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

[Buddha72]

Fleet
In the afternoon you get an alert letting you know you have an incoming message. You look it over and see it's from Maroon. You feel the tension rise slightly in your body as you open it. An AR window pops open and you see a clearly female body materialize. The enticing curves of her avatar are barely covered and with lines of code at that. It looks like the equivalent of digital lingerie. The avatar smiles sweetly as it speaks - her voice a husky intimate whisper.

"I think I have exactly what you want. I went ahead and included an attachment with this - just make sure I get what I want and consider it done."

The icon peels a string a code from its body off - slowly and you watch it lift from the skin, offering glimpses of the flesh beneath before the remaining code shifts to cover the opening. She wraps it into a ball and offers it you with both hands and a look of excitement on its face.

Breeze
You come to more than wake up to the chill of recycled air hitting your skin and you realize you have no covers on you but you are lying in a bed. You have the brief moment like you always do when you open your eyes - where are you and what happened last night. The studio around you looks like a bi-polar super model lives here, There are piles of clothes all over the place and most of it seems to be in piles loosely based on color. A smile creeps on to your face as you sit up and feel the ache of your body - this was a feeling of a good night. You look to your left and see a blonde head poking out of a human burrito of blankets and pillows. You start a little as you see movement out of the corner of your eyes and at first think rats but quickly see small drones crawling over the place. You see one trying to clean the small kitchenette and another seems to be responsible for the sorting of the clothes as it drags a blue metallic skirt to the "blue" pile.

You try to figure out what woke you up when you feel more than hear the silent alert from your commlink go off again. You lay back and quickly access it wia AR. You see two message from the people you asked around about Zuzane about. You decide to go with Matt first and save Joan for last. Tapping the icon his message scrolls out across your vision.

<<I have no fucking idea who this skirt is - I asked around and either she never parties or she buys her shit form a higher level in the food chain than me. One guy I spoke to thinks he may have seen her a while back a private bash that he supplied some candy to but he snorts more of his shit than he sells. It was one of those parties with rent girls with designer labels. Hope that helps and let me know when you need a refill.>>

You're not surprised but it was worth checking just in case. You close the message and slide it into storage and then open the one from Joan.

<<Interesting name to toss out there - if I didn't know you better I might get jealous. She's a bodyguard turned broker - pretty scary lady with her hands and feet but she is building a solid rep for being able to keep her end of a deal but still a small fish in the big pond. I have heard rumors she might be making her way into the acquiring angle of the business. She has been meeting people in my line of work to see about setting up supply lines. If you can put in a good word for me, please do and I'll make sure to make it worth the time.>>

[JxJxA]

<<@Widget[Zerone]: My friends are my talismonger, Rev. Joshua Hannibal, and his secretary, Maggie MacLeod. They told me that they are changing from their current location because their lease fell through and would be out of touch for a while, but I sensed something in their words that left me uneasy. I have a friend who may be able to digitize my flesh and blood, and I shall send them to you as soon as I receive them. Once again, my sincerest thanks, Dear Sister.>>

Zerone dials up his friend, Dr. Huxtable, and sends her a message. However, the switch from Sperethiel to English is not easy for him.

<<@Rebecca Huxtable[Zerone]: Hello Doctorate...I mean, Doctor Huxtable, how are you? I have not seen you since last week's vespers, and I hope you are well. Might I ask you a favor? I need to have my DNA digni...um, no that's not it...oh! digitized, and I think you can do it?>>

[Strangeglove]

Strangeglove catches a ride to the office with whomever is convenient.

"No sense in drawing attention to the place by parking ten cars outside."

Searching the house, he runs into Q.

"Q?! What the hell? Since when are you running with these clowns? I thought you said you were solo."

Embracing Q, he delivers two quick bone-brusing slaps on the back.

"Well shit, things are shaping up to be a party."

Strangeglove's planning fields of fire and reinforced fire positions are abandoned, replaced by consideration of where to put a disco ball. The area is pretty shady, we might have to bus the party in.

