[X] My Assistant

[Generic_PC]

September 14th, Renraku Regus, 405 Lexington Avenue, 4:20pm

"I'll be there. Preferably on time, this time. Since everyone seems unwilling to take these, I'll take one." He reaches into the center of the table, taking one of the credsticks, and leaves the room, beginning the trek home by picking up his Predator from the guard.

September 14th, Back in Brooklyn, 4:47pm

Tom unlocks his apartment, throwing the credstick, his glasses in their case and his battered deck of cards onto the table beside the door. He brushes another one of the cards hanging from the roof, which gives off another tiny pulse. He hangs the nice coat on a hanger in his closet, then changes into some less sophisticated clothes. He battles with the idea of summoning a spirit while he eats an apple, but then decides against it. Grabbing a heavier coat to protect against the brisk air of a New York fall, grabbing his various accountrements before locking his apartment, leaving again.

September 14th, SoHo Apartment building, 5:15pm

Arriving by auto-cab, Tom is surprised that, for once, he managed to make it somewhere early. Apparently the subway wasn't such a great way to get anywhere expediently. He wrestles with his commlink, eventually getting a message sent to Vamp. <I'm just outside. Can you let me in before it gets too cold?>

[Trigger]

September 14th, 2072
Vamp's Apartment, SoHo
5:14 PM

Vamp opens the door with a smile, getting there just as Scorch knocked.

"Yeah, but that's not always a bad thing," Vamp answers as he lets the hacker into his apartment. As he is closing the door he gets another message in his vision, this time from one of the other two at the meet. Vamp quickly types up a response as he sends down the signal for the lobby door to open.

<Come on in, it is the sixth floor, apartment 13.>

"Can I get you something to drink? I have water, beer, or I can brew some soykaf," asks Vamp as he wanders into the small alcove off of his living room that is his kitchen, checking the water to make sure it is even working at the moment.

[ Spoiler ]

Household gremlins roll:

1d6=2 No hit, everything works fine (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[BlackHat]

Scorch entered Vamp's apartment, and looked around for a moment, politely refusing the offer of drinks. He played with an optical chip, idly, in one hand - twisting the thing around in his fingers, and clicking his thumbnail against the conductors - as he paces around the entry-room of Vamp's apartment taking in the atmosphere of the place, and analyzing the local augmented reality. His movements were erratic, like watching a cat nervously enter an unfamiliar room. "We've got a problem," he said, flatly, as his eyes fell upon the sword. "One of my contacts found meaning in that embedded data." Just then, Vamp received his message from Thomas, and typed up his reply. Scorch nodded, recognizing the familiar public node within range. "Looks like the others are arriving." His face did a double-take, at nothing, in particular. "Might as well... we should... you know...." He seemed to get stuck on his own thought for a second. "No point in going into it more than once." He managed to explain.

He took a seat on Vamp's couch. "While we're alone... thanks." He smiled, awkwardly. "I know it comes with the job, but you doubled our payout, tonight." Shrugging, he added. "I owe you, one - so... ya know... just ask." He then looked around a bit. "This place secure?"

[Trigger]

Vamp raises an eyebrow when Scorch says the word problem, his eyes going to the datachip that the hacker is caressing like chiphead who has gone too long without a slotting.

Listening to the rest of Scorch's explanation, and then offering of a favor, Vamp shakes his head, " Thanks man, but yeah, I was just doing my job. It is what I get paid to do...among other things."

Vamp smiles at the hacker on his couch before turning around and walking to the front door of his apartment, arriving just as the next member of their group knocks.

[Ol' Scratch]

| September 14th | SoHo Apartment Building | 5:15pm

Crowley shows up on his Suzuki just as Thomas steps out of the auto-cab. He steps off and wills the bike to find a nearby parking spot for itself. He begins patting his coat in search of his commlink when he notices Thomas.

"Oh, hello again." He offers a warm smile just before stopping his search. "Have you called up all ready?"

[zed]

| September 14th | SoHo Apartment Building | 5:30pm

Settling down to review the data package you collected from the meet you find the following

1. A copy of a document signed by one Duke Torres and witnessed by Simon Rubin, Attorney-at-law. The document effectively agrees that for a commute of the death penalty to something more lenient Duke will disclose all he knows on the operations of the Blood Rose gang.

