Sink, Hollywood, Sink, an experiment in running SR4 Options

[Glyph]

Dancer - At The Party

Dancer politely declines Carroway's offer of a drink, holding up the glass of beer she already has almost apologetically. She watches as DD gives Carroway the same once-over. But now that she knows DD is part of the team being assembled, she wonders how much of it is professional appraisal. DD is a bit of a mystery. She seems nice, but some of the things she says seem strangely off, as if she were talking about a trid show instead of an actual group of real shadowrunners.

She raises her glass at DD's toast. After she finishes her beer, she is ready to hit the dance floor. She cajoles the other two to join her. DD seemed receptive to the idea earlier, and if Carroway is too shy to go, at least she can tease him a bit.

[Fuchs]

DD - At the Party

Dancing... or staying at the bar, and getting more drinks... Not really a contest. DD smiles, downs her drink, and pushes herself off the bar, moving so that Carroway is between her and Kate, grinning at the ork girl.

"Do you care to join us, Monsieur?"

[Tobias]

Carroway – At The Party

Grinning slightly Carroway lets the ladies lead him to the dance floor, downing his drink before heading off with them. When in rome…

“Of course I will.�

[JonathanC]

The following morning, when you awaken (wherever you awaken) there is a brief encrypted text message awaiting you on your commlink. It contains the following message:

I require a certain blood sample to be removed surreptitiously from the Caduceus Medical Group testing lab in Pasadena, located at 1724 E. Washington Blvd. It is of the utmost importance that the removal not be discovered, even if the break-in itself is compromised. I understand that a job this subtle may require time, and I will be happy to receive news of your success within the next 40 days. The standard pay for this job will be 18,000 nuyen. If you complete the job within 30 days, the payment will be 20,000 nuyen. Within 20 days, it will be 22,000 nuyen. And if you manage to deliver the package to me within 7 days, the payment will be 25,000 nuyen.

The blood sample I require will be labelled #3950023413651190. It must not be damaged or spoiled in any way. Any other biological samples associated with this label, if there are any, must also be delivered.

The message is followed by address information, a photograph of the building, and the location code of the building's matrix node. From the outside, it looks like a residential building that has been converted to industrial use, tucked away in a rather bland looking part of Pasadena.

[Glyph]

Dancer - The Next Day

Dancer wakes with the soft morning light, well-rested but still feeling a mellow langour. She hums tunelessly but cheerfully as she pads over to the bathroom cubicle. She squeezes into the cramped shower stall, letting the lukewarm trickle from the porta-shower sluice away the night's sweat.

She lets her mind wander back to the party - if she was a cat, she would be purring and batting her little paws in the air. Plenty of pretty, pretty people to hook up with, although near the end there were a few scenes of the inevitable drama. She stayed clear of those, except for comforting a girl sobbing incoherently in the bathroom, and helping her get a cab home. The only slightly jarring note was on the way back, when her commlink got pinged by some of the people she had met at the rave earlier. Mostly compliments from watching her at the party. She hadn't realized she was putting on such a public show.

As she is towelling herself off, she notices her commlink flashing again. With a rueful sigh, she picks it up, but this time, it's business. Suddenly intense, she carefully scans the message, and spends a few minutes pondering it. So. A break-in, and fairly serious work. Good. But what will she be doing?

She has people skills, and the human element is usually the weakest link to any security. And she will also be a ready gun, protecting the people doing the more delicate work. Others, more suited, will get information on the deceptively low-key looking building's defenses. They will give her names of people she can work on turning. In the meantime, she can get a leg up on the bodyguarding part of the run, by scouting out the place.

Well, not the place itself, so much as the neighborhood. She will swing by there, and see what the people look like, what fits in, what the streets are like, and what their escape will need to entail. She will become familiar with the alleys, the natural cover, the quickest route out of there.

