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

[DireRadiant]

Hirotomo Building
Saturday 8/23/70 19:28:55

"4 spots to check first. And we need to get setup for the cuts."

Sledge lit up the sections on the ARO grid, "One of you can walk that off for our friend while I get the GPR running. While I'm running the GPR, one of you needs to pull the water and power lines into those four spots for the cutter. After the cutter gets going, we'll need a few places to keep the pieces."

[pragma]

Hirotomo Building
Saturday 8/23/70 19:30:00
Fortunato - Utility Mage
PAN: Passive
Astrally Projecting

The more Fortunato looked at the astral plane of the basement, the less pleased he was to be there. Something ugly, black and spiky welled up from the corners and the walls -- it was deeply unsettling. The feeling only intensified as he continued his search for any negative emotional imprints that may have been left by the untimely burial of their "client" for this run. Below the concrete was especially bad, the entire space took on an oily feeling as pressed through it. He wasn't able to discern anything physical -- the world was a mishmash of concrete, rebar and other thoroughly physical things, but the emotional imprint troubled him. He scoured the subterranean world -- an endless maze of claustrophobic, gray material that was entirely insubstantial until he found the peak in the astral disfigurement.

The mage resurfaced, his ghost dripping and frayed at the edges, to report. "Johnson, I can't verify for sure, but mojo suggests that we should think about starting in this corner." He was floating in the Southeast part of the room. "Something bad happened down here, sets my teeth on edge. Any rate, take the advice or leave it, it's time for me to do the eyes and ears thing."

[BlackHat]

Hirotomo Building
Saturday 8/23/70 19:30:25
Smith
PAN - Active (Showing information for fake SIN)

"Let's start there." agreed Smith, pleased that his idea seemed to work, and completely oblivious of the fact that Fortunato had not been able to just go down and look for bones, and had come up with a different, creative, solution which was relatively unrelated to what Smith thought he had just been doing.

[JDragon]

Hirotomo Building
Saturday 8/23/70 19:27:03
Rocky - physical adept
PAN: Offline

Rocky had followed Sledge's directions when unloading the equipment and getting it in to the elevator. He was doing his best to stay quite and not give away he had no idea what he was doing.

Saturday 8/23/70 19:30:30
Once in the basement Rocky relaxed a little, but made sure to keep things under control and waited for what ever it was that he was needed for next.

[DireRadiant]

Hirotomo Building
Saturday 8/23/70 19:30:50

Sledge stared at the South East Corner. Then pointed Rocky at the spots to carry things to.

sets his teeth on edge... what does it do to a tusker?

She pulled up the safety goggles and wiped away tears.

time to work

[adamu]

Hirotomo Building
Saturday 8/23/70 19:47:45

Having started at the far south end of the southeast quadrant, Sledge had worked her way steadily north, systematically scanning the area. It was slow work due the the jumbled distribution of solid hunks of rubble under the new cement floor, clearly laid over remnants of the old, felled building. There was a lot down there to confuse with a body.

Rocky and Smith had finished arranging the water and power lines down to that end of the basement a few minutes earlier, confident in Fort's tip.

And now here it was - another false hit? - one, then two, then three humanoid-sized forms, all too parallel for it to be accident. The forms were twisted and broken, and well down under the rubble - they would have to dig once they cut away the cement. But adjusting the density readings on the GPR it was clear that they'd found what they were looking for.

[DireRadiant]

Hirotomo Building
Saturday 8/23/70 19:48:20

For a while it had been easy to get lost in the routine. Scan, move, scan, move, an easy rhythm, the working of her muscles eased the lingering soreness from the earlier encounter with betrayal.

magnusson, heimar, peterson, ibn gassoul, chang, ieto, gonzales, alonso, hriedarson, which ones....

Sledge hadn't seen any of them, hadn't looked for them, tried not to think about them, everything left behind. Andy's crew, her crew, maybe even someone from the management team. Buried in the scrap. Thrown away. Gone.

breathe

"No one messes with my crew."

Sledge sprayed the markers over the concrete.

"Drundeah Zakhan, cerri."

Sledge got the cutter ready.

[pragma]

Hirotomo Building
Saturday 8/23/70 19:48:23
Watcher Spirit
PAN: non-existent
Astrally Projecting

Amidst the preparation of the cutter, the watcher piped up. Floating to Rocky, the twisting cylinder of mana spoke loudly and with some agitation.

"My boss said to say 'Unknown astral forms in Love Machine. Rocky, prepare for spirit combat. Observing and engaging to cover operations.' He didn't sound very happy about it."

The spirit started to flit towards Smith, but no sooner had the diminutive spirit delivered its message than the team's comms were filled with choked cries for help from a voice that might have belonged to their new hacker.

[BlackHat]

Hirotomo Building
Saturday 8/23/70 19:48:38
Smith
PAN - Active (Showing information for fake SIN)

Smith had been "overseeing" the operation with feigned interest for only a few minutes when the watcher spirit showed up and gave Rocky an urgent sounding message. Smith picked out the words "spirit combat" and "love machine" and his heart sank. Things had been going so well. Just then, their comms crackled to life with gags as gasps - presumably from Error.

"Guys, I think things just got bad." His smirk said that he understood that they had both understood this, already. " Rocky - if Fort thinks you can help... go to. I'll see if I can hop online and give our new friend a hand. Sledge... keep at it. We need to evac, asap."

