Deep Vengeance..., ...is the Daughter of Deep Silence Options

[Buddha72]

Cypher
You open the door and almost immediately see a small hovering drone - some sort of VTOL design but light and small, perhaps a recon model but clearly it has a small optical ship in a small storage compartment attached to it - you can see it through the clear door. It hovers patiently as you retrieve it and then quickly zips straight up like a mechanical humming bird as soon as you close the compartment door. As you look up you see it zip off towards the direction of the Looking Glass with a speed you find startling - another modification appears to be speed. Closing the door, you slot the chip and begin to go over the data with various security programs and protocols before moving it to your actual commlink. You quickly find a program buried in the files designed to erase the data if opened without the proper sequence or key. A small note is popped up when you discover the bomb.

<<What order did you serve - go by first letter>>

Your face flushes at the memory of the personality bleed at the table but you quickly enter the first letter of each person you served and the order in which you did. A second security protocol pops up - this time a program designed to encrypt the files and send out a trace program to lead someone back to this file. Another message pops up.

<<What was the first image I sent you when we met>>

You flash back to a pair of lips with a finger held in front as the drone was cutting you loose from the restraints on the medical bed. You enter the information and watch the information spool out - you see what looks to be chemical formulas with copious notes embedded in the file. Dr. Takayasu's observations, alterations and projections are there with suggested new lines of research. You see data on the various test subjects and how they fared, usually not well. You see orders attached to their bodies for various tests to be run after they reach the clinic - further study on her part it seems to feed her desire to control and master genetics. This all appeared to be the commercial data Widget spoke of. You push on looking for the odd information that she felt the need to send by courier.

It exploded on your screen. A small schematic of a nanite - it's in the doctor's personal files and in fact, it seems the only reason she got a copy was her drone stumbling onto her personal commlink in the confusion. You see the layers of encryption and security protocols that had to be by-passed. Looking closer it seems unlikely Widget did this - if she had this level of skill she should be a lot higher up the food chain than she appears to be. The work looks seamless and intuitive - whoever took this part lives and breathes the matrix.

Reading over the data it seems it's designed to mimic cellular decay and widespread neural degeneration in the host but you're guessing at best with the medical data being referenced here. What is clear is the Takayasu knew about it and was allowing her employer to think he was suffering from a genetic disorder that only transplantation could even begin to address. More specifically, she would need a Type O donor to even have a chance to keep him alive. You see the inner machinations of an internal power struggle with betrayal sprinkled about - someone in Yamamoto's crew was making sure he was getting regular resupplied with this nanite. The cost of this kind of tech was high and for the well connected and beyond the doctor's expertise so another person was added to the list of conspirators. Stepping into this kind of mess was usually bad for a runner's health.

[BishopMcQ]

Fuck me sideways... was his first thought at seeing the data stream past him. There was no way to un-see what Cypher had just read. Making the AR windows around him opaque, he moves back to his chair and slips into VR to school his face in case anyone was watching.

He pulls the chip from the commlink, verifying that no data had accidentally copied over. To be sure, he dumps the cache, and copies digital noise over the sectors, repeating the process several times. Without waving it in front of an electromagnet than incinerating the remains, the hacker wasn't sure what else could be done to make sure no traces of it were left on his link.

The crystal was a few grams of death with radioactive levels of pain surrounding it, if the wrong people ever found out what was on it. That was why Widget was rocking the paranoia. They'd both be dead within hours of the other one letting their secret out. In some ways it did answer why there'd be half a million nuyen waiting for the head and heart of Dr. Takayasu, someone willing to let her very powerful and influential boss suffer for years and hide that type of secret, probably had several other skeletons in her closet just as well hidden.

This was going to take some work to figure out how to broach this with the rest of the team. Luckily, several of them were about to do some reconnaissance. He'd bury himself in data while trying to figure out how fubar'd the team was about to get.

[JxJxA]

With the summoning and casting done, Zerone sits cross-legged on the floor. He places the palms of his hands flat on the tops of his knees.

"Just let me know when you are ready, Mr. Fat Man, or if there is anything you need, Mr. Cypher."

