Misanthrope's Masterplan [IC] Options

[Koekepan]

Can Opener stayed silent throughout the whole thing, as if waiting her turn - but then said nothing after all. Maybe all the others had asked the questions that she'd intended to ask, and she was waiting for Belial's response - or rejoinder. But silence hardly made her thoughtless.

"And here it comes. No wonder everything's so overwrought. I reckon he's popular enough that he could do it anyway, but what do I know? "

She barely glanced at the credstick, but tucked it into her jacket's breast pocket and closed the zipper.

"He can't be underpaying us. He'd lose face. Let the pretty folk negotiate the final number - it's more than I have now anyway."

She listened to the list of locations impassively, with glasses and face mask keeping her poker face intact.

"Spikes. Humanis. Skraacha. Pimp. Stuffer Shack. Boy, what a party. Frag the Spikes and Humanis both, but going after Skraacha with an ork on the team? I don't see that going well. Pimp? I bet he's lying. Maybe he's not, but I don't trust the story, it sounds too much like a TriD drama. Stuffer Shack? Frag 'em, Aztechnology can die in a fire tomorrow. Hm. Need to talk to the team, but I reckon we can do driveby firebombings at each location and be done with them in under a minute each. Stuffer Shack holdup might take some fancy footwork, but I doubt they have an armed response team."

She remained silent while he detailed the further general points, but kept half an eye on her new best friends for the night to see what they'd say.

"OK, if there really is an opening ceremony, at least the challenge is probably legit, whatever the drek about the facts on the ground might be. Let me think. I could do some of this with a couple of elementals if working solo, but maybe the smart move is to call the Spikes, Humanis and Skraacha locations and give them a heads-up, then let the other team get tied down in firefights while we hit the pimp and truck. Racist Ancients are bound to go for them first. Ten minutes to showtime? Coordination'll have to be slot and run style. "

[Mulcarn]

@Willie - Belial shakes his head no. "You're thinking about it the wrong way, omae. The challenge, the Scavenger Hunt, gives me a way to depose Sting without me and her going all out at each other. As far as why I picked you guys out of all the poor slots in Seattle? Well, first of all, I needed people who were skilled or talented enough to get the job done. Plus, I needed said crew to be fairly unknown. More or less. Friend of a friend of a friend tells me about you all and I weighed the pros and cons of having you jobbers all on board." He stops talking for a brief moment to look up and smile back, ever so slightly. "Lastly, I'm feelin' lucky!"

@IC Princess - Turning to you next after he had answered Quick Willie's questions. Belial, still smiling ever so slightly says. "Naturally. That'd be my first picks too if given the chance. Pedophilia and racist supremacy are two topics that are kinda on the top of my shit list, you dig? Anyway... on about the rest of Sting's crew, slowing them down and whatnot." The Johnson pauses for a moment. Taking the time to choose his words carefully before speaking. Shrugging he responds with. "Slowing them down or otherwise hindering them from progressing is fine. However, if you attack them first or head on then I lose by default. If they initiate the fight then you are allowed to defend yourselves. So long as you don't kill or cripple them. Savvy?"

@Selina - Eyeing you afterwards. Belial winks approvingly and gives you sharp, catcall-like whistle before saying. "Bingo! For the most part. What you do and how you do it is entirely up to you guys. The more tasks you finish, the more you get paid. Simple as that. That being said, I'd very much appreciate if you complete at least 3 of 'em, if not all of 'em."

@Smiley - "It's a thousand upfront. Which I've already generously paid you for. And an additional thousand per hunt completed. I've done my research and that's more than fair for this kind of job. Hard part won't be completing the tasks per se, but more so doing it all in an hour or less."

[ Spoiler ]

@Sleep - Addresses have already been taken from Belial's data feed. Where and what they are will be discussed in a later post/posts that's about to come up. However, I can give you some information from your matrix searches. Not that there is much anyway.

Humanis - You haven’t heard a whole lot of activity out of the policlub itself lately, but that probably just means they’re biding their time. They’re still plenty popular here in Seattle, but as far as the Barrens goes, they’re more likely to be active in Redmond. The ghettoes in Puyallup have a whole lot more pointed ears in ‘em, y’know? If they operate that close to Tarislar, it must be a pretty small crew. If they had a lot of guys or did very much, do you think the metahumans in Puyallup would leave ‘em alone?

Spikes - The Spikes rumble along I-5 and claim a good chunk of it as their turf. Not many folks argue when they see a huge troll on a huge Harley roll up alongside ‘em going at interstate speeds.
They’ve had a long, very bloody, feud with the Ancients for as long as anyone can remember. Spikes send their new recruits out to earn a place in the gang , and they don’t get in until they’ve killed an elf—any elf will do.

