Dis*, Dis*position Options

[TakayamaYuuko]

On the street, leaving parking garage at 47th and Kay
January 5th, 2060, 4:18 AM

"Oh, right. I used to do some of that work. Packages, though. In the daytime." She gets a bit of distant look in her eyes again. "I'm going to miss my old jumpsuit." With a sigh, she comes back down. "Then the customer's waiting on you. Don't worry, I bet we'll be right on time."

[JavaLamp]

45th street, Club Kraze
4:22am

It's a short distance to Club Kraze, and without much ado you pull the Rabbit to the curb. Mary spots a familiar BMW parked nearby among the half-dozen other very nice cars for this area.

Brick watches the Rabbit pull up. More rabble perhaps.

[TakayamaYuuko]

45th Street, Club Kraze
4:22 am

Mary feels things in her torso and back tense up a little bit. She tries to fight it down as her back still hurts too much. She tries to place where she's seen the BMW before, and it emerges from the murk near Casey's. Are they here? Maybe the timetable does matter then. I hope this works out.

"Alright, we're here. Let's get it done." She tries to smile, then gets out, locks the car, and walks with the courier to the door. She pulls out the paper and holds it up for the bouncer. It briefly skirts her mind that she hasn't really looked at it yet.

[Titus]

Kraze
4:22 am

Marcus looked at the pair who approached. They looked quite out of place for this environment. They did not look like they were here for a party. Marcus stepped in front of the woman, blocking her access.These people do not belong here.

The woman's speech and smile just seemed a little creepy. He saw her reach for something and snatched it right as she was displaying it to the world. His face froze as if all his muscles encountered a stop sign. His jaw was open. I cannot believe these people are part of the VIP group. I better rush them inside, with the paper, so I do not get fired.

He removes the rope blocking their entrance as he hands the woman the paper back. "You are upstairs, first door on the left. Keep the paper with you and do not show it to the masses. Only show it if you get in trouble while inside, and go STRAIGHT to your party's area".

Someone from the long line tried to cut out and join the humans. He knocked the metahuman against the wall. The sneaking metahuman promptly ran off, knowing that tonight was not going to be his evening. As he ran, his pants fell to the floor because he overly embraced the sagging pants style.

After the group went inside, Marcus pulled his data link to warn the owner about the possible breach. <There are some suspicious humans with the right picture. We may need a new system. I let them up anyway, according to your instructions.>

[TakayamaYuuko]

Club Kraze
4:22 am

Mary stifles the urge to glare back at the troll as they head up the stairs. "See, told you I was mismatched. At least you're dressed with some class..." Her eyes go to Mathew's tie. "You do look dressed for business instead of a party, though."

As they near the door, she carefully takes a peek at the folded paper. Her brows knit as she shoves it back in her pocket again. "What the hell is that? Are they making fun of me? Their picture is in really bad taste."

[BlackHat]

Club Kraze
4:22 am

Mathew inclined his head, slightly as they made their way up the stairs. "I should look dressed for business. I am here on business, after all."

At the door, when Mary mentions the picture chosen, Mathew looks interested but he doesn't ask about it, and does not try to catch a glance at the image before she puts it away. Whatever was on that paper - whether a joke in poor taste, or a secret password - it wasn't really any of his business. If he needed to know the password, they would have given it to him. He had learned, early on, that his job was a lot less dangerous when he could avoid learning more than he had to about his client, or their operations.

[JavaLamp]

45th street, Club Kraze
4:23am

Club Kraze, ever becoming a hotter spot on the night scene for the bored elite, a grindhouse for masses lucky enough to make 'the grade' at the door. Even then, on an especially late night like tonight, the in-house crowd is dwindling, and almost none but the private party remains upstairs. The unblinking mass is dispersing from the main floor and Kraze starts taking on that eerie afterparty sensation, that solid emptiness riding on your consciousness.

Out front, Brick gets a message.
<Brick, I need you to head up to the private party, they're asking for a neutral enforcer to keep the peace. Nothing's started, just a precaution. I've got Lenny coming to break it up and send people home out front.>


On the third floor, Mary and Matt arrive at a closed door, the only closed door up here. Before a knock can be made, the door opens and the same well-dressed man from Casey's greets Mary.
"Just in time, chum, Things have complicated a bit so I'll take you to the stage to wait until we're ready to extract." He reaches forward to lead both Matt and Mary into the room and pulls you past a small temporary theater setup into the stage area. There's a solid, spartan, but still at least reasonably comfortable chair in the center along with several other folding chairs in the wings.

