(IC)Integrity, In the LA Shadows Options

[Curuinor]

1900 Pacific Time, 7/2/72

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The sign atop this noodle metropolis reads "To's Noodles". Because of its rampaging success, the signs of the buildings adjacent also read "To's Noodles". To the searing July sun, made ever more insidious and certainly more foul-smelling by the wildfires which had burned up the countryside a hundred miles south, To's Noodles offers a refreshing, air-conditioned and filtered bulwark. The place thus bustles with all sorts, in mismatched chairs under mismatched lights besides mismatched wallpaper. Many Hollywood stars now look back upon it fondly, as the cheap but good place that they ate in while they looked for their big break. And, of course, Hollywood stars-to-be eat and work in here, hoping for their big break. The food, made under the watchful eye of Tokohamaya Wolf-Under-The-Stars, the owner and proprietor of the place, is often considered better than real noodles.

However, at dinnertime(now), To's is mostly empty. There is only a gathering of trolls in one corner and the occasional night-owl starting the day here and there. However, Tokohamaya himself maintains his seemingly-eternal vigilance at the bar.

[ Spoiler ]

You have gathered here to meet your Johnson. The details of how this encounter was planned are up to you. We also have a new system for OOC chat: this. I was looking for the spoiler button, and couldn't find it. Kind of weird.

[Shadow]

Whisper was sitting across the street from To's noodles, the sun beat down on his coolie hat casting a shadow over his head and shoulders. The bus stop bench he occupied smelled of foul bodily fluids he would rathe rnot think about. The building filled his vision over the vapid magazine he was pretending to read. The place was quiet for the time of day, laying dorment just before the huge dinner time rush.

He had been scanning the place for the last ten minutes, both visually and astraly. He was virtually invisible here, after all who would notice another Chinese sitting outside a popular Chinese resteraunt? He had summoned two watchers, who appeared as short Bhuda's to aid him. From what he coudl tell there was no malevolent intent about the place.

"Small and mighty Bhuda, please stay here, if anyone with a high presence of mana, such as a elemental, comes into the resteraunt, come and tell me quickly. Do this untill I tell you otherwise," to the other watcher he spoke, "stay near me and warn me of any magical energy coming at me."

The commands were simple and open enough, nothing to detailed that would confuse the watcher's small intelligence.

Checking the time on his commlink Whisper decided it was time to go. The inside of the restraunt was cool and a welcome relief to the outside heat. He removed his coolie hat, and bowed as he entered the building.

[Glyph]

Dancer approaches To's Noodles, replaying her commcall from Whippet in her mind. He was a bit vague on the meeting, only saying that the Johnson would be expecting her, and that she might be working with some talent she already knew. He seemed to be distracted, probably juggling two or three other commcalls at the same time.

"Of course, I've come to realize that's normal for him," she thinks to herself.

The young orkish woman is dressed for the sweltering heat, in a plaid skirt and a sleeveless blouse. Informal, but not quite as informal as the lady who rollerskates past her in nothing but a bikini, a yapping little dog on a leash in tow.

She smiles faintly, before entering the restaurant proper. The air conditioning and lack of pretentious decor are both welcome - indeed, she's eaten here before. It would have been nice if the Johnson had picked a busier time for the meet, though. The group will stand out more than she would like. At least the other patrons don't seem like they are that interested in anyone else's business.

She steps up to the counter.

"A small cup of the extra-spicy noodles, please."

She spots Whisper, not surprised that the conscientious mage is even earlier than she is. She makes eye contact, but gives no other indication that she recognizes him yet, and sits down at an adjacent table. Still keeping an eye out for any signs of the Johnson.

[Mickle5125]

Rose giggles as she watches the watchers on the astral plane. It's the very definition of Irony in her opinion.

She boredly kicks her legs as she watches over the noodle shop from her seat on a window ledge across the street. She first arrived hours ago, fully Concealed, to make sure that nobody was setting up a trap. It wouldn't do to be caught off guard like Damien was... She shakes her head angrily. No thinking like that!


She moves her focus on from the watchers to scan the street again, smiling to herself as she spots Dancer coming down the street. She hops off the ledge and spreads her wings, gliding down towards the Noodle shop. With a few flaps of her iridescent wings, she manages to glide through the door just as Dancer walks through.

Giggling mischievously, she waits until Dancer sits down, then leans over her shoulder and whispers, "Hey Dancer! Did you get a call, too?"

[Glyph]

Dancer gives only a slight start, but Rose knows enough about Dancer's preternatural control of her expressions to count it as a victory.

