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

[DireRadiant]

Eddie's Garage
Saturday 8/23/70 ~ 04:59:30
Sledge
PAN - Passive

<<blork>>

[JDragon]

_

[Divine Virus]

Uptown Bar
(time still unknown)
ERROR 1406
PAN Passive, displaying fake ID

<<If that is codeword, I freely admit I don't know the proper response. I am calling concerning your plans for tonight regarding a certain building. I am intrigued, and would like to discuss them with you, at time and place of your choosing.>> ERROR says to Sledge calmly.

Uptown Bar
(time still unknown)
ERROR 1406
PAN Passive, displaying fake ID

<<I would like to meet with you, at a time you are ready, and anywhere you want. I understand if you wish to finish sleeping- this morning works fine for me.>> ERROR's tone is laid back and non-threatening.

[pragma]

Greg's Doss, Enumclaw, Auburn
Saturday 8/23/70 05:00:06
Fortunato - Support Mage
PAN - Passive (Contacts, Earbuds, Smartlink)
Astrally Inactive

<<@Sender: You've already roused me.>>

He scoured the matrix frantically for a moment, wondering if the probably-hostile stranger on the other end could see what he was looking for.

<<@Sender: Be at the stuffer pizza diner by the Riverbend golf course in precisely half an hour. When you place your order ask for 'soy lovers' then correct yourself and order 'a slice of vatgrown cheese'>>

Had he been traced? How long did it take to trace phone calls? Fortunato found himself consummately unsure. He hastily browsed through his address book, wrote Johnson's commcode on a scrap of paper and turned off the commlink. He suspected there was a more intelligent was to stop it from sending and receiving signals, but battery in hand had a certain reassurance to it.

After thirty seconds of focus, five tubular blobs of mana were following him down the stairs as Fortunato's shape began to shift. He figured if he wasn't shot walking out the door, he had a fighting chance to get out of this.

Stuffer Pizza Diner, Des Moines, Tacoma
Saturday 8/23/70 05:25:00

Fortunato shifted uncomfortably. The alley next to the stuffer was the worst combination of damp, smelly and uncomfortable. Then again, being damp, smelly and uncomfortable seemed to be his line of work. He slowly munched a slice of pizza while idly thumbing Johnson's number into the new comm. he'd grabbed from the stuffer electronics section. Both were bought with cash.

<<@Johnson: Think my comm. is compromised and I may have a personal problem that keeps me away from business tomorrow. If I message you again in ten minutes, there's only the comm. to worry about.>>

He reflected that people who know more about commlinks might not accept calls from strangers. He'd have to turn his old one back on in that case.

He hunched low next to the garbage can in order to get a view of the street without being observed. No one would think anything of a dozing, homeless ork, but the trash can prevented anyone astrally perceiving from seeing the mask which was a dead giveaway. One watcher waited at either end of the alley to warn him of anyone approaching and one stayed at the stuffer counter with explicit instructions about listening to food orders. The remaining two hovered near Fortunato bickering. He waited, silenced pistol ominously in hand.

[Divine Virus]

Uptown Bar
(time still unknown)
ERROR 1406
PAN Passive, displaying fake ID

After giving a quick affirmative and disconnecting, ERROR slipped out of full submersion went outside, He flagged a cab about two blocks from the bar, and had him drop him off a block from his hotel. Once safely back in his room, ERROR 1406 opened a window a crack, and let one of his flyspys crawl onto the windowsill, then closed the window and laid down on the bed. He let himself be submerged in the Matrix again, and began directing his flyspy towards the meet.
After a few minutes, the Code sprite turns up the data file on Forunato, and he began to read through it, after issuing further instructions to the code sprite. He mostly had to skim, though, as ERROR still had to direct the flyspy's route. Once it was a block away, he ordered into an alley and set it to project a hologram of the elf he masqueraded as in the bar. ERROR did a scan of the area with the drone ultrawideband radar to determine the exact distance to the stuffer shack. The drone did another scan with the ultrawideband radar, trying to find anyone nearby with an unusual amount of weapons, armour, commlinks, gadgets, or 'ware. Spotting the curious person in an alley with a silenced pistol, ERROR ordered the drone to verify with a visual. Since he still had about thirty seconds to spare, before the proper time, ERROR decided to risk trying to passphrase out on this elf. The flyspy moved to the farside of the elf, so those in the street can not see, and projects a small image of a well dressed elf inside a stuffer shack, placing an order.
"I will have a soy lovers, please." The six inch ERROR in the hologram said, then paused, "Actually, no. I believe I would prefer a slice of vat-grown cheese." Then the background fell away, and the face enlarged until it was life size. It then greeted the elf in the alley. "Gooday"

