Her new eyes were useful here. Sure, this was far from a difficult task and she could have done this without too much difficulty before, but Trace enjoyed playing with her new toy and her eyes allowed them to keep well hidden at good distance until the opportunity to grab this Mars presented itself.

Trace, being not quite as chatty as Zephyr, let her colleague do most of the talking and the delivering of the context of the situation. Meanwhile Trace is frisking Mars down. It would make sense to remove any weaponry, and, yeah, sure, that's what she's doing. That and assess the target for upgrades.

"I have been told you've paid good cred for that face of yours. Thing is Virus bought the One Exception package," Trace says with the hint of a smile as she continues to check Mars, then leans in to whisper "So tell me, is that the part you want me to spare?"

[Thanqol]

When they're done with the Saints, Evelyn's contact for this job will be a friend of hers named Rosemary. Rosemary is a systems architect freelancer. The kind of person who gets hired when somebody needs something big built, bigger than any one person can comprehend at a nuts and bolts level, and they don't have someone on-hand with the combination of the vision and the eye for detail in a vast system that's needed to make it work. Rosemary, of course, has a literal eye for detail, one of her eyes is a top of the line multi-spectrum, telephoto piece (with hot pink irises, which she claims improve the infra-red, but personally Eve think she just likes the color). She tends to dress in wild, clashing colors as well, and I couldn't tell you when I text her whether she answered back that she's at a loud bar or one of those tiny art galleries that can only be properly appreciated with augmented vision.

Rosemary is an old friend of mine. We started out at the bottom rung of the ladder together, and Eve moved up a little faster doing the human resources, leadership pipeline sort of stuff, and paid it back to Rosemary by directing business her way when she went independent. I recently got her a big fish contract with the Hono'Kiai folks building up some kind of new market segment identification database or something when I directed a contact her way from the same business deal I had worked on, so I'm hoping she'll be available to help me out now.

The hope is that Rosemary has some info about what went into the new facility design, and maybe where they didn't do the best job and left some holes in their vaunted state of the art security. I'm particularly interested in the sort of enduring problems that might be hard to fix and can therefore be tools not only for us to get in, but also to get back out.

[let's Hit the Streets here. Looks like it might be a rough one. I got a 1+2. Even with the plan and all, that's way off the mark. So, Evelyn herself is off the plan now, and we'll see what we got into.]

First problem when you meet Rosemary: She's wearing a dress she's worn before. That is hella off-brand for her.
Second problem: She asked to have the meeting in her office, which is one of those state-of-the-art security things she works on - and it looks like it's been renovated recently.
Third problem: her human eye is a little unfocused, her speech is a little weird, and the faint surgical scar on her forehead suggests it's not because she was having a party without you.

"Oh Hello Dear," she says, "How Can I Help You Today?"

Legwork: 15:00. You want to Assess?


Tailing is something Trace is a little better at, something she's had a little more practice doing, so Zephyr lets her take the lead here. And eventually when they've hit a stretch of quiet office buildings and thinning pedestrians the two of them overtake Mars who suddenly finds herself being strong armed by two strangers down a blind alley.

"Hey, Virus wants you to know he says hi! And also that siccing the swiss on him was a super bad idea. I'm not sure what you were thinking really."

I think we've reached the 'roll' point of this to see how it all plays out? I don't know if there's modifiers aside from the Plan so let me know if I need to add or subtract anything from this. [roll0]

It's a moment where things seem to run smoothly, but those are the worst moments. It's a moment between buying on sale and working out the catch.

"What - Virus sent you?" said Mars. "Do you have any idea who I am?"


Her new eyes were useful here. Sure, this was far from a difficult task and she could have done this without too much difficulty before, but Trace enjoyed playing with her new toy and her eyes allowed them to keep well hidden at good distance until the opportunity to grab this Mars presented itself.

Trace, being not quite as chatty as Zephyr, let her colleague do most of the talking and the delivering of the context of the situation. Meanwhile Trace is frisking Mars down. It would make sense to remove any weaponry, and, yeah, sure, that's what she's doing. That and assess the target for upgrades.

"I have been told you've paid good cred for that face of yours. Thing is Virus bought the One Exception package," Trace says with the hint of a smile as she continues to check Mars, then leans in to whisper "So tell me, is that the part you want me to spare?"

Good news, Trace - you find the upgrade. The bad news is that it's not a cyber arm, or a concealed monofil mine, or even a nice smashable hacking deck. It's a set of lips. Exact same make, model and brand as yours. And you've only processed that fact after she's swooned and fallen into your arms and got those lips up against your neck in what a passer-by might mistake as a romantic embrace.

"Listen up, bitch," she murmured. "I work for O'Malley. You work for a snot-nosed wannabe. Why don't you go back to your socioeconomic bracket where you belong?"

[Anarion]

First problem when you meet Rosemary: She's wearing a dress she's worn before. That is hella off-brand for her.
Second problem: She asked to have the meeting in her office, which is one of those state-of-the-art security things she works on - and it looks like it's been renovated recently.
Third problem: her human eye is a little unfocused, her speech is a little weird, and the faint surgical scar on her forehead suggests it's not because she was having a party without you.

"Oh Hello Dear," she says, "How Can I Help You Today?"

Legwork: 15:00. You want to Assess?



This was very unfortunate. The second Evelyn walked into this office, she was regretting it. Nothing could be discussed openly here, who knew what was being recorded, and Rosemary looked, well, off-brand was the right term for it. She absolutely should not have brought Sally here either, this was dangerous territory. But having walked into the Lion's den, you'd better look scary since turning your back just meant getting eaten.

"Rosemary, my dear, how are you?" Watch the facial muscles, see if there are indications of what parts of the brain might be affected by the recent surgery, see if there are any indications in the response, listen carefully, ready to act but not tense.