Looking on her commlink, she locates a small coffee place nearby. Perfect. She can wander around the area, getting a feel for it, under the pretext of looking for the place. Dressing in corporate casual, a conservative but still flattering pantsuit, she takes the tube to the neighborhood to begin checking things out. On the way, she opens a commcall to DD, suggesting that the group get together for lunch to discuss the job, and asking if she knows a good place.

Looking at the time, she realizes that it is not quite 6 AM yet, and some of the group might not be up for awhile yet. But that's fine - it means she will have her limited but hopefully productive recon done by then. She would rather show up with a bit of information. It's partly insecurity; she knows others will be doing more of the planning and tech-heavy aspects of the job, and that she is little more than either bait for a target, or an extra gun. She wants to be seen as doing her share.

[Sir_Psycho]

Blackie was not in the mood. He took a hard drag of a cigarette as he glanced through the modern french doors to the party major, where the party was going from having an orgiastic vibe to being a straight up orgy. Code Pink. Code Sexy. Fascinating. Blackie rolled his eyes, shaking away the various camera feeds he had been watching in his AR overlay. There didn't seem to be any players here, no dirt, nothing to sniff. Blackie was hit with a wave of helplessness. What if there's nothing going on here? What if... No, there are things happening LA. I can get to them. I've done it before. I just need some money and some time.

Blackie took a last drag of his cigarette, tossed it into the pool and headed around the garden path to the front of the house, to receive his gun and step back onto the streets.

________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________

Blackie spent the rest of the night wandering LA. From the rich neighbourhood enclaves to the slums, dark alleys, chinese take-away restaurants, he even strode along a beach barefoot. He took pictures and recorded sensations as he went, of the people and places, his travelling facilitated by hacking a metropolitan travel pass for the night.

As he approached the the threshhold of his cell at Chateau de Motel Vacancy, he felt the sensation of a commlink message. Upon throwing his clothes to the floor of his doss, Blackie crashed down on the hard bed and brought up the message.

Oh drek, it's a long run. Blackie would have to discuss this with the team, perhaps. "Half up front" came to mind. And with that, so did Psyche, and maybe some commlink upgrades. Oh well, maybe he'd have to get this job done quick. He was going to need a lot more info. What does Caduceus do? Who, if anyone, owns them? What about floorplans? security? If the building used to be residential, then maybe there would be some old floorplans with "unconventional access-points". Who was the architect and builders who converted the building?

Frag sleep. Blackie mentally switched on his RAS override and flopped down onto the bed, watching the VR landscape stretch out before him. Time for some legwork.

[Fuchs]

DD – The Day After

„Caduceus Medical Group…“ DD wrinkled her nose, taking another sip from her latte machiatto, sitting in a street cafe and watching the late morning traffic – mostly data traffic in her AR view while mulling over the job offer. It looked like a complicated job. And it had to be subtle. That meant, at best, a heavily editted recording with the best – the slick swapping/grabbing of the target samples – left out. That wouldn’t bet hat good for the team’s P2.0 rating aspiration.

The blonde woman bit into a croissant, mulling the run over. Payment was good, and the team was visually attractive. And the run had started well, with an interesting meeting - and after-meeting. She reminded herself to go over her simrig recordings later, to see if there was anything useful that happened during the party – her memory was a bit hazy concerning the last hours. At least she had slept through the eX downer. And payment was good. No reason not to do it then.

And Kate was right, they had to have a meeting. If only to have a close up recording of all the team members, and the sure to be memorable interaction. But DD doubted they’d go for a street cafe like the one she was in, probably not serious enough for the russian, and she did not know of another equally comfortable meeting spot.

But finding stuff out was her job, and there should be enough information about suitable meeting spots available, after a bit of digging. The blonde leaned back in her seat, and went full VR to do some of said digging.

Oh, and I should get some info about the target location too.

On a whim, the woman also sent out a query about blood samples, and magic.

[Cthulhudreams]

Dagda - At home

Dagda wakes up early to the insistent buzzing of his fairly primative alarm. Lacking a DNI he cannot take advantage of the modern world's more sopsticated options and instead uses something that would have been right at home on a bedside table 60 years ago. He rolls to his feet, flicks the alarm off with a grunt and walks to the bathroom, snatching up his commlink as he goes, sliding in one of the earbuds and planning to crank up the music.