Skraacha - They’re the Underground’s ugly muscle. An all-ork gang with some focus, and that makes ‘em trouble. With all the hubbub around the Ork Underground lately, politics and whatnot, the Skraacha are trying to look a little more militant. More organized, like. Lots of patches, berets, uniforms, stuff like that. They’re mostly topside to guard the entrances to the Underground, and to run escort and muscle jobs for gunrunners. You've heard they’ve got connections with the Cascade Ork smuggling rings. Those gunrunning missions aren’t just to make money and arm the Underground, they’ve all got access to some pretty decent hardware, themselves. Most of their patches and junk don’t mean anything, they just each grab what they think looks cool, and don’t worry about their flash matching. A whole bunch of them have been sporting the same cheap badges lately, though.

Jimmy the Chin - Yeah, you’ve heard of the Chin. Two-bit muscle who couldn’t cut it in the boxing ring. The Chin’s been busy since he lost his mob connections, starting up a family business of his own. No Mafia ties, just a whole, whole lot of burly dwarven thugs running girls for him. He’s been running his mouth about what high-quality merchandise he’s got, lately. Started getting Tarislar gals in the stable, all long legs and pointed ears. Lord knows how he gets them to work for him. Everyone knows Jimmy and his cousins keep those girls in line with bliss. He gets ‘em hooked on the stuff as quick as he can. It keeps them docile while they’re working , and the cravings keep them around between johns.

Autotruck - They're pretty basic as far as drone drivers are, and not real safe for most roads. They're good for long stretches of interstate and that sort of thing, but they got to go pretty slow once they hit a city. Some people used to boost them as kids. There's just a couple of maglocks to worry about. If you can hang on to the side and pick 'em one handed, it's a piece of cake. Sometimes the maglocks have anti-tamper stuff built in, though, especially if the autotruck’s on a route that’s been hit before. Keep an eye out for security devices, when you’re popping the case out.

[SleepIncarnate]

Taking the data she's found, IC Princess pops it up in AR for all to see, or at least all who can see AR. "This is a preliminary search. So far, everything checks out, though Humanis has gone quiet. I'll do more in depth once we settle on our targets. Speaking of which..." She puts the map with the various marked points up in AR for the others. "Here is a map of the area. Blue snowflakes are the targets, the white snowflake is us. Thoughts?" She looks to each, letting the more sociable ones negotiate pay.

[Crossbow]

"Fair is one thing, but this is about importance, this is about making kings and this is about making friends and making enemies. A thousand per job is not the rate for that, that sounds like three per easily." Smiley said, respectfully.

[Thanee]

Selina

"Also, if I may chime in, this is your shot at getting what you want, so, if I were you, I would want us properly motivated. How about a little bonus, if we do really well, and basically secure the win on your behalf. Like, fifty percent more, if we make four of the targets, and a clean hundred percent extra, if we make all five. How does that sound?"

[ Spoiler ]

Negotiation (Teamwork) +4 dice for Smiley's Negotiation test.

[Koekepan]

Can Opener remained quiet through the negotiations, but her mind was spinning like Quick Willie's wheels. Then she just slipped down the bench until she was under the table, and simply walked through to the end of the bench, careful not to stomp on any toes, until she was back at the open end of the booth. There, she tugged on Quick Willie's sleeve, and motioned him to bring it in close, not to interrupt the beautiful people. She didn't take off her face mask in all this, thereby rendering her softly whispering voice very slightly muffled, but her lips unreadable.

Should the ork deign to bend for the short dwarfgirl, here's what he would hear:

"Chummer, keep your poker face on. Frosty like cold beer. I wanna win this, dig? Just trust me on this. If you have any contacts at all in the Skraacha and the Spikes, get ready to give them a call. Don't make the call yet, but I have a plan. But when the siren goes, we won't have long to make our move. You in?"

She looked up at him earnestly, waiting for his reaction one way or another. Did she get his attention? Did he care? Only time would tell.

[pbangarth]

Willie reaches into his pocket and draws out a pack of cigarettes, and a lighter. He lights one and hands it to Can Opener, and then lights another, taking a long drag. All this gives him some time do something rare in his past, think.

Short-ass here sounds like she's got a plan. Plans ahead of time are good, no? But, it's only the two of us. What about the other three? What if they ain't in? Goin' off half-team is bad news. I hope she's got a way to get the rest on board. I don't give a frag about the Spikes, but I got a lot invested in figuring out Underground openings. I don't like the idea of gettin' the Skraacha pissed at me. I want to have bolt holes all around if I need one. Meh. I guess I can go along, for now. If we can talk without the Ancients listening in, maybe we can iron things out. An' I got nothin' to work a contact.

