Legacy Options

[rob]

Laugh out loud when Nix pipes up. "Dumbasses. Aight, logging off. You're going to drop signal for a minute when I do. Spider figured out where this fool is at yet? I'd love to meet him."

Grab the steering wheel and order the vehicle to go to complete commo blackout. Turn off my throwaway commlink, everything. Give it about 12 seconds - two easy breaths - and have the vehicle log in the SATCOM system and route my big commlink into that.

Yell to Nix: "Vehicle is off the local grid and going sattelite. I'm staying offline, since now I gotta drive this thing. Let the kids in the chat room know that my commlink ran out of batteries. You can get access through the truck, or you can continue going through the commerical towers. If you want to send a message to this dumbass, have Spider do it through somewhere neutral."

[Redjack]

<<@Spider [Nix] I'll hold off on his email for now. Physical location will suffice.>>

[fistandantilus4....]

Nix

[ Spoiler ]

<<<<@Nix[Spider]Sure thing, I'll shoot that your way, up on your GridGuide in a few. I've redirected his search to an exec in the PCC. Should be fun to see if he decides to pursue it. This guy definitely knows what he's doing though. I'm just better. Either that, or he was expecting a cakewalk and got complacent. Keep that in mind gents.

[fistandantilus4....]

Caliph

[ Spoiler ]

An icon pops up on the truck's GridGuide, showing an address and apartment number in a low rent area of Renton. The icon is listed as - 'Brennan "Dingo" Bard', Tir Na Nog ExPat - Happy Hunting -
The associated comm number is listed as well

[Redjack]

@Spider

[ Spoiler ]

<<@Spider [Nix] In either case, he's teetering over to the liability side of the equation, rather than the asset side. We'll either set him straight or feed him to a hell hound.>>

"I'm back online. Using one of my alternate serials that Spider set up and logging in via the Grey Ghost Shadow Servers." Nix slinks back into his seat and steps out into the matrix. This just feels so fake...

-------

The dragon steps back into the room. "My apologies for the disappearing act. Our local service provider seemed to have experienced a service interruption." His focus is on the leprechaun. The dragon extends a paw and sets down a gemstone ARO. "Here is a contact LTG for our SINS and passes. We'll need contact information for your resource to get the heavy gear in country and also the details for the immediate flights across the pond. We'll trust you to make the connections and provide the discounted rate you referenced earlier." He looks around the room before looking back to the leprechaun. "I trust you. You trust me."

He turns and heads back out of the room, snaking his head towards the hacker as he exits. "We'll see you soon."

[Mickle5125]

The Raven bobs its head to the leprechaun and the UMSMan. "We'll be in touch."

Dingo listens to the Dragon's message and sighs to himself. 'Well that's not ominous at all... Or obvious.' He thinks to himself before logging out and beginning to clean up his apartment a bit, a plan forming in his mind.

Preparations:

[ Spoiler ]

With a thought, he sends his drones through their start up procedures as he continues cleaning and packing his gear. While their start up procedures are running, Dingo activates his agent and orders it to scan for any external connections to his PAN. As soon as his flyspies are prepared, he tosses them out the door and has them observing the complex from the air and keeps half an eye on their video feed from them.

While he waits for his 'guests' to arrive, Dingo takes time to fix a tray to the back of each of his Dobermans before sitting back with a glass of whiskey and a laugh to himself.

[rob]

Take the exit coming up, and start meandering towards our new friend's house. Shoot the gridguide code over to Nix. "Don't know a damn thing about this dude, save for the fact that he's playing way too loose with this shit. Made us look like idiots in front of the client. You wanna send one of them little disposable ghosts over there, and see how he's looking? You been doing the talking, and I don't really want to knock on his door in broad daylight; if w can get him out of his house, we're money."

I throw the car back onto gridguide, looking for an alley at least three blocks away with good access onto a main throughfare. I'm already dressed like some average schmuck, so no particular issues. While I'm working on that, I call up a list of squares/parks/shops/appropriate open meeting places.

To Nix: <<@Nix (Caliph) - Attachement follows shows some places we can tell him to meet us at.>>

[fistandantilus4....]

Nix

[ Spoiler ]

<<<<@Nix[Spider] I'll have some eyes inside this guys place in a few cycles, but I can tell you that he's got a decent arsenal inside. I'll see what I can do about it.

Feel free to compensate me later chummer.>>>>

[Redjack]

@Spider

[ Spoiler ]

<<@Spider [Nix] Got it. We'll do a little drive by and make a proper first impression. Then we'll get in the air and get to this run underway.>>

Nix listens as Caliph speaks, "I agree. I'll go personally."

Nix waits until they approach the house, then he slinks back in his seat and lets his spirit walk from his flesh. He considers bringing out a massive fire elemental and cutting his losses, but decides against it. We need to ascertain the threat. People make mistakes. He had to convince himself of the latter as much as anything. Utah was still too close. Too Hot. Too deadly.