The theater area is crowded with at least 5 parties of 3 to 5 each, 2 armed heavies in each group and everyone sharply dressed. And maybe fortunately for your nerves, it's out of sight from the stage at least now.

Matt is directed to the center chair to sit, and Mary is left to stand or take another seat.

[TakayamaYuuko]

45th Street, Club Kraze, Upper Floor, Private Party, Stage Area
4:23 am

Mary takes one of the folding chairs in the wings of the stage.

I am way freaking tired. I don't need any more complications tonight.

[Titus]

Kraze
4:23am

The crowd outside was starting to calm down which would finally allow Marcus to go home. The job provided an excellent pay for someone with his criminal record but it was mentally exhausting. His recent improvements made it much less physically demanding though. Marcus's link began to indicate a new message as Lenny came by. After reading the message, Marcus nodded at Lenny and began heading upstairs. He did not even bother with a message stating that he was coming upstairs. He would only send a message if there was a problem or he felt compelled to violate a direct order.


Marcus went up to the third floor and waltzed right on in. Given the fact he was a neutral enforcer, he did not say hello. He would just look rather intimidating to those who would try to disturb the temporary peace in the room. The extreme amount of guns present surprised Marcus. They must have gone in through a different door. I would not let in people with guns, it would violate his specific instruction. Lenny must have let them in. He needs to be taught the rules.

The suspicious human group was near the center of the group. Because of what he observed before, he assumed they were the problem. Yet, he might be wrong. Everyone in the room looked shady. Tonight, Marcus would earn his pay.

[BlackHat]

45th Street, Club Kraze, Upper Floor, Private Party, Stage Area
4:23 am

Mathew takes the seat he is directed to, and patiently sat down.The 20-something spectators didn't bother him, but the handful of well-armed men on either side of the room did. It wasn't part of his job to try to riddle out just what was going on - it was probably better if he didn't know, but he got the sense that there were a number of factions meeting here to make sure this deal went down. The fact that they felt the need to come so heavily armed suggested that they all thought it might not. That didn't give Mathew a lot of confidence in the situation. Other than exchanging a glance with Mary, he kept his mouth shut, though.

A few moments later, the troll bouncer from the door followed in behind him. His arrival made things feel a bit worse. Apparently the club staff decided they needed a little insurance that things went down quietly, as well.

[BlackHat]

45th Street, Club Kraze, Upper Floor, Private Party, Stage Area
4:23 am

After a few tense moments sitting in the center of so many spectators, Mathew clears his throat and begins to remove the fiberoptic cable that had been modifier for his induction-jack interface. "Perhaps whomever possesses the passcodes would like to active my data filter, before this meeting gets underway...." Everything about the situation suggested that this was not going to be a quick and clean data-drop. Mathew suspected that everyone - himself included - would be happier if he didn't remember any of the specifics, afterwards.

[JavaLamp]

Club Kraze, Second floor private party
4:23am

Mathew watches two burly orks standing one to either side of him, neither bothering to conceal their heavy armored coats and openly carrying pistols and shock sticks. One looks at Matt with a vacant look on his face for the query, then taking a step back and popping knuckles one by one. Mary's seat in the wing creaks as she takes it, it clearly would not support anyone of a greater weight.

Brick walks to the back quietly, surveying the crowd and armaments. Mostly heavy pistols and semiautomatics. They wouldn't have gotten in the front door, and Brick certainly doesn't remember seeing most of them at all. Most of the parties wear business attire, and, at least at present, everyone is silent, but for an occasional glance around or quiet word to their party. As he comes to a decent observation point, one pistol-dragging ork unceremoniously drops a girl and chair next to him. She rattles around in her chair a bit as it comes to a rest. The ork grunts and brushes his hands. "Jus stay dere." and he turns to walk back to the stage.

For Sara, this has been a long night too. Here she is in a room full of armed maniacs.. she's had more gunmetal waved in her face in the last 2 hours than she can remember from that terrible trid 'Judas Gunn - Killer for hire' that'd been playing incessantly in the break rooms at work. It was beginning to get old.