"One new message" - the pleasant, surprisingly realistic artifical voice interrupts his revere.

Dagda stares out the window at his suspiciously well manicured lawn. He wonders if it is artifical for a moment. Probably. Then he walks into his shower, tossing the commlink onto the sink and vocally re-routing the visuals into the bathroom mirror, the displayed pictures covered in a thin mist of steam.

As the female voice reads out the text, Dagda tries to guess at the motives behind the mission.

Stealing a blood sample means that someone has something to hide, either the blood donor, or the company that 'donated' the blood on behalf of some person or creature. If its the blood donor, he's probably got an incurable problem, either a ghoul or a vampire.

This fits better with the wanting to hide the blood sample swap too - if the company doesn't know what it has that would explain why it is taking its sweet time to test it, and why a covert swap out would work. If they knew roughly what to expect but where looking for the form of a secret, they'd test it faster and know roughly what to expect - so our vial of hobo blood would be found pretty quickly.

Hrm

"Computer, note: 'Procure replacement sample untraceably'"

If we get something they can trace, they may bother to look up what the fake vial is filled with when they go test it, and then we could come badly unstuck. Someone probably needs to go cap some generically grizzled SINless bastard in the head and dump the corpse in the river.

With that he gets out of the shower doesn't really bother to towel himself off, grabbing a cool soft drink from his fridge and his trode net from the kitchen table. Then he walks out the back leaving a trail of puddles on his tiles, before collapsing onto a sunlounge on his front like a slothful lizard warming itself in the early morning sun, his lichen patches soaking up the warmth.

He slips on his trode net and briefly deals with some of his other mail, keeping his feelers out for other work, then turns his attention back to the job at hand. He dashes out a message CC'ed to the entire team from the commcodes he cribbed last night, carefully couching things in corp-deal speak and consultantese to muddle the picture in case someone else reads the mail.

"I want to close out the deal on the clients most aggressive timeframe to ensure we can secure premium rates for this deal and potential future oppotunities to arise with the same client. As such this gives us a week to complete the M&A. My proposed timeframe for discussion & comment:

Day 1 (Today) - Project onboarding meeting @ lunchtime, commence due diligence

Day 2 - due diligence

Day 3 - due diligence / planning for merger, including plan for intergration of IT systems, security arrangagements and capturing our methadology for the important seemless transistion requested by the client

Day 4 - Conducting any off-site work in preperation for the aquisition

Day 5 - Conclude aquisition on-site at sell side firm's premises

Day 6 - 'Slack Day' in case we need to postpone the previous day's work

Day 7 - Deal signoff and handover with buy side client

Day 8 - Project team rolls off.

It's my shout if someone can find a decent restaurant around here. Somewhere with a private room as we need to keep the client and sell side confidential."

He briefly checks the time as he sends the mail. 7:15. Good."

Then he rolls over onto his back and gets cracking with his electronic and magical allies, mustering his forces for this afternoon's astral investigation.

[JonathanC]

Dancer - The Next Day

Dancer wakes with the soft morning light, well-rested but still feeling a mellow langour. She hums tunelessly but cheerfully as she pads over to the bathroom cubicle. She squeezes into the cramped shower stall, letting the lukewarm trickle from the porta-shower sluice away the night's sweat.

She lets her mind wander back to the party - if she was a cat, she would be purring and batting her little paws in the air. Plenty of pretty, pretty people to hook up with, although near the end there were a few scenes of the inevitable drama. She stayed clear of those, except for comforting a girl sobbing incoherently in the bathroom, and helping her get a cab home. The only slightly jarring note was on the way back, when her commlink got pinged by some of the people she had met at the rave earlier. Mostly compliments from watching her at the party. She hadn't realized she was putting on such a public show.

