IC: SRM04-02 Extraction, Artifact Rush, Part 1 Options

[Slacker]

"Then you must surely already have a deal with him. Or am I mistaken? Your previous words indicate that he is the one with something to sell. I am simply offering you a reasonable finders fee as such. Am I wrong?"

[Dak]

Mr. White steeples his fingers in front of him. His business stance. "I don't wish to bore you with details, Mr. Nazaire. Our associate here," he gestures to Acson, "ended up in a bit of trouble. My colleagues and I were able to get him out of that trouble, but at some cost in time and expenses. Now, like yourself, we are businessmen. Charity warms the heart, but it does not pay our bills. A finder's fee- yes. My colleagues and I are looking to agree with an interested party on a finder's fee that will help to compensate us for our expenses."

[Slacker]

Laurent seems confused and disappointed by Mr. White's words. "Seems to me like you're business with Monsieur Acson is a bit too tenuous and complicated. Why don't you settle things with him and call me when he is available to discuss his future plans? You have my number." With that he gestures for his secretary to come escort you out.

Parker Acson speaks up. "Hey now. Wait just a minute here. I told you guys you'd be compensated and this man is willing to pay you the exact same amount you agreed to for getting me out of Horizon. It's not your decision who I choose to work for. It's mine!" Turning towards Laurent, he continues. "I'm ready to talk about the future right now."

[Dak]

Mr. White patiently ignores Acson's outburst and rises from the table. "Thank you again for your hospitality, Mr. Nazaire. We'll be in touch." he turns to the others. "Shall we?"

[Slacker]

Parker straightens his back and crosses his arms as he sits more firmly into the dining room chair. "I'm not going anywhere until I have talked to Mr. Nazaire about his job offer."

[Dak]

Mr. White arches an eyebrow at their petulant ward. "Now you're being rude to our host." he turns to Nazaire. "My apologies, Mr. Nazaire." Mr. White turns back to Acson. "You are welcome to discuss job offers with anyone that you would like, however, do not forget the arrangement that you have forced upon us. You owe us a great deal of money, Mr. Acson. Had you been able to pay the debt that you arranged, we would not even be having this conversation."

He waits to see whether the secretary shows them out or not. He glances at Gardner, considering just having the giant carry Acson out.

[Dak]

Everyone stands around staring at each other. A Mexican standoff with no guns.

"Mr. Nazaire, if you care to have further discussion with Mr. Acson, that's fine, but I hope you'll understand that we are hesitant to let him out of our sight. Otherwise, if you feel that our business here is completed for the time being, we will be on our way."

[Slacker]

"Ah. If that is your only concern, Monsieur Acson and I could simply depart merely to the other side of the great room there within sight. I simply do not wish to bore men of actions such as yourselves with petty details," Nazaire counters smoothly. "And of course some subject matter may come up that our Foundation would prefer to keep within the family so to speak."

[Dak]

It would be rude to tell Nazaire no.

Mr. White smiles at their host and nods his head.

[Slacker]

"Feel free to continue enjoying the refreshments," says Nazaire as he ushers Parker Acson out into the the main room of the suite to a pair of comfortable chairs on the other side of the room. The two of them proceed to discuss his future within the Atlantean Foundation in hushed tones. At first, Acson appeared petulantly guarded in his response to Naziare's words, but his poker face soon fell as he began to get excited about what he was being offered. After 15 or 20 minutes, the two of them shook hands with shared smiles.

Returning to the group of runners, Acson "Ok, I believe I have a firm grasp of Monsieur Laurent's offer now."

Laurent speaks up. "Oui. I believe you would be quite at home within the Foundation's protective walls. From earlier words, it seems you and these men have some things to discuss first though. When you come to a final decision, give me a call so that we can make arrangements for your transfer to our company."