2. Internal documents (NYPD) to the Roosevelt prison governor confirming the transfer of Duke to their care for 72hours hours questioning on Sept 16th with questioning set to begin on 17th at 10AM

3. Duty Roster sheet. Suggesting there will be the following effecting the transfer : 1 Driver for Van, 1 Guard, 2 motorcycle outriders, 1 pursuit driver and backup.

4. Plan of route from the prison to the facility on 54th street.

5. Tactical analysis of transfer stating risk is moderate to high should the blood rose gang learn of the transfer,however it notes an over night transfer taking place at a random point determined no more than 1 hour before 9pm should provide minimum exposure to escort. It discusses backup strategy for any attack : 1 NYD chopper with drone assistance will be on standby - from go command the chopper will be on site within 22 mins.

Its clear that the information you have is detailed enough to give you an idea of when, where and how as well as the firepower you will be facing.

[ Spoiler ]

ill wait on Scorch bringing up the other data as no one else has found it yet

[BlackHat]

Scorch patiently sifted through the data with the rest of the team, saving his information until they had a clearer picture of what the job entailed. This was the first chance he had really had a look at the information, and it helped put a few more pieces into place, in his mind. Afterward, before the conversation shifted to the planning phase, he brought the picture of Duke Torres up again, in the small holo-projector built into his commlink, and flipped the image over to reveal a series of characters that represented the data that made up the image. "So, like I said, I noticed something strange about this image." There was a small section, near the middle, where the characters seems to have another string of data encoded in the same space. It wasn't particularly noticeable, until Scorch separated the two streams of information and put the image away - even then, it was encoded. "The data was small, but scrambled, so I took it to one of my contacts, who found this...." The characters began to rearrange themselves, and a few of them shifted to other characters, eventually taking the form of the message Seg had left for him. <They have my family. I do this under duress. Please find them. 80 Park terrace west, Inwood. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 20,000. Blood Rose Gang>

He paused for a second, to let the new information sink in. "So, way I see it, our odds of actually getting paid for the Duke-job are about nil." He looked, nervously, around the room. "I know how I would like to proceed - but I'd like to hear everyone else's opinion."

[Trigger]

Vamp leaned back in his arm chair as Scorch presented the data to them, mulling over the possibilities and outcomes. His eyes narrowed at the hidden message from the Johnson, running the numbers through his head.

"They're not likely to stiff us on the Duke job, because if they were they would have tried to negotiate down the up front cash," Vamp said with matter-of-fact-ness that comes from being stiffed over before. "No, I think we will still get the money from this job, though that doesn't mean we shouldn't be careful at the final meet. I see another opportunity for us here to make some more nuyen and I think we should look into it."

[Generic_PC]

"However, we're going to have to be... careful, about extracting the family. If they know about it before they pay us, they'll probably kill the johnson. However, they obviously want this done, so I agree that it's unlikely we'll get stiffed. Most companies know that a shadowrunners grudge can be dangerous, much less four of them missing seventy thousand nuyen." Tom pulls the credsticks out of his jacket pocket. "Oh, we should split these now. I'm uncomfortable carrying around this much money. I'm amazed I got here without buying a hit of psyche, at the least. I'm sure half of it'll be going to bribes and payoffs to help 'grease the wheels' anyway..."

[BlackHat]

Scorch seemed to be put slightly at ease by the others' confidence that the original job still stood, but still seemed unconvinced. He raised an eyebrow at Thomas's mention of Psyche, but kept his mind on the job, for the time being. "Yeah, most corps know better - but I dunno how corporate this Blood Rose Gang is. Most gangers I know would have probably killed the J by now - after all, he did his part, and we're not expecting to hear from him until after the deadline. Loose ends, and all that." He shrugged. "You're probably better than I am at picking up vibes, though" Scorch was directing this comment at Vamp, "but... no... yeah.. I don't see the J playing hardball. Too much was at stake for him, if we walked." He directed his attention at the credsticks that Thomas had just produced. "He obviously only had so many of those to bargain with - but I think both he and the ork were going to agree to anything we asked, especially if they didn't plan to settle their tab, later. 30-grand for a job like this, would be a steal and haggling over that would have just put both of their plans on the line."