As she is towelling herself off, she notices her commlink flashing again. With a rueful sigh, she picks it up, but this time, it's business. Suddenly intense, she carefully scans the message, and spends a few minutes pondering it. So. A break-in, and fairly serious work. Good. But what will she be doing?

She has people skills, and the human element is usually the weakest link to any security. And she will also be a ready gun, protecting the people doing the more delicate work. Others, more suited, will get information on the deceptively low-key looking building's defenses. They will give her names of people she can work on turning. In the meantime, she can get a leg up on the bodyguarding part of the run, by scouting out the place.

Well, not the place itself, so much as the neighborhood. She will swing by there, and see what the people look like, what fits in, what the streets are like, and what their escape will need to entail. She will become familiar with the alleys, the natural cover, the quickest route out of there.

Looking on her commlink, she locates a small coffee place nearby. Perfect. She can wander around the area, getting a feel for it, under the pretext of looking for the place. Dressing in corporate casual, a conservative but still flattering pantsuit, she takes the tube to the neighborhood to begin checking things out. On the way, she opens a commcall to DD, suggesting that the group get together for lunch to discuss the job, and asking if she knows a good place.

Looking at the time, she realizes that it is not quite 6 AM yet, and some of the group might not be up for awhile yet. But that's fine - it means she will have her limited but hopefully productive recon done by then. She would rather show up with a bit of information. It's partly insecurity; she knows others will be doing more of the planning and tech-heavy aspects of the job, and that she is little more than either bait for a target, or an extra gun. She wants to be seen as doing her share.

The ride to Pasadena is long and arduous by public transit...and by arduous, one is of course speaking of one's fellow commuters. Loud, stinking, obnoxious humanoids of various ages, mostly the rather young or the very old, are packed into buses because they can't afford to drive. And then there's the traffic. On the bright side, the buses do have matrix access, so it's not a total loss. Blogs, news, messages....and speaking of which, today's headlines:

Teenage pregnancy is rising among non-orks (it is assumed within the mainstream media that teenage pregnancy is normal for orks). The usual racist demagogues are blaming this on the orksploitation craze, while others complain that it's a lack of curfew enforcement and inadequate parenting.

Ten people were killed in a high-speed car crash caused by street racers buzzing through what is left of downtown L.A. Tests are forthcoming, but police suspect that the drivers were intoxicated at the time.

The Digital Entertainment Expo, sponsored by Horizon, will be getting underway in just under 3 weeks. A gigantic floating barge is being constructed over the sunken remains of Los Angeles, and P2.0 is abuzz with people making arrangements for their attendance.

[Fuchs]

DD – the Day after the Party

DD reads the mail she got from the russian. Corpspeak at its best. He’ll really be the perfect straight man. But a meeting at noon? That’s pushing it. She’s gotten wind of some possible meeting spots – a CRUSH BAR in Burbank, empty during the day, and full of sports fans during the night, and three parks in Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena.

Hm… A meeting at noon? I wonder if everyone is even up at that time.

DD proposes the bar as a meeting spot. If nothing else, it should provide a colorful background. And no need to install many additional security measures.

Then she studies what she dug up about the Caduceus Group so far:

CODE

Caduceus Group Background:
CEO/President: Charles Manning (male human)
VP of Customer Relations: Sarisa Srivastiva (female human)
Administrator of the Pasadena Lab: Dr. Franklin Yu (male human)
Head of Quality Control at the Pasadena Lab: Dr. Paul Harris (male human)
Top 10 Shareholders: Landon Summers, Tyler Sexton, Ashley Beir, Alexis DeLaurentis, Austin Madison, Adam Killings, Kenta Matsumoto, Marcus Park, Zachary Matapolous, Victoria Kaneshiro.

Hmm.

According to the info, the corp specialised on medical testing, and won the city’s free disease testing contract following the flood. And most of the adult trid/simsense studios use it for testing as well. Usually the blood samples are taken by doctors, and sent to the Pasadena facility where they are held and tested.