[Mach_Ten]

23:58:28 @Hotel Nikko, corner of 3rd Avenue and Pike Street, Seattle

"dis is gettin on my teefs !" Silas mutters glumly under his breath, glancing at the slumped form of Needle next to him.
Patience not being his strongest virtue he thumbs the commlink and considers calling into the team in the hotel towering above them, but decides not to just yet.
A whiff of warm pie wafts under his nostrils distracting him momentarily and he argues with himself over whether to just eat it and blame the tech if Gardner asks,
but he berates himself after the giant went to the trouble to get food for him and swings himself out of the truck into the carpark, gently slamming the door shut so as not to disturb his associate.

Using a wet-wipe he picked out from the Stuffer Shack™ he finishes removing the white powder paint from his face and enjoys the cool night air on his skin and filling his lungs after being cramped into the van, before tossing it into the open van window.
"Das better, feels Meta-Human again!" he chuckles to himself and takes another moment to survey the surroundings,
looking for the tails the team lost earlier and any overt surveillance teams hiding in plain sight,
also taking in the ever present staff as they exit the trade entryways for nicotine breaks and taking deliveries.

"Dis is taking too long" Looking up towards what he guesses is the 28th floor
he absently draws the comm again and searches for Eclipse's number. "come ooon, picks it up ... pick up, pick up, pick up!" patience finally eradicated from the shrinking list of Silas' Virtues

[Slacker]

As Mr. White's commlink connects him to the number for Simon Andrews, he is greeted in his AR vision by the....he supposes its supposed to be a smiling face. It's kind of hard to tell on the lizardman's distinctly different features. Mr. White hasn't had much dealings with changlings, but this certainly gives credence to the info Needle had pulled up on the man. “Sweet twiglets, baby! Can I lick you later?” Simon says in the way of a hello in an endearing British punk accent. The little bit of a battered leather vest that can be seen reveals it is covered in graffiti, anarchy symbols, and punk band buttons. It is rather jarring so recently after the upper crust dinner with Laurent. This is definitely going to take a different kind of approach.

[Dak]

Mr. White sighs. This should be fun.

"Mr. Andrews? I'm Harvey White. An associate of mine was given your contact information, and we thought it would be courteous to contact you...."

[Slacker]

"Oy. You're one of 'em sorry sods what cocked up with Horizon then. Ain't ya? I feel where you’re at, bobs. These bastards don’t give a damn for naught else but their bloody trinkets.” He shakes his reptilian head dramatically, doing his best to appear empathetic. “This ain’t gonna go your way, and you don’t deserve that. Hop on over 'ere to tha Alabaster Maiden to talk more private like. Maybe I cannae pass you a way out.”

[Dak]

Mr. White furrows his brow for a moment and moves his lips, as though repeating what the changeling said, trying to make sure he understood him.

He nods. "Very well. I'll have a short chat with my colleagues and we'll see if we can meet you there."

If there's no further conversation, he ends the call, and gives a querying look to his colleagues. "Interested in a visit to the Alabaster Maiden, chummers?"

[Slacker]

Simon Andrews signs off with "Keep your pecker up. I'll bung your names onto the VIP list."

[Slacker]

Having left Hotel Nikko with Parker Acson in tow, the team make there way to another late night meeting, this time with the representative of a dragon. Drek that is scary, but if he's got the best offer, maybe they can look past dealing with a dragon. It is by proxy at least.

The roads are filled with all walks of life hitting the town for some good clean fun (along with plenty of dirty fun to go around too). They pull up to the Alabaster Maiden and are lucky enough to snag a parking place as another car exits.

The club certainly seems lively. The well dress line of metahumans waiting to get in starts to move a little as a group of 6 or 7 stumbles their way out the door. One of the exiting party goers cheers loudly as he runs over to paw at the life-size white stone statue of a beautiful, mysterious woman standing out fron, obviously the supposed remains of the club's namesake Gabriella Dematto,

As the team is settling who goes in and who says out, the ork at the statue is pulled away by his friends who are laughing the whole time at his antics. They begin heading down the street to some new location for their revelry, before they notice the clown van. The absolutely plastered ork seeing a new even more funny target.