See, 2 hours ago, Sara was trying to not think just how to dismantle Craig's Tiberius-5850 cyberterminal and repurpose it as an industrial strength digital enema, but rather trying to keep on task thinking about how best to use the remaining 4 hours of her free life before the rest of Craig's little plan played out. And that's when she'd heard these 4 well dressed people talking about an auction... and a most peculiar bit of information at it's core. They were talking about abducting, cracking the data courier, and selling off the very prototype she was being framed for!

The following 2 hours... were beginning to make her feel much less like this was a fortunate chance happening. So here she was.. personally on the hook to crack the data out of this carrier once it was sold. This was much more complicated than any trid made out life in the shadows to be.

Meanwhile, Mieke sits between a Japanese man in his 40s wearing a well cut suit and the insufferable clatter coming from the other fellow to her left, the sound of a blade sliding in and out of it's scabbard was probably escaping everyone else here, but it was clear this guy and the sword in his coat were not accustomed nor inclined to sitting still waiting. Having been politely invited to a late private meeting by the man who'd personally arranged her next concert, she was somewhat obliged to come.

[BlackHat]

Club Kraze, Second floor private party
4:23am

When nobody responds to his suggestion, Mathew just smiles and continues waiting, however the little details are beginning to add up in his mind. He resolves to keep his cool, in case this is simply a matter of amateurism on the part of his host. Calmly, he continues to prepare his necessary accessories by withdrawing his commlink - and as he does so he glances at the screen to check his connection with the nearest cellular tower or wifi hotspot.

[TakayamaYuuko]

Club Kraze, Second floor private party, Stage wings
4:23 am

Even with just the short walk from the car and up the stairs, it feels good to be sitting down on anything. Really, Mary could gladly fall asleep where she is, but the difficulty of working around the wounds on her back, the noise of her chair, and this bit about 'complications' keep her from drifting off entirely. Only just, though.

[Titus]

Kraze, VIP Third Floor
4:23am

The large crowd startled Marcus, but he was here to do his job and be a neutral observer. Without knowing what he was supposed to observe, he gave everyone a casual glance. Business causal with guns. All the faces began to fade together. Most seemed to have a group. The only ones that did not seem to have a group were the pair he let in, the scared woman, and the woman with a dog.

It took Marcus a moment of observation to realize the dog was with the woman. The woman with the dog was likely blind. Yet, if her body language was similar to seeing people, she was transfixed on a man. He was making a small wrist motion. That was all he could see from across the room. The motion bothered the blind woman though.

He then turned his attention to the scared woman. The people surrounding her were scaring her. Her body language indicated that. Why come here with people she was scared of? Was the competition that important?

The pair Marcus let in were most peculiar. The man was babbling about passcodes being activated. If the pair were partners though, why did not the female activate them? Why did my bosses give them the password and leave parts out? Why these two together? What type of contest would they be here for?

No one looked ready for a contest; at least anyone Marcus would be familiar with. Marcus could judge a brawl and a sporting event. Having him judge corporate warfare was like having an average 21st century American judge the merits of a Portuguese play. Yet, corporate contests never involved guns.

Marcus wasn't sure why he was here, but he began to suspect he was not there as a neutral monitor or judge. The passcodes Mr. Blabbermouth (Matt) may have might even be a ruse to get everyone together.

All Marcus could do is wait though.

[Mister Juan]

Club Kraze, Second floor private party
4:23am

Although Mieke wasn’t a stranger to long nights, the fact that it was now closer to dawn than dusk made her tired. She had played a few sets at Matchsticks earlier in the night, as per her usual schedule, and at about this time, she should have been curled up in her bed. But it was far from the case. Mr. Yorisho had invited her to a lavished dinner, and a night out. While others might have seen the whole affair as a Japanese business man paying for the company of a beautiful redhead, it wasn’t quite the case. Mr. Yorisho was, for all intent and purposes, one of Mieke’s numerous patrons. He had not only paid everything up until now, he had also financed her last concert, booked her for a private party, and was generally behaving as a perfect gentleman. He hadn’t made any advances toward Mieke, and so, refusing the invitation would have been, to her, terribly rude.

And so, there she was, shivering a bit as she felt a brief current of air brush against her freckled bare shoulders. Besides still being up, she was also starting to regret not having brought at least a shawl. Nevertheless, she kept a smile on her face and did her best to entertain her patron with polite small talk.