[Assess: 5+3+2=10. First question, what potential complications do I need to be wary of? Second question, what do I notice despite an effort to conceal it? Holding on to the third question. 1 hold]

1 gear
1 plan comes together hold
1 assess hold

[Elanorin]

It's a moment where things seem to run smoothly, but those are the worst moments. It's a moment between buying on sale and working out the catch.

"What - Virus sent you?" said Mars. "Do you have any idea who I am?"

Good news, Trace - you find the upgrade. The bad news is that it's not a cyber arm, or a concealed monofil mine, or even a nice smashable hacking deck. It's a set of lips. Exact same make, model and brand as yours. And you've only processed that fact after she's swooned and fallen into your arms and got those lips up against your neck in what a passer-by might mistake as a romantic embrace.

"Listen up, bitch," she murmured. "I work for O'Malley. You work for a snot-nosed wannabe. Why don't you go back to your socioeconomic bracket where you belong?"

Trace stood still, slowly directing a look of disdain down at the face so sickeningly close, resting on her shoulder. How she hated it. Every single fibre of her body was immediately on alert and attuned to the simple objective of removing the invader of her personal space. At any cost.

It was not lost on Trace who she claimed she worked for and it seemed to her that is was Mars who did not know who she was dealing with. At least... that would be Trace's preferred dynamic of this scene. Regardless, her objective had not changed, while she was here on some inane grudge-job so beneath her she almost felt dirty for taking it on, she was now committed. This was one target she would enjoy taking down. Virus was in luck, he'd get value for his deal, alright.

Hell, she may even agree to go out with him as thanks for aiming her in Mars' direction.

Right here and right now Trace's attention was primarily on Mars' lips. She knew what they could do and as much as she was not about to back down she knew better than to act rashly here, despite her fingers itching to start shooting.

[Rolling to Assess: 4+2+1=7 How is Mars vulnerable to me?]

[Eldest]

Meanwhile, Rose cracks her (virtual) knuckles and snaps a cloth out of thin air, magician style. She holds it in front of her, and then drops it, ignoring it as it fades from existence. As she appears from behind the cover, she's suddenly dressed in a pantsuit, fancy pen tucked behind one ear. Her disguise done, she heads towards the portal to the ImageFX core, spoofing an access credential as she goes.

[Thanqol]

This was very unfortunate. The second Evelyn walked into this office, she was regretting it. Nothing could be discussed openly here, who knew what was being recorded, and Rosemary looked, well, off-brand was the right term for it. She absolutely should not have brought Sally here either, this was dangerous territory. But having walked into the Lion's den, you'd better look scary since turning your back just meant getting eaten.

"Rosemary, my dear, how are you?" Watch the facial muscles, see if there are indications of what parts of the brain might be affected by the recent surgery, see if there are any indications in the response, listen carefully, ready to act but not tense.

[Assess: 5+3+2=10. First question, what potential complications do I need to be wary of? Second question, what do I notice despite an effort to conceal it? Holding on to the third question. 1 hold]

1 gear
1 plan comes together hold
1 assess hold

"I Am Excellent, Darling," said Rosemary. "How Are You?"

You remember that time Shimili Shark's best friend, Tabitha Jellyfish, got mindwiped by Mr. Disposable? How her words became extremely precisely enunciated while also being totally hollow? That's the vibe you're getting here. This is not a scar that was put in place to put something in, it was a scar put in place to take something out.

Oh, and also, to put something in. Your electrical engineering skillwires are picking up a faint tingling web of sensors and receptors around her skull, and a very dark place where the power source for a neural implant should be. Only reason to put that much dead mass in someone's head. And then, also, the surround-sound filmdeck of cameras - someone else is keeping a close eye on Rosemary. Likely her last employer, wanting to make sure no one hacked it's architect.

How do you feel about cortex bombs?


Trace stood still, slowly directing a look of disdain down at the face so sickeningly close, resting on her shoulder. How she hated it. Every single fibre of her body was immediately on alert and attuned to the simple objective of removing the invader of her personal space. At any cost.

It was not lost on Trace who she claimed she worked for and it seemed to her that is was Mars who did not know who she was dealing with. At least... that would be Trace's preferred dynamic of this scene. Regardless, her objective had not changed, while she was here on some inane grudge-job so beneath her she almost felt dirty for taking it on, she was now committed. This was one target she would enjoy taking down. Virus was in luck, he'd get value for his deal, alright.

Hell, she may even agree to go out with him as thanks for aiming her in Mars' direction.

Right here and right now Trace's attention was primarily on Mars' lips. She knew what they could do and as much as she was not about to back down she knew better than to act rashly here, despite her fingers itching to start shooting.

[Rolling to Assess: 4+2+1=7 How is Mars vulnerable to me?]

You've made her lips but she hasn't made yours. She evidently doesn't have your eye for chrome. It'll be a bit tricky to get a kiss in without getting counter-kissed but if you can do it she won't realize until way too late.


Meanwhile, Rose cracks her (virtual) knuckles and snaps a cloth out of thin air, magician style. She holds it in front of her, and then drops it, ignoring it as it fades from existence. As she appears from behind the cover, she's suddenly dressed in a pantsuit, fancy pen tucked behind one ear. Her disguise done, she heads towards the portal to the ImageFX core, spoofing an access credential as she goes.

The public facing Corporate monoliths tower above the Matrix. Vast cathedrals of data, pulsing columns of facts and figures up into the godlike military systems that glitter in the sky like constellations. Each of them form immense citadels designed to uphold the brands of stability, continuity, power.

