Up from the Bottom, Wipe Those Tears and Pass the Ammo Options

[pragma]

Greg's Doss, Enumclaw, Auburn
Friday 8/22/70 23:00:00
Fortunato - Support Mage
PAN - Passive (Contacts, Earbuds, Smartlink)
Astrally Inactive

Arriving in the apartment Greg cast off his coat, landing it with surprising accuracy on a coat hook. He unbuttoned his sleeves and rolled them up to his elbows. His bed was slightly unmade, he made a point of smoothing the sheets, making it pristine. He took a deep breath and perceived, diving into astral and shattering the smooth gray world that surrounded him. The walls were all still shifting in a slow circle. The fixtures of the room stayed in the same spot, creating a pattern that crawled sideways.

The astral was always scary and unknown. Nothing good came from it -- just angry fire elementals, Lone Star Cops, portents and strange colors. And now snakes, he guessed. He was banking on the snakes, this time. He lay slowly on the bed and closed his eyes casting himself into the astral.

The peacoat that followed him everywhere on this plane was lined with snakeskin.

The Astral Plane
Friday 8/22/70 23:38:00
Astrally Projecting

His trip to the target building was uneventful as was his exploration A single bored guard covered a facility devoid of magical security. Good news.

Fortunato found his body and settled into it before firing off a message.

<<@Team: Did my task. Tell you results in person, but my angle is looking pretty good. Give me location to meet up.>>

[JDragon]

Primary escape route
Saturday 8/23/70 00:05:32
Rocky - physical adept
PAN: Hidden

Rocky was still riding on the wave of adrenalin, much like he used to after a fight. It had been a rush slipping in to the construction lot and getting out with the truck. The appearance of the other Knights or maybe Star had pushed the wave even higher. Things were starting to slow down now and he had caught up with Angel in the van and sent her a quick message.

<<@Angel:: Do me a favor and see if you can find a good out of the way spot close by we can meet the team and get this thing cleaned up. Maybe a truck stop or something like Sledge suggested. Let everyone know where to head and I'll follow you.>>

Rocky figured her comm system would be more secure than his and it would let him focus on driving.

[JDragon]

Primary escape route
Saturday 8/23/70 00:05:52
Rocky - physical adept
PAN: Hidden

As Rocky kept his eyes on the road and ears open for the sounds of approaching sirens he saw the requested message come across to the team.

<<@Team:: Meet: Joe's Gas & Sleep, Junction of 164 (Auburn Way) & 18; ETA 20 min. >>

At the same time a second message appeared with a map and the route outlined they would be taking. Rocky was happy to see it was not going to be a direct route and that it would stick to less used roads, hopefully making it easier to slip further away unnoticed.

[pragma]

Joe's Gas & Sleep
Saturday 8/23/70 00:20:10
Fortunato - Support Mage
PAN - Passive (Contacts, Earbuds, Smartlink)
Astrally Inactive

Fortunato had busied himself with cooking a small meal of watery noodles on the camp stove he kept in the apartment. The fire hazard was outweighed heavily by what he saved on food. He munched the mildly crunchy spaghetti soup and stowed his propane tanks before thoughts of the wicker basket in the corner crossed his mind. He opened it up and received a blast of musty, heavily spiced air. Inspiration struck him. He immediately headed to the Stuffer down the street and purchased a box of 200 eye hooks. He was contemplating how best to implement his plan when Rocky's message reached him.

He typed quickly <<@Team: En route -- see you there.>>

He closed the basket, set the eye hooks on top and headed out of the apartment. His cab was blissfully automated and his arrival uneventful. The stop was a standard turnpike gas station with a line of big rigs out front, guzzling diesel from the ground. The one-story, formerly whitewashed but now browning gas station squatted in the distnce, backlit by the endless traffic of the junction. A few traffic drones flitted in the distance, which temporarily unnerved the spell slinger.

He settled in to wait for the team.

[BlackHat]

Joe's Gas & Sleep
Saturday 8/23/70 00:25:10
Smith
PAN - Hidden

It didn't take long for Smith to cross town with his box of new toys strapped to to the back-seat of his bike. The music in his helmet drown out the monotonous drone of late-night travel, and he arrived, uneventfully, about a half-hour later. He had no idea which of the trucks was "theirs," but noticed Fortunato waiting patiently, and idled his bike over to him. "Any word from anyone else?" he asked - mostly making small-talk. He was eager to try his hand at soldering the spoof-chip to his own bike, but had decided on the way over to offer the spare to the Love Machine, first, in case the mission could use another ride. So, he had to wait.

