Tangled Currents - DES, Stormy Waters subthread Options

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 1924; Korean BBQ Restaurant, Capital Hill, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

The three men in the kitchen with John started moving from the first three pops, the lieutenant reaching into his jacket, the two guards rushing John. Undeterred by the smaller explosion in the closet, their huge, grasping hands were just making contact with John when the much larger explosions rocked the dining room behind them, sending the door behind them flying into the room on a wave of billowing orange flame.

[Jack_Spade]

Friday, 22 November, 1924; Korean BBQ Restaurant, Capital Hill, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex #93

It's always problematic to fight against two people at once while not hurting the third to much.

Luckily, John could rely on machine precision while the two goons rushed him: He brought the Assault Rifle up with lightning speed and sent a hail of bullets at his two would be attackers from point blank.

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 1924; warehouse district between I-5 and Green River, Tukwila, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

With Vsxboy still in his hide atop the building, and Jan already in his position near the putative exchange site, all that was left once the call came from John was for Rocky to return to his position of the evening previous.

In the RV, DES concentrated on the perceptions of the site and the approaching roads as provided by his spirits and drones, with Rave as his security.

DES saw the Knight Errant patrol cruiser enter the road they were on, noting it, but not thinking much of it...until it stopped about twenty meters behind the RV.

Rave watched through the window as the car puts its spots on the rear windows and then sat there for ten seconds. Then the doors opened and two uniformed officers - both orks - got out and walked easily towards the RV's side door.

Knocked.

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 1924; Korean BBQ Restaurant, Capital Hill, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

The two burly Koreans looked like they'd bounced off a brick wall, tossed back from John's form just as thick fingers reached for clothing.

Through a mist of the two dead men's blood John saw their boss pull an Ares Predator and fire it at his face...

[Jack_Spade]

John drew his head to the side and in the same motion freed his right hand from the trigger. This movement cost him precious balance and slowed him down - but it was just enough for him to turn it into a forward motion and reach for the man's crotch. The tiny sparks of shock hand left a faint after image in his vision before he closed in on the man's family jewels.

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 1924; Korean BBQ Restaurant, Capital Hill, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

The man twisted at the last moment, one thigh blocking John's hand. There was still contact though, but the man was unfazed. His clothing was clearly insulated.

Less insulated were his eyes and throat. Heavy mucous was starting to run from his nose. He fired a desperate round at John's head, but his vision was clearly impaired...

[Vegas]

Friday, 22 November, 1927; warehouse district between I-5 and Green River, Tukwila, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

She had been reassembling her weapons by muscle memory while cross referencing any new details coming in from John via the KE databases she had hit pay dirt on earlier when the entire inside of the RV lit up like the sun was directly outside.

A string of unladylike curses escaped her lips as she nestled the P30 back inside the duffle bag at her feet and then tucked her Browning beneath her t-shirt at the small of her back. Her posture was a little more on edge not having paid more attention to just who was now outside the door of the RV. Rent-A-Cops would be a pain in the ass but easy enough to get rid of, law enforcement might be a different story altogether and if it was a scout for one of the merchants in play this evening, well all bets might be off.

“Who is it?” She pointed a silent question towards DES who had been monitoring the drones and got a quick and just as silent “Looks like KnightErrant” in reply.

Rave visibly relaxed as she stood, waiting until the KE patrol officers knocked a second time. She opened the door as if she had nothing to hide but casually placed her body between the officer’s direct line of sight and the interior of the RV itself.

“Evening Officers. May I help you with something?”

One officer shifted his position true to his training to try to gain a better vantage point of what, or whom, was just beyond Rave inside. She casually leaned in the other direction, causing the door to close almost imperceptibly, but enough to keep the interior of the RV a mystery to prying eyes. Meanwhile, his partner started to read her the riot act.

“There’s no stopping allowed on this road. You can’t park your vehicle here. I don’t see any signs or notifications of any mechanical issues. If your vehicle is operational, you need to move it. Now.”

He gave her the generic cop stare, the one that was supposed to make her feel uneasy and immediately acquiesce, apologize and move on, but instead she kept her hands visible to both cops and opened the door wider, allowing her to slowly make her way out of the RV. She wasn’t about to give either of them a reason to draw their weapons.

“A word gentleman, if I may?”

With a tiny bit of mental gymnastics she broadcast her implanted ID to both of the officers, including her KE credentials, and waited till they both had reviewed them before going dark and only her undercover ID broadcasting once again. She wasn't worried about a quick broadcast, certain if D Pop knew she was a cop and it had been mentioned in front of DES, her "secret" was safe from the others. For now.