ImageFX's Matrix HQ is a vast hole. It's a pit wide enough to sail two aircraft carriers into end-to-end. Synthetic sunlight plays across the tropical waters at the bottom of the pit and (appropriately upmarket) casual clients dive from the top down into the bottom to swim or race jetskis. Brightly coloured parakeets sing out the lyrics to ImageFX branded pop songs and have 'casual' conversations about the advantages of ImageFX services.

Dive down deeper below the water, though, and things swiftly get dark and murky - lit only by crisp blue-white bulbs that light the streets of the sunken and crumbling city. Atlantian employees and guards dwell down here, neon white tridents and shatteringly black facemasks. Remote access is always available to ImageFX employees but the water down here is cold and the security is designed to deter rival corporations as much as individual hackers.

You're at a Login Gate, secured by Red ICE. Make the roll.

[Anarion]

How do you feel about cortex bombs?


Broadly? Cortex bombs and I have certain...fundamental differences of opinion and I'd prefer that the two of us remain at least [insert their blast radius here] feet apart from one another at all times. Alas, they don't always behave appropriately and this greatly disappoints me.


"I Am Excellent, Darling," said Rosemary. "How Are You?"


I give Sally just the briefest touch on the leg, a motion for her to stop, not terribly remarkable, but she should be just the faintest hint of surprised and on her guard.

Several questions appear to me here, among them whether Rosemary might still be a useful asset or whether she is fully lost, whether it is safe to remain here, whether it is safe to leave here without some pretense for the meeting, and how this happened to the poor girl.

"I'm well, Rosemary. I'm so glad to hear that you've been taking care of yourself. I was hoping to compare notes on our latest sales work, make sure we're both up on the industry standards and such. I do hope you're not busy."

[Last hold: Where can I gain the most advantage?]

[Thanqol]

I give Sally just the briefest touch on the leg, a motion for her to stop, not terribly remarkable, but she should be just the faintest hint of surprised and on her guard.

Several questions appear to me here, among them whether Rosemary might still be a useful asset or whether she is fully lost, whether it is safe to remain here, whether it is safe to leave here without some pretense for the meeting, and how this happened to the poor girl.

"I'm well, Rosemary. I'm so glad to hear that you've been taking care of yourself. I was hoping to compare notes on our latest sales work, make sure we're both up on the industry standards and such. I do hope you're not busy."

[Last hold: Where can I gain the most advantage?]

"I Am Not, I Have All The Time In The World, Darling," she said eerily.

Here. You've worked in security. One of the axioms is never kill the guy who designed your defensive system. I mean, sure, the security guy will have hidden a backup hole in the security somewhere, that's what they do - but what if you need to use that hole later? Or what if you need to upgrade the system? Or what if they've got a killswitch to dump their blueprints somewhere? Too many unknowns makes it only a bet Slam! *Click* takes on the regular. They'll put her back to normal eventually.

This setup isn't a long-term security measure for ImageFX - this is a Corporate Security Unit (CSU) sting to mark and ID people like you who come sniffing. The next part of their play is for you to get nervous, back off empty handed, and then they follow you home and see who you talk to. They'll go loud if they have to but their objective here is to figure out who your boss is - and that's your edge.

You can still get what you came for, you just need to keep them off balance. They want a bigger fish than you and so long as they keep the idea that things are going in that direction they're professional enough to be patient.

Plus - Rosemary is not the sort of person to sign a mindwipe into her contract and if you can crack the conditioning she'll be motivated.

[Raine_Sage]

Zephyr
Harm: 0/6 Experience: 1/10
[gear:1]

Zephyr frowns a little as Mars drapes herself over Trace with that high and mighty attitude. Ugh Virus what did you get them both into? Still, she's a professional. They both are. They don't back out of jobs just because things get a little complicated sometimes (most of the time).

"Hey so um, no I don't know who you are but maybe this is something you should be thinking over really carefully? Like, Virus is a nobody but he's a nobody with the pull to call in the two of us on a whim. This maybe calls for a revaluation of that initial opinion of yours yeah?"

She looks at Mar's exposed back, more concerned with whatever she's doing to keep Trace in place, and not paying much attention to her. Which is a pretty big error, but one Zephyr is used to people making. After all she looks small and harmless and Trace looks big and intimidating and it seems clear which one of them is the muscle.

She raises an eyebrow at trace as if to ask if she'd like some assistance here, and maybe for Zephyr to slide a knife in somewhere.

[Elanorin]

While Trace would have preferred this to have been an easy mark where she could just have had some fun and gone to town, she is not attached enough to this target to feel much by way of resentment at calling in backup. They were here as a team and as such she was always planning on Zephyr being part of the action, not just a spectator. There is therefore no reluctance in her turning a hand a little and gesturing with a finger or two for Zephyr to have at it while she otherwise remained motionless as if she had the mother of all poison spiders crawling on her shoulder. She did not take her eyes off Mars for a moment, she was not rookie enough to give her that window to act.

Her other hand slowly drew towards Stonz.

"Do you brag about you employer to everyone? I'm sure they love that." Trace replied slowly, taunting, to distract her and keep her talking.

[Raine_Sage]

Zephyr
Harm: 0/6 Experience: 1/10
[gear:1]

"I know right?"

She considers her options. She doesn't want to make this messy, they're still too public and a little too exposed. It'd be bad for her brand to just go stabbing people in alleyways.

She opts for the taser instead, just as disabling with none of the cleanup. The device is in her hand so quickly it may as well have materialized from the ether, and in one fluid motion she's applied the device (a cute hono kiai personal protection model in a rather fetching lavender color) directly to the base of the skull. The sharp crack of electricity meeting skin, and the faint smell of scorched hair, is oddly satisfying. As is the way the body jerks involuntarily as all the muscles start seizing up.