Decisions made, Needle dives her virtual self into Silas's commlink as Silas, Mr. White, Gardner, and Acson step out of the van.

The drunk ork practically runs right into the massive form of Gardner. He's utterly confused by the giant's appearance, his mind stuck on expecting to see a clown. His friends, not so drunk that they can't tell, a group of serious people in front of their friend, quickly run up to pull him away apologizing profusely simultaneously whispering harshly to their friend to get him to shut up about clowns.

Yeah. Already the tone of this meeting is dramatically different from the previous two. The team can only imagine what it's going to be like inside the club. Shrugging off the distraction of drunkards they head to the front door.

Mr. White steps up to the doorman and smoothly points out that they are expected on the VIP list. The ork bouncer makes a point of stairing at the human before looking down at his dead tree clipboard and notepad. Sure enough they are on the list. He unclips the red velvet rope and waves them on inside.

Once through the doors they are dazed for a moment as their eyes take a moment to adjust to the brilliance of a holographic light show in full swing. The latest in dance music is pounding out its rhythm to the delight of a throng of dancers out of the main floor.

They don't immediately spot anybody matching the description of Simon Andrews, but a few minutes spent walking around nets them several pings by interested parties looking to hook-up, a near fight as somebody bumps into Acson spilling their drink, and finally a glimpse of the lizardman at the back of the club. He has laid claim to a u-shaped booth for the evening. As the team steps up, Simon has his hands all over a laughing waitress with a holographic medusa snake hairdo.

Mr. White has to shout over the loud music. ""Mr. Andrews. You were expecting us." He says as he pulls out his business card to offer the changling.

Not removing his hands from the waitress' ass, Simon shouts at Gardner“Sweet twiglets, baby! You're a big boy ain't ya.". Looking the giant up and down in a very suggestive manor, he continues in as flirty a tone as he can given that he's still having to shout. "Why don't you sit yourself down right here next to me, hunk?

Turning back to the waitress momentarily, he says "Hop on over to the bar and get my mates some drinks baby." He smacks her ass to emphasize the request.

She just giggles at him and lightly smacks him on the chest while still leaning against him in the seat. "What'll you boys have?"

[Dak]

Even if Mr. White looks a touch out of place, he's no stranger to strip joints and dive bars. Business is business. While he may prefer the comfort of dark mahogany and an aged authentic scotch, sometimes business gets done in seedy back rooms and deafening concert halls.

Impressions and hospitality are important. "A beer." he shouts to the young woman. "Draft?" he yells. "DRAFT?" he repeats himself. She responds, right in the middle of a screeching crescendo in the music. He nods his head at her response, despite it being lost in the noise.

He offers his hand to Simon, and takes a seat. He glanced at the table surface, hoping that it had a sound dampener. Otherwise he'd be hoarse by the end of their little sit-down.

[Slacker]

Silas speaks up, "I has one o' dem multi coloured fing's wiv a cherry anna 'mbrella innit." Pointing over to a drink a woman walking by had.

"Yous wants a redhead bitch?" the waitress asks.

Confused, Silas looks back at the woman with flaming red hair. Sure she seems to be walking with some attitude, but he wouldn't go so far to call her a bitch. Turning back to the waitress, he shakes his head emphatically. "Not de skirt. De drink!"

The waitress laughs as she lays on Silas's arm. "Oh honey, I was talking about the drink." Then she leaned in to speak towards his ear. "That girl is a real bi-otch though," she says with a wink and a knowing smile.

The waitress turns her cheerful head up to look at the towering Gardner. Momentarily at a loss for words with everything going on the giant makes a quick drink order and sits down in the u-shaped booth.

"Oh ain't you a cutey," the waitress says as she catches Acson staring at what her corset was doing with her low cut blouse. He turned bright red and quickly looked up at her eyes to stammer out an order for a beer.

"Sure thing." Looking to Simon Andrews. "You want another?"

