IC: Post or Die, Lifelines, and deadlines Options

[Acme]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:56 PM, Redmond

Acme let out a long breath as the background count faded, shaking his head a little bit as if to get rid of some water or scum from his hair. But he was paying attention to the stories. "What did the ones who beat you up looking for?" he asked. "Were they looking for Big Daddy as well?"

[Saint Sithney]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:56 PM, Oswald's Rover, near the body mall, Redmond

<<@Yacht Club: Looks like your tail is another Rover, this one black. Something just lit up into the sky. Don't think it's fast enough to be a missile. I'll run the radar picture through my vehicle recognition soft and get back to you. Jovan is non-responsive. I think he might have decided to take an astral jaunt just before I left the parking lot, and now he's having trouble finding his body again. BTW, confirmation on this Viper thing? Should I go hot on the bastards?>>

[pbangarth]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:55 PM, Redmond

As the fog of background count faded from Professor's mind, it was as if circuits were thrown back on, and conduits of magic reconnected. He felt himself charging, thinking, deciding. Oswald's information added the critical details to the formula.

<<@Team: Alright. We've been reacting to the moves of others long enough. It's time we took charge of the situation. Here's the plan. We change it only if someone really takes exception.

Acme, send a search to corral Jovan and bring him into contact with us. A watcher should do. Your spirit can follow the astral trail from his body to his astral projection. You will be our magic firepower on the ground. Jovan, you and your astral cavalry, maybe with an addition from Acme if he can afford it, will deal with the opposing air vehicle. Accident power, fire spirit appears inside the vehicle, whatever. Once that is dealt with, send what help you can afford to the ground forces, but top priority is keeping Oswald and his blimp safe from magical counterattack.

Ferret, right now find us any place nearby that will have trucks we can use as surrogates for the stolen vehicles. Google it if you have to, but get us somewhere suitable right away. I'll drive us there and once there you, Ferret will hack three vehicles and pull them out together as if they are being readied for delivery. Our opposition will want to get the vehicles before any reinforcements come to receive the cargo. Oswald will follow our ground vehicle and cover us, using force only if we are in imminent danger. We don't want the ground opposition to be warned off. Once we are in position in the truck yard, Thirty will assume overall command of tactics to neutralize our opposition. On the ground will be Thirty, Acme, Ferret and myself. Astral will be anything Acme and Jovan can put there. Oswald will be our air strike capability. We should coordinate our actions to bring firepower from all six of us to bear on the ground pursuit as they approach our position in the truck yard. Any questions?>>

<<@Acme: Anything you can do to me to speed me up or toughen me? I can sustain a spell and overcome the mental strain of that effort, and I will need all the help I can get.>>

[Notsoevildm]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:55 PM, Redmond

As the Professor barks orders, Ferret's head slumps sideways onto Thirty's arm. <<@Yacht Club: On it.>>

First things first, though. thinks the chromed ferret. He sinks his teeth into the video stream from the bug on his van, drinking up a few megapulses of street scene. He then vomits the data into one of the cheap links sitting in his virtual lap and adds a loop of a particularly nasty section of the troll porn that Oswald had captured from Jack's feed. He then matches the comm's ID to that of the bug and sets it to standby.

Now, the hard part. He launches his digital self at the bug's tiny node, emitting a high pitched 'squeeee' of digital commands in an attempt to overload it's input buffer and spoof it into transmitting the fake data from the commlink in his lap. Hopefully, without raising an alarm to warn their pursuers.

[Sephiroth]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:56 PM, Oswald's Rover, near the body mall, Redmond

Jovan opened his eyes, breaking out of the communication with his elemental and the contemplative trance he had been in for a while and returning to the job at hand. Checking on what had been discussed, Jovan narrowed his eyes venomously.

<<@Yacht Club: So Viper12 must be the leader of this 12 Vipers group. I will look into that soon, but be wary of interceptions by other members of this group or facing reinforcements to the pursuit. Even if we don't assume that there are 12 of them, there are still several of them currently unaccounted for. Your pursuers on the ground consist of only two men, both with a fair amount of cyberware. One of them has cyberware concentrated in his torso and head; I assume he is another hacker, but I will leave further identification of that to the more cybermedically-minded of us. The other's augmentations are more diversified. Shall I eliminate the aerial target presently?

Oh, and I already established something similar to this, but it seems to require reiteration. There will be no searching for my astral projection or my aura at any time. I will not repeat myself.>>

Do you see a shadow moving quickly in the sky? Get to that shadow, tell me what it looks like and what or who is inside, and disable it on my forthcoming order.

[pbangarth]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:55 PM, Redmond

<<@Team: Oh good. Smiley is back among us! No problem... no search for you. Yes, the flying vehicle presents an imminent danger to our airforce and challenge to our air superiority. Eliminate that challenge as soon as possible.

The possibility of there being more of them than we see at the moment is why I don't think we should scare off the following vehicle immediately with an airstrike. Let's see how much of their hand they are willing to reveal. If we take out the aircraft but leave the groundcraft, they may think we haven't noticed that vehicle.