He was already sliding down the wall into a comfortable position to drop into VR. This is going to suck.

[BlackHat]

A quick glance around the security node's VR space showed Smith what he was looking for. Error's icon was quickly de-ressing before his eyes - and the fact that he could even find the thing told him that nobody was behind the controls, anymore. He did not, however, see anyone else on the node who might have done this, and he had not been immediately attacked, himself, so he decided to drop back into meatspace to manage things from there.

He logged off, just seconds before Fortunato's watcher spirit showed up to tell him that the mage was doing some recon to find out what happened. Smith thought briefly about calling the team back to rush the job before things got worse - but, if a few more minutes were going to make a difference they were all dead, anyway. Instead, he passed the message off to everyone else, via comms. <Fort scanning. Stay sharp.>

Then, from the floor, he began loading an agent onto the security node, to keep an eye out there. Whatever was going down, whether it was on the matrix, physical, or astral - it had targeted their hacker, and vanished before help arrived. It might have been an unintentional consequence, but the team was now basically without overwatch support. His agent-code wouldn't take the place of a real hacker like Error, but it might give him a second-or-two of warning if anything showed up on the security node to cause more trouble.

[pragma]

Hirotomo Building
Saturday 8/23/70 19:48:38
Fortunato - Utility Mage
PAN: Passive
Astrally Projecting

Fortunato started his rounds listlessly, flitting back and forth as if trying to dodge the chafing load of being on watch for the next six hours. The tone of his haphazard astral jaunt changed sharply as the spell slinger accidentally dove through a wall into the garage and found himself within 20 real feet ... it felt like astral inches ... from a pair of astral forms. Time froze as the big orc and the wispy silhouette hung next to the former spy in the impossibly long snakeskin-lined pea coat. But as soon as Fortunato's physical heart had kicked up a notch, before his body even had time to sweat, the astral forms vanished into the Love Machine. Fortunato barely had time to register the white handprint on the orc's chest.

He messaged the team to hold still as he assumed a position to observe and ambush the attackers if they were going to blow the operation's cover, crouching in the floor with green energy crackling around his hands. And he waited interminably ... one second ... two seconds ... three, when it hit him.

I'm so fucking dumb. They are blowing the operation.

His astral form surged toward the van the energy coalescing around his open palm.

Go for the hacker while he's sleeping. Worst spy ...

He couldn't finish the though as he burst into the van and hurled a green bolt of zig-zagging mana into the orc's skull with a perfectly executed palm strike. Wheeling towards what was now very apparently an elemental he hurled another stunbolt from the fingertips of an outstretched spear hand, bug the energy flew wide and fizzled. The spirit gazed at him, then vanished looking like it enjoyed the taste of freedom.

Fortunato wound up a fist, to smash the skull of Error's assailant and put him permanently out of the picture. There was no time for self-recrimination and certainly no time to deal with an unconscious and probably hostile astral form; he had to kill it and find the strike team before the job was blown to succeed against the odds. His hand was stayed as Error's aura caught his eye -- injured and unconscious but not permanently damaged if he remembered his training correctly.

He fired another message to the team and the back door flew open. Fortunato wheeled around, hand already charging up, to see Rocky's familiar aura there. He manifested and said "Why the fuck are you here? Whatever, keep your head down. He's unconscious and stable because of a spirit attack -- I plan to find the rest of our assailants." and then returned to astral and flew off dragging the orc with him.

[JDragon]

Hirotomo Building
Saturday 8/23/70 19:48:38
Rocky - physical adept
PAN: Offline

Rocky knew things had been going to easy when he got the first message from Fort that something was going on in the van. The cries for help from the new hacker quickly confirmed his thought that this had been to easy.

With out a word he took off at a dead run across the room easily stepping over the cables they had strung out for the evenings work. Rocky knew he needed to get upstairs quick if he was going to be any help for Error, so instead of going for the elevator he made a b-line for the stairs he had seen on he maps provided earlier figuring he could make one level faster that the elevator could.

Luckily the doors on the stairs were not locked and with the length of his legs he was taking the stairs three and four at a time. Exiting the stairwell he tried to slow down a little hoping to draw less attention to himself and the team. His luck only lasted so long as the guard had already closed the main door which took him a few extra seconds to get started opening.

Once the door was high enough to allow his bulk through he hit the ground and rolled under the door, straightening himself as he dropped to the ground below.

At first glance nothing was amiss outside and the rain was still slowing coming down. He quickly made his way to the van and pulled the doors open, readied to defend or attack based on what he saw. As he expected Error appeared to be unmoving on the floor of the van, but their were no obvious signs of injury or blood on his body.

As Rocky started pull himself into the van to check on the hacker he was stopped short as the teams magical support appeared in the van standing over Error yelling at him.

"Why the fuck are you here? Whatever, keep your head down. He's unconscious and stable because of a spirit attack -- I plan to find the rest of our assailants."

And then he was gone again.

Rocky finished his climb in to the van, pulling the door closed behind him. Once the door was closed he opened the team channel and relayed Fort's message to the others.

<<@Team:: "Heads up! Fort says we have visitors onsite and not the good kind, he's doing recon. Error is out cold but alive. I'm going to see if I can get him up and moving.>>

With the message done he leaned down to see what he could do.