[Buddha72]

Fat Man & Zerone
You slide from the mortal shell of your body and feel the ambient mana all around you - like a warm ocean, the sensation of life around you. You see the flares of life and the living all around you. You push yourself forward through the astral and quickly watch things streak by - here your thoughts are your vehicle and the speed is exhilarating. You arrive within a seconds at the site and see the wash of grey and black. It seems the building is distorted slightly. You feel the wash of magic across your body as the summoned spirit cloaks you from detection. You attempt to keep your astral form out of direct sight just in case as you push through the outer wall of the clinic.

Almost immediately you feel your magic lessened by a small amount - a minor background count of sorts. The mana here is suffused with pain and suspicion, the taste is one of greed and indifference. It mixes with the threads of illness and fear that linger from the public clinic it was before. You begin to move around the space - making mental notes of the locations of people and dead spaces representing machines and physical structures. You scan wandering bodies as you work through the clinic. You find half a dozen bodies that seem heavily modified and alert. You find evidence of 3 to 4 medical staff working here - most of their modifications seems to be located in the head. You find a single person in one office who radiates confidence and authority - perhaps the administrator of the site?

You look over what seems to be exam and operating rooms all in one - a great deal of medical equipment is in each. Three of the rooms have recovering patents - all have signs of recent surgery and appear to be modified but unlike the security personnel they are tired and nervous. You come across one room with some sort of elaborate medical bed in it and one figure is restrained within. His signature ripples with anger and frustration. You seen signs of recent surgery on his astral form and he is also modified or at least has holes in his essence.

[Buddha72]

Emilio
You find yourself once again regaining consciousness. You see the same sight as the two times before - a ceiling in some sort of medical space. You can hear the hum of machines around you as well as the blurred edges of whatever sedatives they are pumping into your system. You feel the steady pressure of restraints on your limbs and across your torso. The lingering pain across your abdomen lets you know once again they opened you up for some purpose. The room around you looks like a modified space - this room didn't start off as an operating room, maybe an old hospital or converted medical offices. You can hear movement outside of this room and you have seen people at the edges of your vision - your head being strapped down and braced in place has made it difficult to get a good look at anyone. No one has talked to you or asked you questions, they come in and check the equipment. Sometimes you feel drugs pull you under, sometimes you don't.

[Notsoevildm]

Eklipse watches as the two mages get ready for their astral jaunt. He can almost sense their spirit's departing their bodies. He glances over at the hacker, Cypher, but he also seems to be lost in his own realm. With a shrug, he pulls up the plans for facility and starts trying to work out the best option for their assault.

The front door is too obvious. It's also likely to be the most heavily guarded. The door to the examination rooms looks like a good option. May increase our chances of rescuing the prisoner in one piece. Although a firefight there could cause a lot of collateal damage. Hmm, maybe the office door. Chance of catching the doctor there. A nice bonus if the the bounties on offer are legit. Also, less likely to be critical equipment there if there is a fight. Maybe multiple entries.

He shakes his head. No. Too many variables. Well, unless the ork can hook up a tacnet to keep them coordinated. Wonder if he is any good in a fight? Otherwise it might just be me and the shifter. Plus the two mages. A small team can be quieter, but doesn't leave many options if it goes bad. Need a getaway that factors in the possibility that we might need to carry the prisoner out. And I still need some gel rounds. Maybe some more flashbangs too. No scratch that. Better stick to flashpacks if we want to avoid damage. Maybe smoke. Or just flood the place with Neurostun and go in with masks.

[UmaroVI]

Fat Man's body suddenly jerks as he reenters it, then stands up and stretches.

"We checked out the place astrally, and confirmed the floor plan. We are pretty sure that Emilio is in this room," he says, pointing to the appropriate place on the map.

"He seems to be restrained, not unconscious. That means he might be able to take care of himself on the way out, or we might have to knock him out ourselves and carry him out, depending on how damaged his spirit is. His aura seemed in bad shape."

"Dr. Takayasu is here," he says, pointing again, "there's a few medical staff here, and three more prisoners here, here, and here. There's also six security guards, all of them with cyberware."