Every now and then, she would reached over and let her hand rest on his arm for a few seconds, as she smiled in his direction. Being able to make eye contact, touching others was Mieke’s only way to connect with others.

The young woman was thankful for the subdued atmosphere of the room. With only a few people talking quietly amongst themselves, sound carried very well. Every cough, every creak of the floor or squeal of the chair would give her a brief glimpse of the room. Silhouettes didn’t talk to her as much as smell and sounds did, but they were good none the less. She knew how many people were in the room and where they were. Experience also allowed her to guess gender and metatype, although it was always a bit of a risky thing to do.

Smoothing out a wrinkle in her black cocktail dress, Mieke crossed one leg over the other, trying to find a comfortable position in her seat. She still has very little idea why exactly they were all there in this room, since, apparently, they were waiting for something. Asking Mr. Yorisho might have quenched her curiosity, but it wouldn’t have been polite. And so, the young woman simply waited for events to unfold.

[Ghost_in_the_Sys...]

Club Kraze, Second floor private party
4:23am
Sara

The last couple days had been a true mess for Sara. First she'd been put on temporary leave while 'certain issues of particular concern to the company' were looked into. The next day she got an e-mail that said quite simply that there was no need to return to her desk, as her things would be gathered and sent to her in 4-6 weeks. It never said that she was fired, it was simply assumed, and the fact that her accounts had been deleted and last paycheck never came confirmed it. Sara wouldn't learn until later why she had been fired, and even then she wouldn't know the full story behind it all.

Earlier today several men, heavily armed, showed up at her door. They announced their presence by breaking down her door, rushing into her room, and pointing several of those guns at Sara. She was being abducted by a group of runners or something similar. They'd found out that she was part of the project that the current meet is about, or so company records had claimed thanks to Craig. Whoever had hired them had figured she would know how to break any sort of encryption on it. They knew she wasn't high enough in the programming chain to recreate the entire program or anything, but she was the least protected, and so the easiest to get to person who would still know something.

She'd managed to glean this information during the last several hours as she was held under guard. She wasn't being directly threatened any more, but she was of course expected to do her job, and certainly wasn't believed when she told them that she had nothing to do with the project at all. The threats were understood at this point.

And so Sara sits at this strange meet in the middle of the night, or rather, the end of the night. She glances nervously at the people guarding her from others, and guarding her from moving from her chair before she is needed. She isn't overly tired, as she had gotten a sleep regulator back in college, and was usually awake until nearly this time anyway, and even then slept more because she knew she needed to than actually being tired. She looks around at the other people gathered, one or two seem nearly as out of place as her, and all the weapons are making her exceedingly nervous as she was deprived of her own weapon a while ago, not that she was likely to hit anything that wasn't 5 feet away, standing still, and the size of a troll. At least her clothing had a bit of a ballistic weave in it if anything happened.

[BlackHat]

Club Kraze, Second floor private party
4:23am

The situation was starting to smell. What started as only the mild stink of the stale urine in the parking garage had gotten a little worse when his contact arrived early, worse, still, when he was brought into a crowded room full of armed people, and now - after sitting still for what felt a lot longer than a minute - Mathew was beginning to consider the always-present possibility that the one person not invited to this party was the guy with the access codes and encryption keys necessary to make this deal go down smoothly. After taking out his commlink, and verifying that he was getting no bars (the one professional touch, thus far, but it didn't make him feel any better), Mathew reflected on a similar job he had taken last year, where he had been "compromised" by a rival corporation and held against his will (admittedly, in a very nice hotel suite) for the better part of a month while their top data security experts analyzed the security measures the client had taken to insure that the data would be irrecoverable if any attempt to bypass the security was made. As it turned out, those measures bought the client enough time to arrange a team of shadowrunners to extract him before the data was leaked - and the job was completed successfully (albeit, later than he would have liked).

Although he didn't remember the details of this job's upload (probably due to his data filter being activated at the time) Mathew found himself hoping that he had given the client a convincing crash-course in data-courier security-protocols. If the client chose to take advantage of the cutting-edge hardware and software available in his head, then neither he or the client had much to worry about at the moment. However, if the client was as unprofessional as some of the thugs in this room... Mathew didn't like his odds. It was quite clear that nobody was talking. If he couldn't identify who was in charge, perhaps he could give everyone present something to think about before the situation went from bad to worse - assuming there was even anything to worry about.