I see an industrial area off to the south. I'll head towards that in case Ferret finds something suitable there.>> Professor looks for an appropriate turnoff.

[Saint Sithney]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:57 PM, Oswald's Rover, near the body mall, Redmond


"Ah! Good to see you're back. I was getting a little worried that maybe you'd gone spirit walking right before I said I was leaving. That'd a been a mess. Steel yourself by the way, we're about to pass by nuke town. Ought to be enough hurt up there to green your gills for sure. By the way, is the hacker driving or riding shotgun? And should I assume that he's not in a cocoon like this one?"

<<@Yacht Club: Gun on Demand, ready for action. But, either they spotted me flitting about on their radar, or they didn't like your topic of conversation, because that bird seems like a response to something. We might not get the chance to lead them by the neck much longer. Meantime, it'd probably be a good idea for everyone to clear their recent GPS history on comms and vehicles. Don't want to lead them back to the safehouse if someone gets compromised or caught. I can walk you though the procedure if you're not savvy.>>

"Right, well, conflict seems inevitable at this point, so I'm going to hit some stims. If I start acting like an even bigger asshole than usual, please keep in mind it's for your own benefit as well as mine. My age, I need all the help I can get in a gunfight." With that, Oswald triggered his autoinjector to flood his aging veins with Cram. "God damn! I can feel that tingle even through simsense! Oh, shit. How rude of me. You want some too?"

<<@Yacht Club: It's a chopper! HA! Elevation: 60 meters. Passenger size: unknown, likely 4-6. Coloration: always bet on black. Since collateral is likely to be a problem, I'd say down the sucker in poison town. I'll cack the thing if you like. Plenty of ammo here.>>

[Notsoevildm]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:55 PM, Redmond

The GPS in Ferret's van gives a soft ping as it activates. An icon with the word 'Machitos' appears on the windscreen and a soft female voice issues from the speakers. "After 500m, take the next left."

[pbangarth]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:55 PM, Redmond

"Nice touch, that voice, Ferret. I bet you drive her a lot." Professor looks for the turn and negotiates it.

[Acme]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:55 PM, Redmond



Acme chuckles about the comment about the GPS, and nods with the suggestions that Professor brings up. Jovan made his job a bit easier with his won texts, so all he had to do was focus on adding his firepower and spirits. The fact that Jovan put his foot down about not wanting to be searched for astrally... That was interesting. He might have to do a little digging on his own in the future; there were several reasons to want to be locked away and not seen astrally, and he was willing to give the benefit of the doubt for now.

<<@ Prof- Yeah I should be able to get things going as soon as we establish where we're throwing down our defense. I need to see how long we've got before the attack before I start whistling up spirits though; I don't want to have to ask them for help just to watch them leave before we need them. As far as helping you out? Well keep in mind I do things a bit differently, and I don't know what I can do with this short of notice, but if you've got any ideas I'm listening.>>

[Sephiroth]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:55 PM, Oswald's Rover, Redmond

"No, thank you," Jovan replied coolly as he continued to communicate with his elemental. Nevermind about what it looks like now. Bring it down. Accident it down for all I care, just take it down immediately. If it is close enough for you to look inside and see how many metahumans are in it, do so. In the meantime, tell me about what you saw of the positioning of the two men in the ground vehicle. Relative to their direction of motion, are they alongside one another, or is one behind the other? Does the one with the head and chest shadows appear to be driving the vehicle, or the other one? He would be sitting in the front of the vehicle on the left side if he is driving it manually.

[Red-ROM]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:56 PM, Redmond

A chopper has taken flight. Swooping low over Redmond, picking up speed. Not enough, however, to outrun the spirit materializing above it. The ghostly human visage flicks silently through the clouds, stalking its prey. On simple push of magic, and the metal bird goes dark inside. A blown fuse in the instrument panel. The system reboots as a man inside tries to control the falling hunk of steel that spirals out of control. The vessel skims across a rooftop sending sparks flying everywhere before it bounces aloft for another moment and drops into a parking lot.
The flying machine is down. As to the ground travellers, the one with less shadows is in the driving position. His associate, behind him to his right.

Ferret seems to have the camera running his own home movie as the team approach the "Machitos" Warehouse. The place is closed down for the night. One lone car in the parking lot. The place is obviosly not high on the security list for Aztechnology. Its a small plant. The back lot is gated off with about six trucks parked inside. Strawberry nodded her head in response to Acme, not wanting to think about it anymore. Rusty looked around for company,"You fella's got a plan?"

[pbangarth]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:56 PM, Redmond

Professor taps one ear with a finger, and then points downwards to the vehicle. Hoping the message got through to Rusty, he says, "Found the trucks. Heading there now."

[HugeC]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:56 PM, Redmond

Trying to throw off the pursuers that he knows are listening in, Thirty says, "When we get there, we'll split up, two to a truck. We won't need this van anymore, so we can just ditch it there." As he says this, he holds a finger up to his lips and shakes his head to let the others know this is not the actual plan.