I wonder what that blood sample holds that someone wants it to disappear. Fake identity? Or some nasty genetic legacy/disaease they want covered up?

DD’s mind wanders a bit, going over possible (and lurid) scenarios, fueld by the information she found about Blood magic. Lots of conspiracy theories about Aztechnology. Interstingly, there was a blood mage 20 years ago in Pasadena, suspected of a string of gruesome murders. She was found dead in a shallow grave behind her apartment, done in by Shadowrunners, or so the assumption is.

The location of the facility is used by Caduceus since 2061. Prior to that the building was used by a large fertility clinic called Families Inc., which was eventually discovered to be an Aztechnology front corporation, and was thus removed. DD located a copy of the building plans, but 5 years old ones – an eternity in L.A.

Leaning back, and ordering another latte machiatto, DD waits for a confirmation where the meeting will be held, running a matrix search about disease among adult simsense and trid actors, and parenting suits.

[Glyph]

Dancer - The Next Day

Dancer tries her best to tune out the other passengers. At first, they were a welcome break from the brittle plastic people hustling in Van Nuys, but they lost their novelty quickly. She welcomes the distraction of the news, silly blather that most of it is.

Her commlink pings. Is DD getting back to her already? No, it's from the Russian. Wow. All of that corpspeak nearly makes her eyes cross. She sends a quick reply, using her commlink's thesaurus to help with the bigger words:

"Doing some preliminary work on the deal. Should have some ideas for the initial meeting. An associate is looking into reserving a location for us."

Well, at least she's not the only one up early. That's good.

As the interminable bus ride finally ends, and she disembarks at Pasadena, her commlink chimes yet again. This time it's from DD, suggesting a CRUSH BAR in Burbank, of all places, for the meet. She snorts in amusement, imagining the Russian's likely reaction. But it actually isn't a bad venue for a meet. The meager daytime crowd, and the noisy, blaring tridscreens, will give them the functional equivalent of a private room.

Calling up her thesaurus again, she sends a reply to DD and the other team members.

"I concur with our associate. The place may lack the proper amenities, but we will have the privacy we need, and getting this project running quickly is our main concern."

[Cthulhudreams]

Dagda on his sun lounge

Dagda is just preparing to focus on connecting with the spirits as his DNI unobtrusively serves up DD's and Dancer's messages in rapid succession. He snorts, then grins broadly, radiopathically responding to the entire team with

"Okay, done - I've been there before, the booths are fairly isolated and the crowd is not likely to care. I've got a white noise generator that will round out our privacy needs. I'll see you there, 1 o'clock?"

[Tobias]

Carroway – The morning after

Groaning as he woke up Carroway rolled out of his bed and looked around. Looking at the mirror he grinned slightly remembering last night. With a quick wave of his hand his body ran over a quick clean up. The joys of magic. He picked up his commlink as he moved through his living room, Retrieval of a blood sample, lets hope that its not for magical reasons because you’ve got to hate ritual groups. Ah the joy of corp speak, CRUSH BAR at 1

Pinging a message to the others, “Dear Associates, I will be glad to meet up face to face to discuss this Acquisition with you at the CRUSH Bar at 1. See you all there
Carroway�

Getting dressed in something fashionable he heads out for a quick breakfast on the town stopping at a few coffee shop, driving his car between each one.

[Cthulhudreams]

Dagda

Dagda rolls onto his back, basking in the sun, then with a few seconds of concentrate rattles of a series of orders to his home and his drones, flyspies buzzing out from boxes to perch in over watch positions, minding his shoes while he is out. A moment of thought results in an accurate knowledge of the time being artifically inserted directly into his brain by technology. 7:51AM.... 7:52AM.

He had never really got used to have raw thought inserted into his brain via computers. It was a really weird sensation. After consulting an AR map, he then orders his car to park in some on street parking where its optical sensors will be able to see the target building, not very well, but at least an empty car parked at a distance will be inconspicuous. He can hear the engine starting up in the drive way and the car rolling off unattended, relying on its droid brain.