"The evil actions of Dr. Takayasu have infected the astral space nearby. That's probably why they do not have astral security; it will make me and Zerone less effective, but they also won't have any way to defend against us or the shen we call. One thing we might consider - shen can travel through walls, and won't be noticed by mundane security until they appear. We might consider asking shen to stand by on the astral plane near important targets - perhaps Dr. Takayasu and Emilio - and manifest when we break in."

[JxJxA]

Zerone hangs back at the location, alongside Servan. He points to the room containing the restrained and frustrated soul.

"Brother Servan, I believe that this is the person we have been sent to save. Could you please glimpse past the veils of time and tell me of his fate?"

"What is the question you would have me ask, young one?"

Zerone thinks for a moment before making a choice.

"Find out when he will be harmed once more by the villains of this place, be it unwanted surgery or an attempt to end his life. I shall pray that Providence provides you with clear guidance, as his life likely hangs in the balance."

Servan nods, "And with these last two tasks my service to you will be at an end, young one. I shall return to you with an answer, but before I go let me offer this advice. Walk His Path, young one, and remember this. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God."

[BishopMcQ]

Cypher slowly regains control of himself. He sends his agent out to do a quick query of the neighborhood around the facility, looking for a coffee shop or Matrix cafe. Rising out of VR, the hacker looks at the rest of the team.

"Alright, so as Fat Man said we know where our target is, and some civilians. Did any of you see cameras in the rooms, visible commlinks on guards or implanted links in heads? The facility is off the grid, so unless I can get inside before the team goes in, we'll all be smiling for the camera and any remote spiders. The doc knows my face, so going in for a procedure, even if we could fake the orders, is off the table.

"Some ideas are having someone go in and install a tap that I can hack, or if I can find the guards' commlinks, they may be connected to the network and I can sniff out their traffic and spoof my way through. Are any of you good with electronics and locks? We have three entrances in to the facility. If we hit one side with a heavy hand, we might be able to send someone to the back to cap the doc and give me access to her computer.

"A passel of spirits maybe, and the majority of the team slam the front door with shock and awe. Ayo and I hit the doctor's office. He caps her and starts hunting prey from the back, while I lock myself in the office and play with the computer systems."

A raw tidbit from the data searches pops into his mind.

"Is it possible for any of you magic types to show me the faces of the people in the other rooms? I need to know if they are more civilian experiments or runners who might think that we are trying to eliminate them while they're in rehab."

[UmaroVI]

Fat Man thoughtfully crunches on a soystick while listening to Cypher, then swallows and replies.

"The guards all had cyberware... but from the astral, I can't tell what it was. They could certainly have implanted commlinks - the medical staff had significant damage to their auras concentrated on their heads, which is where many of you put commlinks, yes? Ayo might have managed to tell something from seeing them in the physical world, but I cannot help you there. Unfortunately, same for the faces - I could recognize their auras, but I doubt that will help you figure anything out."

"Emilio was in restraints, but the other patients looked tired and nervous, not angry. Possibly they came voluntarily, I cannot be sure. Emilio might be the only involuntary subject, or the others might simply not have the will left to fight back. The malign aura surrounding that place makes me think they are prisoners, but I could be wrong."

"As for sneaking in, I don't know how to get past locks or electronics aside from blasting them off, but I might be able to help someone else get in. Shen can help hide people in the physical world, if someone wants to try breaking in to get you access to their security...computer...things. I can also ask the water spirits to disguise one of you as someone else - since they have no magicians, its unlikely anyone would be able to see through the disguise, but it would still need to be someone who can talk their way through any questions. Again, it should not be me; I would have to concentrate on maintaining the spell and that would make it hard for me to focus on doing anything else."

"I see no problem with your plan of hitting one side and sending yourself and Ayo around the other way. I would suggest having one shen accompany the two of you, and a second with the rest of us, if we go with that."

[Emilio]

Emilio does the same things he did after the other times they operated.

He takes stock of his physical state. Can he strain against the restraints? Or are his muscles too weak. Can he move his torso (sit up) or did the incisions sever muscles?