Next, Thirty tries to pantomime his actual plan to the group. He points to Rusty, Crew, Strawberry and Ferret, and then pushes his hands palms-down towards the floor of the van twice while mouthing the words, "Stay here." Then he points to Acme, Professor and himself, holds up his pistol and pats it with his free hand, smiling grimly.

[pbangarth]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:57 PM, Redmond

Professor holds a thumbs up sign, showing more confidence than he feels. I'm part of the first line combat team am I? Yeah, right.

<<@Acme: My skills are not focused on combat, so the magic you might have that you could cast on me, in the order I think it might help, is: speed me up; make me invisible; armor me. I've looked at your aura (sorry) and see that you can cast a spell at any level that doesn't cause your nose to bleed and I can maintain it.>>

[Acme]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:57 PM, Redmond

Acme shrugged about the suggestions of strategy. It seemed to work, and he would need to get used to the team anyway before he had a suggestion of who should go where.

[/i][/color]<<@Prof- That doesn't sound too bad. Can't speed you up, but I should handle the other two pretty well. Just lemme know when and give me a bit of a berth, in case we need me to not pass out. >>

[pbangarth]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:57 PM, Redmond

<<@team: Once the vehicle is parked, Acme, and it won't look funny to any outside observer that a driverless vehicle is going by, please go ahead and make me invisible. What ever level of mojo makes you comfortable. I will sutain it myself after that. Without making any audible reference to it, you might want to warn our guests so they don't say something in surprise and warn our listeners. Thirty, once we're there, go ahead and figure out where to place an invisible asset with a heavy pistol.>>

Professor keeps his eyes open for the truckyard.

[Notsoevildm]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:57 PM, Redmond

Ferret's van continues to issue commands in it's cool female voice as it guides the Professor to the truckyard and finds a quiet spot to park. Ferret twitches and giggles as the bug starts broadcasting troll porn to the hopefully unsuspecting decker.

Ferret's eyes open in time to catch Acme's pantomime. He almost blurts something out but catches himself in time.

"I'll miss this old van." he says as the van pulls to a halt and he quietly climbs into the back alongside Strawberry and the green-faced ganger. He takes the seat that Acme vacates and then slips back into the matrix as he turns his attention on the Machitos node.

[Saint Sithney]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:57 PM, Oswald's Rover, Redmond

<<Woah! Just.. wow! Chopper just crashed and burned! Well... I'm not sure it burned, but it just tried to autorotate into a parking lot at near freefall speed, so I'd guess it's out action. I'd call that a trap sprung. No way these guys are going to move on you alone. What say I just disable their vehicle and we run them down like scared rabbits. Could probably keep one alive for info purposes. Respond quickly. We're looking at a tight window here.>>

Oswald maneuvered closer to the target's SUV, attempting to lock on the the vehicle's signature and the driver's comms signal.

[pbangarth]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:57 PM, Redmond

Professor responds to Oswald. <<@team: Our banter for their benefit suggests we are setting up a transfer of the cargo. They may not feel at liberty to abandon this attempt. How about we nuke 'em if they appear to be breaking off?>>

[HugeC]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:57 PM, Oswald's Rover, Redmond

Thirty composes a message as quickly as his thoughts can coalesce. <Was hoping to use the trucks as cover, plus it would be nice if our ride didn't get shot up (again). Light them up once they get into the lot with us.>

Then he crouches next to the van's side door, gun in one hand, the other clutching a handhold for stability, ready to jump out as soon as they are in position.

[pbangarth]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:58 PM, Oswald's Rover, Redmond

Professor turns off the engine. <<@Team: OK, Acme. Do your thing. I'm ready.>>

[Acme]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:58 PM, Oswald's Rover, Redmond


Acme nods eagerly, then tries to keep his prayers and rituals to humming, trying not to give the listeners a clue as to what's going on. He passes his hand over Professor several times, hoping that the lack of sage on hand won't screw the spell up too much.

[pbangarth]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:58 PM, Oswald's Rover, Redmond

For an instant the interface between Professor's eyes and the world is scrambled, and all that he sees blurs, shifting colours and shapes. As the spell takes hold of him, his vision returns. Ain't magic wonderful. He draws the mana onto himself, wrapping it around him like a cloak. With an act of will, he severs it's bond to Acme, and pins it to himself. Mine, now.

"I believe we have some goods to deliver." a disembodied voice lilts cheerily. "Shall we prepare for our customers?"

[Red-ROM]

Friday, Sept. 11, 2071, 7:59 PM, Oswald's Rover, Redmond

The matt black SUV slows and cuts onto a side street as the blimp moves in on it, dodging the sensor lock. The radio traffic reveals nothing between the car and driver, But Oz picks up some chatter from the downed chopper. It's encrypted, but one can only assume it's a distress call. The team's tail seems to be breaking off pursuit.