A few more seconds of concentration summon two brownies from the corners of his gardens, and he offers them a thimblefuls of vodka while asking one too mind his shoes, and the other to 'follow the real me' in a moment.

[ Spoiler ]

Summon the astral watchers for two hours, buying 2 hits on both tests. One is ordered to watch my body, the other will follow me when I astrally project for further orders.

Leaving the brownies to their simple pleasures, he turns his mind back to the matrix. He always though of agents as herons, or another wading bird. Lurking in the torrent of data and spearing fish out of the stream. A few curt orders causes his agent's AR representation to waddle into the green-y river of the Matrix.

Find out about the Caduceus Group does, find out all information you can about the facility, using all sources. Present me two reports.

[ Spoiler ]

Information about the Caduceus Group, particularly its service offerings -> Browse 3 + Agent 3 => 4 2 3 4 1 6 = 1 hit


Information about the Facility -> Browse 3 + Agent 3 => 3 2 5 5 6 2 = 3 hits.

Then he turns his attention back to the spiritual, letting his perception slide back into the astral.

[ Spoiler ]

Summoning Test Force 3 Spirit of Man => 4 5 3 3 3 6 3 6 2 3 6 4 4 => 4 hits

Spirits test => 1 5 2 => 1 hit

Drain Test => 3 2 4 2 3 5 4 5 4 6 => 3 hits.

After formally greeting the ethereal Skriatok that looks remarkably like Dagda himself with a small portion of food and drink, Dadga slips out of his body.

I always look like I'm dead when I do this.

After telling the spirit to bestow movement on his car so it gets to the target site faster, Dagda then astrally flits in a series of fits and starts to the target facility, constantly having to stop to re-orient himself and consult via his DNI for directions. Once he's there he starts scouting out the place, trying to avoid anyone who can see the astral seeing him, using the watcher as a second pair of eyes.

[Fuchs]

DD - First day on the Run

DD frowns a bit as she reads the messages.

More corpspeak... but 13:00 it is.

The woman checks her outfit - a light dress - and decides it's not fitting for a runner meeting in a CRUSH! Bar. She heads back to her hotel, to change into something more suitable, something more "edgy".

[JonathanC]

Dancer - The Next Day

Dancer tries her best to tune out the other passengers. At first, they were a welcome break from the brittle plastic people hustling in Van Nuys, but they lost their novelty quickly. She welcomes the distraction of the news, silly blather that most of it is.

Her commlink pings. Is DD getting back to her already? No, it's from the Russian. Wow. All of that corpspeak nearly makes her eyes cross. She sends a quick reply, using her commlink's thesaurus to help with the bigger words:

"Doing some preliminary work on the deal. Should have some ideas for the initial meeting. An associate is looking into reserving a location for us."

Well, at least she's not the only one up early. That's good.

As the interminable bus ride finally ends, and she disembarks at Pasadena, her commlink chimes yet again. This time it's from DD, suggesting a CRUSH BAR in Burbank, of all places, for the meet. She snorts in amusement, imagining the Russian's likely reaction. But it actually isn't a bad venue for a meet. The meager daytime crowd, and the noisy, blaring tridscreens, will give them the functional equivalent of a private room.

Calling up her thesaurus again, she sends a reply to DD and the other team members.

"I concur with our associate. The place may lack the proper amenities, but we will have the privacy we need, and getting this project running quickly is our main concern."

Pasadena looks a lot like the rest of Los Angeles...but it is (quite pleasantly) not underwater. The rambling sprawl the defined southern California in the early 21st century has given way to a more tightly packed city of skyscrapers and condominiums. As she approaches the area where the Caduceus lab is located, the buildings do start to get a little lower. The bus stop is about a 10 minute walk away from the building itself, which is nestled within a mostly residential area. It's an unassuming 10 story concrete building, cheap and somewhat ugly. The first floor has a large glass fascade in the front, so the lobby is visible from the outside; there's a security guard looking bored behind the desk, a small elevator bank, some rather bland mass-produced wall art, and faux marble floors.