He scans the environment, trying to detect people. Can he sense staff, guards, or other patients? Can he hear patrols? He's looking for any tactical information. He fears he will die here, but in the off chance that he can either escape or kamikaze & kill those who are doing this, he knows he will need every advantage he can get.

Also, he feels he either struggles towards an escape that may never be or he gives up now. If he gives up now, he is dead. He's feeling too stubborn and angry to do that yet.

He reviews the run that got him into this. He tries to figure out who set him up, and what he should have done differently.

He then meditates on his anger. He tries to hone it into the knife he will use to survive. He is so angry that he feels he must do this or his anger will consume him, and that is another form of giving up and dying now.

He then indulges himself in imagining what he will do for vengeance. At first it was cutting open his tormentors as they did him (though with less medical skill). Or setting the Johnson up for a grenade up the nose. Now, as his chances are diminishing, he imagines other things. Coming back as a trying child. Coming back as a cockroach and laying eggs in their ears. Coming back as a bird and ruining the paint on their favorite cars. Or ruining their favorite hair cuts just before an important meeting, etc.

Then it's back to scanning...

[Buddha72]

Emilio
You struggle to piece together your brief periods of lucidity between procedures and surgeries. You feel the haze of the drugs making your efforts fragmented and disorganized. You remember hearing someone talk about issues with nanite degradation in your body. You feel a inner glow of satisfaction that something wasn't going their way. You think the procedures all took place in this room since you don't recall any movement from here and the placement of objects seems fixed each time you regain consciousness. You know there is a female voice that dominates your recollections - someone in charge. Her voice was always issuing orders and other voices replying with a submissive manner. You are confident if you heard the voice again you would recognize it.

[Buddha72]

Zerone
The spirit next to you looks down at the living form and begins to sing softly - its words resonate with your soul and you struggle to remember the words of the hymn but you can feel it slipping from your memory - all that remains is the feeling of glimpsed glory, a promise of your reward should you serve Him well and faithfully. You see the aura before you open up and reveal itself to the entity. Its voice whispers into your mind as it reads the secrets there laid bare.

This soul has strayed from the ways of mercy and compassion - violence has marked him. His body is healthy and seems well suited to adapting to the alteration of his physical form. He has only altered small parts of the gift the Creator blessed him with - mostly the inner workings of his will and senses. His is closed off to the hidden world of this realm and does not possess the ability to channel His glory. He is angry and seeks release from this imprisonment - his soul cries out for vengeance.

The song ends and it looks to you once last time before drawing its mantle of power around its form - it settles itself over the aura of the man. You see their auras pulse together in time and a look of distance come across its features. You feel a connection between yourself and the entity you called - it sears through your soul and you feel it reach back to your body. You feel words and thoughts flow through you and to your body as well. As the spirit leaves you the feeling of being diminished lingers.

The Safe House
The slim elf stands erect from his slumped position - his arms outstretched and his eyes open flowing with celestial light. His voice cries out - several voices speaking as one in several different languages though you strangely understand what he is saying.

"Hear my words and know His will! In three settings of the sun blades will drink of his flesh and blood again. He will be desecrated three hours after night has descended!"

At the last word blood flows from his hands and feet as his body collapses to the floor.

[Buddha72]

Cypher
You watch in stunned silence at the prone form of Zerone when an alert pops up - you open it without even thinking, it's all pure reflex on your part. The last search you had sent out has completed. You see an address for a small cafe called Snooze overlay over your vision - it boasts a 24 hour breakfast menu for busy matrix professionals who live outside the normal 9 to 5 work shift.

[Notsoevildm]

Eklipse's musings are interrupted by Zerone's sudden light show. The beginnings of a plan for the assault slip from his mind. As the young elf tumbles to the ground, he grabs his bag and moves quickly to his side. He pulls out a basic medkit and performs a quick check of the his vitals.

"I am no doctor but can staunch a wound or set a limb. As far as I can tell, he is okay. Just drain from ze spell."

He holds up one of Zerone's hands, examining it more closely.

"Ze stigmata are rather unusual. I vould guess some sort of christian tradition, but zis is not my specialty."