Willie puts a hand on Can Opener's shoulder, and squeezes twice, winking at her, too. "That's all I got for ya, no other treats, C.O."

[Koekepan]

Can Opener nods, glances at the negotiation, and then ducks back under the table to head for her seat. When she wriggles back up on it, she's cupping the glowing cherry of the cigarette in one hand, and seems to be watching it, as if looking for some higher truth. Divination? Maybe. It's as plausible as looking at a flying rat's liver, anyway.

[Crossbow]

Smiley gives a returning nod to the elf as he sees his words take hold. "It will be an honor to represent you. Now I think you have a ceremony to prepare for? We are going to need a few moments to finish introducing ourselves, compare notes and make a few plans. Thank you for the opportunity." Smiley rises and offers his new employer an outstretched hand.

________________

Once Belial walks away, "Okay chummers, how the frag are we gonna pull this off?"

[Mulcarn]

@All - After a few seconds of silent contemplation, Belial quietness is interrupted by Squire hurriedly coming over with a massive two-handed sword she barely managed to hold within her hands. A Celtic claymore. Taking the mageblade from her, he stands up and straps it around him, with it slung over his back. Turning him into a living trideo B-movie action hero from the way he poses with it. "Aye, so be it. three-thousand will be your pay per job finished. Now, if you don't mind me, I gotta kick the next step into high gear. Once you're all done talking you should follow me up front to the stage. Don't tarry too long though. I'd like my kingdom before daylight breaks." And with that the modern day elven highlander leaves the five of you alone with a few minutes to yourselves to discuss which hunt should be tackled first and in what order after.

[Koekepan]

Can Opener saw Belial walk away, and as soon as they had something approximating privacy, she said:

"I have a plan. We call any contacts we have in the metahuman targets, or if necessary fly a drone with a loudspeaker over their location, to let them know the elves are coming. They freak out, and greet the opposition with a hail of bullets. If nothing else, it slows the opposition down, and prevents their easy success. While that happens, we burn rubber for Humanis. I can get them burning like a volcano in under a minute, from outside. While the flames are still rising, we leave a drone overhead to pick up the footage we'll need as evidence, and then burn rubber for the pimp. Have the heavy crew go in, rough him up, grab some girls, maybe bring pimpman back here. Then we burn rubber to the earliest available rendezvous point with the truck. I can create barriers as long as it's a narrow street, and prevent it moving while the technical monsters rape it."

She then put the cigarette down on the table and started counting points off on her fingers.

"We get some juice with the green and spiky, instead of turning them against us. We trash Humanis in a way they're not ready to defend against. We save time by using drones for monitoring and comms where necessary, which gives a strike team the time to kick a pimp's face in while the rest of us stand by for medical and other backup, and we get the whole truck, which is an obvious win since they're not allowed to attack us for it. Three points, and preventing them from easily or quickly getting the other two. They're about as racist as Humanis, just in a different way, so I'd bet money if I were a gambler that they'd go for the Skraacha first just to frag off our tusky friend here. If that turns into a running gunbattle with the Spikes adding flavour, they might not even all come back here tonight. I reckon that makes it easier."


She put her hands down and looked around the table, one way, then another, meeting people's gazes coolly.

"Now tell me why I'm wrong."

[pbangarth]

Willie is starting to like Can Opener. Smart and feisty. Shoulda been an ork.

"I like the idea of not hitting the Skraacha, 'cause, well, 'cause. Spikes I don't care about. But I like the plan to screw up the other team. I guess we can even send video or pictures of the other team to the ones we warn. I can record 'em while I giv'em the stinkeye.

And, yeah, I like bein' the point man crashin' inta th'others. Long as some'un can fix me up after, I'm down with that. Maybe if one a you magicians can gimme magical armor on toppa whut I got, I can get all screamy an' glowy whilst I charge in! Yeah I'ma likin' it!"

[Thanee]

Selina

"You are not wrong, I guess, but you deliberately give up two out of five targets and just go with the absolute minimum. You have to aim high, girl, where are your dreams? I'm absolutely in favor of getting all five targets down. And, if you listened carefully, you might have noticed that we do not necessarily have the same targets as the other team. Belial made a selection with those five. There are more than that. There might be overlap. There probably is. But we do not know which. So, making any of the targets aware that something is coming, might make it more difficult for them, but it will definitely make things more difficult for us," Selina said. "Unless we really want to forfeit those from the beginning, which I don't think we should."