[pragma]

Joe's Gas & Sleep
Saturday 8/23/70 00:25:10
Fortunato - Support Mage
PAN - Passive (Contacts, Earbuds, Smartlink)
Astrally Inactive

"Haven't seen them yet, word had it that wings were on the way." Fortunato said from the bench he'd been sitting on.

As if on cue, the steady puttering of Sledge's hog was heard. The ork woman pulled up in a parking spot imposing close to Smith and dropped a paper bag on the bench. It smelled like barbecue and Fort dug in with gusto.

"I figure I'll have to say this again, but the place doesn't have astral security. There's proabably a sec mage on call, but until any alarms are raised I should be able to provide a lot of support if I'm on site-- a few magical disguises, maybe getting the guard to be a bit more compliant, stuff like that. If I'm off, I can at least make a decent lookout.

[JDragon]

Joe's Gas & Sleep
Saturday 8/23/70 00:27:19
Rocky - physical adept
PAN: Hidden

The Love Machine rolled in to the parking lot first with Angel sitting in the driver seat, but she didn't appear to have her hands on the wheel. The van stopped a little ways from where the group sat on their bikes, as a large flatbed truck pulled in to the lot and headed in their direction.

As the truck passed under a light for the parking lot the group could see Rocky sitting in the drivers seat with his big hands around the large bus like steering wheel. The truck rumbled forward passed the van pulling up to the group coming to a stop with a shudder. As Rocky shut the truck off, Angel pulled the van in behind the truck to help block the view of it some from the street.

Rocky climbed out of the truck and stretched, it had more room than the van did but was still a tight fit for him. His body was starting to complain more since it had been a few days since his last pill and it was turning in to a long day and what looked to be a long night.

"This freaking thing is slow, and handles like a pig. Had to take the long way to stay away from Star and their chummers. Angel has the info on the other sites once we get this thing ready to go. Oh and I'll need another 300Y had to pay for a distraction."

[BlackHat]

Joe's Gas & Sleep
Saturday 8/23/70 00:29:10
Smith
PAN - Hidden

When Sledge delivered the messy take-out, Smith politely passed. He had gotten something to tide him over while he was waiting at Starbucks. He listened carefully to Fortunato's report, and suggested, "Well, I think having you there, in spirit, is still our best bet. We've got identification for the 4 of us who were planning on going, in person - and if that pans out, having you arrive unannounced would complicate things. If nobody magical is there, that pretty much means you can play lookout and not worry about being noticed, right?" The three of them started to discuss the options, but were cut short, about a minute into it, when the rest of the team rolled into view.

As the Love Machine, and Rocky's new truck came to a stop, Smith headed over to his bike, and removed the box of new gear from the back. When Rocky was stretching, he came over and handed him a small electronic device. "That should take care of the non-security tags, if you hold down that button, and run it close to every square inch of this thing. Security-tags are a whole other matter, but I'll bet Angel can take care of those for us." He then gestured in AR to open a wireless transfer, "... and this should take care of the expense."

"I've got new plates and a mod-chip in this box, which should help it keep a low profile on the Grid." He gestured at Angel who was poking her head out of the Love Machine. "If you could give me a hand with these, I think we can be ready to roll in a couple of minutes. I picked up a spare set, for myself, because I wanted to clean up my bike, too - but if we think we'll be using the Love Machine, this weekend, maybe to keep our offsite assets close by, I don't mind installing the spare there until we're no longer in need of the set on the truck."

He checked his expenses in AR one more time, once the transfer completed. "We've got almost exactly (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 1,000 remaining in our expense account, so lets take care of the hardware here, check out those sites, get a discount on our tools, and then get ready for work tomorrow. We can't really afford to line up any more insurance, and it'll be good to keep a little pocket-change around in case something comes up."

[JDragon]

Joe's Gas & Sleep
Saturday 8/23/70 00:31:49
Rocky - physical adept
PAN: Hidden

Rocky took the scanner and dropped into the pocket of his lined coat, and then accepted the transfer of nuyen to his comm. "Thanks."

