IC: Post or Die, Lifelines, and deadlines Options

[Notsoevildm]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:38 PM, Redmond

<<@Team: Frag me, the main node's on high alert. Either our snake friends have been here already or BDLL is a totally paranoid fragger. It's going to be a bitch to get in, and even though this code is about as old as me, I doubt I can brute force it. I'll give it a go but if it doesn't work, I'm going to have to do it the sneaky way and that is going to take time.>>

Ferret hacks up a slimy scrap of paper and hands it to waitress with one of his paws.

'Can you pass on this message, please' he squeaks at her.

<<@BDLL. Mrs J has sent us to ensure delivery of her goods. If you need assistance with delivery, please contact me. Ferret.>>

Then, with a twitch of his whiskers, he snaps back to the main node. He spends a few moments scanning the various icons present: ruins, lake and particularly the glowing phoenix. I don't like the look of that burning bird, he thinks to himself.

[Saint Sithney]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:38 PM, Redmond

"Northern Ghouls are on the run away from here. That's encouraging, but they've also got their food, so they've never been too much of a direct threat. I could still tag them just to remove them as a potential threat and to draw attention away from this location. That last geek didn't seem too put off by the gunfire, and it was hitting him."

Oz was sitting, facing the door and watching his feeds on AR.

[pbangarth]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:38 PM, Redmond

Professor checks out jacked-in Ferret. "Looks like our hacker has his work cut out for him. Till he's done, I'll keep an eye out to the south and east."

[Sephiroth]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:38 PM, Redmond

<<@team: No. It can't have been the Vipers. The prisoner said they didn't know where Long Legs was holed up - they wouldn't have ripped through Twisters like that if they did. I suspect that it was Jonathan and his band of feral ghouls who may have set off the alarm. Perhaps Jonathan is a hacker, but it would not be necessary, methinks; setting off a node alarm can be done through a physical intrusion into the node's facility as easily as through a Matrix intrusion, can it not?

Acme, your claim that the ghoul is somehow connected to our employer is worrisome, but if you have seen Jonathan before then that could simplify this process greatly. Perhaps a spirit search for that man is in order.

Oh, and by the way, I truly hope that you all do not honestly mean to tell me, through your suspicious lack of response to my earlier question, that you have been seeing feral ghouls carrying food around in the streets and buildings. Last time I checked, that is not normal behavior for feral ghouls - they eat their food roughly where they find it, they don't transport it elsewhere. Surely that is not the case here?>>

Jovan sighed again in exasperation. My spirits are silent and incompetent. Very well, do not worry about that then. For now, at least.

I have a question for you, elemental. There is a man, a ghoul, whom I suspect is somewhere inside that toxic area you see to the north. That ghoul is connected to the series of events that have brought me and the other metahumans here, I am sure of it, and those specks you see running away are, I believe, feral ghouls that came here with him. It seems now that one of my teammates unknowingly encountered the man earlier today, and probably saw his aura, so we would be able to search him out astrally, but since this man is an Infected and a "friend of a friend," so to speak, I would prefer to deal with him personally and away from the rest of my team, one predator to another.

I wish for your opinion and cost-to-benefit analysis on this, elemental. Do you believe that getting in and out of this viper's nest quickly and getting some straight answers from that ghoul is worth the risk of stirring up something toxic?

[Saint Sithney]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:39 PM, Cross Town Gas, Redmond

Satisfied for now that there were no more ghouls rushing him, Oswald slipped back into VR.

<<@Ferret: Well, it's possible that it's always been on high alert. This place ain't exactly open for business. Good news is that a general alert like that won't matter at all since there's no one minding the store. So, IC may be swarming, but at least they're not shielded against your attacks like if you'd set off a restricted alert. All is not lost! Also, I've got my computer, Monty, to throw at it if you like. I can just run him off my persona, and reload him to keep him in the game as needed. Just give me access to your link and I'll ride with you. An old system needs an old hand. Besides, if it's already on alert, you don't have to worry about triggering an alert, now do you?>>

[Warlordtheft]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:40 PM, Cross Town Gas, Redmond


<softly>Sis....

Zo sheds a single tear, the drop of water splashing on his trigger hand. The sensation bringing him awake. He waits a moment for him to stop trembling.


"Is the ghoul dead Prof?"

[pbangarth]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:40 PM, Cross Town Gas, Redmond

"Looks dead to me, Zo. And it looks to me as if it means more to you than meets the eye. Maybe in a quieter time if you want to talk, I'm a good listener."

<<@Jovan[cc team]: Well, I can only tell you what I saw. This guy had a nasty looking rat, maybe one of those devil rat thingies, in his hand when he appeared. Food, pet, ally... I don't know what it was.>>

[Sephiroth]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:40 PM, Rusty's Safehouse, Redmond

<<@team: And what of the two or three other ghouls some distance away from your location that are currently fleeing? Surely Oswald picked them up on his sensors. Were they carrying anything with them?>>

[Saint Sithney]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:40 PM, Cross Town Gas, Redmond

<<@team: Two ghouls, one carrying a corpse, one walking with the other. Not holding hands or anything, but they were moving together. The sensor feed is available to you if you want to watch them run. It's all recorded if you want to pile through it. Wait! Let me set the proper musical score! <Audio attachment> There. Better.>>

[Sephiroth]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:40 PM, Rusty's Safehouse, Redmond

Jovan immediately moved to check the recorded video feed from the blimp, and quickly found what he was looking for. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Something is... off... about this situation with those ghouls.