"Like what even is discretion these days?"

(2d6+2)[9] (+1 for plan, +1 synth nerves) If my opponent happens to also have synth nerves subtract 1 from the roll.

Alright so the objective I'm looking to seize control of is Mars herself, to disable her or get her off of Trace so that Trace can react without fear of poison kisses.

For drawbacks I'm not entirely sure. It's possible that the electric shock fried something important on Mars, or that she gives Trace an accidental peck with those lips, or they drew attention. I'm leaning towards the first two, but I'll defer to the MC here.

[Anarion]

"I Am Not, I Have All The Time In The World, Darling," she said eerily.

Here. You've worked in security. One of the axioms is never kill the guy who designed your defensive system. I mean, sure, the security guy will have hidden a backup hole in the security somewhere, that's what they do - but what if you need to use that hole later? Or what if you need to upgrade the system? Or what if they've got a killswitch to dump their blueprints somewhere? Too many unknowns makes it only a bet Slam! *Click* takes on the regular. They'll put her back to normal eventually.

This setup isn't a long-term security measure for ImageFX - this is a Corporate Security Unit (CSU) sting to mark and ID people like you who come sniffing. The next part of their play is for you to get nervous, back off empty handed, and then they follow you home and see who you talk to. They'll go loud if they have to but their objective here is to figure out who your boss is - and that's your edge.

You can still get what you came for, you just need to keep them off balance. They want a bigger fish than you and so long as they keep the idea that things are going in that direction they're professional enough to be patient.

Plus - Rosemary is not the sort of person to sign a mindwipe into her contract and if you can crack the conditioning she'll be motivated.

Well then. Evelyn pulls up a chair and sits right on the other side of the desk from Rosemary, close enough to reach across. She gestures for Watching Apostle to join as well. She doesn't make an introduction for her though, that's up to her if she wants to say any of her myriad names here or lie about it.

"Well, Rosemary, dear, truth be told, I'm looking to compare certain best practices in particular. In fact, I'm given to understand that there are several interested parties in the latest ImageFX hub, and I thought to myself, why, I thought, Rosemary of all people has just the sort of skills, taste, and passion to really dive into a project like that, who better to learn from? I think having a better understanding of the product would really offer some competitive advantage in my negotiating work. What do you say, my dear, think you know the new security as well as you select clothing with your impeccable fashion sense?"

Evelyn looks Rosemary up and down, including at her first ever repeat choice of clothing with just the faintest expression of disdain as she says that.

[Mr. E]

Sally has been standing silently against the back wall of the office, watching Evelyn and Rosemary with slightly narrowed eyes. It's hard to tell, unless you know someone very well, whether the blank look in their eyes is brainwashing, or just their preferred brand of chemical stimulant. She feels the thud of Evelyn's leg pressing against her thigh, stiffens just slightly, then lets herself drift forward to beside the other, extending her left hand out flat, fingers splayed. Inside the fake fingers something silently clicks, as the spool of monofilament wire goes from 'safe' to 'armed'.

It's not entirely clear what's happening here, or what Evelyn's play is, but the room smells like fear and betrayal, and sometimes you just have to kill people first and findout why afterwards.

[Thanqol]

Zephyr
Harm: 0/6 Experience: 1/10
[gear:1]

Zephyr frowns a little as Mars drapes herself over Trace with that high and mighty attitude. Ugh Virus what did you get them both into? Still, she's a professional. They both are. They don't back out of jobs just because things get a little complicated sometimes (most of the time).

"Hey so um, no I don't know who you are but maybe this is something you should be thinking over really carefully? Like, Virus is a nobody but he's a nobody with the pull to call in the two of us on a whim. This maybe calls for a revaluation of that initial opinion of yours yeah?"

"Zero plus two-zero is still zero," said Mars.


While Trace would have preferred this to have been an easy mark where she could just have had some fun and gone to town, she is not attached enough to this target to feel much by way of resentment at calling in backup. They were here as a team and as such she was always planning on Zephyr being part of the action, not just a spectator. There is therefore no reluctance in her turning a hand a little and gesturing with a finger or two for Zephyr to have at it while she otherwise remained motionless as if she had the mother of all poison spiders crawling on her shoulder. She did not take her eyes off Mars for a moment, she was not rookie enough to give her that window to act.

Her other hand slowly drew towards Stonz.

"Do you brag about you employer to everyone? I'm sure they love that." Trace replied slowly, taunting, to distract her and keep her talking.


Zephyr
Harm: 0/6 Experience: 1/10
[gear:1]

"I know right?"

She considers her options. She doesn't want to make this messy, they're still too public and a little too exposed. It'd be bad for her brand to just go stabbing people in alleyways.

She opts for the taser instead, just as disabling with none of the cleanup. The device is in her hand so quickly it may as well have materialized from the ether, and in one fluid motion she's applied the device (a cute hono kiai personal protection model in a rather fetching lavender color) directly to the base of the skull. The sharp crack of electricity meeting skin, and the faint smell of scorched hair, is oddly satisfying. As is the way the body jerks involuntarily as all the muscles start seizing up.

"Like what even is discretion these days?"

(2d6+2)[9] (+1 for plan, +1 synth nerves) If my opponent happens to also have synth nerves subtract 1 from the roll.

Alright so the objective I'm looking to seize control of is Mars herself, to disable her or get her off of Trace so that Trace can react without fear of poison kisses.

For drawbacks I'm not entirely sure. It's possible that the electric shock fried something important on Mars, or that she gives Trace an accidental peck with those lips, or they drew attention. I'm leaning towards the first two, but I'll defer to the MC here.

