IC: The Mafia Affair Options

[Grey]

Akuma takes a seat and grabs something to munch on.

"Yeah... I'd rather not have to go back to that place either. I wasn't liking the idea of a female strip club to begin with, but that place was all men!"

[Soluna]

"It's so wonderful to know that you two are secure in your manhood," Gwyn says as she takes a seat. "And I wasn't mincing words. I TOLD you it was male strip club, meaning men stripping. It's not my fault you mis-interperetted me," she adds, trying not to laugh. "Anyway, is there anything you need or want us to do to help you?"

[Grey]

Akuma shrugs, but looks to be fuming a bit on the inside.

"Not really yet, what did you guys come up with?"

[phelious fogg]

'We know they were being held at the motel, but they wised up and moved on after we walked by the fist time, the second time we got thier number from the clerk."

[Elfie]

"You do realize this number could be from anywhere, right? Even though it looks like it has the same area code, it could just be a throwaway number." Drying his hands, Lex takes the number and pulls out his deck. "Might as well start off with something simple"

Jacking in, Lex zips over regular accounts to the 'white pages' to see if the number's listed anywhere.

[Dashifen]

@All
As Lex plugs in, you see his body go slack as his mind begins to attack the problem at hand. After about 40 minutes, Lex comes back and unplugs, "Good news and bad news. Bad news: I couldn't find the exact number. Good news: I know that it's a VAT&T number so I should be able to find out more about it with a little bit of work.

[Dashifen]

@Lex
Jacking back in, you quickly locate the public host for VAT&T. Exploring their host for a moment, the Iconography on the public side is a simple storefront, with icons, probably programs, ready to assist you in your telephone or cellular purchase. The room is long, with around 50 different models of phones. At the back of the store, there is a door marked "Employees Only" in orange letters.

Straigthening your bowler and fixing your monocle, you move towards the door. Pulling a deck of cards from an inside pocket of your vest, you hang them in the air behind you. As they begin to automatically perform a card trick behind you, you see the icons of the host's security begin to follow the cards and lose sight of you. Quickly pulling another card from your pocket, you jimmy the lock on the door and slip inside.

The secured host of the VAT&T network is, interestingly enough, shaped and modeled after a Treehouse. The vast, sprawling tree -- an oak it looks like to you -- seems to have house nodes located throughout the tree. Staring at it for a while, you notice that it seems to be laid out roughly like a topographical map of the area. Each node may represent either cells, stores, offices, etc.

The icons around you are most often styled after tree creatures. You see birds flying from node to node, probably cell calls judging by the frequency and quantity of them. There are also some squirrels leaping from limb to limb which confuse you as to their purpose. It seems that any humans on the system have more generic icons, probably provided by their terminals.

Shrugging your shoulders for a moment, you pull from your vest a third deck of cards, this one representing your browse utility. Spinning as you release the cards you program your utility to search for the cell that the number given to you by Gwyn is currently located within. That should significantly narrow the search. Your cards move out from you and begin to move about in the trees. You only have to wait a few moments until one returns, the Ace of Diamonds. The others re-spawn in your jacket pocket and the Ace leads you towards an access node in the lower branches of the tree.

[Dashifen]

@Lex
As you approach the access node for the cellular network currently containing the number, you find in the branches of the tree a small treehouse. Entering it without much difficulty, you see the the inside is much larger than the outside would represent.

Inside you appear to be in a sphere. The door you came in is still behind you glowing slightly to mark an exit from the node. However, all around you you see glowing lights, some connected by lines -- probably connected calls within the cell. As you examine the system, the Ace continues to lead you forward, and as you get "closer" to the edge of the sphere, more detail is provided about the locations within each cell. The Ace leads you to a specific light. You can see that it is currently located in cell #2037 within the range of tower 10.

[Elfie]

Keeping that information in mind, Lex performs a Graceful Logoff. Shaking his head to clear his mind as he gets up, Lex looks over at Gwynn. "Trying to track down j-random cell phone is like looking for a needle in a haystack. I've narrowed it down to an area, but we need to try something different. I'd probably have an easier time if whover's got this cellphone was using it at the time I was searching. Any thoughts?"

[Soluna]

Gwyn thinks a moment and then says, "Why don't we just call the number and try and keep them talking long enough for you to trace the call. They gave it to the hotel receptionist, so a woman calling them wouldn't be too suspicious."

"Can you estimate how the long the trace will take you?" she asks Lex.