He then walked over to the pile of food and followed Fort's lead and dug in. Rocky hadn't realized how hungry he was untill he had smelled the food. He nodded in Sledge's direction in appreciation.

After having a large helping of the BBQ Rocky moved back over to the new truck and pulled the tag scanner out of his pocket and started his work on the embedded tags. It was kinda boring work after having pulled off the heist and arranging the distraction but it was a lot easier.

[BlackHat]

Joe's Gas & Sleep
Saturday 8/23/70 00:35:23
Smith
PAN - Hidden

While Rocky goes to eat, Smith opens up the Love Machine to hand Angel the chips and tools and sees the familiar lifeless rag-doll body, of somebody in VR. A quick message confirms that she's working on the security tags - which Smith agrees is a much better use of her time. He isn't entirely sure how difficult the DYI mod-kit will be, but locating and disabling security tags sounds a lot harder.

It took a minute or two for Smith to install the software on the van (which included AR instructions, which cross referenced the make and model of the vehicle with its own database of instructions), unscrew the original plate, and replace it with the morphing plate. A few wires were threaded into the bumper, and Smith followed the instructions, carefully, to solder them in place and piggy-back on the vehicle's rear-bumper sensor to carry the signal from the onboard computer to the plate. He then climbs in the passenger seat, and spent a minute or two looking around under the dash for an access panel. Once he got that open, he soldered the chip into place - again, the AR diagrams were surprisingly helpful. It was almost as though a standard vehicle's board was designed to allow this sort of bypass of the VIN and registration.

After some simple diagnostics to verify that everything was connected as it should be - which, to his own surprise, it was - Smith initiated an initial automatic spoof, and watches as the system accessed the Grid, collected data on vehicles of similar makes and models (there were a lot of unmarked black vans like this in Seattle). He hopped out and excitedly ran around to the back, and saw that the numbers had changed.

<<@Team:: "One down, one to go. Is the truck all set? I'm going to need access to the node to install the software component.">>

In the meantime, Rocky had finished eating, and begun his task of cleaning sensor tags off of the truck.

The process went about the same, the second time around - although it was a little dirtier, accessing the back-bumper of the truck, and the instructions a little less exact (it defaulted to some generic commercial truck electronic diagrams, but Smith found the connection-points he was looking for). When he was done, he tossed both original plates into the Love Machine, to be disposed of later.

He then stood back and examined his work with visible pride. His electronic engineering courses had come in handy - but he felt a much greater feeling of accomplishment than he ever had wiring a sensor-tag to an actuator, or rebuilding a commlink (which he needed help with, come to think of it). Somehow, he doubted Angel would be particularly impressed by his ability to solder a few pins where the instructions told him to - so, after a moment of basking in his own success, he rejoined Fortunato and Sledge.

<<@Team:: "All set. We can roll out of here when you guys are finished.">>

[BlackHat]

Joe's Gas & Sleep
Saturday 8/23/70 00:37:45
Smith
PAN - Hidden

After a few more minutes of discussion, and a good-faith effort to wash the truck, despite the innate filth of its current location, Smith recognized one of those situations where it was critical that he perform what small contribution he believed he was capable of offering - Leadership.

"Alright, guys, our ride is looking good, and its getting late. Planning on comms."

<<@Team:: "Alright, here's the plan. I'm open to suggestions. I'm going to go dump this bike. Rocky, you and Fortunato take the truck and Sledge and Angel will follow in the love machine. All four of you will check out the site that Angel has eyes on - Security is tighter there, so I think we should hit it first, while we're still at roughly one-hundred-percent. The lighter security area will be slower to respond, if anyone is onto the theme of our evening - and if we end up winded or wounded, it won't be a deal-breaker. Afterward, split up, and rendezvous at the second site, and make the second pickup - which should hopefully require less work, assuming the target has not moved.">>

<<@Team:: "How you deal with security is up to you - but I would prefer something clean and simple. Our profile has been pretty low, so far. Let's try to keep it that way. Meanwhile, I will be looking for a warehouse or something where we can keep the truck, radar, and saw overnight, and out-of-sight. We'll meet up there to clean the new hardware, and lock things up for the night.">>

<<@Team:: "Sound good to everyone?">>

[pragma]

Joe's Gas and Sleep
Friday 8/23/70 00:37:50
Fortunato - Support Mage
PAN - Passive (Contacts, Earbuds, Smartlink)
Astrally Inactive

"Do we really have to use comms?" Fortunato complained. "I mean, we're all here. Can't we just talk? I think that's actually harder to snoop in on."