His spirit crossed the short distance to the house. He proceeded inside, sizing it up. Technology everywhere, but to be expected. Finding the man inside, waiting, he considered his options. Then he decided on one.

[ Spoiler ]

Summon watcher. 2 hours. Buy two hits & drain

For Raven, the 2 foot tall ghostly man in the tuxedo appeared from no where into the middle of the room. He is mostly insubstantial; Made from otherworldly fluff. It speaks in a deep voice with some slow, northern drawl. "Your car will be arriving momentarily sir."

[Mickle5125]

Dingo stares at the two foot spectre tensely for a moment before deciding that it probably won't be trying to kill him yet. He slips his hand away from his gun and stares some more before finally responding, "A car? That I'm not drivin'? Ye've gotta be kiddin' me. Listen, tell your boss that he's welcome t'come up here for a drink, or I can meet him at the pub just down the street."

He takes a sip from his whiskey and shakes his head. "Sheesh. Ye try t' find a guy t' pick an easy meetin' place for him, and next thing ye know, he's sendin' ghosties t' tell ye he's commin' t'get ye. I would'a come t' him..."

[rob]

Heave myself off the seat - these new cushy seats are so nice I don't want to move sometimes - and grab a few items. Got my pistols, just grab my assault rifle, pull the shotgun off the underbarrel mount, and shove the taser on there. Shove it in my trusty old gym bag, nicely padded with old sweaty shorts and cetera, and zip it up. I had thought about leaving the car with just the pistols and the taser, but - god, that would leave me naked without a long gun... shudder.

Wait for Nix to return to himself, then tell him: "I'll go stake out the door to his place and follow him wherever we're going. Give me a head's up where once yall work it out. I'll run cover, and just bag him up and dump him in the car if he does something sideways."

Meander out onto the street, looking for a discreet location between 50 and 100 yards away to camp out. End up sliding my gym bag under my feet and leaning against the corner of a building smoking a cigarette and looking like anyone else. Look around me while I keep an eye on the vehicle status and wait for input from Nix.

[ Spoiler ]

Stakeout test: Intuition 4 + Shadowing 2 + Stakeout 2 = 8d6: [4,5,2,3,3,2,4,6] = 2 hits.
Possible modifiers will be based on 1) he doesn't know what I look like, 2) distance, 3) I ain't moving suspiciously.

Perception roll: Intuition 4 + Perception 4 + Visual 2 + Visual Enhancement 3 + Attention Coprocessor 3 = 16d6: [6,4,4,3,3,2,5,4,3,4,6,1,4,1,6,1] = 4 hits.

[Redjack]

The watcher slides back across the thin veil that separates the astral and the physical to Nix. The two parley for a mere moment before it returns to the physical and Dingo, "The pub will do well enough"

Nix returns to his flesh, sitting up and addressing Caliph. "The pub down the street."

[Mickle5125]

Dingo shrugs. "Righty oh, then. Tell yer boss t' introduce himself as th' Irish Orphans Foundation, will ye?"

Once the watcher leaves, Dingo grabs his knives and makes his way outside, looking around for threats(just in case his new teammates were reeeeeally unhappy about it) before altering the orders for his flyspies. That done, he heads out to his Suzuki Mirage and makes his way towards the pub.

[ Spoiler ]

visual scan of area = 14d6=[1,5,6,1,5,1,5,4,5,6,3,4,4,6] = (7)

wow. really wish that'd been at a more useful time.

anyway, one flyspy is now to watch the apartment, and the other is to watch my bike while I'm in the pub.

[Redjack]

The watcher delivers the message to Nix. Irish Orphans Foundation. Yeah. Right. He passes that info on to Caliph.

On the way to pub, riding in Caliph's truck, Nix casts physical mask on himself. For now, he looks like an unassuming middle-aged woman in casual clothes.

[rob]

Nix tells me where the dude is, and a few seconds later as I'm walking down the street and setting myself up in a corner looking for the perpetrator I get a bling of the challenge/password.

My body does nothing, but continues looking, while my mind shrugs. Until I see the dude leave the building and walk for his motorcycle. At which point I just start snapping pictures. Record the door he comes from, videotape his movement, and peicifically capture indicative shots as he moves around.

Record everything about his bike. Smile happily about the ease of capturing this guy, if it comes down to that. Wait for him to roar down the street, run contingencies in my head.

[fistandantilus4....]

Mickle

[ Spoiler ]

The unfortunate result of living in the rougher areas of Renton is that there are a number of suspicious people in the area. Looking out the window, Dingo is able to identify at least 7 people that are armed to varying degrees, with at least a few of them paying more than passing information to his building.