Continuing to withdraw his accessories, Mathew produced two handheld scanners from the same jacket pocket that held the commlink - thin pen-shaped devices with trailing fiberoptic cables. They didn't look like much, but to someone familiar with their function, they would seem like an enormous roadblock to any nefarious activity that was about to go down. To someone familiar with their manufacture, doubly so. These models don't even hit the shelves, commercially, until next year. As he did this, he did his best to scan the reactions of those in the room. If someone knew things were not on the up-and-up, their reaction might be enough to tip him off before things got worse. If things were legitimate, then nobody should take any notice. Of course, biometric security was hardly foolproof but for anyone considering bypassing such measures, it would mean significant trouble if they didn't come prepared. The real goal was to get people thinking other possible security measures that might be in place.

After all, having a cybernetic biomonitor that can alert the data lock to purge the data if he loses conscious is really only an advantageous insurance policy if the other team considers that you might have such a thing in place. Otherwise, the data may be irrecoverable, but probably so is the courier.

[JavaLamp]

Club Kraze, Second floor private party
4:24am

There's some colorful, expressive glares coming from the host party sitting in the back when the biometric devices come out. But as the host stands to walk forward, it's evident he's not dissuaded.

David stood quietly behind his employer for the evening. Tonight.. this morning, whatever it was now, he was security for Bishop Industries' Mr. Ethan Smith. Or so he'd been told. Real name or not, that's what he was since the job required it. They'd uploaded a fairly nice pistols module for him that evening, though like any evening, the hope was to never have to use it. Most jobs ended quietly anyhow. the grade of quality on this soft told him action was a distinct possibility. Lionel Tech's Detroit line 'Ballistastic' pro series wasn't cheap. Mr Smith shifted in his chair and cleared his throat. Tension was growing in the room.

The host walked slowly in front of the stage and gestured widely to everyone. "Welcome gentlemen, If there are no objections..." He pauses, panning slowly across the crowd and back, "We'll begin immediately then. As always, payment is to be made in full before receipt of delivery, a third party Data consultant will be used to confirm the validity of the data." He smiles openly in the direction of Sara and continues. "We'll begin the bidding at 10, an opening bid of 10 then." He acknowledges Mr Yorisho's hand and the bidding begins in earnest, though there seems to be no context given for what magnitude of currency they're speaking of.

11, 11.5, 13, 15... The bids come rapidly and Sara is led to the stage as the curtain is drawn by a slim eyed woman who'd been with the host. As they arrive at the back she speaks quietly but clearly to those on the stage.

"Do your part and a part of the proceeds will float your way. We need that data out and as you have no doubt gathered, we're not your designated delivery, courier. We will, however, be paying better, should you choose to cooperate. So play along nice and everyone goes home happy." One of the orcs clamps his hand down on Matt's shoulder and the slim eyed woman's smile curls up ever so slightly.

[mister__joshua]

David Johnson
Club Kraze, Second floor private party
4:24am

David felt uneasy. He was way outside of his comfort zone now. This wasn't his usual desk work, but his boss had said it was important and asked him to go, and as any successful corporate employee knows it's all about brown-nosing, sucking up and ass-kissing your way up the ladder. He'd been excited at first. This was his big chance, such as these things go. He'd never been asked to be part of the companies' extra-legal activities before! Others had, and it was a job that often came with benefits, favourable reviews and promotions. He'd felt lucky. Now he wasn't so sure. The Ballistastic 'soft felt good at first, maybe even powerful, but now in this situation it just added to his unease. He hoped to god he wouldn't need it.
What were they here for anyway? His head started to spin as questions swirled around and he felt the start of a headache coming on. He brought up his AR and tried to lose himself in the latest sports news and gossip, trying to distance his mind from his situation. He failed. "Come on, get a grip! This'll all be over soon and then you'll be tucked up in bed, on the road to promotion and success. The UCAS Dream."

He calmed himself down, managing to control his breathing and fade his fears into the background. If he was gonna need this 'soft then he'd damn well better have his mind in the situation or it could all go to shit real quick. He started trying to take in his surroundings. He'd played ShadowrunMMO™ for hours, he should know how to do this, right? The game didn't capture the fear and the sweating, but at least the theory should be sound.