"Hey, Rose," she replies, sotto voice. "So you got a call too? And Whisper's here - wonder if it's going to be the whole gang?"

[ravensoracle]

Doc does his best to give the wageslave lost in the wrong part of town impresion as he slowly drives by To's noodles. In reality he is giving the place a once over before going in, as well as, giving Malloc time to look over the place using the Ultrawideband Sensor suite on his forearm that was slaved to Doc's primary commlink. The commlink that Malloc just happened to have hitched a ride on for this particular meeting.

Once Malloc gave him the okay, he parked a couple blocks away in a secure parking garage and meandered back toward the restaurant. On the way Doc took a look at himself in the reflection of a boutique's windows. Adjusting his tie and straightening his suit jacket so the armor weave was less obvious, he then finishes his leasurely walk to the shop.

He subvocalizes some small talk with Malloc along the way, nothing important, just catching up on each others lives. Before he gets too close though he pats his inner coat pocket and asks "Malloc, you probably already know this since your in my system, but do you want me to save you a seat since I brought along the holo projector? If it isn't slaved in to the comm, go ahead and connect to it. It's so much easier when it looks like your actually sitting there with us."

Doc turns the corner just in time to see Dancer enter the shop ahead of him, completely oblivious of the pixie, Rose in tow. He tries to wave hello but the orc passes thru the door before he can even raise his arm. Slightly abashed he continues on, the job already looking better with another friend present. Doc nods to Whisper as he sits and does a double take when he finally notices Rose.

"Looks like someone did their homework if we are all here together. How are all of you doing this evening?"

[Glyph]

Dancer smiles.

"Doing good, doc. Looks like we're all here - is Malloc with you? It looks like the only one we're waiting for now is the Johnson."

[BlackHat]

The daily realignment process completed with the usual sudden calm. Opening new eyes, Malloc.I emerged from the center of the data noise like a neon phoenix rising from its own ashes. Like ashes, the discarded unused streams of information flitted softly to the floor. This was a stark contrast to the recent malestrom of activity that had gathered them together in the first place. This process of rebirth was nothing new, to this entity.

Malloc.I took a moment to analyze his icon. As usual, his shape resembled that of a metahuman, it was composed of countless tiny images, numbers, and bits of data and code - today, he recognized several images belonging to corporate security footage he had managed to get a copy of, before the host had disconnected the day before - all swirling about his form, in a constant state of change. Ever changing. Ever evolving. Long tendrils of data reached from his extremities, and wormed their way into the floor. As they mingled with the node, his icon began to slither apart and merge with it. The last piece to vanish was a mish-mash of metahuman facial features cut-and-paste into something that approximated a face.

In this form, he took a quick tour of his home. At least, this was his current home - a public access node, offering free anonymous matrix access. The walls, which appeared as trideo-screens showing the thousands of channels his MSP provided clicked sporadically to life, and the usual thick haze of data grew quickly, now that the node's scheduled "maintenance" had concluded and a dozen users had already resumed their previous matrix activity. Streams of data, most of which were at least lightly encrypted, began to rush through the node making any particular icon more difficult to pick out from the mess. The data roared in both directions from one particular connection - a portal spinning high in the virtual landscape, representing the latency between the hotspot in Tokyo, and the geostationary satellite that the hotspot was using to connect to the matrix at large. In the speed-of-thought world of the modern matrix, delays of one second are no longer considered unacceptable. The users accessing the Daikoukyou hotspot, however, were more than happy to overlook the slow connection, for the assurance that their illicit transactions could not be traced back to their personal information. It was through this connection that Malloc.I would explore his universe. His spectral hand rose from the sculpture of the nexus, and his long fingers snaked upwards through the icon.

36,000 kilometers away, on the Kabushiki Gaisha Sukai PÄ?fekuto KomyunikÄ“shonzu satellite system, Malloc.I's "fingers" reached, unseen, into the node, and coalesce into a second icon, looking much like his first, except that the fingers of the first had become marionette-like strings on the second. Or, that is, he would have looked like this, if any of the icons on the node were capable of distinguishing his icon from the rest of the node. Instead, they went on about their business, streaming sim-flicks, trideo, and other entertainment back to Earth. Malloc.I similarly resumed his own business, after setting up a new commcode for himself, and checking his messages. He reached out again, opening a connection to the Kabushiki Gaisha Sukai PÄ?fekuto KomyunikÄ“shonzu central node in Tokyo. From there, he sent out a request for a particular access ID, and was quickly routed and rerouted across the Earth - traveling another 8,000 kilometers, in an instant - leaving a barely visible datatrail, in the form of his "strings" as his second icon moved from one node to the other, across an intercontinental Matrix backbone that spanned the pacific ocean.