"Ace," he agrees before she turns to shake her way over to the bar to get the drink orders. Simon watches her the whole way as the team settles into the booth with him.

Meanwhile, Needle is trying to make sense of the digital landscape within the club. There is a huge mess of signals flying around. It looks like many patrons and staff of active commlinks, including this Simon Andrews fellow. He doesn't seem to have any active calls currently, but his commlink is broadcasting his bio data (she serious did not need to read some of those intimate details he is so open about on there, but suffice it to say he swings both multiple ways) and is occassionally getting pings from other patrons in the club.

Simon shakes his reptilian head and turns back to his new companions. "Damn. Ain't she fit?" He pauses for a moment just thinking about her. He shakes his head again with a smile. "Anywho. Look at you boys." He looks around at everybody. His sharp eyes catch the hints of stress from the night full of activity on each team member....and he just laughs. "Oh come off it. No need to be so serious about it. This gormless fek put you in quite the pickle. But look around. Everything ain't all bad. We've gots some fine drinks coming, plenty of lookers running around to catch yer eye, and you're with me. That's something ain't it"

Mr. White makes an attempt to steer the man towards business, but Simon seems to be intent on keeping it to small talk and jokes at least until the waitress comes back with the drinks. He is absolutely in no rush.

[ChromeZephyr]

Friday night, Outside the Alabaster Maiden
CMT Clip: Hidden | SIN: Sergei Zharov

Tundra Wolf watched the team walk into the club from his seat in the middle of the van, then began watching the line of people waiting to get inside. Outside of the dirty looks thrown at people getting in without waiting, no one seemed to take any kind of excessive interest. Strange. We walk out of restaurant and are tailed by two groups, but walk into club and no one follows. Either Andrews is heavy hitter, or our enemies are setting traps. Either is bad.

After a few minutes of waiting while Needle did her best impression of a puppet with it's strings cut, Nikolai took the flask out and saluted the building with it, then took a slug from it. He contemplated a second, then screwed the cap back in place and put it away. I will get new bottle when this is business is done, and maybe this time not have to deal with strange boys in suits with name tags knocking on door when morning comes.

[Slacker]

With the busy night it takes the waitress several minutes to get back with the drinks orders. The whole time Simon Andrews is keeping up a hilarious bit of small talk going, at least he obviously thinks its hilarious. It's kind of hard to tell between the loud music, his heavy British accent, and the onslaught of unfamiliar slang he liberally peppers his sentences with.

Outside, TundraWolf and Eclipse are keeping a casual, though still thorough watch of activity in the area. This part of town seems to have a lot of clubs/bars that are quite popular on a Friday night. Plenty of street and foot traffic coming and going. Occasionally a new vehicle will pull into the parking lot or an old one with drive away, but nothing particularly catches their eye.

Needle herself takes the initiative to scan the club for hidden nodes... and is surprised to find a large number all scattered all over the club. She starts to get worried that the whole club is a trap or something. Then she notices something that just seems to confuse her. Virtually all of the hidden nodes shes detecting so far seem to coincide with the location of various commlinks running in active mode.... It's hard to tell without hacking, but the signals don't look right any electronics she recognizes. They certainly aren't commlinks. Not enough of a data signature for that. As she's pondering what they could be, her mind registers that there are close grouping of 5 of these weird nodes moving right up to the booth the team is sitting at.

In the meatspace, Cindy the waitress finally arrives with everybody's drink orders just as Simon broke out in some uproarious laughter from another joke he made. Passing out all the drinks with a big smile and another wink in Acson's direction, she ignores the snapping of the digital snakes that cover her head. Then proceeds to pass out headbands to each member of the team. "Come on. It's party time. You can't just sit there looking all boring if you want to catch a lady's eye."

Acson just stares at the headband in his hands to keep from being caught staring at the waitress' cleavage again. "Oh sugar. It goes on your head," she says taking it back into her own hands. She leans down directly in front of him, giving him a view that turns his whole face red, as she sets it on his head. Suddenly a glowing halo appears above his head. "Ooohhh," the waitress coos as she hops back to get a better look. "That's a good one."