[rob]

Quick message to Nix when I make our boy: <<@Nix (Caliph) - Target enroute, on a motorcycle. Pictures follow (attachment.pic). I can bag him or roll his squat pretty much at will.>>

Plan out a get-in-get-out route for the truck; forward it and the identifying info for the dude and his bike to my truck, in a burst fire message. Nothing rocket science - a quick pick me up spot for the impromptu meet, and instructions on what to do if our boy got beef.

Open a channel to sniff for the dude's comms, see if I can get anything. He's a hacker, so I'm rolling comsec heavy - encrypted burst messages to Nix and the truck, and aside from that I'm barely touching the net ('cept for the throwaway link, which is blinging along happily ignorant of everything, like everyone else on the street). Good thing he can't hear me listening...

[ Spoiler ]

Intercept test: Electronic Warfare 1 + Communications 2 + RF Signal Scanner 6 = 9 dice: [6,1,4,3,2,1,1,1,1] = 1 hit, damn near a glitch.

[fistandantilus4....]

Spider feeds Caliph a bead on the hacker as he exits the apartments, lighting up his icon for Caliph's eyes only with a bright orange halo. He takes a quick look around the area, then climbs onto a speed bike, taking off in the direction of the meet site he requested.

[rob]

I begin meandering afterwards, trying to keep him in more-or-less view. Order the vehicle to move to a new spot, a bit down the road from the target pub.

[Redjack]

As Caliph's truck begins to move, I lean back looking in the mirror at the mask, tweaking the look.

<<@Caliph [Nix] I can have a spirit bag him or whatever we want, but lets get this done and get in the air.>>

Once it parks, exit the vehicle and begin walking towards the pub. Nonchalant like. We have a job to do. I think our hacker needs an object lesson, but if we go over the top it will generate long term animosity. Rubbing my chin I a plan begins coming to mind.

<<@Caliph [Nix] Not sure how far you want to take it, but here is what I'm thinking. (a) We just bag him and explain that we are paranoid folk that take it personal when people jack with us. Matrix traces are personal to us. (b) I send two more watchers in to explain that if we had taken it uber-personally, they would just be fire elementals and he would be in the middle of an inferno right now. © We call it a wash, air him out and look for a replacement. or.. (d) Other?>>

Not really sure we need to go to #C, but at this point I've little patience for people who might get me killed.

[fistandantilus4....]

Caliph - Roll Tailing

[rob]

Slam a text back to Nix. <<@Nix (Caliph)- He can meet us outside. We ain't meeting on his turf, and we ain't letting him out of our sight once he sees us, after he pulls that kinda crap. We don't know this dude from adam, and we don't really know what kinda crap he's got on us. If he wants it another way, plan C is the way to go. If he can live with both of those, we're good for now. Unless he's thicker than a bull bison he should understand how frickin' exposed he is right now. . We can work out the rest of this shit in my car, on the way to the airport.>>

Meander to where I got a good view of the front of the pub and his bike. Try to track down a good location - that I can see - where we can meet outside, and pop it to Nix.

Caliph's Taling Roll

[ Spoiler ]

Shadowing 2 + Intuition 4 = 6 dice = [5,5,6,5,5,2] = 5 hits. Jeepers. Here I was coming up with plans for when I wiff that roll.

[Redjack]

Good cop, bad cop.... WAIT! I want to be the bad cop! Curiosity about the bar gets the better part. Exit the vehicle and stroll down the street towards the bar. Head inside, look around and stroll up to the bar. Order a drink. Send over a watcher to visit the hacker.

The watcher materializes on the table in front of the hacker. He looks like a thick neck Italian that stands only half a meter tall, in a dark suit with shades and a crew cut. "The boss, he sez we gotta catch a flight and the bus is leaving. Time to fly professor." Curious as I am to see the reaction, I keep looking forward at the drink instead. The bar mirror provides enough reflection to see movement, without making out all the details.

[Mickle5125]

Dingo sighs and lifts his beer, giving it a little shake in front of the spirit. " Ghostie, I'm sure ye don' drink much, but here's a word o' advice: Don' make a man waste his alcohol. 'Tis a blasphemy 'gainst all that is right in this world." He drains a bit of the beer and grins, "I s'pose that yer boss won't meet me in here, th' paranoid bastard. Well, tell 'em that I'll be out in a mo' or two, and that he's welcome to come join me for a drink. I'll pay, if he's willin' to drink what I'm willin' t' buy."

[rob]

Watch as Nix, wearing an old lady for a face, walks on in. Get to sittin'. Pop a quick swig of corn-whiskey and coffee from my thermos. The combination is... well... lets call it 'motivating.' Gasp a little bit when it hits the throat.

Cue the truck to U-turn while I wait. I'm across the street from it, spending half a brain telling it where to go.