The building takes up a good portion of the block, and across the street there are several identical apartment buildings that dwarf the lab building, casting deep shadows over it. Car traffic appears moderate at this time of day; this looks to be a street that is used reasonably often by commuters on their way home after exiting the freeway, but traffic can't be that thick around here; there aren't many businesses. About two blocks away there's a Stuffer Shack that probably sells mostly to office workers and local residents.

[Fuchs]

DD - Day 1

Pulling on some cut-off jeans and a top, DD checks the results of her matrix searches. No paternity suits related to the adult movie scene are known. But a lot of information about STDs among adult film stars and starlets. Mutated Mono, maybe a new HIV strain from southeast asia, the older Hepatitis, Herpes, and Gonorrhea. But those are mostly easily treatable. So, why would they be a reason to hire runners?

Maybe a case of stolen identity? Or something magical.

DD picks up her boots, pondering the possible motives behind the run. No place to hide her Predator, but it’s daytime, and the area should be secure. Besides, the color doesn’t match her clothes. So she pockets a Flash-Pak and flags down a cab to get to the CRUSH! Bar.

[Fuchs]

DD - Day 1

Walking the last 50 meters to the bar, DD studies the street through her shades, trying to get a feel for the area before entering the meeting spot.

Picture

So, that's the CRUSH! Bar. Looks like an average bar of the franchise.

The inside looks quite different this time of day, almsot deserted compared to "rush hour" in the evening. A number of Trid-screens show sport events from around the world. DD subscribes to the bar's node, and even more AR screens pop up in her field of view, together with today's special, and some ads for the next games in L.A.

Stupid Spam.

Not many patrons are inside, and the greenhaired young woman walks over to a booth in a corner, away from the street windows, ordering a "ICE!" soda drink and a burger on the way there.

[Glyph]

Dancer - Day of the Meet

Walking briskly through the residential area, Dancer is glad to be stretching her legs after sitting on the bus for so long. She meticulously notes the traffic, the surrounding buildings, how the pedestrians are dressed, and all of the other little details that can only be picked up with hands-on recon. She stays in the area long enough to get a true feel for it, before finally "finding" the coffee place she was supposedly looking for. Not a bad espresso, either, although she's had better - but you can't kick a can without hitting a java joint back in Seattle.

Despite the tortuous commute both ways, her early start leaves her plenty of time to freshen up and change at her place before heading out to the meet. Normally, she would wear cutoffs or a miniskirt in this weather, but she wants to reassure the more reserved members of the team that she doesn't wear party attire all the time. She dons well broken-in black jeans and a black half-tee with a silvery dragon design, which complement her boots and armored synthleather jacket.

Casually walking into the CRUSH BAR!, she orders a small side order of the "nuclear wings", extra-spicy, and an iced tea. Scanning the mostly-empty place, she spots DD in a corner booth, so she waves and walks over.

"DD! Good to see you again!" She is pleased to note that the other young woman seems to have recovered from the last night's festivities. She slides into the booth across from DD, chatting inconsequentially as she sets down her food. She notes the two of them are early, but not by too much.

She tries one of the wings, and finds it a bit bland (despite the ork at the counter warning her it was "really spicy"), so she takes out her small, emergency bottle of habenero sauce and sprinkles some on the wings. Better.

[Fuchs]

DD - Day 1

"Hi Kate! Same to you!"

Dressed more conservatively. Maybe the russian is contagious?

DD greets the ork girl, swallowing the last bite of her burger, and starting on the fries. Chatting about the weather and the area, she electronically sends what info she dug up so far about the mission to Kate.

"The bar's a nice contrast to last night, should be good when cut against each other. I haven't done any work on a site yet, maybe the russian already has a distribution channel set up already, with his corp background. Or do you know a good site? We'll also have to decide if we go sim, or stay trid."

DD shifts a bit, to get a better angle on Dancer, then takes another sip from her ICE! soda.