In Los Angelos, in the Novatech Airware belonging to Doc, another copy of Malloc.I's avatar crept into being and began making himself comfortable in the custom OS. Connections were opened, and encrypted, allowing Malloc.I to access the doctor's armband-sensor, image-link, and the (rather low quality) microphone attached to the commlink. He spent the morning sifting through the commlink's contents, running a purge program to make sure the link was virus-free, while helping himself, voyeuristic, to whatever new data Doc had not marked as off-limits.

As usual, the Doc was not particularly computer-sauve, nor particularly worried about Malloc.I, and there was a small datatrail of cached Matrix activity, and the access-log gave Malloc.I enough information that the AI could entertain himself piecing together the jig-saw puzzle of discarded information while his purge-scan completed, and while the doctor made his way towards their destination.

When the commlink's internal GPS indicated they were in the vicinity of To's Noodles, he announced his presence to the doctor, who was probably not otherwise aware of it, by displaying an icon in his image-link announcing the commlink was malware-free. After being instructed to do so, he activated the arm radar, flashing a handful of warning icons briefly, linking to Matrix-resources regarding the questionable safety of millimeter-wave implants and personal technology. The information wasn't anything new to the doctor - mostly anti-Corp propaganda - and Malloc.I resigned to mapping the area, and scanning for people and weapons. The results were forwarded to Doc's image-link in an out-of-the-place corner of his field-of-view.

When he finished, and Doc mentioned the holoprojector, and Malloc.I flashed a green checkmark and a smiling emoticon. A few minutes later, they were inside To's Noodles, taking their seats, and in response to Dancer, Doc set the holoprojector down in an empty seat, and the pale-blue holographic image of Malloc.I's icon flickered to life. The icon had changed, slightly, since the morning - it was now plastered with two-dimensional medical anatomy images.

Doc noticed several inaccuracies - the heart was upside-down, there was only one lung, and so on - as if someone had handed a young child a medical sticker-book. He also remembered seeing some of these images recently - he noted a tumor that was pasted where the liver was supposed to be.

A volume icon appeared, mid-air, ticking upwards, reminding Doc to place his commlink on the table, where the microphone would be able to pick up more of the conversation.

[Curuinor]

1903 Pacific Time, 7/2/72

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A perfectly average wageslave saunters into To's backwards, followed by about a hundred more. Apparently, they are the "Noodle Appreciation Club of Los Angeles", at least according to their comms, and they sample quaint old noodle houses outside of the corp system in perfectly normal, corp-approved ways. To, expecting them, starts to flit around, taking orders and delivering them as fast, when one of the suits sits down at your table. He is the first to by served by To: a huge bowl of blindingly-cold noodles with real tripe. Like every other one of the suits, he is dressed in executive Shiawase fashions.

Hello. I am Mr. Johnson. Now, since the Appreciation Club is only staying here for a half-hour or so, we must make this fast. I wish for a piece of lost property to be. . . acquired from the secure TruTech offices down on 4th St. Other deniable assets have disabled most of the security features, so this should be quite easy.

If you accept the job, I will give you detailed blueprints to the building and the ways in through the security. Compensation will start at ¥1000 each up front and ¥4000 each after you complete the job. If you manage to crack the encryption on the piece of lost property, we will give a bonus of ¥500.

[BlackHat]

Within Doc's commlink, Malloc.I's icon reaches its other hand out, creating a second set of tendrils that reach out and connect to the "To's Noodles" public node. The digital landscape here is a lot more interesting, as the node lights up with connections from the visiting corporate drones, with suitably uninteresting corp-approved stock icons. Malloc.I's code mingles with that of the node, as the icon he created there moves, unseen, from avatar to avatar inspecting them closely. The microphone in Doc's commlink picks up most of what is said by the Johnson, although the clattering of plates and other background noise does nothing to improve his understanding of the language at all. The bit about numbers, nuyen, and encryption he caught, however. If its encrypted data he is after, Malloc.I has no objections - particularly if the Johnson was asking them to try to decrypt it.

Such a request makes the act of doing so, regardless, seem remarkably less unprofessional.

Malloc.I's anatomically-incorrect hologram makes almost no movement at all, as he waits to hear what the others have to say before making his own thoughts known. He could not see his teammates to gauge their reactions until they spoke up, but had a number of things to keep him preoccupied online until they did.