[Emilio]

[just after leaving the club and just after the comparable messages]

<<@Fleet,Zerone,Fat Man,Emilio[Emilio]: I'll be happy to assist.>>

<<@Aideen: Can you score me some highest-power Traq patches, stim patches, and stabilization patches? Also, I've been meaning to ask, how did that last job come down the pipe? Was I asked for by name or was I just the best fit? It seems like someone put a lot of work into that trap, and I'm trying to figure out who and why. Well, mainly trying to figure out if we have to kill more Yaks than the rescue team you sent already did. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) >>

<<@Davan: I want to take you up on that offer of replacement plans for ammo. If you can, please find me plans for normal rounds, gel rounds, EX, and stick&shock rounds. And I know how you've been wanting a hold-out pistol, so if you find the plans for one, toss it in and I'll see what I can do about whipping one up.>>

<<@Balatari: The name Zuzane came up in some recent discussions. Have you heard anything about her?

[Emilio]

Next morning, after Emilio checks out the packet and figures out where the office is, he will contact Fleet:

<<@Fleet: I looked over the packet from HR, and want to take you up on that kind offer of wheels. Could a car please meet me at [gives an address three blocks away from his house] at 2:00PM? That should leave enough time to get to the office. Thank you.>>

[copperheed]

"Ooof! Good to see you too SG. And I only started meeting these folks today. How long have you been running with them?" Q rubs his shoulder while leading Strangeglove over to the nicely yet modestly stocked kitchen. "Ready to start partying again already? Last night wasn't enough?"

[copperheed]

@4:45pm
Upon hearing the knock, Q walks up to and opens the door. "Greetings. May I presume that since you've found your way here you've come to aid us in aquisition and reallocation?" At Jon's affirmative Q continues, "Good. I'm known as Q. Yourself? Welcome then Jon. If you'd be so kind, there's a mudroom where you can retire your footwear into something more comfortable It's the second door, near the corner of the house," he finishes, gesturing to the left.

[BishopMcQ]

In the Afternoon

Catching a ride along with one of the other team members, Cypher spends most of his time in the car online. He grimaces as the signal starts to flicker and shake on the edge of the Barrens. It wasn't worth the time of trying to piggyback along other signals or cut through the static echoes of the crumbling buildings.

Iron fingers reach
stretching out of the concrete
a titan buried

The hacker rubbed at his temples to shut up the voices.

Once the car pulls in, he squats down and starts scanning for radio signals. Filtering out the static, he let's out a string of curses in Japanese about demon-spawned metahumans, may they all be swallowed by the sea. When the foul mantra reaches orks, Cypher seems to finally realize what he's saying and bites his tongue. The taste of blood drags his attention back to the task.

With the scan configured as best he can, the hacker moves through the house room by room. He scans a small device over nearly every surface. Beep. Shuffle a few steps. Beep. The process continues.

[JxJxA]

(Mispost)

[Fenris]

The Morning Before the Meet

Fleet grimaces as his avatar, a white-robed, hidden figure with gold trim along with the concealing head and face wrap, reaches out his his hand, gingerly accepting the small ball of code. In the real world, still perched on his bike, the hobgoblin trembled. Encounters with Maroon Dream always left him conflicted. Her avatars were top rate, enough, despite the virtual environment, to send his pulse racing. But there was a part of him, though, that hated having to interact with someone that so blatantly showed off her body, like some cheap prostitute. He liked to justify his continued interaction with the fact that she was so connected, and that there was no one else he knew with those kind of connections. At least part of that was a thinly veiled lie, however.

Nimble white-gloved fingers unwind the ball as he triggers the commands to access the package and the request that would surely be attached.

[UmaroVI]

The Afternoon Before the Meet
Fat Man stretched and then took another large swallow of soyspresso as he felt the headache from the stress of concentrating on the warding ritual slowly fade.

Time to head to the meeting and see who these new teammates are.

Fat Man armed himself with his newly-upgraded telescoping staff on his belt, and charged his foci before using the chi-concealing technique Hito had shown him to blend his aura into the background mana of the area. The Barrens wasn't exactly safe, but Fat Man was used to living on the fringes of metahuman society and it wasn't his first trip through them, and now that he knew how to cloak his natural astral form it would be considerably safer than his last visit.