“Looks like we might have a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing? I assure you I’m sanctioned to be here, you can run it up the chain if you need to, but if you want to bother Captain Bergstrom with this in the middle of surveillance, it’s your asses.”

She named dropped a well-known superior and shrugged as she left the decision in the officer’s hands as to what to do next.

[Jack_Spade]

Friday, 22 November, 2075, 1806, Target Villa, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex #95

John stepped aside from the second shot - the Pepperpunch was doing its job. Only a moment longer and his opponent had not enough air to do anything more than weeze.
John kicked away the man's gun while also looking at the two dead guards. 'No obvious cyber or defense improvement despite high reaction. Pretty sure I'm dealing with magic here. Which means they likely have already noticed the explosions. Time for a cleanish getaway.'

John lifted the man over his shoulder and quickly carried him out of the pepper cloud. Out of the pan into the fire - literally: The main part of the restaurant was on fire, dead and nearly dead men lay strewn across the room. Placing the waste baskets with the grenades on the tables in their midst had had the desired effect. The fires where a byproduct of the hotplates coming into contact with the tacky paper decorations. '425 Nuyen well spend.'
The smoke was getting thick and John hurried to bring his captive out of the building, kicking out the remaining glass window to the front. The fresh air gave the fire new elan, setting the smoldering drapes into full flame. Not long til the fire would find the gas in the kitchen...
"You are in luck that I happen to have a fully equipped Valkyrie Module in my car. We'll have you well enough for talking in no time. But first we've got to get rid of all this pesky, smoldering clothes."

John extended the climbing claws and began to rip away the man's expensive suit. Once he was naked, he took him into the Valkyrie module. The memory foam took him in and immobilized him (after John had entered "Possible spine fracture") and let the bio monitor do its thing. Just to be sure, John used the manual restraints to keep the man from using his arms.
Once he was sure the man wouldn't be able to riot, he let the autodoc do its job: Applying a weak stimulant to wake him up again - John purposefully stopped the machine from applying painkillers or the antidote to Pepperpunch.

John went behind the wheel and started to drive away with his captive.
"Rise and shine my friend. You are the lucky one today - still alive and not burned to a crisp. You guys really should follow the OSHA guidelines. That restaurant was a real fire trap.
In a second I'll ask you a question. Your first impulse will be to tell me to go fuck myself. I totally understand that, really. It's what I'd do to if I thought as myself as a tough guy in a tough organization.
But I ask you to consider the following: You are within a Autodoc unit that I control. At the moment I entered that you are in dire need of an amputation of your toes. After that I can remove your lower legs, followed by your upper legs. Followed by your genitals. From there we can see how long it takes to reduce you to a door mat - especially after I remove your eyes and arms. This will be a really fun ride.

So after this preliminary information: Where is the exchange supposed to happen?

Oh and don't play for time. I'm starting at your little pinky toe now."

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 1927; warehouse district between I-5 and Green River, Tukwila, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

The two officers considered the attractive young detective's words for a moment, looking at each other. Finally, one of the orks said, "Hey, didn't khow you were on the job. So we'd hate to blow your cover - why not make like you're leaving, drive around a bit. Then when we're gone you can come back and park again. Otherwise, anyone with eyes on you wonders why we gave you a pass....and then while you're driving around for a few minutes, we'll have our captain call yours. No hurt feelings, no blown job, and if all goes well you'll never see us again. We'll wait in our car while you get wheels up - that's what we'd normally do."

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 1924; driving away from Korean BBQ Restaurant, Capital Hill, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

Driving away from the blazing building, John saw the restaurant's sign and it occurred to him that Korean BBQ was taking on a whole new meaning.

Beside him, his captive was coughing and gagging as a tiny mechanical arm from inside the Valkyrie was directing suction at his right nostril, attempting to clear the man's airway of the profuse phlegm discharge triggered by the overexposure to oleoresin capsicum. And through the gagging he was starting to scream, presumably as a blade John couldn't quite see went to work on his toe.

It took a minute, but John realized the choking scream formed words - Costco Drive off Andover Park East, burned out car center - over and over, and with increasing urgency.

[Jack_Spade]

John stopped the Valkyrie module so the screaming subsided a bit: "Good, but where is the place where we were supposed to start our escort?
If you answer quickly, I might be inclined to reattach your toe."

<<Team, I've got my informant and the main force is currently being roasted to a crisp. He just confirmed that the hand over will be at your location, but I might be able to learn at which part of the border they are bringing in the kids. I'll keep you posted, but be ready to abandon your current position. We might be able to catch them before they can mobilize their reserves.>>

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 1925; driving away from Korean BBQ Restaurant, Capital Hill, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

"Enumclaw," the man panted, "service area just inside the 164 border crossing...if they go ahead...lots of back-up plans...I don't know them."