[Mix It Up is player choice, and it sounds like you're choosing 'something of value breaks' and 'an ally takes harm as established by the fiction'. You just need to pick the options and then leave it up to me to figure out exactly what those things mean]

It all happens razor fast. This is an interaction between combat computers and digital reflexes much more than any conscious thought. There is a grab, a twist, a zap and the rapport of a firearm going off.

Good news is mission accomplished - she's meat on the ground and Trace put a bullet through her face on instinct during the struggle, totally wrecking a skullfull of valuable cyberware in the process, including those pretty lips. No secondary market on that body. But there's still a faint outline of crimson lipstick on Trace's neck.

Bad news. That stuff is going to hurt when it gets going. Good news, though - it's slow acting. There's time to get a cure - but that'll take time which you might not have to spare right now. What do you think, Trace? Get help or tough it out?


Well then. Evelyn pulls up a chair and sits right on the other side of the desk from Rosemary, close enough to reach across. She gestures for Watching Apostle to join as well. She doesn't make an introduction for her though, that's up to her if she wants to say any of her myriad names here or lie about it.

"Well, Rosemary, dear, truth be told, I'm looking to compare certain best practices in particular. In fact, I'm given to understand that there are several interested parties in the latest ImageFX hub, and I thought to myself, why, I thought, Rosemary of all people has just the sort of skills, taste, and passion to really dive into a project like that, who better to learn from? I think having a better understanding of the product would really offer some competitive advantage in my negotiating work. What do you say, my dear, think you know the new security as well as you select clothing with you impeccable fashion sense?"

Evelyn looks Rosemary up and down, including at her first ever repeat choice of clothing with just the faintest expression of disdain as she says that.

The sneer at her fashion sense is very well placed. It's exactly the sort of thing that connects deeply enough with her personality to short circuit through the brainrinsing. But it's not a sure thing - roll Fast Talk to see if you do crack it, and be sure to take the +1 forward from your assess.


Sally has been standing silently against the back wall of the office, watching Evelyn and Rosemary with slightly narrowed eyes. It's hard to tell, unless you know someone very well, whether the blank look in their eyes is brainwashing, or just their preferred brand of chemical stimulant. She feels the thud of Evelyn's leg pressing against her thigh, stiffens just slightly, then lets herself drift forward to beside the other, extending her left hand out flat, fingers splayed. Inside the fake fingers something silently clicks, as the spool of monofilament wire goes from 'safe' to 'armed'.

It's not entirely clear what's happening here, or what Evelyn's play is, but the room smells like fear and betrayal, and sometimes you just have to kill people first and findout why afterwards.

While we're here, Sally - what're your opinions on high fashion? Like, yeah, metaphors for slavery in a corrupt capitalistic society and all that, but when you're this far upmarket how do you feel? Self-conscious, defiant, a little envious?

[Mr. E]

A lot of people draw a line between the meat that a person wears, and the clothing that goes around it. Really, as should be obvious to any person who stops to think about it, the difference between the two is meaningless. Both are a way of selling yourself to the world, a marketing strategy in the game of life. The game, of course, is anathema to the Kasserine Saints, part of the lie sold by the rich.

So the Watching Apostle sees through high fashion to the thing beneath, the darkness lingering beyond the light. Fashion itself is not to be despised, any more than any other tool is to be despised. It has its purposes, and Sally has even worn such dresses herself, on some job requiring an impersonation. But the desire, the temptation, to be fashionable is a temptation to conform to the world, to cease in the struggle against the corporate elite. It must be met head on, and overcome with a defiant realisation of the truth possessed by a true Kasserine Saint. Thus are the thoughts of the Watching Apostle, as she looks upon the sophistication of Rosemary.

[Anarion]

[Fast talk: 4+3+1=8. They do it, but somebody's gonna find out it looks like. No surprise there, really.]

[Elanorin]

"Zero plus two-zero is still zero," said Mars.

It all happens razor fast. This is an interaction between combat computers and digital reflexes much more than any conscious thought. There is a grab, a twist, a zap and the rapport of a firearm going off.

Good news is mission accomplished - she's meat on the ground and Trace put a bullet through her face on instinct during the struggle, totally wrecking a skullfull of valuable cyberware in the process, including those pretty lips. No secondary market on that body. But there's still a faint outline of crimson lipstick on Trace's neck.

Bad news. That stuff is going to hurt when it gets going. Good news, though - it's slow acting. There's time to get a cure - but that'll take time which you might not have to spare right now. What do you think, Trace? Get help or tough it out?


"Aaaaah!" Trace feels the early effects of the poison on her neck. She tries to wipe it off but she knows this stuff better than to think it'll make any real difference. She just didn't get out of the way fast enough. "Damn!"

She shot Mars a couple of extra times for good measure and to release some of the frustration. This was going to side-track them proper.

"I have to deal with this or I'll be seriously compromised for the mission," Trace admitted with frustrated distaste and aimed a merciless kick at the dead meat on the ground. "Damnit!" In a moment of anger she knelt down to cut out Mars' cube.

[Raine_Sage]

Zephyr
Harm: 0/6 Experience: 1/10
[gear:1]

"Sorry, she was more kitted out than I thought. I guess she wasn't kidding about her big shot employer though." Zephyr looks down at the literal smoke coming out of Mars' ears. Fairly extensive cyberware. Her wrist is still a little sore from where she was grabbed. She holsters the taser and looks around trying to see if the gunshots drew any immediate attention from local law enforcement.

"We should get moving, I'll help you get the kiss dealth with don't worry. But bringing her along might not be the best idea. We sent a message and broke her expensive toys, we don't need whoever she works for showing up to retrieve her on top of that."

[Thanqol]

[Fast talk: 4+3+1=8. They do it, but somebody's gonna find out it looks like. No surprise there, really.]