Grumbling, he typed:

<<@Team: I don't expect heavy magical security on these sites. I'll check it out when we get there, but we can probably get some good mileage by sending in someone disguised as a guard.

Speaking of light magical security, the target is basically astrally undefended. I should be able to provide support. I've just got a lot of rituals to get done between now and then, ~12 hours worth.>>

He walked over to the truck and was joined by Rocky. "You should drive big guy, I'm more useful riding shotgun."

[BlackHat]

Joe's Gas and Sleep
Saturday 8/23/70 00:37:30
Smith
PAN - Hidden

The team went over the plan a couple more times, making sure everyone knew what needed to be done, and by whom. Smith made sure everyone understood that he would be available via chat should any emergency decisions need to be made, and then packed up his tools, and strapped them to his bike once more. He waved goodbye as he tore out into the night.

Bus Station #32
Saturday 8/23/70 --:--:--
Smith
PAN - Hidden

Smith returned his bike to the dorms without a hitch. He stopped in to check up on his roommate, who (not surprisingly) was already in bed. He stashed his new tools in his room, and replenished his wad of cash from the briefcase buried in his closet.

He made sure he was well on the way to his destination (a bus station as close to his final destination as he could get at this hour) before putting in the commcall to arrange accommodations for the truck for the night. He had chosen his first contact wisely. Smith didn't go out of his way to be vague, but watched what he said to Eddie, in case anyone was listening in. Although Eddie was a bit surprised to hear back from him so soon, he was agreeable to helping Smith stash one of his vehicles, after confirming that it had been scrubbed and that Smith had put those chips and plates to good use. Negotiations were also pretty straightforward, and mostly involved the level of security, space needed for a truck of this size, and the usuall high-balling and low-balling that came with this sort of deal. Smith got a little worried when he was put on hold for about five full minutes, but it gave him time to exit the bus, at the station, and start looking at his options for finishing the last leg of his journey. It was too far to walk, so he put in a quick request for a cab.

Luckily, when the mechanic came back on the line, it was to tell him he had a place, and within Smith "budget". it sounded just right, and the mechanic offered his personal guarantee that if it was paid up, the vehicle would be safe. As Smith expected, he wanted to deal in cash, again, and was willing to accept payment when the vehicle was dropped off, later tonight. Smith was assured that if the mechanic could not be there personally, he would make sure someone was there to take the money, and transfer the physical key.

A quick message to the team informed them of his success, and gave an ETA for his arrival at Site 1.

[JDragon]

Joe's Gas & Sleep
Saturday 8/23/70 01:35:15
Rocky - physical adept
PAN: Hidden

It had taken him just a little over an hour, but Rocky had gone over then entire truck with the tag eraser, making sure to erase any tag it found. By the time he was done he could barely move, his muscles had started cramping up about twenty minutes in to the project and just kept complaining as he went on. When he was working on the undercarriage of the truck laying on his back his legs got a little better but he still found his bottle of pills in his free hand randomly a couple times. Luckily each time he slept if back in his pocket and switched hands to make it harder to get a hold of them again. As he was scanning inside the cab of the truck he removed any personal items he found that may help trace the truck back to anywhere that would cause problems and bagged them up, keeping the troll sized hard hat he found, thinking it may help disguise him a little while driving the truck, maybe making him look like he belonged in it, or just stupid. He wasn't sure which it would do and was to tried to care. "Can someone dump this somewhere along the way to the next stop?"

He had caught the general gist of the plan for picking up the GPR that he and Angel had scoped out earlier in the evening. Since the others were running the show and he was just going to be along for the ride he didn't pay much attention.

After climbing out from under the truck he went over and tossed the tag eraser in to the back of the van so it didn't get lost, doing his best to stretch his aching body as much as he could.

"Ok, lets get this show on the road."

[JDragon]

Joe's Gas & Sleep
Saturday 8/23/70 01:57:28
Rocky - physical adept
PAN: Hidden

The drive over was slow and very boring, neither Rocky or Fort had much to say and it was taking a lot of concentration on Rocky's part to keep the beast of a truck under control.