[Elfie]

"I guess it would just depend on the location of the cell, and how lucky I get. Let's give it a shot. Gimme a minute to get back in, then call'em up. I'll follow what I can."

With that, Lex settles back down and jacks back in, making his way through the grid to where he was last.

[Soluna]

Gwyn takes a minute to think of what she'll say and then pulls out her cell phone and dials the number.

[Dashifen]

@Lex
Jacking back in, you have no trouble logging back onto the VAT&T cellular host. As the tree appears before you once again, you re-orient your deck on the cell node that you accessed before and attempt another log on. This one, like the last one, is successful, but something changes.

As you move into the treehouse that you found before, a small swarm of bees seems to follow you. They aren't moving in a threatening fashion, but they do reappear with you in the cell node. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, yet, but it's only been a few seconds so Gwyn probably hasn't made her call yet.

[Dashifen]

@Lex
Straightening your monocle and looking more closely at the swarm of bees, you're code begins to analyze their movement patters. It's definately a reactive Scout program but beyond that you don't get much more.

[Dashifen]

@Lex
You attempt to position your self next to the swarm, ready to swat it against the wall of the "treehouse" with an oversides playing card. However, it seems to anticipate your manuever and as you side step, it moves in kind and ends up surrounding you in a swarming mass of angry insects. As the swarm engulfs you, you work feverishly to keep them from stinging your icon.

[Dashifen]

@Lex
With a sigh of relief, your oversized "fly swatter" gets in a lucky swing and you mash the bees up against the wall. Pulling off your hat you collect the code sequences within it and place it back on your head.

[Dashifen]

@Gwyn
You dial the number that the goth chick at the motel gave you. The phone rings a few times before a gravelly but femail voice comes on the phone, "What!?"

@Lex
As you manipulate the data streaming out of this cell into others, your browse utility flags one datastream coming in. Following the data to it's destination, you notice that as you get "closer" to the "floor" of the node, the grey, featurless landscape comes into focus and you can see streets a highways. Still following the datastream, you see it connect with tower 10 as you expected it to and bounce out towards a specific cell phone.

[Soluna]

"This..this is the receptionist...from the hotel. You..you gave me this number and said I should call if anything....or anyone came around asking questions." Gwyn says, stammering to sound scared. She waits for the reply.

[Dashifen]

@Gwyn
The voice on the other end of the phone sounds impatient, "Yeah, you just called. What do you need now."

[Soluna]

"Look..don't get mad, ok? I..I'm sorry to keep bothering you. I..I'm just trying to do what...what you asked, you know?"

[Dashifen]

@Gwyn
The voice on the other end of the line sighs, "I won't be mad unless you don't tell me why the hell you called this time. I'm not here to keep you busy if your shift is boring you, missy."

@Lex
The datatrail coalesces and you can almost hear the conversation streaming back and forth. From the "tide" of the data moving along the stream, you can tell that someone on the other end of the line has picked up. In just nanoseconds, you fly in close enough to see the end of the stream, a small slave icon of a cell phone. Looking around you quickly orient yourself on the location of this slave on the network. Armed with an address, 211 Hamilton Blvd. in Allentown, you turn to log off the network and see a large bird of prey diving down at you obviously prepared for combat.

[Soluna]

"Well, you see, it was those two female detectives. They...they came back about ten minutes after they left the first time. I...I don't know why. I didn't tell them anything though! So they finally left, but they gave me their card. I just wanted to keep you posted...like you asked, you know?"

[Dashifen]

@Gwyn
"Really," the voice on the other end comments. "What's on this card that they gave you, hun?"

[Soluna]

"Um...the one detective's name and a phone number, to her office I guess."

[Dashifen]

@Lex
The hawk dives at you raking its talons across your icon's face. You can feel the memory leakage where its viral code begins to infact your persona and it seems as if time slows down for you compared to the rest of the host. The hawk lifts away from you and returns to the sky for a second assault, but in nanoseconds between when it liftsoff and when it turns to attack again, you tell your deck to get you the hell out of there. As you fade off, you see the trees, formerly a green color shift to a nice autumnal yellow.

Pulling the cord from your datajack you look around at the others. Gwyn is still on her cell phone. Akuma and Rowan seem to be listening to Gwyn, somewhat interested in what she's saying, "So what did I miss? Oh -- and I hear there's a nice place we should check out in South Allentown," you say with a smirk.

@Gwyn
The voice on the other end of the phone pauses for a moment, "Hey. Wait a minute. Who is this? How did you get this number?"