He works as he talks, cleaning the wounds and following the kit's instructions to patch up the elf's wounds.

[JxJxA]

When Zerone's astral form returns to his body, he finds himself slumped over and strangely exhausted. He is surprised to find Eklipse tending to him, when he suddenly realizes that channeling the spirit had caused stigmata to form on his wrists.

"Oh, uh, thank you, Mr. Eklipse," he says gratefully. "It doesn't hurt, but that will help it heal. Sometimes summoning a ravmalakh takes a toll. It is a small burden to bear for gaining a glimpse into the future. It looks like we have a deadline."

He looks at the others before continuing.

"So...um...when do we set out?"

[BishopMcQ]

The diner looked like it would meet Cypher's needs perfectly. His stomach rumbled at the idea of greasy spoon fare.

"Well, we are at T-minus three days before they cut him up again. I need a few hours to handle the electronic side of things. I also am going to need some sleep fairly soon. In the morning, I can send the list of gear to make the TacNet to my gal Friday. If you need me to arrange anything else, give the list. Otherwise you're on your own for shopping.

"Are one of you the planning type? Otherwise, I vote we use my preliminary version--two doors and death raining down through spirits and small arms."

[BishopMcQ]

"Alright, so unless people have anything for me, I'm going to keep doing my part. I'll be back in awhile to crash and then brief you on what I found."

Heading out in to the cold night air, Cypher shivered and realized that he missed his van. Though she couldn't compare to some of the rigs he'd seen out there, she had even greater value--she was his. With the smell of hard work and gummy bears, Mickey had seen him through more than either of their fair share of scrapes. And she kept the rain off...

The hacker grabs a bus down to the main terminal, spends a few minutes renting a locker and using the facilities, before heading out to the curb to pick up a cab. While he walked he changed his Access ID. The main terminal had traffic in and out at all hours. While it wasn't as busy now as it was during rush hour, it should be enough to mask his digital footprints if someone was after him for the data, Widget sent. The cab drops him off a block from Snooze.

Once he's seated, Cypher quickly scans over the menu. "I'll have the Red-Eye Velvet Pancakes and a Dirty Chai to drink. Thank you." He spreads out in the digital space, moving his work surfaces to have space for the food. Pulling up a digital drawing pad, the ork sketches out what he knows about the system--surprisingly little and tries to map out some kind of security infrastructure. The lectures and textbook theories all start pouring through his brain. When this was all done, he could make a pretty good living setting up those systems--but for now there was nothing to draw on.

Typing with one hand, eating with the other, and supplementing a few commands via DNI, Cypher queued up his agents. He tasked Agent Black with redirecting any traces, and Kit Kat with running an analyze to alert him if their traffic got intercepted. Rolling his neck to work out the kinks, he began the heavy lifting of finding every hidden node in a ten block radius and then filtering out the excess until he just had the commlinks from the target.

Once the nodes began populating his list, he started analyzing each of them to find out what the strengths and weaknesses would be. It was too early to kick down a door and starting taking numbers--that would only alert the site that somebody's coming. With the Access IDs though, he could go home and get some sleep. Tomorrow, he'd start the slow process of port scanning to find an exploit.

[JxJxA]

"I think that should be fine, but we should probably move sooner rather than later. The future is not set in stone, and while ravmalakhim are closer to perfection than I am...they can sometimes be fallible. Um, the only thing I would ask is if we can make our rescue attempt a few hours after sunset. That way I can call forth one of Michael's ravmalakhim to help us fight. It also would give me a chance to recuperate if I have to..."

[Notsoevildm]

Eklipse smiles. "I also prefer to work at night, so after sunset is fine for me."

"Ve need to give Herr Cypher time to work his digital magic. I could also use some gel rounds for my SMG and some flashpacks and stun grenades to minimize any damage to ze facility. Do any of you have a contact that could supply zese items at short notice? My contacts here in Seattle are somewhat limited."

My contacts are limited period. A cop that barely knows me but is interested in the case and a secretary from my previous employer who has already taken far too many risks on my behalf.

The smile slips for a moment, but he fixes it back in place.