The address for the site with the GPR was still in his comm so it was easy to find again. As planned they took a not to slow pass in front of the site so the mage boy could get a good look at the guards and their uniforms. Rocky had forgotten why until Fort explained it would help him get his and Sledge's disguises better.

After the pass by the site, that only caused one guard to look up they found the Love Machine waiting for them a couple blocks away out of sight of the guards. Rocky parked the van and shut it down, making sure to leave the hard hat on the front dash board in plain view, to maybe make it seem more normal.

A couple minutes later they were in the van with Sledge and Angel, it looked like the later was in the process of doing her part of the job, dealing with the electronic security. With a bunch of weird words and odd gestures Fort did his part and changed Rocky and Sledge's appearances so if they were caught by a security camera it would look like some other ork and troll were wandering around. The two specialist seemed to finish there jobs at almost the same time, and so they moved on to the next step.

Angel started the van up and made the short drive back to the site, as they went Fort was talking to the air again, which seemed to be normal for him, so Rocky just sat and waited. A couple minutes later they were as close as the van would get to the hut the GPR was stored in and they would need to go the rest of the way on foot.

Listening for any sounds of waiting guards Rocky opened the door slowly and glanced around, not seeing anyone he climbed out and started for the hut, hearing Sledge jump out and close the back door of the van. The hut was not to far away and they covered the distance with out issues, Rocky was starting to think this might go just as easy as grabbing the truck had. Well till they got to the door of the hut that was.

It appeared the door had a keypad to unlock the door, tapping his comm he turned on his sub-vocal mic to make sure it was not going to be an issue, he didn't remember the girl mentioning it, but that was probably just because he had been busy watching Sledge's appearance change as he watched.

<<@Team: Ok, made it to the hut, but their is a keypad on the door, whats the code or is it already unlocked?>>

It only took a couple seconds for the good news to come back from Angel

<<@Team: Keypad, what keypad? I didn't detect a keypad. If I'm not finding it, its hard wired. Your on your own.>>

Rocky swore to himself and could here Sledge do the same.

"So now what do we do? You got your hammer with you? it should be a little less noisy than my Warhawk. Unless you got a better idea?"

[DireRadiant]

Dig Site 87RT67IU90
Saturday 8/23/70 01:57:28
Sledge - Breaking
PAN - Hidden

She'd just let Sugar Lips keep flapping his gum at the truck stop. Figured it was nerves. She had stuff to think about anyway. Things she couldn't do anything about right now. Like checking if her littermate was still alive. Keeping the kid from messing up the crew was low on the list, besides he was getting the basics over ok.

20 minutes running the brushes over the truck helped with the ache in her back, she almost felt normal after warming up a bit. It didn't help the ache in her heart.

Rocky and Angel had done a good job, she let them lead on. It let her settle down and think about other things.

"vut..."

Sledge stood outside the door at the damned lock,a nd simply closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"So now what do we do? You got your hammer with you? it should be a little less noisy than my Warhawk. Unless you got a better idea?"

In response she held her hand up asking for a moment to think.

... should have paid attention... this is what I get for moping around ...

[adamu]

Dig Site 87RT67IU90
Saturday 8/23/70 01:57:50

It didn't take the ork runner long to decide what to do. Pulling some small tools from her belt she went to work on the maglock's casing, a quiet electric drill sucking out screws.

As she worked, Rocky positioned his huge body to screen her from view as best he could.

The job took all of ten seconds, but maybe she should have taken just a few more, because just as the last screw came free the casing slid off all too easily...her left hand darted down to catch it, but too late...the metal plate clattered down the aluminum siding of the quonset hut with a sound that seemed deafening in the quiet suburban night.

[JDragon]

Dig Site 87RT67IU90
Saturday 8/23/70 01:58:03
Rocky - physical adept
PAN: Hidden

The sounds of the plate bouncing off the wall made Rocky jump and take a quick look around, ready to silence anyone that may have noticed.

After a few seconds it became clear that there was still no one close enough to care. Waiting to follow Sledge's lead Rocky quietly waited to see what was next. As he waited he was able to still hear the music coming from inside the shack and no other noticeable changes.

Tapping Sledge on the shoulder he gave her a thumbs up and indicated for her to keep going.

[pragma]

Dig Site 87RT67IU90
Saturday 8/23/70 01:58:03
Fortunato - Support Mage
PAN - Passive (Contacts, Earbuds, Smartlink)
Astrally Inactive

Fortunato winced as the metallic clanking echoed through the night. Do we always have to fuck up? Just doing one good op would make me happy.