<<Moss, I need a favour. Could you have a scan through the boss's messages, and this Ethan Smith if he's on payroll. Just see if there's a clue as to what's going down here. I owe ya one buddy>>

Moss was a good friend. A work friend, but that was all you have when you live at the company. It always pays to be friendly to IT Services, and maybe this time he would come up trumps. Having access to all the inter-company messages was more power than most people realised.

Message send, he drew his attention back to the room, and what was going on on the stage...

[BlackHat]

Club Kraze, Second floor private party
4:24am

Better pay? Unlikely. Without legitimate access to his head, his data filter wasn't an option, and they had (whether aware of the consequences or not) allowed him to see all of their faces - he had seen enough crime trids to know that was usually a sign that they had no intention of letting you live. A simple magemask or even a hood would have saved them all so much trouble. As it stands now, once they have what they want from him, Mathew suspected his reward would be - at best - a swift death. Even if they lived up to their promises, and paid him a little better, cooperating would leave his reputation in the toilet, and the bonus would probably not make up for the loss of future work. No, cooperation wasn't an option, but it did have one advantage - they were talking now. As long as they were talking, he might be able to convince them of the value of keeping him safe while they came up with a plan, and maybe keep himself alive long enough for the cavalry to arrive.

He smiled, weakly, "Oh, I don't think I'll be a lot of help in getting the data out - in my business, it is better to remain ignorant about such things - but I would be happy to provide you or your 'data consultant' with a specification of the various security features I provide my clientele with.... help avoid a data purge when you attempt to force your way in." He reached into his jacket to get a business card with an RFID chip embedded in the electronic paper. As he did so, he felt his platinum DocWagon band slide down his wrist. It had a stronger cellular signal than his cheap commlink, so it was possible they would still get a call if something bad happened to him here. At the very least, they would have a trail of GPS breadcrumbs leading to this place - or wherever they took him next - and if his client opted to pay for the access, they might be able to follow that trail when they realize (in a few more minutes) that he did not make the meet. It was frustrating not to remember if you were working for a rich and powerful mastermind, or a bumbling corporate stooge, but the current situation reminded Mathew why he preferred not to remember these details.

He offered the card first to the man who seemed to be hosting the event, and then when he didn't take it to Sara who seemed to be the "data consultant" he mentioned earlier. "This should give you the information you need - all public info, anyway - though I should point out that the client was careful enough to make sure I neither remembered who he was, or which security options he selected, but if the data is as valuable as you suspect, I would not underestimate the lengths to which he may have gone to insure that it didn't fall into the wrong hands." He glanced back at the crowd, then to the woman who was making him the offer. "I wouldn't want to bore your friends with more technical details. Is there somewhere private that your consultant and I can discuss the specifics? Remote access signals, firewall versions, biomonitor thresholds, that sort of thing...." He doubted that the host would let the two of them talk, in private, but being held under heavy guard was still preferable to sitting in the middle of the whole crowd - especially if those who lost the auction decided to try to make a grab for the data, anyway. If nothing else, he hoped to underline the complexity of the task ahead of them, and he was glad to have the opportunity to mention "biomonitor" aloud.

[TakayamaYuuko]

Club Kraze, Second Floor Private Party
4:24 am

After only a minute it's become clear another nap isn't coming, and now that people are moving and talking, Mary rouses herself enough to pay attention. From her vantage point behind the curtains she can see his paraphernalia and catch a few of the words he's exchanging with the small group now surrounding him. She could now guess as to the makeup of his system. Some pieces may have come from Bishop, others were parallel research. They'd worked on components like this often enough when it came to the neurological aspects of the final goal. She can't help but smirk about the roadblocks to Mikey's plan. The encryption is both real and powerful.

Mary was glad the courier was keeping his composure. In a way, he'd been insulted and now they were trying some light intimidation. She felt a little bit bad herself - "Mikey, how could you, you turned me into a rat, a kidnapper, a fink, a...", but heck, he had the correct passphrases, so never mind the fact that the whole reason she'd contacted him was *because* he was a thief. Her 'victim' seems to be keeping it together and so would she. She'd decided she couldn't ever lose her composure again.

The bidding begins. The proceedings aren't in Japanese, so the units obviously aren't 'tens of thousands'. 'Hundreds of thousands' would be awkward in any language. So, she guesses these are 'millions'. No wonder Mikey was so contemptuous. It kinda piqued her curiosity as to what was so valuable in that head. At least she could set the picture and the suspicions it roused aside. This wasn't about her, so she could take it easy and watch.