[DireRadiant]

Eddie's Garage
Saturday 8/23/70 ~ 05:00:00
Sledge
PAN - Off

<<If that is codeword, I freely admit I don't know the proper response. I am calling concerning your plans for tonight regarding a certain building. I am intrigued, and would like to discuss them with you, at time and place of your choosing.>>

With a snarl she got to her feet at the same time she pushed the mental commands at her commlink. The electronic stream went dead with a burst of fuzzy static in her head.

... vut, need Angel ...

She almost ripped off the door handle in frustration at the purely manual controls, but it had to be done. Reaching for the kill switch under the dashboard was easy as long as she wasn't seated in the cab. The problem wasn't shutting it down, but if they needed to move it quickly it would take the associated mechanics at least 15 seconds to re initiate. Almost as an afterthought she fired off her own internal diagnostics check and reboot cycle into her ware.

Flurry of tasks done, she turned to the next item in the list. Keeping in a good stance, Sledge tapped Rocky and hoped the trog wasn't going to snap awake flailing punches.

"We got a problem."

[JDragon]

Eddie's Garage
Saturday 8/23/70 05:00:29
Rocky - physical adept
PAN: Hidden

It took a good 30 seconds of prodding from Sledge to get any response out of Rocky and then all she got was a moan of pain as he rolled over and looked at here.

"What?"

It was apparent Rocky was having issues moving along with trying to wake up. The pain was easy to see as he tried to stretch out his cramped muscles.

[DireRadiant]

Eddie's Garage
Saturday 8/23/70 ~ 05:00:35
Sledge
PAN - Off

"Up."

With his first stirring she stepped in closer, and bent over reached down and started tapping his pockets.

"Commlink."

"Off."

"Implants?"

... must get a jammer ...

[JDragon]

Eddie's Garage
Saturday 8/23/70 05:00:43
Rocky - physical adept
PAN: Hidden

Rocky was a little slow figuring out what it was Sledge wanted between the haze of just waking up and the complaints his body had about not getting its fix.

After the third or fourth prod he realized what she wanted and fished out his comm, hitting the power button.

"Ok, its off."

"No 'Ware here."

His body still was complaining as he started to stretch out slowly letting his mucles warm up slowly and waiting for the endorphins to kick in so he could think straight.

"So what exactly are we having problems with now?"

[DireRadiant]

Eddie's Garage
Saturday 8/23/70 ~ 05:00:50
Sledge
PAN - Off

Sledge leaned in to keep her face close to the trog as he stretched his considerable mass. "Got commcall from unknown talking about us and plans."

She carefully held out her hand palm out and spread her fingers. "That's how many have my codes."

Sledge stepped back to give Rocky more room and paced to the side.

"Running dark since dinner. Bad date, really bad date." ... jimmy...

...breathe ...

"Spoofing. Switching subscriptions. Keep team in loop only. No Angel, no Cerb."

...breathe ...

"Cycle commcodes, notify team comms only, all others trix drop box, anonymizers, shadow nodes, I call you, don't call me routine."

...breathe ...

Sledge stopped and stared straight at Rocky's face, "So how did I get a commcall?"

[JDragon]

Eddie's Garage
Saturday 8/23/70 05:01:04
Rocky - physical adept
PAN: Off

It was a challenge for Rocky to keep up with exactly what Sledge was talking about at first, but by the time she got to the point of asking him how she got a comm call, he had the basics of it.

"How the frak should I know?"

Rocky stopped his stretching for a moment and looked straight at her as he continued.

"Look, I know the basics, I make calls, I send text and do a few searches, thats IT. I don't know jack about any thing else, why do you think my comm has been in hidden mode for the last week?"

