Witch Hunt: IC, The power of Magic corrupts completely. Options

[2bit]

WITCH HUNT

Chapter 2: Overseeing and Oversight

Monday, March 10, 07:00 The Horizon Building, West Seattle.

Somewhere, away from the Cascades, the sun has risen. But here in the Emerald City, there is a gray blanket that refuses to let go of the seaport sprawl. This morning you get a double helping. West Seattle, down by the Sound, is entrenched in fog, and the air sits damply at 3 degrees.

The Horizon Building is a solid pillar of of the status quo. The walls, once you're close enough to see, are a russet granite, veined with black, polished to a mirror finish, and coated in a fine layer of dew. Darkened, mirror-finish floor-to-ceiling windows line the top six of the building's seven levels.

Malleus and Orion:
The lobby area, walled by glass, is obscured by condensation. It must have a very nice view of the fountain in the pond when the weather's not so miserable. The lobby interior is semicircular, and two levels high. The floor motif is a mosaic of the top half of a great star, like the sun breaching the horizon. The points radiate outward from the main entrance doors. Two sets of seating areas with potted exotic plants are in the middle of the lobby area. In the middle of the circumference of this semicircle is the guard station and reception desk just to the right of an RFID-badge activated turnstyle providing access to the building's elevator bank and first-floor offices. Farther to the right of the reception desk is a pair of glass doors. Inside it you can see another reception desk, unmanned, with a large "Emergent Cryonics" corporate logo above it, changing color hypnotically.
There are three sets of cameras visibly covering the lobby area. Up above, in the area of the second floor open to the lobby, you can see a promenade type of area.

[2bit]

Null: The parkade is cold and empty. A handful of cars are here, early working execs and building staff, but most everyone has yet to show. Malleus and Orion head to the lobby, leaving you alone with your thoughts and nothing really to do.

[imperialus]

Malleus confidently crosses the lobby floor towards the security desk. He stops in front of the security guard and says

"Good morning. We are consultants hired to speak with Jessie Reynolds, Engineering Development Manager. I believe we are expected.

Malleus carefully controlls his tone of voice to suggest that he is very busy and has much better things to do than sit around yacking with some security guard but he keeps his tone from becoming condescending or rude.

[yoippari]

High Rise sits in his van with the drones and software getting a proverbial itchy trigger finger. Using his subscription to Malleus' commlink he scans the area around Malleus for a network, hoping the lobby isn't wireless blocked.

[2bit]

High Rise:

The lobby is not wireless blocked. From your access to Malleus's commlink, right away you detect an ARO in the lobby named, aptly enough, "Horizon Lobby". Its Signal doesn't appear to be strong enough to reach you out at the van. The front desk guard's commlink, however, is in active mode. His name is Sid Geiger, and he'd like to let you know that "Safety is on Everyone's Action List at the Horizon Building". You get Sid's commcode. Since he's not behind the wireless blocking area, you'll be able to hack his commlink through the matrix if you so desire.

You know there must be other ways into the building, given enough time to find the hidden nodes.

[Cakeman]

Nice place... well corp money can buy a lot of things. Whoa, a guard! Now I'd better look as though I belong, we do have a meeting scheduled after all. Malleus looks chill. I'll just follow his lead. Hello there... Sid? Well well, I think someone overdid their cologne this morning.

Orion takes the lobby in with all it's ARO signs and information. The place is pretty clean after all, there's no spam attacking them when in public mode. The weather outside looks fine now and there's even a map accessible for visitors. Orion resists the temptation to look it over at once and follows Malleus to Sid's desk and produces a sincere smile.

[Glyph]

Null blinks slowly as Orion and Malleus leave the parking garage and head towards the lobby. He holds the gun and holster that Orion left with him as if he is not quite sure what to do with them. Finally, he decides to put them in the glove compartment of his leased car for now.

He walks through the parking garage, trying to get a good feel for it - a tactical map is one thing, but checking out potential ambush sites in person is much better. And if anyone asks him what he is doing here, he can answer that he is one of the consultants hired by Mr. Reynolds. But he has found that if he makes no effort at skulking, but looks as if he has every right to be where he is, people tend to ask less questions.

He does anxiously check in with High Rise over his commlink, asking to be updated if anything significant develops. Other than that, he settles back to wait. It's not as unpleasant for him as it would be for others. He can sit in his car when he needs to sit down, and his commlink keeps him connected to chatrooms, data havens, rumormills, and the rest of the teeming online community. He doesn't mind the physical solitude - truth be told, it's what he's used to.