[Jack_Spade]

Friday, 22 November, 1925; driving away from Korean BBQ Restaurant, Capital Hill, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex #97

"Thanks, that wasn't so hard, was it?" True to his word he reversed the operation, telling the VM to reattach the toe and apply a painkiller.

<<Got it: Enumclaw, service area just inside the 164 border crossing. I'm heading there now.>>

[Vegas]

Friday, 22 November, 1929; warehouse district between I-5 and Green River, Tukwila, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

“We’ve got little birds in the air. Let us get them back in the nest and we’ll be on our way, surveillance isn’t panning out here and we may have been fed bogus information. Feel free to save face by keeping me out here until we can go wheels up.”

She digested the info coming in via John in real time while feeding back simple text messages to DES and then the entire team respectively.

[DES]: Bring your eyes in the sky home. This location may now be compromised by Knight Errant, or at least their officers are now interested in what we’re doing here.

[TEAM]: We’ve got company in blue aware of some of our presence on site. They may or may not be thrown off the scent completely, but they seem curious. May make the most sense to attempt the border crossing, might be the easier of the two handoffs, especially if this is the decoy location after all.

[JDragon]

Friday, 22 November, 1930; warehouse district between I-5 and Green River, Tukwila, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

It hadn't been as much sleep as Rocky was hoping to get when Jan woke him at 18:30 to head back out to their hiding spots closer in to the warehouse to continue waiting for the meet to go down. But 2 plus hours was better than running for his life the whole time so he wasn't going to complain.

He had spent ten minutes stretching and then reloading his gun and speed loaders with the new ammo Rascle had secured with him. Lastly he loaded the grenades in to the pockets of his lined coat.

Jan had led them out to the same spots they had used the night before and taken up watch. They each would watch for fifteen minutes and then swap so neither would zone out and miss something. The first hour or so had been the same as the last part of the morning. One shift of wage slaves finishing their day as another, smaller shift showed up to start theirs.

Then five minutes ago the drek hit the fan. From what Rocky could gather the Korean's had started to pack up to leave and the robot John had set off the surprises he had cooked up for them and then slipped away with the boss. Then Rave had called letting them know the cops were sniffing around and that the group was mounting up to meet John.

As they moved from their hiding spot Rocky responded to Rave's call, [TEAM]:Jan & I will meet you around the corner from your current spot so your new friends don't see us.

[mister__joshua]

Jan
Friday, 22 November, 1930; warehouse district between I-5 and Green River, Tukwila, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

<<@All: Do we want head straight there?>> The speech-to-text from his Sensei spoke better english than Jan did, and tried it's best to correct his Azanian twang, but often resulted in chopped words and sentences.

Jan's head was in Action mode. He felt people were acting too fast, on impulse, maybe not thinking things through.
<<@All: We already set up here. Scouted the location, know our terrain. We rushing into unknown here. Unknown enemy, number, location, situation. There isn't much we control>>

He felt his messages may already be falling on deaf ears as the RV accelerated away towards the border. 'Favour' damnit. This favour was going to get him killed...

[Jack_Spade]

Friday, 22 November, 1925; driving towards service area just inside the 164 border crossing, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex #98

<<I might not have made myself clear: I just blew up two dozen Korean mobsters meant to do the escorting of our target. Luckily I did this after they were ordered to adhere to radio silence. We have maybe a quarter of an hour before the Koreans learn about this and about the same time before they muster their relieve forces. They would have to be pretty stupid to use the planed transfer point after this.
We have now the chance to hijack the truck - with the knowledge of my new friend here and a show of force from your side, we might be able to convince them that we are in fact the relieve team.

Provided of course one of you can play this role convincingly. Otherwise the plan on my part is to shoot the driver of the truck, jump in and steal the thing, but that requires a bit of cooperation on your part as well.>>

[mister__joshua]

Jan
Friday, 22 November, 1930; warehouse district between I-5 and Green River, Tukwila, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

Jan sighed. <<@All: I understood. We've written off our plan to go with a 'wing it' approach. None of us can convincingly be Korean>> It was obvious from his tone that he was frustrated by how events had transpired. He didn't like the robot. Didn't fully trust him. Not yet, anyway. Who knows what's really driving that thing? For a man who didn't even have a DNI, the concept of rigging and anthroforms was completely alien.