Looking at Willie, the elf added: "I figured, you wouldn't be a fan of hitting the Underground, but as I said before, there are other ways than bashing their heads in. We can make this a friendly exchange. Noone needs to get hurt there."

[SleepIncarnate]

IC Princess leaves the attempts at emotional bargaining to those with more emotions. Instead, she reaches up her hand, makes a hand gesture, and the map she had edited fills the table in AR. "This is us. Here are the Spikes, Skraacha, Pimp, and Humanis." As she touches each point, a box full of data on that target appears and hovers above the table in place. "While I can serve as a medic if the need arises, my time and skills will be better put to use tracking and claiming the truck while the rest of you hit the other targets and watch over my meat. I also have drones that can assist with combat if and when it arises, as well as for overwatch and recording as proof of our tasks. If the rest of you will slave your links to mine, I can even prevent any kind of comms jamming and perhaps help with overwatch at these four targets."

As she does that, she composes a quick message to send to Chloe, her fixer and Chaos Engine contact. Johnson didn't want to pay the month's worth promised. Took some negotiation from our faces, mostly the woman, to bring him up to it. Anyways, I need to get my hands on a decent tacsoft. No time to swing by Null. Have we got a pirated copy in the archives? She then encrypted the message and sent it off.

[Crossbow]

"I am down for trying to get the clean sweep too. Especially if we aren't competing directly for targets." Smiley cracked his bottle and took a swig. He allowed his face to register the fact that it wasn't bad, but he would prefer something stronger.

"There are also other options for getting the badges without bloodshed." He held up a hand and let the power go a bit, his bioelectric touch showing visibly in the light. "Like I said, interpersonal, social and otherwise. I can put a guy down for a few seconds just by shaking his hand, easy to get the badge in that time."

He leaned back again. "I am all for nuking the other targets, I will even cover a case of Molotov cocktails so we can do it right, but we can't go hard and heavy on the Crime Mall, that is going to have to be surgical. We go in guns blazing and we will be fighting all kinds of fools from all sides. We do that one like a KE Vice sting operation. Go in to hire the elf girls, have them bring them to us, THEN we drop the hammer on them."

[Koekepan]

Can Opener made an aside to IC Princess, before addressing other objections: "Null sweat, I'm a medic. Or a medic enough, anyway. I can keep meat alive. Cyber is someone else's fix."

That said, she turned to Selina and Smiley. "I like to aim high too, but this isn't unilateral. Our presence here isn't secret, and this affair will be on everybody's lips on the street in under a week, if that. Gossip travels fast, and faster if it stinks of blood. Even if we turned their brains inside out tonight, they'll recover at some point, and then we'll have new enemies that we didn't before. Is a couple Kilonuyen enough to make the spikes want you, specifically you, impaled on a public street? It isn't for me. And I'll bet you Quick Willie here would be first on the hit list because of betrayal, and he wouldn't want some of that action either. Oh, and I wasn't proposing raiding the mall in general, just that once we have the drop on him it would be hard. But I like your idea of tempting him out. Think a guy as handsome as you could be a plausible customer for his wares? And would he get them to a location of our choosing quickly?"

[pbangarth]

Willie opens access to his PAN to IC Princess. While connected, he asks her, If you can protect us from their messing with us, I bet you could take a good shot at cutting into their comms, couldn't you?

[Thanee]

Selina

When IC Princess shows the AR map, Selina smiles and says: "That's a pretty sweet map there. Good work! Putting my com under your protection is fine. You certainly know more about that stuff than I do. And Alexa can only do so much." She proceeds to slave her own device to hers, as proposed.

Listening to Kathy, Selina nods slightly. "Of course there are risks. It's part of the job, right? That's why it pays so well. And I would expect those Spikes to be more angry at the Ancients than anyone else after this, if that is even possible. Not even sure how they would find out about our involvement. It's not like the elves are going to sit down and talk to them. Or are you so well-known around here, that anyone can recognize you? Either way, they are big brutes. They are loud and easily avoided. I'm not really worried about them. It's the smart and sneaky ones that can cause real problems."

[pbangarth]

Willie chimes in after Selina's comment, "Yeah! Like me! They gotta worry about smart, sneaky Willie!"

Even his tusks can't hide the mischievous grin.

[Thanee]

Selina

"Good thing you are on our side!" Selina chimed in, cheerfully.