<<@team: Yes. The one is carrying a body, as you said, and the other is carrying flesh. If we assume they are both feral, then there is something odd about their behavior. Feral ghouls just don't do that, they aren't smart enough to carry food more than a short distance before they consume it. And even if they are sapient ghouls, the question remains of why they are staying here in the first place. This is not a safe place to live, even by Redmond standards - there are traps everywhere, deadly poisons still remaining from the explosion, and almost no one lives here. I strongly suspect it has something to do with Long Legs and our cargo.>>

With the three ghouls currently fleeing further into the Cross Labs compound, Jovan decided that it was time for some astral fieldwork for the evening. He quickly issued off orders to his spirits as his mind separated itself from his body.

Watcher guarding this van, keep an eye on the bound captive behind my body as well as the dwarf sitting elsewhere in this building while I am gone. I do not trust either of them not to try anything. Watcher being chased, are you more clear-headed now? What is the situation with the dog? Watchers circling a dead ghoul, I want one of you to go inside the building before you and act as correspondent between me and the other metahumans, and I want the other to look through the adjacent buildings and make sure no other creatures bigger than a large rat are occupying them.

Come, elemental. We are following those specks and taking a look around the area. You can tell me your analysis on the way.

The watcher manifested quietly inside the gas station, taking the form of a large, disembodied floating eye in plain view of the rest of the team. "I am going astral to scout out the area ahead and follow those ghouls. Use this watcher to keep in touch, if you wish."

[Acme]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:40 PM, Rusty's Safehouse, Redmond

Acme strained to remember the earlier day, things had been quite busy in the meantime.


<<@Jovan- Well he didn't look feral when I ran into him, he was fully talking and cognizent. I can only theorize that he either was faking being feral or was in an accelerated process.>>

[Notsoevildm]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:40 PM, Rusty's Safehouse, Redmond

Ferret absently scratches at a bit error with his hind leg as he examines the icons.

<<@Oswald: Opening up a channel for you to access my node. The fiery bird is two programs, an attack and something sneaky in the tail that looks like it reloads the attack program if it gets crashed. The lake is where we want to be. It's the security systems but that also means a security account. Think you're agent can keep the IC of my back long enough for me to hack an account and rewrite the second program so it cant reload the attack prog?>>

[Warlordtheft]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:40 PM, Cross Town Gas, Redmond

"Just a bad memory, Prof. Nothin mor ta say. In any event so we iz just gonna sit here or do we leave Oz and Ferret here, while Acme, you and I head ta one of the other buldings to see if we could find....wait a sec, Oz which building haz the room enough for the vehicles BDLL has. He is a rigger, so it seems ta reason it would be in a garage of some sort, and big enough to house a few vehicles.

Zo looks around at the empty gas station.

"We can definitely strike dis place off."

[Red-ROM]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:41 PM, Redmond

"So you believe these ghouls to be of animal intelligence? And this Sentient one you speak of, he is shepherding the lesser ones around this wasteland?" The Elemental soared through the astral along side his summoner. Their two powerful auras glowing In the darkness of such a dead place. They quickly gained on their targets. Two ghouls swinging west around a building.
Jovan's watcher to the north calls out to his mind,"The beast has emerged from the building and heads north east, I am sorry to have failed you before."

[Acme]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:41 PM, Redmond

Acme sighed tiredly as he leaned against the abandoned gas station. It was a hell of a day; he'd already been slammed around pretty quickly but had recovered. This job was weighing on his mind, as he wondered why Coyote would get him involved in something like this. The pieces were there, and it seemed much bigger than just the arms shipment now, when adding in the mystery of the ghouls and their employer.

[Saint Sithney]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:40 PM, Cross Town Gas, Redmond

"You've got the map. It ain't changed. You boys pile through to pick us a destination while I get k-rad in this bit-tacular system."

<<@Ferret: You crash the tail and I'll put my resources into hitting the bird. Or you could just go for admin access and turn the damn things off. Either way, my part of the plan stays the same, givin' the bird, the bird.>>

Oswald logged into the account Ferret set up on his link and found the port for the Cross network. Shortly he was looking at a sad digital gas station covered with old incompatible textures.

[Warlordtheft]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:41 PM, Cross Town Gas, Redmond

"Yeah but Oz, I can see those that appear ta big enough. I can't tel if dey have an underground garages or garage doors in general."

[Notsoevildm]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:40 PM, Cross Town Gas, Redmond

The dull silver ferret watches as the glitching icons of Oswald and his agent float past him, then sprints towards the lake representing node and dives in. He swims in a sea of bits, holding his breath as he looks for a way into the security node.