He nearly lost the spells because of his stray thoughts. His attention was spread precariously thin maintaining two disguises and keeping an eye on the guards through his spirit. The spirit was had its hands, in as much as they existed, full as well. It kept snapping irritatingly back at Fortunato; its bland face nesled between a snakeskin suit and a snakeskin hat would lash out with invective using a distinct forked tongue.

There was a lightning exchange of thoughs and intentions.

What are the guards doing after that noise

Something, I'm sure

Goddamn it spirit, tell me now.

Why should I, I'm holding all the cards here.

It's my will holding you together and so help me god I'll tear you to the pieces you came from

Fortunato held his waited for a more useful report.

[adamu]

Dig Site 87RT67IU90
Saturday 8/23/70 01:58:24

The serpent recoiled at the threat, its earlier bravado shed like an old skin. They do only what I have led them to do, master, they chase a non-existent grafitti tagger, it hissed to Fortunato.

In the meantime, Sledge, not immediately seeing the bypass function, had simply rejiggered the wifi toggle on the lock. A quick scan found the node and in seconds she had used her agent to brute force the device into compliance. In AR, her matrix-slave presented her with a green button - the door was hers to open as she wished.

[DireRadiant]

Dig Site 87RT67IU90
Saturday 8/23/70 01:58:40
Sledge - Breaking
PAN - Hidden

An eternity of frozen time.

**clatter**

The world was still there. Her ribs still ached. Her heart a lead weight flinging itself to nowhere. At her side another damned trog tormentor. She straightened up from her instinctive balanced crouch holding the cover and lightly replaced in unfixed as she sent the mental signal.

In the bright Augmented Reality display in her head the giant green button slowly depressed.

The door opened and Sledge strode in and barked, "What the vut are you doing?"

[adamu]

Dig Site 87RT67IU90
Saturday 8/23/70 01:58:43

Stripped to the waist and banging his head, fingers flying across the frets of an invisible guitar, Hirsute Hannibal lived up to his name - he was the hairiest thing Sledge had ever seen without tusks.

Looking up in shocked confusion, the man could only say, "What? What?" as his hands scrambled over a nearby counter. Unable to decide whether to prioritize his shirt, his gunbelt, or the off switch on the boom-box, all he managed to do was spill his beer on the plastic floor of the shed.

[JDragon]

Dig Site 87RT67IU90
Saturday 8/23/70 01:58:44
Rocky - physical adept
PAN: Hidden

Rocky followed Sledge in, leaving enough room to not get caught in the back swing of her hammer, just in case she changed the plan suddenly. He stopped and pulled the door shut behind him and stood in front of it to help keep the sound down and limit the hairy guys options if he decided to make a run for it.

[DireRadiant]

Dig Site 87RT67IU90
Saturday 8/23/70 02:01:30
Sledge - Breaking
PAN - Hidden

Chewing the guard out while Rocky manuevered the GPR away ought to have made her feel better.

It didn't.

The poor slob was just doing his job. She knew all that he was supposed to do was simply be there to be a backup to the systems. Anything like Fortunato or Angel coming along and really wanting to take something wasn't going to be stopped by some hairy chested slob with pretensions of being the latest synth star. In fact, that the guard was actually doing something active to keep awake was a good thing. His only mistake was not paying attention.

"I came here to check the vutting security for the client on this piece of gear, and I find you playing with your... instrument ... now I gotta take a couple more hours on shift finding a place to park this damned thing, and find someone reliable to babysit it, and I got to come back with it first thing Monday morning! That's at least four more hours, and I don't get overtime like you do. And I'll probably get my pay deducted the cost of the babysitter too! I better not hear anything from you ever again!"

[JDragon]

Dig Site 87RT67IU90
Saturday 8/23/70 02:01:55
Rocky - physical adept
PAN: Hidden

Following Sledge's lead Rocky walked in the room looking pissed off and hassled. With a quick scan he found the box they needed. Not even looking at the shirtless guard he walked over and picked it up. With a little work he got control of the box and turned for the door, nodding to Sledge as he passed.

He left the door slightly ajar as he left and made straight for the van, not stopping to make sure she was following him. He was fairly certain that she could take care of her self.