Leaning back, sinking further into the couch, Scorch sighs, "One of us should find out what Sammy knows, in any case. If he's worked with the ork before, we can probably trust him to pay up - knowing his motives doesn't really change anything about the job - but if he only knows the J, I wouldn't expect some random ganger to care much about his shadow-rep. Or, at least, if he's desperate enough and Duke knows something, I'd believe he's willing to risk crossing us to keep it quiet." He then sat back up, as though an idea just came to him. "Ya know, if we extract Duke, alive - we'd have a bargaining chip to make sure the be-ar-gee pay up, and that they release the Johnson and his family, unharmed." He looked around, to see if anyone else seemed to like the idea. "The J never said we had to kill Duke - just that we had to make sure he doesn't get where he's going. If they pay up, we hand him over, and they can deal with the snitch, themselves, but if they do double-cross us, we can hand him right back to the cops - and they'll know it."

[Trigger]

Rising from his arm chair, Vamp crosses to the desk in his living room, opening a drawer in it and withdrawing two empty cresticks.

"The way I see it, we have to do the Duke job because we have no reason not to, and we got 30 grand up front. Think of the hit to our street-cred if we don't do it? No, that won't do. We do it, and we prepare in case they try and frag us over. If they do try, and they might, and we are ready for it, then we will be seen as people you don't frag over, ne?" responded Vamp to Scorch as he crossed back to his arm chair, grabbing the credsticks from the table and going about breaking them into four 7,500 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) pieces.

"As for getting Duke out alive, you're right, that could give us some nice bargaining power if we want to save the Johnson and his family. Plus, I don't want to do anyone's wetwork for them, if I don't have to. It will make our job that much harder though. Easier to blow the convoy up then to disable it and get the guy out alive. Much easier." Vamp sighs in consternation at the prospect of having to stop an NYPD convoy as he tosses the three credsticks to the other men in the room. "We need some information on these Blood Roses, but I think the way we should go about this like this. First, we blow the convoy, kill Duke, make sure the NYPD doesn't kill us. Then we meet the Johnson and his friends again, but while we do that, one of us snatches the family from wherever they got them. The Blood Roses aren't going to have them too locked up, not if they are just keeping them away from the Johnson. Then we let the J know we got his family out, collect the extra 20 grand and make out like bandits."

"We are going to make an enemy of the Blood Roses if we want the extra 20 grand, so we have to be prepared for that. I have a source that can get us some more info on them," says Vamp as he cues up his commlink, quickly typing up a message to Lilith, his ex-lover, magical group member, and mage partner in the Ancients.

<Hey beautiful, what do you know about the Blood Roses?>

[BlackHat]

Scorch nodded, "Yeah, I guess I didn't really think that through." He rubbed the side of his head, and looked embarrassed. "I like your plan, and, frankly, I don't have a lot else going on this week. I'm sure the be-are-jees will forgive and forget, as long as the Duke job is done, and we don't geek too many of them during the extraction." He grinned, attempting to show he was joking, but the expression came off as kind of creepy, and unhinged. "And if they stiff us... I'm sure we all have ways of making them regret it."

He picks up his commlink, again, and the holographic message disappears as his hand passes over it. "Somebody should check on the house - I'll do a 'trix-sweep in a sec, and see if the place has cameras or anything - but I think that's going to be a cake-walk compared to the real job." Scorch taps the credstick Vamp gave him against his knee, as though he has too much energy for sitting around and talking, and its starting to take its toll. "I dunno what kind of toys you guys have laying around - but we're probably going to need to find some heavy firepower, in a hurry - and, maybe, a vehicle." He tossed his stick back onto the coffee-table. "... pro'lly expensive."

"Maybe this is a good time to ask... before we plan ourselves in circles... just what it is everyone here can and can't do - something more than," he jerked his thumb at himself, "hacker,..." He then pointed at Vamp, "face,..." He pointed at Thomas next, "...mage, er, something,... His face showed his uncertainty at guessing Thomas's profession. Finally he gestured towards Crowley, "... and, I'd say that makes you the muscle... but, you know... He squinted one eye at him, "...maybe not."

He smirked. "I'll go first." Scorch didn't really want to go first, but figured it would help get across the kind of information he was hoping to get from everyone else. "Specialties are cybercombat - particularly against meat-brains - tactical and matrix overwatch, and cybersecurity. As far as deficiencies, I'm not great at sifting through large amounts of data - particularly, picking out hidden nodes. I'm guessing the transport truck will either be rigged from within, or manually driven - so it doesn't really make a difference, there, but by the time that drone shows up, I probably won't have enough time to pick up on its signals and do anything about it." Scorch held his hands up in a 'what can you do?' sort of gesture, and continued. "The en-why-pee-dee will certainly be linked with atch-que, but between running silent and strong encryption, there isn't going to be a lot I can do in the time frame we're talking about." He then hesitated, before saying. "I might be able to provide something a little unorthodox if we can compromise a cop - preferably one of the ones assigned to this job. It might making pinning this on the en-ay, a little easier, too."