[Shadow]

Whisper makes his way to the table the Johnson sits down at. Quickly enough that he hears the Johnson offer the job. Whisper sits so that his back is to the nearest wall and he can see as many people as possible.

Over the teams commlink he says, "I am game."

To the Johnson he says, "this sounds reasonable, what are the dimensions of the package, is it alive, is it connected to anything, does it have any special requirements for transport?"

[ravensoracle]

Doc notices and smiles at the latest additions to the AI's icon. He uses his AR gloves to type a small reminder note to himself about keeping a few copies of the latest medical & cybertechnology journals handy on his comm next time Malloc.I was around to give him a little help in understanding biology.

As the Johnson appraoches Doc casually rests his left hand on the table ensuring the camera from the sensor suite on his forearm is sticking out enough from the arm of his suit jacket to give Malloc.I a view of the table. He then listens to the Johnsons proposal before taking the briefest of moments to shift his view to the astral and give the guy a quick once over then shifting back to weigh in his thoughts. He may be looking on the astral plane at others for a couple of seconds but anyone who looks at him just sees a normal mundane with just a hint of magical talent budding.

[ Spoiler ]

Invisible Castle is down at the moment so I hope you'll just trust my home thrown roll for Assensing this guy.

7d6= 1,3,4,4,5,6,6,(reroll 6's- 3,5) = 4 hits

Evryone knows Doc is not the negotiator of the group so he just keeps his mouth shut for the moment.

[Mickle5125]

Rose leans forward and whispers into Dancer's ear, "Hey, try to talk up the price. Damien always said that the Johnson would lowball the price at the beginning."

Having said her piece, Rose hops over to Dancer's shoulder and sits down on it, humming to herself.

[Curuinor]

Doc notices and smiles at the latest additions to the AI's icon. He uses his AR gloves to type a small reminder note to himself about keeping a few copies of the latest medical & cybertechnology journals handy on his comm next time Malloc.I was around to give him a little help in understanding biology.

As the Johnson appraoches Doc casually rests his left hand on the table ensuring the camera from the sensor suite on his forearm is sticking out enough from the arm of his suit jacket to give Malloc.I a view of the table. He then listens to the Johnsons proposal before taking the briefest of moments to shift his view to the astral and give the guy a quick once over then shifting back to weigh in his thoughts. He may be looking on the astral plane at others for a couple of seconds but anyone who looks at him just sees a normal mundane with just a hint of magical talent budding.

[ Spoiler ]

Invisible Castle is down at the moment so I hope you'll just trust my home thrown roll for Assensing this guy.

7d6= 1,3,4,4,5,6,6,(reroll 6's- 3,5) = 4 hits

Evryone knows Doc is not the negotiator of the group so he just keeps his mouth shut for the moment.

[ Spoiler ]

We're using normal SR4 rules, so unless you just used some edge, no rule of 6's. I'll give you the 4 results anyways. I'll wait for Glyph to post before Johnson's reaction.

The Johnson is a healthy, pure Japanese man, eager to seal a deal and totally mundane. He has a betaware datajack at his temple and pheromone emitters in his axilla. He also has betaware eyes. He is currently getting over a cold. His essence is at about 4/5th the unaugmented human level. This, along other variations, is pretty much true for everyone else in the building except the shadowrunners.

[BlackHat]

After indulging in a quick tour of a random sampling of the available corporate commlinks, Malloc.I reported into the team's comm channel with a quick flurry of technical specifications for commlinks, consumer applications, and other seemingly meaningless and unimpressive data. The highlighted, cross-references, and hyperlinked sections seemed to be highlighting just how unimpressive the information was.

"Data recovery, possible. Terms, amenable. Decryption, likely. Approve."

Malloc.I's holographic image simply nodded, allowing the others to negotiate, if such was necessary - otherwise, he waited for the Johnson to give them more information about the job.

[ravensoracle]

Doc subvocalizes to the teams comm channel.

"He's clean astrally, he's got pheromone emitters so watch those. Other than that he's eager to get this deal sealed."

[Glyph]

Dancer leans forward slightly, steepling her fingers. She smiles, but it's a colder smile than her earlier one - she's all business here.

The job sounds acceptable, but your offer is still a bit low for a B&E job. Even with all the assistance, which we're going to have to double-check ourselves anyway, you and I both know it's not going to be the simple in-and-out you're making it sound like. How about this...