[Hamagen]

Breeze reads through the first message noding in understanding as he thinks for a moment about the reply he looks over to the little drone dragging the skirt, he nods to himself with a mischiveious smile as an image pops into his head, remembering something form last night...

That thing was fun to take off, those little clankers are useful

He turns his attention back to the message and replies to Matt.

<<Aright thank brother, I am running a bit low so probably be by next week>>

He moves on to look at Joan's message, as he brings her message up he smiles in appreciation of what he sees, he had set his commlink that an intimate picture of Joan would come up any time she called or a message came from her, after a few moment of appreciation he moves on to the message itself, then replies.

<<Hey thanks punk rock girl you always come through with something, remember those blokes that got me out of that meat factory clinic a few weeks back? Yeah, scary lady pissed off the wrong person, maybe you can capitalize on what she wanted to do if things go well with this job>>

Breeze looks back around at the room thinking about why he is so tired still, when he realizes that it is still the morning hours...

"Blimey, how many times have I told them no messages before noon, crazy blokes"

He lays back down and crashes back to sleep to about noon.

[Notsoevildm]

Eklipse cruises to the edge of the Barrens, GridGuide chastising him whenever he goes more than 5 km/h above the posted speed limit.

Then suddenly, it stops complaining. <Warning : GridGuide service offline : Please drive carefully>

His grin is hidden beneath the bike helmet. He torques the accelerator, lifting the front wheel briefly off the tarmac. The roads here are in poor condition, but traffic is light. The bike howls as he pushes the revs, twisting around burned out cars, potholes and the unidentifiable junk that litters the streets.

By the time he reaches the location, he is feeling much better. He can feel his heart pounding in his chest and his awareness is sharp and focused. Shadows slide off the bike to follow him into the peaceful aura that surrounds the small building.

Not exactly what I expected for an office, but I like it.

Hearing voices inside he strides up to the door and knocks, stripping off his helmet and running a hand through his tousled hair while he waits to be invited inside.

[Hamagen]

Noon on the day of the meeting
Breeze wakes up again, looks around, again attempting to remember where he is and again gets reminded by the blond haired girl next to him, he looks at the time and nods to himself...

Right, that is where I am, at least now it isn't an obsencenly early time

He gets up to search for his clothes, locating them slowly one at a time. Once dressed he sneaks over to Widget's side of the bed and snaps of a picture of her smirking and mumbling to himself.

"Thar's a pretty lass"

He fiddles for a moment with his commlink and heads out the building, when he begins to walk out he sees Fleet's message light up again as he is reminded that he now has transportation, he gets into the car, lights up another smoke and sits down giving the car an address.

At home he finds what ever take out was left in the house, drinks a strong coffee and then heads out to see Matt and find a bit more relaxation.

Around 5 pm later that day
After sometime talking to Matt and messing around with the locals for a few hours, his Commlink yells at him...

"Hey WANKER!! pay attention"

He looks at the imagelink and reads the message he wrote to himself...

"Fuck, hey i'll see ya later brother, stuff I got to do"

He makes his way back to the apartment gears up and heads over to the new "office" in the car.

[JxJxA]

The afternoon of the meet

Zerone arrives at the location a little worse for wear, although more so metaphysically than physically. He had heard mention of the Barrens when catching snippets of conversations at his church and through paid and volunteer work, but this was his first time actually entering the place. The horror stories he had heard did not do the place justice, and he is saddened at how the rest of society has turned its back on those people. He resolves to do what he can to help them in the future---perhaps petition the church to help him open a shelter or send a missionaries with aid---as well as a need to learn how to drive so he can buy a car and avoid walking through valleys in the shadow of death in the future.

He knocks at the door and waits for a response...

[Fenris]

He unwinds the code as he builds the transaction in his head, fetching money from one of the numerous accounts attached to Sal-ileel, shaking his head at himself as he realizes her overly-suggestive implication was just a standard transaction request for the funds for the program before he installed it. Sending off the amount, he unspools the ball of thread and lets the context of his commlink convert the program into a curled, yellowed parchment, a prayer strip .3m wide and almost a meter long, tacked up on the wall of the temple that housed his other dormant programs, for the moment.