"Oh Yes," said Rosemary. "Of Course. This Dress. I Love This Dress. This dress is in Style. This dress will Always be in style. No need for new Dresses. Who needs new dresses. The times never change and you only really need to express yourself once before you are done, don't you darling?"

This is all said in the creepiest voice imaginable. The lobotomite slur had nothing on this.

"I Love This Dress," she said again. "I Love It So Much," she picked a hairpin from her hair "That I Just Want. To. Share. It. With. You."

She grabs you by the collar and roughly shoves the pin into the front of your own suit. You can see the faint light that indicates it's a data storage device.

"Well. That is more than enough Generosity for the day," said Rosemary, taking a deep breath and coming down from psychotic-placid to relaxed-placid. "I Can't Help You With The Other Thing Though, I Am Sorry."

LEGWORK
12:00 - 15:00 - 18:00 - 21:00 - 22:00 - 23:00 - 24:00


"Aaaaah!" Trace feels the early effects of the poison on her neck. She tries to wipe it off but she knows this stuff better than to think it'll make any real difference. She just didn't get out of the way fast enough. "Damn!"

She shot Mars a couple of extra times for good measure and to release some of the frustration. This was going to side-track them proper.

"I have to deal with this or I'll be seriously compromised for the mission," Trace admitted with frustrated distaste and aimed a merciless kick at the dead meat on the ground. "Damnit!" In a moment of anger she knelt down to cut out Mars' cube.

You have a cube. Glowy and bloody. It's a pretty serious crime to crack one of these so think carefully.

[Eldest]

The public facing Corporate monoliths tower above the Matrix. Vast cathedrals of data, pulsing columns of facts and figures up into the godlike military systems that glitter in the sky like constellations. Each of them form immense citadels designed to uphold the brands of stability, continuity, power.

ImageFX's Matrix HQ is a vast hole. It's a pit wide enough to sail two aircraft carriers into end-to-end. Synthetic sunlight plays across the tropical waters at the bottom of the pit and (appropriately upmarket) casual clients dive from the top down into the bottom to swim or race jetskis. Brightly coloured parakeets sing out the lyrics to ImageFX branded pop songs and have 'casual' conversations about the advantages of ImageFX services.

Dive down deeper below the water, though, and things swiftly get dark and murky - lit only by crisp blue-white bulbs that light the streets of the sunken and crumbling city. Atlantian employees and guards dwell down here, neon white tridents and shatteringly black facemasks. Remote access is always available to ImageFX employees but the water down here is cold and the security is designed to deter rival corporations as much as individual hackers.

You're at a Login Gate, secured by Red ICE. Make the roll.

As she approaches, she pulls a suitcase behind her. Island vacay sounds great right about now, right? Might have to see if she can pull off a trip sometime in the spring...


[roll0] Log in. +1 Synth, +1 The Plan
Running Identity Protection (+2 stealth) and Sift (+1 ongoing to research/search for paydata within a secure database).

While we're at it, here's the Console Cowgirl roll. -1 for falling off The Plan if the previous roll failed.
[roll1]

[Thanqol]

As she approaches, she pulls a suitcase behind her. Island vacay sounds great right about now, right? Might have to see if she can pull off a trip sometime in the spring...

You're in clean. The swimmers flash you with spotlights but move on. Tropical music plays and the feel of sunshine washes across you as you're treated to all the warm, soothing comfort and friendliness that The Corporation extends to all its employees as thanks for their hard work.




System Architecture:

Available at this level:
Database (Customer Logins)
Useless by itself but you can fish for paydata in here. You can't Research here unless you can give me a reason why this would be useful.
Login Gate: Root.
Warning: Will have human security.
Login Gate: Central Databases
You can Research bigger, corp-sensitive stuff here. Probably where you want to go but you'll have to Login again.
Various Login Gates: Building Security Nodes, Building Services Nodes, Production Control Systems, R&D Control Systems.
The systems of publicly accessible buildings can be accessed by going through the Login gates. If you accessed ImageFX's network while physically located in an ImageFX building you'd have access to that building's Services and Security Nodes without having to go through another Login gate.

The Network hub you're looking for in New Adelaide is through one of those Login gates, but you don't know which one you're after.

Just a reminder: To search for paydata you need to make a Manipulate Systems roll and run the Search for Paydata routine (essentially making it two rolls). For the purposes of not getting bogged down forever, you can only search each database for Paydata once.

[Anarion]

"Thank you, dear, your generosity is very much appreciated." I give her arm a light pat, friendly and calming after that little outburst. Honestly, I don't know why I'm bothering to put on a show at this point. Everyone here knows what's going on, and unless I miss my guess after how direct Rosemary was about that, everyone here knows that everybody else knows as well.

But we got something valuable from this, and nobody got hurt. I see no reason to be particularly rushed about departing now either. We can make small talk, perhaps if Sally wants an introduction, one can be arranged, maybe the security team will enjoy hearing some proper philosophy. At any rate, I think that relaxing and departing calmly is likely the best course from here, the hook has been dangled enough, and we'll deal with the long-term consequences in a long-term manner.

[Elanorin]

"Sorry, she was more kitted out than I thought. I guess she wasn't kidding about her big shot employer though." Zephyr looks down at the literal smoke coming out of Mars' ears. Fairly extensive cyberware. Her wrist is still a little sore from where she was grabbed. She holsters the taser and looks around trying to see if the gunshots drew any immediate attention from local law enforcement.

"We should get moving, I'll help you get the kiss dealth with don't worry. But bringing her along might not be the best idea. We sent a message and broke her expensive toys, we don't need whoever she works for showing up to retrieve her on top of that."



You have a cube. Glowy and bloody. It's a pretty serious crime to crack one of these so think carefully.