[yoippari]

High Rise knows Malleus is going to disappear pretty soon so he starts scanning larger scale to look for either the horizon building's network or... He has to check his notes to remember the name of the company. Emergent Cryonics. Who comes up with these names? What do they even do? He also does a matrix search for the company and checks out the lobby's page via the guard's commlink.

While at their matrix site he tracks his connection to their site. Just need to know where you are...

[2bit]

[Cakeman]

Ohh, nice suit... and legs! and...

Luckily, Orion manages to conceal his reactions (or so he thinks) in time. He smiles at miss Yarr and when she chooses to greet Malleus first, Orion waits before nodding to her and saying "Good morning miss Yarr" without interrupting her timing and letting her do her thing. He walks behind her and does indeed admire the view, but restrains himself from taking some photos with his comlink.

Now I'm awake atleast.

Instead he casually (just to have something to do) downloads and checks her business card while following her and Malleus.

[2bit]

Behind the glass double doors is a waiting area with a hallway leading beyond it. A sign posted there identifies it as the HR offices.
Sasha walks behind the empty reception desk and holds an ID badge to a sensor at the computer. It rings softly back at her and she begins typing while talking to you. "I'm sorry, I didn't stop for proper introductions. I just realized we don't have your names in our contractor database. Let's start over." She smiles. "My name's Sasha." She holds out her hand to shake.

[2bit]

Null: You have a walk around the parkade. The open-air stairwells have blind corners that would make great ambush sites, especially if any of the lights were disabled. Any of the large concrete pillars will do to hide behind, and once this place is full of cars there will be plenty of places to hide. It's also worth noting that like most parkades, pedestrians and vehicles have to share the roadway.

[ Spoiler ]

While walking around, you spot an inconspicuous video sensor in a corner of the 2nd floor. It's no doubt spotted you too. In fact, you've probably already been spotted by others along the way.

[imperialus]

Malleus nods
"My appologies, My name is Mr. Dawson*, Ryan Dawson. Senior consultant with Oracle Consulting, this is the first time your company has felt it nessesary to hire us. Oracle Consulting is a company that helps corperations attempting to comply with the Licenced Mages Act. I'd be happy to give you our public relations number if you have any further questions but I'm surprised that Mr. Reynolds didn't tell you to expect us."

What kind of impression does Malleus get from her. Is she just filling out routine paper work or is she actually suspicious.

*See ooc

[Cakeman]

Orion takes Sasha's outstreched hand and gives it a firm shake while giving her a warm smile.
"Harry Smith, pleased to meet you Sasha. Don't worry about formalities and first impressions, we're just here to see Mr. Reynolds. Are you on his staff?"

[2bit]

Malleus:

[ Spoiler ]

Judge Intent (INT + CHA) vs (WILL + CHA)
1d6=3, 1d6=2, 1d6=4, 1d6=3, 1d6=2, 1d6=6, 1d6=6, 1d6=3, 1d6=3, 1d6=5, 1d6=1, 1d6=2, 1d6=4, 1d6=6 4 hits vs. ?? hits.

She seems earnest, but a bit guarded.

Malleus: "Oh he did, yes; he just didn't say who to expect!" She chuckles and smiles. "It's nice to meet you. I think we have your company's contact commcodes on file already but I can take that number just to be sure."

edit - interjecting pleasantries with Orion:
Orion:Sasha shakes your hand. "Good to meet you, Harry. No, Mr. Reynolds is a part of our development team with the other brilliant engineers working here. I'm a part of the HR department." She smiles. "Advanced math was never really my thing, but I have plenty of administrative talent!" She laughs pleasantly. "We all do our parts, of course."

** after exchanging pleasantries with Orion **

"I'm going to set you up with ID badges so you can move about the office, work at a terminal, and get into all the places you need to, ok?" She looks at her screen, and her eyebrows twitch in a small gesture of surprise. "OK. For your clearance level, we'll need your SIN of course, but also a quick sample of voiceprint and thumbprint."

** Unless you interject or are interrupted: **

A prompt appears in AR for you to connect to provide your SIN. Sasha reaches under the table and gets a biometrics device, placing it in front of you. It has a wide array of functions, but you will just be using the print and voice readers.

[imperialus]

Malleus sends his SIN over the link and places his palm over the handprint reader.

Hopefully the SIN holds up. It should if they're just comparing voice and fingerprints though

[Cakeman]

It feels a bit wierd to be using Harry again, but atleast it is rooted deep enough that it's almost natural.

I wonder how mom is doing... and the rest of them. Maybe I'll send them a mail after work is done.