[Koekepan]

Can Opener looked askance at Selina, but did not answer her directly. Sheer scepticism spoke from the tilt of her hat. Instead she continued the discussion on another topic: "Obviously this depends on us having the same targets. If they don't have the same targets, then either we know their targets or we don't. If we don't, I can send something to tail them and work it out from there. But if we don't know theirs, what are the odds they'll know ours? In which case, why would we expect they'd interfere? If they have a choice of targets, why don't we? Even if they do have a choice, I still think taking a run at the Spikes and the Skraacha would be right up their alley. They'd do that just to torque off Willie here, or if they thought it'd torque Willie off. I've known plenty of gangers, and not one of them that wasn't more petty than a toddler.

She sighed heavily, before adding: "About the only thing I'm relatively sure of is that Johnson wants us to succeed, and even there I'm wondering if he has some weird play where we get fragged, and he does what we got fragged trying, and looks like the big hero to claim his crown. Whatever path we choose, I fully favour being discriminating, and watching our backs. Maybe Johnson has a big mouth to match his lack of discretion, and everyone else already knows our targets, but we'll have no idea what theirs are. Given most of the people here have recording equipment to capture our presence here in full-life three-dee, I'm assuming that everyone will know who did what. In fact, I bet someone will try to sell the trids for a few nuyen. If Johnson's smarter than he bothers to look, he's poisoning us with the other gangs so he gets to have a better deal with us. If he's not, we're just his disposable gloves."

[Thanee]

Selina

"Yeah, watching our backs is like rule number one, right? You never know. I don't think he is messing with us, though, he really does want us to succeed, but there is always a chance. It's one of those risks, but we had that part, already. As for the choice of targets. He mentioned something about it at least twice. As far as I got it, both Belial and Sting had a bunch of possible targets and had to choose five from them, without the other one knowing. There will be some overlap, but it is not certain, where it is. Then they both had to choose a team to do their work. Since we do not know their targets, at least not yet, I expect them to not know ours either. There is some sort of ritual coming up, whatever that means, so the whole thing seems to be quite formalized. That is, at least, what I think is going on here."

[pbangarth]

Willie's head was spinning, Ideas were bubbling up out of who knows where, and he just didn't know what to do with them, except blurt them out. The way he always used to blurt things out the moment they rose into his consciousness.

"Yeah, we don't know anything about this guy's big plans. I mean, what if those boosted SUVs are rigged somehow? What if they have trackers in them? How easy would it be for somebody to call the cops and say there's a stolen car gonna be at the Crime Mall between midnight and 1 am? I got a Rover here. Maybe we should use it instead.

"And that Stuffer Shack truck? If it's gonna be at some spot at quarter to, so won't it be somewhere two minutes up the road two minutes earlier?

"Drek! There was somethin' else I just thought of. Whut?

"Oh! Oh! What if somebody was to warn Stuffer Shack their truck is gonna be robbed? Would they reroute? Call the cops?

"Any o' this make sense?"

[Crossbow]

"All of that makes sense. big guy, it is really good to be paranoid in our line of work, but there is a point when you can step over that line from caution to crazy. Let's take the hand we are dealt here and play it out to the best of our abilities. We are here, and we are getting paid." Smiley spoke as soothingly as he could without condescension. "We have the bones of a plan, and an alternative if it doesn't play, lets run with that. If there is a screwjob in the works, and one of you wants to do something about that when the time comes, I got your back, that's a promise. Now, I am going to try and get us some real drinks to toast our new partnership and the supplies I mentioned before." Smiley took another swig from the bottle out of sheer habit and got up and went to the bar.


At the bar he said, "Give me 8 shots of your best whiskey and 12 bottles of whatever high proof garbage you have laying around, it's time to CROWN A KING!" That last was pitched loud enough for the lady and her tramps. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif)

[Mulcarn]

@IC Princess - Chloe is silent and doesn't respond to your text. Considering it's nearly midnight and Friday as well, she's probably asleep. Mostly likely passed out from drinking too much while watching Urban Brawl. On the other hand, you do receive a message from a representative of the Chaos Engine. "Your timing is terrible. Yeah, yeah... we have two on file at the moment. One legit and one not-so legit. The real one we can upload to ya for three-thousand, no problem. The pirated copy however I wouldn't recommended buying unless your desperate. It's buggy as hell and has a chance to crash and reboot whatever you have linked up to it. However it's yours for three-hundred, assuming you want it."

@Smiley - The bartender shrugs and begins to mix and serve your large order as per your request while Sting and company leer at you from the other side of the bar like you're an intrepid mosquito that's about to be swatted. To your enjoyment he lines up a plate filled with shot glasses of the Daisy's finest whilst also setting up a case of a dozen bottles of generic brand vodka. After you slot him 480 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) that is.