[JavaLamp]

Club Kraze, Second floor private party
4:24am

Backstage
"Hm, Privacy then. Perhaps you want to plan your exit. Fortunately there's a costume closet you can use. Mary, you can keep them company in there." She pauses.

Private party room, stage front
The bidding continues briskly, sidelong glances show the bidders are not pleased with how vigorous the bidding is yet

Brick's link buzzes. It's got a VIP code on it... a special request.

[ Spoiler ]

<Why hello there. We're going to need you backstage to ensure the smooth conclusion of the auction.>

David watches his feeds.. they've been suspiciously still. His reception bars confirm it.. the wifi is inhibited.

(@Mieke)

[ Spoiler ]

「まったく。。しぶといやつら。。」(These people are really too stubborn) Mr Yorisho's whispering voice is showing the barest hints of irritation 「望みどおり相手にする。」(Very well then, as you wish I'll play your game.)

Mr Yorisho speaks out "40 then." The sudden jump in bid gives a short pause.

Backstage
Backstage the slick dressed woman resumes speaking "Move 'em in to the closet so they can have their private time" The orcs start escorting Matt and Sara toward a walk-in closet, firmly if no resistance is met.

[BlackHat]

Club Kraze, Second floor private party
4:24am

Backstage
When the woman suggests that Mathew was planning an escape, he shrugged and gave her an "of course, but nothing personal" look. A costume closet wasn't exactly the sort of accommodations he expected (or was used to), but he supposed it would do. He wasn't sure why the wheelman (or, in this case, wheel-woman) was instructed to join them, but he didn't complain. In fact, once he was taken to the walk-in closet, he saw that it was surprisingly spacious (with room enough for the actors to change costumes). No exits, obviously. Not even a window, which would have been nice. Still, it was bound to be safer in there than it would be on the stage floor when the situation devolved into any of a dozen likely scenarios.

Matt puts up no resistance as the orc nudges him forward. His compliance gives them no reason to get forceful, but the orc maintains a firm grip on his shoulder the entire way. Seeing that Sara was being similarly "escorted" was somehow comforting, but after a moment that feeling turned a bit sour in his stomach. She wasn't just an ace hacker working with the bad guys - if she were, he would be fairly confident his 'ware could balk her. If she was being forced into this situation, like he was, there must be some reason - something she can do that somebody else couldn't. In the best case, they picked her up just because she would know what the data should look like. In the worst, she knew all the required access codes, passwords, decryption keys, and databomb abort sequences to subvert most of his data security. Hell, for all he knew, she could be the intended recipient of the data.

Actually, that would make him feel a lot better. If it were technically the client removing the data from his head, he could consider this a successful job. The way his luck was going, tonight, it was almost certainly not going to be that convenient. Still, these guys had some key security details, already - their driver, for example, knew the passphrases to get him in the car. They probably already knew more about the security in place on the data than he did... but he couldn't let them know that. Right now, the potential security was probably the only reason he was still conscious - and remaining conscious was the only way he was going to be able to buy himself enough time for the real client to track him down and recover the data.

[TakayamaYuuko]

Backstage
4:24 am

Mary was now getting to regret giving them *all* the account details up-front. It would be good to make up a new identity, get it established, and start out with it as soon as possible. But now there just might be some people out there who'd say, "Oh, that's not the Great So-and-so, that's Mary, and she's just a plain old street drifter." No, worse, they'll be turning her into Bishop or the Feds. Get a grip. You're small in every sense. Too small a bounty for Mikey Inc. to turn you in and too small a bank account for them to remember your name tomorrow.

She also had to wonder why she had got put in the costume closet with her passenger and the data consultant. As her mind started to wander, her mouth soon followed suit. "Well, at least now I know it's just a dumb little picture, doesn't really mean anything. Cute little thing is really the avatar of Death?" The picture is out in her hands, being fingered and shown off. "Yeah, right, nonsense."

She lets it lull for just a moment before launching into a different subject. "So... if I were to take just a wild guess, I'd say those scanners of yours look like they might have MCT's signature on them? I think they're still ahead of Cross there. For what's inside, is the storage discrete electronics or does some of it go into neurons? Did Bishop... no, don't mind me. Even if I knew who made all the bits I couldn't tell anything about how to defeat the encryption."