"Oh she was O'Malley's alright," Trace said darkly while glaring at the bloody mess in her hand. It was a strange thing, to be able to hold everything a person is, dormant and helpless, in the palm of your hand. It gave the word mercy a keener edge than at any other time.

She could feel the urge to crush the cube simmer inside the bone marrow of her arms and hands, but she could hear Zephyr, even if it seemed from far away for a moment, and she knew the truth of it. Now was not a time she could afford to break her restraints.

"Don't worry," she conceded, snapping out of her daze, "we'll be good citizens and return this to a lost and found." A wicked smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. Yes. That would do nicely. A stint in their work queues and then ditched in to whatever Goodwill meat they happen to have on hand was an oddly satisfying fate for Mars. She'd doubtlessly recover, like all cockroaches do, but this wasn't supposed to be a Real Death job anyway.

Trace took out a handkerchief and wiped her hands and wrapped the cube up.

"Let's go."

[Thanqol]

"Thank you, dear, your generosity is very much appreciated." I give her arm a light pat, friendly and calming after that little outburst. Honestly, I don't know why I'm bothering to put on a show at this point. Everyone here knows what's going on, and unless I miss my guess after how direct Rosemary was about that, everyone here knows that everybody else knows as well.

But we got something valuable from this, and nobody got hurt. I see no reason to be particularly rushed about departing now either. We can make small talk, perhaps if Sally wants an introduction, one can be arranged, maybe the security team will enjoy hearing some proper philosophy. At any rate, I think that relaxing and departing calmly is likely the best course from here, the hook has been dangled enough, and we'll deal with the long-term consequences in a long-term manner.


"Oh she was O'Malley's alright," Trace said darkly while glaring at the bloody mess in her hand. It was a strange thing, to be able to hold everything a person is, dormant and helpless, in the palm of your hand. It gave the word mercy a keener edge than at any other time.

She could feel the urge to crush the cube simmer inside the bone marrow of her arms and hands, but she could hear Zephyr, even if it seemed from far away for a moment, and she knew the truth of it. Now was not a time she could afford to break her restraints.

"Don't worry," she conceded, snapping out of her daze, "we'll be good citizens and return this to a lost and found." A wicked smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. Yes. That would do nicely. A stint in their work queues and then ditched in to whatever Goodwill meat they happen to have on hand was an oddly satisfying fate for Mars. She'd doubtlessly recover, like all cockroaches do, but this wasn't supposed to be a Real Death job anyway.

Trace took out a handkerchief and wiped her hands and wrapped the cube up.

"Let's go."

Both teams have actually accomplished their tasks at this point. You've both come away with valuable pools of data and it's time to go over it and start making plans. You have two databases - one on airport security, one on the ImageFX network hub - and you can make Research rolls on either topic. Ask your questions and roll the dice.

[Anarion]

Okay, so, I guess my question from the list is "how secure is the ImageFX data hub?" I'm really most curious for vulnerabilities that will either take a while to fix or go undetected for some time. For example, if we could hack a security camera in such a way that a guard watching it sees a normal image and doesn't realize it's hacked for long enough for us to walk in, do our work, and then get back out before someone fixes it. I am not angling for this to be a job where we wind up getting in only to shoot our way out. It can happen, and it might, but plan A is to be on a plane departing before anyone realizes that there's a problem, and that's what I'm hoping I can get out of researching the hub's security features.

[research: 4+6+1=11. Getting intel, an answer, and a follow up after I hear the first answer.]

1 plan comes together hold
1 gear
1 intel

[Thanqol]

Okay, so, I guess my question from the list is "how secure is the ImageFX data hub?" I'm really most curious for vulnerabilities that will either take a while to fix or go undetected for some time. For example, if we could hack a security camera in such a way that a guard watching it sees a normal image and doesn't realize it's hacked for long enough for us to walk in, do our work, and then get back out before someone fixes it. I am not angling for this to be a job where we wind up getting in only to shoot our way out. It can happen, and it might, but plan A is to be on a plane departing before anyone realizes that there's a problem, and that's what I'm hoping I can get out of researching the hub's security features.

[research: 4+6+1=11. Getting intel, an answer, and a follow up after I hear the first answer.]

1 plan comes together hold
1 gear
1 intel

Let me set the scene for you first. The data hub is built into the shadow of the airport - literally. That expanse of flyover land that is constantly filled with roaring plane engines as they hit the runway is filled by a huge warehouse complex and hidden somewhere within that expanse of abandoned buildings is the data hub. Every five minutes like clockwork a plane passes directly overhead, filling the air with deafening noise.

This configuration means a number of things immediately:
- The entire facility is piggybacking off airport security. Response time if an alarm goes up is measured in the time it takes for a power armoured goon to jump a fence.
- Organic security is light, technical security is heavy. With the constant noise any workers will be up for OH&S claims instantly so the primary defense is elaborate camera and sensor nets. There isn't really much of an organic work crew on site either.
- What they're doing is, at least visually, above board. If your defense plan is to call the cops then there isn't going to be anything lying around that gets you arrested. This means that there won't be any blatantly illegal defences or traps - and given New Adelaide's laws, that means you won't even see a gun inside.
- Matrix security is heavy, including organic sysadmins on counterhacking duty. This means that they will be able to deploy Black ICE if they think it's necessary. Given the noise, and the security holes they represent, it's unlikely these sysadmins will be on site.

Essentially ImageFX has managed to get world class security for the cost of some worthless real estate. It's an elegant design. That said, the weakness to a design like this is that if the balloon never goes up the security is literally absent - it's an empty cluster of buildings filled with sensors, scanners and tripwires.

[Anarion]

Follow up question, where would I find the human operators keeping the place technologically locked down?