Back in the meat world, he smiled, a very non-nice looking expression, tusks tilted at the corner of his mouth as he considered the location.

No need to go quiet, and if we're going to spend any time there, it'll be good to keep the small-time rabble away.

Reaching out across the void to the various vehicles scattered around the City, he plotted routes for all of the vehicles heading for the meet to intercept shortly after entering the Barrens, with a note out to the various riders that he felt it safer to travel together.

4 or so in the afternoon...
At the edge of the no-man's land that made up the space between civilization and their destination, the rigger sighed, like an addict slipping a needle into his veins, and dove into his personal network. The first step was planning a route around the various major gangs...it wouldn't do to flash a threat at the Yak's or the Mob, but the rest of this trash...He set out the tactical array, settling the small Jackrabbit that Fat Man had warded, the ubiquitous little car that they'd be using for their recon in the middle with his chopper and the unarmed drone carrier, his heavily armored form slumped over the handle bars as his brain thrummed in the Matrix. Flanking the group in the middle were the two sleek sports cars, one at either end of the caravan, weapon turrets on display.

Sweeping overhead was the sleek, jet powered drones with the swept-back wings, bulky HVAR's obvious and peeking out from under the other-wise sleek fuselages. Far above them all was the droning Kull, virtually invisible when lacking it's bulky cargo containers and covered in chameleon paint, the bulbous nose-tip with the upgraded sensor pack constantly scanning miles of the territory below and feeding information back to Fleet, the rigger making adjustments in the caravan's path as necessary to avoid complete blockages and the those larger organized crime family.

In short, the rigger went in force.

Most of the drones settle down into concealed bays in the various vehicles once the group safely reaches the office, automated grips on articulated arms reaching out to snag the various drones in their slow, looping flights around their chosen vehicle, everything but two rotor drones, stubby machine guns fixed to their undersides, which sprang out and began circling around the sight, drifting through the interior of the burned out building in erratic and almost random patrol patterns.

The hobgoblin, looking bulky in the full suit of armor despite his normally thin frame (for an ork), unlatches the helmet as he steps into the building, eyes looking around for Eklipse almost immediately.

"So, Herr Boss, what's the vote? Do we keep this place and spruce it up a bit? Or we planning on looking around and then finding our own plaffe to plan thingff from?

[Notsoevildm]

Eklipse smiles at the hobgoblin, "I rather like it as it is. I expect zere are improvements we could make in terms of infrastructure and defences. But zat is more your field than mine. However, zere is a harmony here zat appeals to my soul."

He takes a deep breath, letting the place fill him with it's presence. His eyes are half-shut as he reaches out with his senses, getting a good 'feel' of the location. He holds his breath for a long moment, then let's it out with a contented sigh.

"But first, let us meet our new team members and find out what HR has dumped on us, neh?"

[copperheed]

Afternoon of the meet:
((keyed to Zerone's entry and presumed earlier than 4pm))
Upon hearing the knock, Q walks up to and opens the door. "Greetings and Salutations. It seems that we're a bit early for the acquisition meeting. If you'd be kind enough to follow me to the mudroom, you can retire your footwear into something more comfortable," he finishes, walking towards the left corner of the house.

"I'm known as Q. What may I call you?"

[Fenris]

Fleet looks a little unconvinced at te idea of the harmony, but he glady accepts the direction from the furry leader, finding a spot somewhere to settle after a moment in the mudroom. It seems as if the hobgoblin intended to ignore the cultural obligation offered by the separate footwear inside , by the pauses at the entryway, shoulder twitching, and abruptly spins, sitting down stiffly and going through the process of changing shoes to something more appropriate in their new office.

As he moves through the mundane motions in the antechamber, his mind is still connected to the fleet of vehicles outside. Tiny drones spring free of the motorcycle, beginning to circle and map the interior and exterior of the concealing ruined building. The small blimp drifts free of one of the cars, banking smoothly through a broken window to begin probing the shattered building from the inside, high-powered radar stretching through the walls and interior structure to build a visual map that will show actual structural integrity as well, all in preparation for the potential installation of defenses.