[BlackHat]

After relinquishing the conversation to the next person, Scorch sends a quick message, <Secure Chat Request>, and then follows this up with a request to open an active connection between the two commlinks.

[Ol' Scratch]

Crowley had been sitting quietly, listening intently to everyone's ideas. While Vamp was speaking, he seemed to nod quite a bit in agreement, but still said nothing. It wasn't until Scorch pointed a thumb in his general direction that Crowley broke his silence.

"I suppose that would be a fair assessment of my abilities on the surface. To be more exact, however, I can call upon the spirit world to aid us in our endeavors. More often than not in this line of work, that aid comes in the form of 'the muscle' as you so succinctly put it. I can perform some limited astral reconnaissance as well, though I imagine Thomas," he pauses for a moment to accentuate his words with a gesture, "might be better equipped for that sort of thing. All in all, I consider myself to be more of a support role. I'm here to help most of you do your jobs better rather than excel at any one of my own, at least when the time comes for action if nowhere else."

With that, the warlock once against grows quiet while remaining as attentive as always.

[BlackHat]

Scorch looks impressed that his guess was even close. "I don't know... well... much about magic." He looks to the side, then double-takes before continuing. "What sorta things can your spirits do? Like... if you were going to support me... anything in particular I should know?" While he waited for the connection with Thomas to complete, or be denied, he worked up a short message for Deep-Fried, and fired it off to one of his proxy-accounts, hoping the dealer checked it sooner, rather than later, and that his vague promise of 'trade' would entice him to make his request a priority. <Looking to get my hands on an HSR and a deck to go with it, and I've got (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 2,500 that says you're the guy to talk to. If you prefer, I can pay in trade, if you've got them on hand, tonight.>

[Ol' Scratch]

"Sneaking about, protecting you while you do your thing, reanimating you and getting you to safety should you fall in battle. All that sort of thing." Crowley seems oddly flippant -- almost whimsical -- as he waves a dismissive hand through the air, especially regarding the third option. "Think of me as a utility belt of sorts. I may not look like much on the surface, but my usefulness knows no bounds when things get sticky."

[BlackHat]

Scorch's eyes widen at the word "reanimating", and he seems impressed, nodding slowly as gears turn in his head. "Can they, uh... get me to safety before I fall? Like.. um.. while I do my thing? Scorch wasn't sure exactly what Crowley meant by reanimation - and wasn't entirely comfortable with the term - but his thoughts went immediately back to the Transys Steed he was eying earlier, and wondered if there was some magical equivalent for mages who left their meat behind.

[Ol' Scratch]

"They... erm... could, but I wouldn't recommend it. Unless you're okay with your consciousness taking a backseat to their control of your body. Honestly I've never tried it on an active hacker before. It would be rather fascinating to see if you could still do your thing while they jaunted around with your skinsuit..."

[BlackHat]

It sounded like he had things backwards - he would be the drone. Scorch continued nodding slowly as a grin crawled across his face. He seemed pleased that his idea was novel, at least. "Well, if I was in the 'trix, my consciousness wouldn't even be in the backseat - but, yeah, if I stuck around to watch... very creepy. Kind of like a pee-fix, but without all the..." Rather than finish his thought, Scorch jumped right to the next one. "What does it feel like?"

[Ol' Scratch]

Crowley just grins like a Cheshire cat. "Unreal. Literally."

[BlackHat]

Scorch returns Crowley's grin, for a second, then glances at the others, and straightens his face. "Well, let's focus on planning, right now - but, yeah, if you're curious, too, we could do an experiment before we split. Better to know our options and limits before we need them, ne?"

[Ol' Scratch]

"It's entirely up to the spirit realm, but I'd be willing to ask them on your behalf."

[BlackHat]

Scorch smirked, "... maybe they're curious, too...."

[Ol' Scratch]

Crowley simply nods in response, his smile slowly fading as he returns to the real discussion.

[BlackHat]

"So..." Scorch begins, after an awkward moment of silence. "Anyone know 'a guy' that can get us some LAWs, overnight, so we can nuke 'em from orbit? or maybe enough binary-ex to drop the truck into the Underground?" Scorch was kind of kidding - but those were the first two ideas that came to mind, and he didn't see many other options for taking out an armored transport vehicle with enough distance to survive the ensuing shit-storm.