[DireRadiant]

Eddie's Garage
Saturday 8/23/70 ~ 05:01:15
Sledge
PAN - Off

"Skraa zakhan."

... breathe...

Sledge bared her tusks in a harsh grin, "Garage owners not going to risk losing money maker. No one here take risk with own skin. Not where I can reach them."

She stood up straight and turned to face the exit, "Gotta go out and keep moving, make some calls from public access."

"Coming?", she queried as she started making her way out onto the streets.

[JDragon]

Eddie's Garage
Saturday 8/23/70 05:01:29
Rocky - physical adept
PAN: Off

"Sure, not like I'm getting any more sleep untill this is figured out anyways. Gotta grab some gear."

Rocky was not really interested in wandering around in the dark, but he didn't have a better plan at this point. He made sure his pistol was in its holster and slipped his coat back on. Going back to the van he grabbed his duffle and pulled out a handful of ammo for the pistol, his respirator and glasses.

With his gear ready, shoved in radom pockets of the coat, he continued to stretch as he followed the crazy ork out in to the night.

"So where we going first? I could use some chow."

[DireRadiant]

Outside Eddie's Garage
Saturday 8/23/70 ~ 05:01:50
Sledge
PAN - Off

She looked out in the streets, and stepped out. Nothing happened. Hunching her jacket collar up she randomly picked a direction and started walking.

"Good idea. Waffles or Noodles? I know a couple places with all night street vendors."

"And lots of soykaf."

this is going to be a long long shift

[JDragon]

Outside Eddie's Garage
Saturday 8/23/70 05:02:19
Rocky - physical adept
PAN: Off

"Waffles sound good, its morning after all."

Rocky followed Sledge's lead as they walked down the street. Keeping a warry eye out for any one paying to close attention to them. He also did his best to not make eye contact with anyone.

[DireRadiant]

Waffle Iron Mike's
Saturday 8/23/70 ~ 05:23:16
Sledge
PAN - Off

Twenty minutes industrious shuffling along side streets and striking out at the first two spots she tried had landed them at the corner between a fresh fish street market and a municipal road and sewer project. Last time she'd seen this cart Iron Mike has been a teeny bopper UW undergrad elf, today a it was a grizzled taciturn halfer who didn't bat an eye when she manually punched in her account and confirmation codes for the order of stacked waffle cones. He only stared at her for two seconds when she asked to rent the AR glasses. That was about as long as it took for the halfer to verify the previous account transaction. Grunting he pointed at the grimy pair hanging on the umbrella pole. With a nod of thanks she slipped them on while she handed Rocky his mountain of waffles.

With the glasses on Sledge didn't feel half blind anymore as ARO feeds blossomed in her view. Finding the public access manual term was easy. Legacy building codes required them on every block. A few steps later she let her fingers fly over the manual inputs and discovered what she feared.

... vut ...

<<@team:: Comms insecure. Going dark. Respond soonest at matrix board 123H.sd9847.12312mm.1231 to this posting <<ref:123787234123421.23412.dd>> with meeting spot.>>

Shaking her head, Sledge went back to the cart and exchanged the glasses for her order of egg, cheese, onion and chorizo stacked in a waffle cone. She squeezed half the bottle of salsa over it, and looked over at Rocky.

"Hurry up and wait. No direct contact with either of em. So we check every once in a while."

She sniffed, and winced at the smell, "Might as well hang at the fish market."

[JDragon]

Waffle Iron Mike's
Saturday 8/23/70 05:25:17
Rocky - physical adept
PAN: Off

The first half of the walk Rocky thought he was going to die as his muscles screamed bloody murder, and his body went from freezing cold to sweating like a dog in a span of 30 seconds.

By the time they found a vendor that Sledge was happy with he was starting to feel a little better and had developed a serious appetit.

He took the offered waffles as he thanked Sledge, "I got lunch or dinner, which ever we get the chance to eat next."

He was already working on his food when Sledge walked over and gave him the bad news.

"Where ever works for me."

Rocky continued to eat as they walked over to the market and found a spot out of the way to wait to see what happened next.

The market was slowly getting buissier as the catch from yesterdays fishing, what little of it could be done was brought in and displayed for the buyers from the local resturants. Of course those had to be resturants that had clients that could affoard real food and not just flavored soy.