[Raine_Sage]

Alright as infiltrator my research question will be what screening measures the airport uses to catch people trying to smuggle in gear.

[roll0]

Ugh of course it would be the research roll that drops me off the plan.

[Elanorin]

Alright as infiltrator my research question will be what screening measures the airport uses to catch people trying to smuggle in gear.


This is Trace's number one concern for the whole mission, how to get her gear to New Adelaide, and she will helpfully be hovering over Zephyr's shoulder as she conducts her research:

[Rolling to Help Zephyr with Researching Airport Security: 6+1+1=8 Take +1 to your result.]

[Thanqol]

Follow up question, where would I find the human operators keeping the place technologically locked down?

Office drones in a call centre across town. It's easy to find because for high level cyber defense like this they need to be directly on the internet trunk cable. About a hundred or so sysadmins file into open plan cubicles every day to stare blankly at their screens waiting for something - anything - to indicate a network breach on the dozens of systems they monitor.

Security is light but professional. There'll be CSU teams moving around, specialized for dealing with infiltrators and corporate spies and ready to alert the authorities. Keep in mind, though, you don't need to enter the building to accomplish your goal - you just need to disable it.


Alright as infiltrator my research question will be what screening measures the airport uses to catch people trying to smuggle in gear.

[roll0]

Ugh of course it would be the research roll that drops me off the plan.

Oh, they use the works. Infrared, cybernetically uplifted sniffer dogs, detectors, multispectral visors, biometrics, x-rays, z-rays. This is the planet's capital airport and they have spared literally no expense. As you read it goes from being 'very secure' to 'ludicrously secure' to 'the government is literally being scammed into buying security it has no possible need for'.

That said, there is a way through. See, not every airport is as absurdly overfunded as New Adelaide - find some dunghill airstrip in the boonies and it'll have a plane go to the central hub and only be checked thoroughly when it lands.

So if you can figure out a way to get your gear off the plane before it lands you might be able to bypass that whole fortress entirely.

[Elanorin]

Oh, they use the works. Infrared, cybernetically uplifted sniffer dogs, detectors, multispectral visors, biometrics, x-rays, z-rays. This is the planet's capital airport and they have spared literally no expense. As you read it goes from being 'very secure' to 'ludicrously secure' to 'the government is literally being scammed into buying security it has no possible need for'.

That said, there is a way through. See, not every airport is as absurdly overfunded as New Adelaide - find some dunghill airstrip in the boonies and it'll have a plane go to the central hub and only be checked thoroughly when it lands.

So if you can figure out a way to get your gear off the plane before it lands you might be able to bypass that whole fortress entirely.

"So it's a case of me doing a parachute jump as we approach New Adelaide, packed with all our gear, then meet up in the city," Trace commented matter-of-factly, still hovering over Zephyr, sucking on another lollipop noisily.

She dug her hand in her pocket and felt the little cloth parcel holding Mars' cube resting there. She twiddled with it between her fingertips still inside her pocket.

"I can do that," she added, pulling the lollipop out and gesturing with it like a conductor's baton as she went on, "so we need tickets from ass-end of nowhere to New Adelaide, I'd say on a night-time flight, a decent parachute, and a sturdy something to pack our junk in. Unless the plan is to just aim me at everything in which case I'll just jump as I am."

She pressed a corner of the cube in to the soft peak of one of her fingertips, through the handkerchief cloth. "We should swing by the zoo too. I need a monkey, or somethin'."

[Raine_Sage]

Zephyr
Harm: 0/6 Experience: 1/10
[gear:1] [Intel:1]


"So it's a case of me doing a parachute jump as we approach New Adelaide, packed with all our gear, then meet up in the city," Trace commented matter-of-factly, still hovering over Zephyr, sucking on another lollipop noisily.

"Mmhm, more or less." she pauses for a moment to scribble a rough outline. "As for getting you off the plane, we can probably smuggle you into the cargo hold. Get the doors open when you're over the landing target. Make it look like a mechanical mishap, bet you it happens all the time in the cheap seats. Like the cargo door decides to randomly jettison a bunch of luggage out, and some of it is our luggage. Or something."

She pauses and looks up at Trace. "How are you feeling? We should probably get you like, an antivenom or something if your have your heart set on skydiving."

[Thanqol]

"Mmhm, more or less." she pauses for a moment to scribble a rough outline. "As for getting you off the plane, we can probably smuggle you into the cargo hold. Get the doors open when you're over the landing target. Make it look like a mechanical mishap, bet you it happens all the time in the cheap seats. Like the cargo door decides to randomly jettison a bunch of luggage out, and some of it is our luggage. Or something."

Spend [Intel] here and this statement will become true to the point where there won't even be an immediate police response.

[Raine_Sage]

Consider it spent then.

[Elanorin]

"Mmhm, more or less." she pauses for a moment to scribble a rough outline. "As for getting you off the plane, we can probably smuggle you into the cargo hold. Get the doors open when you're over the landing target. Make it look like a mechanical mishap, bet you it happens all the time in the cheap seats. Like the cargo door decides to randomly jettison a bunch of luggage out, and some of it is our luggage. Or something."

She pauses and looks up at Trace. "How are you feeling? We should probably get you like, an antivenom or something if your have your heart set on skydiving."

"Some minor explosives should make short work of even the most stubborn cargo door," Trace offers, ever the fan of the quick and easy. "I can just hide inside a big bag. Check me in," she grins, quite liking the idea.

Her smile fades at being asked how she's feeling. She frowns a little, trying to seem unaffected. "I'm alright. It's not too bad." Trace did not enjoy being the focus of aid efforts. "I'll deal with it," then the smile was suddenly back, "shall we go get the stuff?"