As everybody watches, a little red devil figure pulls itself onto the glowing ring of light and starts trying to stab it with a tiny pitchfork. Moments later a winged angel appears in a puff of virtual smoke and proceeds to chase the devil in circles around the halo.

"So fun," says the waitress. Then noticing a call from over her shoulder she continues. "Doh. It's back to work for me. You boys call me over if you need anything else. And have a great time tonight. Ok?" With that she turns to go take care of other patrons.

Simon doesn't have a headband himself, saying his face is all the excitement he needs to attract people in the club, but he does encourage everybody to join in the fun.

[Dak]

White chuckles at jokes, moves his beer around, but doesn't drink it. Some folks prefer to banter or chat before getting down to business. Part of getting ahead in this game is reading people, and responding to their cues.

Eventually though, business rolls around.

"We were informed that you might be interested in our friend here." he says to Simon.

[Slacker]

"Blimey. You're not gonna see what's tha party 'band?" Seeing the straight professional look Mr. White is giving him, the changeling shrugs and says. "Oh alright. I kin you're not the type to fanny around. Biz it is." He pauses for a moment to take another swig of his drink before continuing. "I don't know what my boys said to make you think I'm interested in that slag. Cause I ain't. But you guys...I see some regularly guys that're just royally fucked. Me heart aches for ya. This gormless fek," he curses in Acson's direction, "put you in quite the pickle. Right he did. Horizon's trashing the city looking for yous. All 'cause a 'im. That just ain't right in my book. I feel for ya." Through this, he's shaking his and his reptilian faces shows what Mr. White would guess is an approximation of sadness. "You even managed to catch the attention of a Dragon's assassion. Meanwhile, you ain't got nowt to show for all the trouble yer in. Ya been skulking 'round town trying to find a friend, not having much luck i'm guessing. Maybe I can be the friend ya need."

[Dak]

Mr. White's expression changes ever so slightly, but he smiles. "Well, Mr. Andrews, it's not friends that we're looking for at the moment. Our goal is to help our friend here to find an employer who's interested in both him and the book that he carries."

[Mach_Ten]

Nuffink changes in dese places, still jus' cattle markets Silas muses to himself while mentally wiping away the drool at the sight of the departing waitress
Her not so subtle behind, barely concealed in tight PVC, swinging seductivley in time with the thump of the bass-line.

He drags his attention away, back to the group discussion at hand and slurps the ... wassit called ? oh yeah Redhead Bitch.
it's fruity and sugary almost syrupy and then rears back and slaps him full in the face with a bitter, citrus twist deep at it's core ..... "HOOOOoo Boy ! Yup, thassa BITCH!" he confirms as his eyes begin to water and cross.

Shaking himself out of the stupor he responds to Simon Andrews while slipping the "party Band" he has been passed jauntily over his ears and trying to look up above his own head to see what happens
"I wouldn't 'sactly calls it skulking Mister Andrews, we got's us some classy wheels an' all ya see" He explains, waving the half empty cocktail glass drunkenly in front of his face,
it's an act that has worked in his favour before, play the fool, no-one expects the fool to be a threat
"buts Mister White here has a ..a ..wossit ...a point, if'n you ain't biddin' wassa points in us bein' here ?"
He slumps back into the comfy chair and noisily slurps the dregs of the drink he has rested precariously on his chest, through the straw while fighting with the umbrella on the top of the glass with his chin.
"An' anuvver fing's right... s'not da dragon we gots ta worry 'bouts ... is dem sneaky elfs ! ... dems is .." He pauses and looks between them conspiratorially before whispering loudly "Dem's is ..sneaky !"
with that he collapses back into the chair and the band falls down over his brow to rest on the bridge of his nose while he slurps at the last of the glass chasing a stray ice cube around