[pragma]

Stuffer Pizza Diner, Des Moines, Tacoma
Saturday 8/23/70 05:30:06
Fortunato - Support Mage
PAN - Passive (Contacts, Earbuds, Smartlink)
Astrally Inactive

Fortunato's alarm played across his face as the disembodied voice spoke the passphrase behind him. Regaining his composure he turned slowly and said: "You said face to face, not face to machine. Deal's off." He wheeled and began to walk opposite direction down the alley while mustering his spirits in the area.

A niggling suspicion had crept into the back of his mind that this wasn't as bad as he had worried it was going to be; Necrosis was only interested in him and would have had a chance to wipe him quietly in the alley. The question was, who else would be looking for his number?

[Divine Virus]

Hotel Suite
Saturday 8/23/70 05:31:22
ERROR 1406
PAN - Passive

"Both faces are present, just not in the expected manner," The holograph face says, following Fortunato. "The proposition is simple- all publicly available information about you on the Matrix, there is a surprising amount, will be wiped in exchange for putting in a good word with your Johnson. Think about it. Will talk to the Johnson later this afternoon, so if the deal is accepted, talk to the Johnson before then." With that, the hologram flicked out of existence. ERROR began guiding the drone back to the hotel. All in all, his attempts have mostly resulted in near complete failure. What was apparent, is that this is not a normal runner team. Fortunato was certainly hiding from something, and he was pretty sure the others had hiding demons as well. A strong fear response. ERROR wonders idly why he is still considering the job. Scared amateurs, but their plans looked solid enough. ERROR had to admit he was curious, moreso because Rebecka personally asked for his involvement. If he had known of what the team consisted earlier, he would have not become involved. But now he was. He had their complete plans, and he had not bothered to erase the evidence of his intrusion. He knew their plans, and they knew he knew. He could still disappear, but he did not want someone else looking over his shoulder. Which means he needs to prove himself acceptable to this group, least they conclude it would be easier to write him off. They were scared, they might. If he could not do so through words, ERROR 1406 would do so through overwhelming merit. He started to review the data for the run, seeing what he could improve upon.

[pragma]

Stuffer Pizza Diner, Des Moines, Tacoma
Saturday 8/23/70 05:30:06
Fortunato - Support Mage
PAN - Passive (Contacts, Earbuds, Smartlink)
Astrally Inactive

Fortunato's thoughts rapidly fanned out, drawing in all of the spirits he had in the area. A very small physical thing is shining bright lights behind me. Soon the lights will turn out and it will start moving. All of you should follow it and report back to me about where it goes.

"I assure you that your deal will cross my mind." Fortunato said grimly.

He hailed a cab with his hand, paid the driver in cash and drove near his home then walked the rest of the way. As soon as he entered his ward, he slipped into astral space.

Hotel Suite, Astral Plane
Saturday 8/23/70 05:30:06
Astrally Projecting

Fortuanto watched ERROR's form stir from VR induced coma. The mage had been studying his target's aura which seemed to be trying to tear itself apart as if being stuck in one body was far too few.

The technomancer woke up and started as the faintly glowing, spectral form in his living room became apparent.

Fortunato was beaming inside ... he felt in control of himself, cool, collected and like he knew what he was doing. He felt the way Babe Ruth felt pointing at the outfield, for much the same reasons.

"Listen you little shit. You dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night to a dishonest meeting to threaten me with material that I know is mostly not there. Now I don't know for sure who sent you, but I like the idea of having my trail wiped. You clean up after me and I'll put in a good word for you amidst the storm of warnings about allowing a stranger to get close to us."

The room glowed a faint red as anger radiated off the mage.

"But know this, if I so much as have trouble turning on my commlink in the morning, if I ever even suspect that my computer is to blame for a work related problem, then this ... "

The ghost snapped his fingers and a shining snake with venom dripping from rows of oddly sharklike teeth slithered through a hole in the floor, coiling around ERROR's perch.

" ... is going to find you and eat you slowly. It will eat your fingers and your toes, it will chew out your eyes through the flickering contraption you're wearing and, for irony's sake, it will chew it's way up your fucking digestive tract. And you'd better pray that it's done by the time I catch up to you, because I've seen the core of your fluttering, confused soul and I will anchor it into your body with a fucking nailgun. Do I make myself clear?"