[JxJxA]

"Oh, I might know someone who can help," Zerone says to Eklipse. My theurgist talismonger put me in touch with someone who sells non-magical goods. It's how I got these." He pulls out his modded goggles and earbuds from his smartpack.

"I do not know if he sells weapons, but he does sell armor." Zerone forwards Joseph Goodman's contact information to Eklipse as well as a note to the fixer letting him know that he had sent his contact information to another potential customer.

"Maybe someone knows another fixer who might be likely to have weapons?"

[Buddha72]

Cypher
You see the mix of corporate spiders, young upcoming hackers and hobbyists in the cafe. They place does a brisk a business with the the techno-fringe. You don't see any AAA logos but rather a sea of minor businesses or start ups trying to claw their way into the digital towers of power. The server, a young Thai woman with an abundance of facial piercings and an intriguing nano tattoo stretching down her throat to her shoulder smiles as she drops off your order - clearly having an AR conversation with someone as her face goes through several different expressions.

You watch the sued up programs spool out with their agents dutifully attending to their tasks. You watch a list begin to populate a window of nodes you have found in the search parameters you established. You begin to look over each in an attempt to find out what each one is or is tied to. You find offices, personal networks, and in the sea of urban nodes you find the node for the former medical clinic.

You feel the tension ripple through your body as you slowly look over the node to see what type of defenses it might have but quickly realize it carries only the rudimentary security protocols you would see on a small business's network. The main data displayed is the clinic sadly announcing their closure with a heartfelt thanks to the community and their support. Their is a listing of other free or sliding cost clinics for patients to seek out if they need medical care. You through the system, mapping it out and find most of it scrubbed clean perhaps when the clinic closed. You see evidence of hacking and cyber graffiti as lesser fish in the hacker pool have played with it. It seems to have had at one time a connection to several other nodes but those connections are now dead - you think maybe data stores for patient info or even additional resources for the medical staff to access while on site and obviously the hub that ran the infrastructure of the clinic and its technologies. It looks to be an abandoned node connected to a defunct structure.

[BishopMcQ]

Scratching his head, and giving a nod and the simplistic approach, Cypher digs into his pancakes for a few minutes before backtracking to the safehouse's trid system. The hacker activates the projector and loads his avatar up.

Back in the safehouse, a digital projection of a man with armored faces looking in multiple directions appears. The speakers play a synthesized version of Cypher's voice. It sounds flat as the program converts text to speech.

"Alright, hello team. This is your digital presence calling. The dogs came up empty, looks like no one is out for a walk. It's quite possible that the site chose the turtle defense by simply not using the Matrix at all. Walkie-talkies with no wifi is the luddites best bet to protect against people like me. If they don't have the talent on the payroll, avoiding it all together may be their plan. If they do have someone with a few synapses firing in the electronics category, then it could be selective jamming, signal blockers, or good old fashioned cages.

"I'm going to grab some Zs at this point and hit my people in the morning about everything I need to set up the network. If people have other items to add to the shopping list, hit my inbox with a list and the appropriate cred. Any new developments come up while I was out?"

The hacker sipped his chai while waiting for the response. Working with a team was kinda cool, he could do his thing and kick up his feet for a few minutes. Then hopefully the other guys would run and shoot and maim, or whatever their thing was.

[JxJxA]

Zerone's face does nothing to hide his utter confusion at Cypher's strange lingo. He recognizes the words, but not the meaning. He looks at the others of the group, hoping that at least one of them understands what the orc is saying. However, the orc's last question finally jolts him out of the confused daze that had settled upon him.

"Oh! Uh...Mr. Eklipse is looking for a fixer where he can buy more weapons and ammunition. I gave him one of my contacts, but I don't know if he handles weapons. Do you know someone who might be better?"

[UmaroVI]

Fat Man was about as confused as Zerone, but his beard hid it better. I think he is saying that they are in a computer background count? How odd.

As the others went about procuring gear, Fat Man headed towards his rendezvous with the Hengeyokai.

I never thought of contacting other types of shifters - but presumably they have the same problems fitting into this city as me.