[Sir_Psycho]

Blackie sat on the steps outside the Motel Vacancy, pouring through the intel he had dug up, windows of text and photographs sliding like a solitaire deck across the insides of his eyeballs. At the same time, he was compiling and feeding some footage and simsense data through some ghost nodes into a Korean data node, where Diagoru kept a huge database of Blackie's photojournalism work. He missed it, and hated LA so far, and expected to for quite some time. He was lighting a cigarette when he got the message. CRUSH? Oh god...Sports journalism.

Blackie was wearing a loose cotton shirt, buttoned low and sleeves rolled to the shoulders, and a pair of ripped to shred denims, with bootcuffs poking out from underneath. He deemed it appropriate enough for the blue collar sports enthusiasts and mid-afternoon alcoholics and took a draw from the cigarette before flicking it into a bin and jumping on a bus bound for burbank. As he settles into a hot and uncomfortable bus seat he keys a data search on Paul Harris and Franklin Yu. He wants to know a little about their involvement in the company, what exactly it is that they do, and some commlinks and nodes they are linked to. When he's done he hits a few LA e-zines that don't make him want to vomit with rage. Shit, drying out is putting me in such a bad mood.

He steels himself as he enters the CRUSH bar, the capitalized SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS style slogans beating at him in AR like a riding crop, feeling the Colt America stir angrily in the small of his back under the loose shirt. Nothing incites Blackie to violence more than sports Journalism. He quickly spots the familiar faces and slides into a seat, he gives the team a quick glance over as he sits. The chatty Ork girl is looking contrastingly bohemian to the night before, in her black on black outfit. With a flick of green fiber-optics, the second girl glances up at him expectantly.

"I haven't killed many men, but there was this one sports journalist." He mutters with a scowl and a glance at the trid displays. "Can I smoke in here?"

[JonathanC]

The waittress bursts out laughing when Blackie asks if he can smoke, nearly dropping a platter of fried cheese(?) sticks (called "CHEDDAR!" on the menu), then goes on about her business.

[Fuchs]

DD - Day 1

And there comes the other serious one... Killed a few? Hardcase. Better don't provoke him...

"Hi! I am DD! Nice to meet you!"

DD gives Blackie her best smile.

[Cthulhudreams]

Dagda - at home

Dagda comes back to his body with a sigh, knowing he'll have to go back and do another round of astral scouting to actually develop a picture of the place. He rolls off the sun lounge and dismisses the brownies, going back into the house to get dressed.

Dagda - Outside the crash bar

Dressed in another smartly tailored outfit - genuine leather boots, crisply pressed trousers, an open neck shirt that exposes hints of both his lichen and his chest and an sports jacket that almost, but not quite, perfectly conceals his SMG, Dagda lingers outside the bar.

Overdressed, but nothing else hides the gun. Hrm.

He then focuses, and runs his hand smoothly down the lines of his jacket, the printing of his SMG disappearing entirely as though it wasn't there.

[ Spoiler ]

Physical Mask Force 3 to appear as me except not wearing an SMG under his jacket.

4 6 5 3 1 6 3 5 4 1 3 => 4 hits capped to 3

Drain

4 1 4 6 1 6 4 5 1 3 => 3 hits drain absorbed.

Dagda then strolls into the bar, completely unaware of the AR as he isn't wearing his glasses, pausing at the counter to order a sizable brunch - orange juice for the team, made from some synthetic concentrate, and bacon, sausages and heavily buttered toast from himself, before sliding into the end of the booth and offering his hand to Blackie for a quick, but firm, shake.

"Hey guys, how are we feeling about this one? I reckon we probably need a brief chat about what we each do too."

[Sir_Psycho]

Blackie hides the throbbing pain in his right hand from Dagda's emasculating grip behind the same cold scowl he's had almost perpetually for the last two days. He flicks a cigarette out and lights it, taking a quick draw before turning back to Dagda.

"It won't ruin your lunch if I smoke, will it? Anyway, aren't we waiting for the flashy brit in the ponytail?"