She begins the familiar ritual of negotiations, looking to up the Johnson's initial offer, but not wanting to get too greedy. It looks like a decent job, but as always, she suspects there are some things they aren't being told.

[Curuinor]

It really is a milk run, I can attest to that: however, if you are so adamant about higher pay, I do have permission to authorize a possible increase�" for more work. We suspect that TruTech has ties to Aztechnology in the area, and any proof to this effect would be greatly appreciated, to the tune of, say, 500 more nuyen.

Here are the blueprints to the laboratory to be entered:

He mails them to your comms, along with the address of the place:

The property, which is a waterproof datachip hidden on the underside of the handle of an empty briefcase inside one of the water baths labelled 18, is guarded by a little security. There are cameras on the corner of each of the bigger rooms: room 64 has the private node inside. Physical security is contracted out to Knight Errant, with an estimated response time of twelve minutes. The only astral security is a ward on the whole complex. Easy enough to get into.

[Glyph]

Dancer nods, giving way with grace and accepting the bone being tossed to save face for her. Like the others, she indicates her acceptance of the job.

"Sorry, guys," she subvocalizes, "couldn't get him to budge on the price. Still decent pay for this kind of run, though."

She idly scans over the blueprints on her image link, but leaves the questions to the more tech-savvy members of the team.

[BlackHat]

Malloc.I's hologram stirs to life as he examines the data sent to Doc's commlink.

"Possession of specification on matrix security? Which duties of other deniable assets?"

As he speaks, in broken English, a few icons flash across the space he occupies to help clarify his point without announcing it to the whole restaurant - question marks, a stock icon, usually representing a security account, a timeline or task spreadsheet, and a dark account icon usually used for anonymous accounts on public nodes.

Just in case the Johnson did not catch his meaning, Malloc.I clarified by texting a more explicit set of symbols that were not appropriate to holographically display for the world to see. The AI seemed to want to know anything the Johnson knew about the matrix security of the facility, as well as what the other deniable assets were responsible for, exactly.

[Curuinor]

Malloc.I's hologram stirs to life as he examines the data sent to Doc's commlink.

"Possession of specification on matrix security? Which duties of other deniable assets?"

As he speaks, in broken English, a few icons flash across the space he occupies to help clarify his point without announcing it to the whole restaurant - question marks, a stock icon, usually representing a security account, a timeline or task spreadsheet, and a dark account icon usually used for anonymous accounts on public nodes.

Just in case the Johnson did not catch his meaning, Malloc.I clarified by texting a more explicit set of symbols that were not appropriate to holographically display for the world to see. The AI seemed to want to know anything the Johnson knew about the matrix security of the facility, as well as what the other deniable assets were responsible for, exactly.

What interesting nanotatts you have there. Did you give me an ARO or just change your skin?

Anyways, TruTech subcontracts matrix security out to Protec. That should tell you everything that you need to know.

Protec Security is notorious for off-duty spiders, slow response times and generally crappy programs and security. They advertise on spam zones. In fact, they do advertise with 1080i.

The other deniable assets should enter the protected facility undetected, avoid the physical and/or astral security, and take the datachip.

On the blueprints:

All outside doors open inside. Curvy lines indicate security beams(you cross them, you trigger an alarm).

[Shadow]

Over the comm: This sounds doable, and the price is good if the job goes the way it should. We should be extra alert though as it is these 'easy' jobs that often become the most difficult.

[Mickle5125]

Rose shrugs as she allows the Johnson to see through her Concealment and waves from on Dancer's shoulder. "I'm in. It sounds like fun, and I bet that they won't be ready for a group like us!"

She sends a message to Malloc.I. Find out what Knight Errant offers for business protection. Specifically, what kind of security beams they use.

[ravensoracle]

Doc smiles, subvocalizing,

"I hope this is as easy as he says it is but I have yet to see that be the case. I think it's implied that serious complications means renegotiation, am I right?"

He then keeps the smile on his face as he addresses the Johnson, "I am in as well. Is there a certain time frame that all of this is suppose to occur since we will be working with other teams? And are we going to be in contact with those teams or with a central coordinator?"

[Glyph]

Yes, I think we just need a few necessary details from you, then we can conclude our business here and begin acquiring your package.

Dancer is relieved that all of the others are on board. It's good to work with people that you know, and can trust, at least as much as you can trust anyone in the shadows. Plus, they are good at planning, which is not her strong suit. She replies to Doc's subvocal message:

"Yeah, if the Johnson lies, he's basically voiding the contract. At that point, we can either demand more pay, or take the advance and walk away."