<<@Oswald: Working on it.>>

[pbangarth]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:41 PM, Cross Town Gas, Redmond

"Zo, there are some likely places in the Cross Technologies compound, I'm just a little hesitant to split the team up. We've had a lot of bad luck the last little while, and separating seems to me to be inviting more.

Acme, is there any chance you could send a spirit over to start looking through the buildings?"

[Red-ROM]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:40 PM, Cross Town Gas, Redmond

The Small, digitally wet rodent slips through a crack in the code down into the murky depths of the security level, while Oswald's minion whips up a new access ID and punches into the verdant ruins. The Flaming bird circles in a confused frenzy, looking for a lost prey. The Analyze program glows in it's eyes, looking for intruders in its jungle.

Below the water, Ferret finds a new world an under water city complete with coral spires and crystal domes. The city reads as repeat of the structures above, but more detailed; Alert status and security readouts, There's Access to cameras in some places and in most streets. Half the city is reading <<connection lost>>. A tinge of red pulsates in the water. The Alert is more visible here. There's a message popping up about an invalid access ID and the gas station icon is highlighted in red. A few other buildings are glowing red as well. The Phoenix Mall, The CATco Tower East, and another building Labeled Annex 3 .

[Sephiroth]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:40 PM, Cross Town Gas, Redmond

The translucent, floating eye turns slowly to look at Professor. "I do not mean to be rude, but as I mentioned, I am already moving in that direction and would not take kindly to you spying on me. If there are a large number of likely targets to search through, then perhaps he and I can split the searching between our astral servants. However, as it stands I am currently quite able to search through buildings if you have found a more narrow list of possibilities."

The eye then rotates in the air to face Acme. "However, I am very interested in this alleged encounter you had with Jonathan, Acme. Can you tell me more about it? Did he say where he was trying to get to when you took his taxi ride from him?"

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:40 PM, Cross Town in astral space, Redmond

That is the assumption under which I am working, as it makes the most sense given his connection to the troll dwelling here whom I and the others have been hired to seek out. He left the group of ghouls I sometimes work with several weeks ago, taking several of the more animal-like of the ghouls and heading somewhere out in this part of the city to give those ghouls under his care more roaming space. I am confident that this wasteland is that place, and strongly suspect that their continued presence here has something to do with that troll and some military-grade weapons and equipment in his possession. To me, the most likely possibilities are that this particular ghoul is an extremist willing to use the explosives in the troll's possession for terrorist attacks designed to further ghoul rights (which, given the nature of the group he comes from, is not necessarily out of the question), and alternatively that there is something else in that collection of equipment that I was not told about. Something valuable enough to justify these ghouls staying here to perhaps overwhelm and take over the troll's compound, when there are traps and poisons everywhere and food in general is hard to come by. But here, let us see whether these ghouls are indeed as feral as I believe them to be. Jovan skirted the edge of the building in an attempt to avoid detection, but it was a poor attempt; his skill in shadowing was still underdeveloped, and his mind wasn't totally focused on it - as a nosferatu, Jovan just wasn't afraid of ghouls, as they were naturally inferior to him in his mind.

[Notsoevildm]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:40 PM, Cross Town Gas, Redmond

<<@Oswald: Thanks for the distraction, I'm in on a security account. I'll set you up legit access as soon as I get my bearings.>>

The silver ferret turns his attention to the flashing red icons. His whiskers twitch and his eyes go wide as he scans each of them, requesting security updates on their current alert status and data on the respective alert triggers.

[Saint Sithney]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:40 PM, Cross Town Gas, Redmond

Oswald looked at the ruined city and the icon floating overhead. He checked out his surroundings, finding very little information available to him from the old VR sim. It seemed familiar though as he unwound some snippets of code. Henry Weissmuller... God, this code has his stink on it.
<<@Agent: Alright Monty, set phasers on macerate.>>
Oz sat back and watched as the three crinkling balls of light representing his Agent began to clumsily spit out code into the walkway near the lake. It only took seconds before Oz noticed a rather nasty hiccup in the terrain, followed by a slight pulse the old man recognized as an alert response. It would only be a matter of time before the system tracked him down or kicked him out. Pausing the bot, he loaded his Spoof program in and, in a moment, had it swap out his busted ID for a fresh one while Oz relayed the new info to all his devices. Quickly swapping programs out he resumed the push into the system proper, hoping to stay on track and make it in in time to be of help. Then Ferret's message arrived.

<<@Ferret: What, you don't need me to shoot the bird? I'm almost in now.>>

[Saint Sithney]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:40 PM, Cross Town Gas, Redmond

The old system glitched again, echoing Oswald's own words back at him.

[Warlordtheft]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 10:41 PM, Cross Town Gas, Redmond

Zo chuckles"Yeah, but Prof-ya do realize that this clumped together we'd all be incenerated by a single Thor shot. Of course if somebody starts lobbing thor shots at us, I'm askin for a raise."