[Divine Virus]

Hotel Suite
Saturday 8/23/70 05:33:00
ERROR 1406
PAN - Passive

ERROR raises his right arm slightly and holo projector in the cuff of his FFBA flashes out and blots out the illusions. A loose cut out exists around the man.
"Excessively clear" ERROR says simply, maintaining the runner's calm he has cultivated. Keeping the facade together, he adds "If there is nothing further, I will start trashing the data now." ERROR is confused about what would elicit such a response. Has he not acted as a professional runner should? Has he not BEEN a professional runner? Empirical data forces two probabilities. 1) He is grossly mistaken how to become how a professional runner should behave, or 2) these are not typical professional runners. The Johnson alluded to as much, with his painful, confusing, probing questions. ERROR was becoming unsure of who-to-be. Perhaps this is why, as the man began to fade, ERROR gave an interjection.
"The intent was not to threaten, just to offer. The words are.... the choice of words are bad." Before ERROR can get a response from the man, he dropped back into full VR and began to revisit the information rich sites.

[BlackHat]

Seattle Bus Station
Saturday 8/23/70 12:34:00
Smith
PAN - Offline

Smith woke up rather late the next day, but still hadn't gotten enough sleep. He took a half-hour to get himself cleaned up and dressed before heading out. He took a bus to the central station before turning on his "work" commlink - spoofing a new access ID, getting a handful of messages, both from Nym and from panicked members of his team. He wasn't happy about the fact that they seemed spooked, but was relieved that he didn't find 3 formal recommendations waiting for him, either.

He didn't spend a lot of time going through them, but it was pretty clear that they thought their comms were compromised, and that it was possible Fortunato was going to bail due to "personal issues". He responded, quickly, with a meeting place - posting on the matrix node Sledge provided. He needed to get everyone together to calm them down - or see just how much of a problem Error had become, overnight.

<<Crazy night. Tonight could be crazier. Let's go over the details at the Diner we ate at on Tuesday - near the clinic. Reply if you can't find it. - J>>

He then turned his own commlink's wireless capability off, instructing his agent to begin a thorough scan. If Error's plan involved compromising the rest of the team's commlinks to make friends, there was a good chance that that twisted logic lead to his own commlink, as well. At the very least, dealing with a new hacker would require stronger encryption. He sat back on his bench while he waited for the next bus heading towards Meredith, and worked on his security while the scan completed.

[pragma]

Fortunato's Doss, Enumclaw, Auburn
Saturday 8/23/70 12:35:06
Fortunato - Support Mage
PAN - Hidden (Contacts, Earbuds, Smartlink)
Astrally Inactive

Fortunato heard his comm. buzz as he was preparing the snake eye for the his ritual. That single animal organ, harvested from a wild snake captured while moulting, cost more than his bed. He set it down carefully and reviewed Johnson's message. He composed a response on his newly minted commlink.

<<@Johnson: Busy with preparations for the evening until late. Sending representative to diner -- tell him what the fuck is going on. Don't disturb me until ~5.>>

A moment's focus produced a watcher which Fortunato carefully instructed to carry messages. He resumed his grim work.

[JDragon]

Waffle Iron Mike's
Saturday 8/23/70 06:15:17
Rocky - physical adept
PAN: Off

As they sat waiting for some kind of response to Sledge's message Rocky started to nod off sitting on the bench out side the fish market.

"This sucks, lets go find a coffin motel or something so we can at least get some sleep."

When Sledge didn't argue Rocky got up and looked around, luckly he was able to spot what looked like a sign for a small coffin motel a few blocks from where they were. The walk was quick and while his body complained is was not near as bad as it had been before he ate.

Once at the motel he found a couple larger coffins close together and fed in some cash for each one, "Room's on me. This should cover us till early afternoon."

With a nod, he opened his coffin and climbed in, "Just give the door two double taps when its time to get miving."

When he got ho complaints he closed the door and tried to stretch out so he would be able to climb out on his own when it was time to go.