With a mental command he sends his real SIN to Sasha and confidently places his hand on the reader. His SIN is still unsullied after all.

The next time we do a job for someone like this, they had better appreciate we'd like some privacy! It's rude having us checked up like this. Before we leave, Reynolds had better wipe these records of us being here clean.

[yoippari]

High Rise doesn't care about the system the site is on, just the transmiter that links the outside world to the inside, hopefully that isn't very guarded. I should've been doing this last night, but what did I do? I updated Alfred's word defenitions.

For now ignoring the lobby node to avoid drawing the attention of the security guard he starts probing Emergent's transmiter for open traffic ports to exploit.

[2bit]

Malleus and Orion:

Your SINs, voiceprints, and handprints are all in the corporation's database now.


Sasha watches her screen as your information is processed.


"OK, you're all set! It'll be just a moment while badges are created." She presses a few keys and a commcall is placed.

< "Hello, Sasha, what can I do for you?" > On the other end of the line is Reynolds.
"The consultants from Oracle are here to see you, Mr. Reynolds. They -"
< "Excellent. I'll be right down. Provide them with guest badges for now, please. I'll escort them around." >
"No need! I've already set them up with Clearance 3 Contractor IDs."
< "You - I asked to be informed as soon as they arrived. Why wasn't I informed? >
"Erm, they did just arrive, Mr. Reynolds. I've been -"
< "As soon as they arrived, Sasha. God. . . what's - - " >
Sasha presses a button on her terminal, taking the call off speaker and continuing it in her headpiece, turning her back to you.
(neither of you have audio enhancement with you, so the conversation is one-sided)

"I just thought that -"
. . .
"Everything is fine, Mr. Reynolds."
. . .
"Yes."
. . .
"No, but -"
. . .
"It's done." She looks over her shoulder at the two of you.
. . .
"Ok. Thank you." She ends the call.
"I'm really sorry about that." Sasha doesn't look at your eyes. She seems embarrassed, but smiles, like it's no big thing. "Mr. Reynolds will be right down. Please have a seat; your badges will be ready shortly."
Sasha walks down the hall to the rest of the HR offices and disappears behind a corner.

[Cakeman]

Orion remains standing, watching Sasha round the corner. He shrugs and hopes this is not a sign of how their visit will affect Emergent Cryonics - afterall, Sasha did what she thought was best.

We're not really fit for the business world. We don't fit into their schedules, molds, or even ideas about how things work. On the other hand, this shows my suit works. Mmm, feels well too...

[yoippari]

With the web site being off-site the easy backdoor disappears. Not wanting to alert security with a full on hack job Highrise tries another approch, a mobile node.

He sends a Fly-Spy up to the roof via the long way around incase it does get spotted. Looking around he finds the transmitters, and..bingo! Several HVAC that hopefully are big enough for a signal to get through. He sets the Fly-Spy on top of the sheet metal box and pings Malleus' commlink once. Hopefully the signal will bounce from node to node and find him but if not then he'll try another HVAC opening.

[imperialus]

Malleus looks around the waiting room and finds a chair. He motions for Orion to sit beside him and calmly crosses his ankle over his knee. He pulls his comlink out of his pocket and manually fiddles with the controls, trying to see if High-Rise has managed to get a clear signal.

[Glyph]

After Null is satisified with his meticulous appraisal of the parkade, he calls High Rise again, this time only getting his voicemail message. Probably because the ork is busy hacking into the building's security. He hesitates a second, marshalling his thoughts, before subvocalizing a message. Since their communications are not secure, he will have to be oblique. Fortunately, their cover identities make a lot of things seem less suspicious.

"This is Jake checking in. I have finished my security sweep of the parkade. Overall, no major security problems. A few blind corners, but they are well lit. My only minor concern is that the video sensors in the area might be vulnerable to hacking."

"There, that should let him know what he needs to... if not, I can explain later. With pictures, maybe, heh, yes," he thinks to himself as he settles back into his lonely vigil.

[Cakeman]

As Orion stands there he notices Malleus and relaxes. He lets out a breath he didn't even know he was holding and sits down in a chair.

So tense and not noticing it? Man, I should have brought something relaxing...

He spends the time setting up a simple news search to run on his comlink notifying him about any future change of ownership for Emergent Cryonics.

[2bit]

High Rise:

ping. . . Contact! Wait. . . gah, signal lost! You saw him, but the connection is really weak from up here. What you really need is something like these transmitters - an aerial above, with a hardwire connection running through the signal blockers.

Oh, and you have new voicemail.