As an afterthought, and after a suitable pause he added <<@All: We're en route>>

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 1806; near service area just inside the 164 border crossing, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

The way DES filtered the lumbering RV through evening Seattle traffic was a testament to the efficacy of a motivated rigger. Thirty-five minutes into what should have been a one-hour drive, the beast pulled into a lonely side street, where it found John standing next to his own ride. They were three blocks from the service area where the Korean soldiers were meant to meet the cargo just a few minutes from now - if it showed.

[Jack_Spade]

Friday, 22 November, 1945; near service area just inside the 164 border crossing, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex #99

John waited for the team next to his car.
"Great to see you again. Do you have some drones we can use for aerial recon?
For that matter does anyone want to ask the Korean lieutenant anything about this operation? He is quite cooperative since I found his one weakness: He doesn't like if someone removes parts of his body."

[mister__joshua]

Jan
Friday, 22 November, 19:45; near service area just inside the 164 border crossing, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

Jan snorted a quick laugh. He and John did, at least, seem to share a fondness for old-school interrogation techniques. "People get pissy about these things. You'd understand, if you had a body to speak of."

"I don't mind leading off. I can look inconspicuous if I need to."

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 19:45; near service area just inside the 164 border crossing, Auburn, Seattle Metroplex

The border crossing, and the nearby service area, had been readily visible as they approached. From kilometers out, traffic AROs had made travellers aware of the border, though it wasn't a busy enough crossing to have much impact on local traffic patterns.

Still, the sight was (purposely) imposing, with high, zig-zagging cement barriers across the Griffin Avenue, all topped with razor wire and obvious sensors. Which the seasoned runners knew were for show, and to distract from the monowire and the less-obvious sensors. Two huge spirits - man and beast - floated around the checkpoint menacingly. Border guards with vests and sidearms inspected AR and hardcopy documents while K-9 teams decided which vehicles to physically search.

Just within the crossing point, two Knight-Errant cruisers sat, four patrol officers loitering about not doing much besides drinking soykaf and eating free donuts from the nearby MisuDo.

The service area was fairly busy, as were the surrounding streets, it being fairly early on a Friday night. But there was no sign of any truck that looked like the one Rave had showed them photos of, or anything that looked like it had a lot of protection.

[Jack_Spade]

Friday, 22 November, 19:45; near service area just inside the 164 border crossing, Auburn, Seattle Metroplex #100

"So, it seems like we'll need a bit of trickery with the KE around. I mean unless we just wanted to call them in because slavery is still illegal and crossing borders without SIN even more so.
If they are smart they will wait here until the reserve squat arrives. I have no problem with walking straight up to the truck and pretend I'm part of the advance party - since I was actually hired to be that. For that it would be helpful if we could convince my captive to go along with this ruse. Does anyone of you have the ability to mind control, possess, enchant or drug that guy into compliance?
I'd like to avoid carving of his face and wearing it as a flesh mask, although the shock value might give me a few seconds to act.

Alternatively, I could leave my body, try to take over the truck and just outright steal it through ownership change.

Also, I'm open to any other smart ideas."

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 19:45; near service area just inside the 164 border crossing, Auburn, Seattle Metroplex

As the team mulled their options, they got a call from D-Pop.

<<Once our Watchers marked your movements, we set our minions to watching the roads in the vicinity. A vehicle matching the photos Rave provided is approaching the border station from the Salish side now - you've got five to ten minutes depending on how long the crossing takes. Also, I can confirm that about an hour ago the matrix and drone support elements of their security were taken out by other Chosen agents. Would have let you know sooner, but wanted to see if they would find a way to replace them, but it doesn't seem they have. Still, it seems likely they won't try to compensate somehow...Good luck.>>

No sooner had she finished speaking than everyone heard the roar of heavy bikes, and looking down the street saw a dozen choppers roar into the service area parking lot. They were a ragtag bunch: long hair, beards, tattered clothing and lots of tats. They sported a variety of medieval weapons - and plenty of modern firepower as well - and seemed unconcerned about the nearby police presence. As if their themed appearance and coordinated riding did not mark them as a group, it was easy to note a clear red-and-brown color them to their ragtag collection of leathers and furs.

Coincidence?

[JDragon]

Friday, 22 November, 19:45; near service area just inside the 164 border crossing, Auburn, Seattle Metroplex

Having just listened to the message from D-Pop Rocky gestures over at the crowd of bikers that had just arrived. "These slags part of the party too?"

Considering it for a second he gestures at John's car. "Wanna see if your new chummer knows anything about these guys?"

"Well I was going to offer to distract the KE slags, not sure it will make a difference now."