[BlackHat]

Paloma Diner, Meredith, Renton
Saturday 8/23/70 13:00:00
Smith
PAN - Offline

Smith hoped online briefly about a block away from the diner - and got a response from Fortunato. It made him feel a lot less bad about not getting around to work until 1 in the afternoon when he saw the 'professional' runner was busy until 5. Smith didn't mind discussing things through a proxy, but Fortunato's spirits tended to be, well, stupid. He hoped nothing important got lost in translation. He took the commlink back offline before getting close - his agent's heavy encryption routing was only around 12% completed, and he would prefer if the meet with his team went "undisturbed," but was a little worried that he had not heard from half of them - and would be unable to field their calls. He would probably have to hop online sporadically to check messages - and just hope his luck held out, and he never stayed on long enough for Error to catch his scent.

He entered the diner, causing an AR bell to ring, which he was unaware of, and smiled at the waitress as he took a seat in one of the booths. He ordered a coffee, and said he would be meeting some friends - a polite way of telling her not to come back until there were some other people here. The fact that his PAN wasn't visible had already told her that he wasn't hear on for the food.

After the waitress brought him his coffee, and left to tend to some other patron, a small voice squeeked out of the seat next to him. "The boss had his commlink ... did I say that right?"

Smith stared at the translucent spirit that was slowly materializing, out of sight between the table and back of the booth. "I... don't know. I mean, I know he has a commlink," Smith offered, in similarly hushed tones - looking confused.

The spirit continued, "...was compromised by an 'unidentified party'. He said that the person offered him 'matrix services' in exchange for a recommendation to you. He wants you to be careful and not to trust this person, but the person does apparently know how to hack. But the boss said he didn't know much about that stuff. Any rate, if you want to tell him something, tell me or use his new comm. He's not turning on the old one until he knows he's clear."

Smith smiled as the spirit struggled with the larger words - and was impressed that this one seemed a lot more intelligent than some of the previous spirits he had had conversations through. Perhaps this would work out, after all.

"Oh yeah," the spirit added, "and he followed the guy home and threatened to kill him. You should know that. He said that."

Smith laughed out loud, drawing the attention of some of the nearby lunch crowd - but that attention passed almost immediately. People talking to themselves, or laughing at things no one else could see was commonplace with the advent of AR interfaces. It didn't seem to matter that his PAN was (apparently) hidden.

"Okay," Smith told the spirit. "I'll leave him a message on his new comm - when he's not busy, tell him to check it, okay?" He didn't want to overload the spirit with too much to remember, at once - and didn't really trust the naive thing not to interrupt Fortunato before 5. "Feel free to stick around and listen in to what the others have to say, too.... or, whatever."

Smith began typing up a message to Fortunato - getting the whole thing ready before hopping online, using the weakest open wifi signal his commlink could pick up. He stayed online only long enough to fire off the messages, and confirm that he had no new message waiting for him, then dropped off again.

<<@Fortunato:: Nice work. I'm sure your uninvited guest had it coming to him. I'll take your 'recommendation' under advisement, but need to talk to the rest of the team, before making any decisions. As it happens, Angel pulled a Cerberus on us last night - personal stuff - happens to the best of us. I don't blame her, we talked about it, at least. The hacker was her idea for a replacement. I'm disappointed to hear that he chose to hack you instead of just calling you. He's kind of a tool.>>

<<@Fortunato:: So, now that you know we're in need of a tech-spec, which half of your recommendation should I focus on? The fact that he can do the job, or the fact that we can't trust him to only do the job? In short, I need a thumbs up, or a thumbs down. Would you work with this guy, based on what you know about him, or should we start working out a plan to dump him, gently?>>

This is a pain, Smith thought, to himself. Fragging hackers....

While he waited for the others to arrive, Smith considered the information he had so far. Fortunato sounded the most freaked out last night - almost ready to quit - but his 'recommendation', was at least 50% positive. Smith remembered, as he was typing up the message, that Fortunato didn't know that Angel bailed - so he probably didn't realize that his recommendation would carry any weight. Its one thing to acknowledge someone's skill, if they're not someone you have to interact with in any way. It might be another thing, altogether, to agree to work with them, if they rub you the wrong way.

Maybe Sledge or Rocky would have more definitive ideas about the whole thing. he hoped they got his message, and that the meeting place wasn't too cryptic. Smith took a sip of his coffee and settled in for what could be a long wait.