Behind the Crown [IC], Behind the crown are shadows Options

[Bastard]

"Fifty 'yen, where and when?"""

She says before climbing in the passenger seat. She sets Blue's coffee in the cup holder.

"""Let's get out of here, then you add what you want to your brew,""" she shakes the bag indicating its coffee-additive contents.

[pbangarth]

"""Let's talk in a minute. I want to see if we are being followed. """ Blue drives a few blocks away, looking for pursuit in the rear view mirrors. He goes around one block completely by turning right four times. He saw that in a suspense trideo a while back and it seemed like a good idea.

Then he pulls over, mixes his drink appropriately and suggests to Karmakaze, """You drive so a good driver can be in control and I can summon a spirit for overwatch. """

Once they have switched, Blue summons a small (It's still daytime) city spirit to serve.

[ Spoiler ]

Summon F2 city spirit: target 2+2= 4, 6 dice: 5 successes

Drain resistance target 4(L), 4 dice: 2 successes no Drain

::: Thank you for coming, spirit of the streets. Please guard this vehicle and the two of us in it from mishaps. :::

Blue takes a sip of the coffee, """ Mmm. Needed that. Alright, so what's up? """

[Bastard]

Karma takes the wheel and merges into traffic.

She explains the job to Blue along the drive.

[pbangarth]

Blue considers the situation. +++ That's a lot of money. Maybe I'll wait to send that shopping list to Mary Margaret. +++

To Karmakaze he says, """ That's a pretty big territory. It could take quite a while to suss out what's going on there. You're good at finding people. Wanna try to find Daisy first? If we could score that payout, I wouldn't mind taking a break to spend some time refreshing spells, building my Lodge back up, buying some magical materials. That kind of thing.

""" Speaking of materials, do you have anybody who could fit me for some of that spiffy armoured underwear you have? I could use that myself, and a good knife, too. """

Blue smiles at Karmakaze's sidelong glance at the mention of a blade. """ Yeah, yeah. But If I can improve my skills with a knife, eventually it would be good to get a weapon focus. Spirits that would be impervious to bullets would be like butter to one of those. """

[Bastard]

She smirks at the image of Blue with a "Rambo" knife.

"""You met Jaxx. Not the best company, but he'll get you anything you need. I suggest something larger than a knife, if you're going to invest a lot of money into it. Not sure if it matters fighting spirits, but a longer weapon keeps you from having to get as close to the enemy. I have seen a lot of crime scenes involving knives, and they are a lot messier, at least for the wielder."""

She unlocks her link and hands it to her passenger.

"""Send Jaxx a text. Tell him we need more gear whenever he is available."""

"""Unless you know a good decker, we are probably going to need to go through Jaxx to hire one. We will talk to him about that in person."""

[pbangarth]

""" Thanks. I'll text him. """ <<< KK's partner here, using this device. Looking for a cougar fineblade short knife and form-fitting body armor, for a short person like me. Have cash on hand. >>>

""" I know how to use a knife, but have no experience with anything longer. And something with better reach would cost at least 100k nuyen more. So I just want to get better at what I know, so if I can ever afford it I can have a weapon that works in astral space. And there, I'm hard to hurt in close combat. Spells will always be my first line of action, but a serious Plan B is always a good idea.

"""It's also easier to hide a knife than a sword on a person of my height. """ He smiles at that.

""" My contact Billy is a good bet. He helped out with info about Petsonal. If we can nail down what he needs to find for us, I can call him and hire him.

""" Of course, knowing Billy, he might want payment in the form of saving his niece from the Children of Purity. Worth a try, anyway. I did tell him it was beyond us, right now. """

[pbangarth]

"""OK. So, let's pull over in a mall somewhere and get something to eat. We can talk over the plan and I can call Billy. Maybe Jaxx will get back to us by then. """

[Bastard]

"""Sounds like a plan. As for the knife, what about that buck knife I pulled from the goons where we met? I forgot about it, until I had the strange image of you as Rambo."""

They find a nearby strip mall with a small "burgers & beers" style establishment to make plans. Karma picked the spot based on the area being only lightly to moderately trafficked.

After finding a booth, Karma goes over the information in detail.

[Koekepan]

The information packet is instant nostalgia to Karmakaze, the way that it is structured like police intelligence.

---Give a roll on investigation skills, and add specific questions that interest Karmakaze in particular. Obviously there's a wealth of information on businesses, dates, layouts, ownerships and contractual status--

[Bastard]

Karmakaze shares the files with Blue.

"""Most importantly is finding Daisy, hopefully alive. Unfortunately that is going to be the hardest since I wasn't given too much detail on her. We can go through some mugshots and see if her handler at least gave her a background. Of course, I didn't even get a last name for her. I feel this job is going to take a lot of capital to complete.

"""We can get all the names of the business owners from these companies that de-linked, closed or just opened. It's easy, but may be time consuming. All business licenses are public on the government website. Any business on there we cannot find, gets a star on our list.

"""Then we can take those names, the council members names, plus anyone in the council contract discussions, or any business owners with abnormal contracts, and any known criminals or ex-criminals, and we compare all of them to organized crime, or just poke around and see what comes up.

"""This will probably take a few days. We can walk around, scout out the area, see what is up. Then we can use my place to do our research and legwork. I already have a room set up as an office."""

[pbangarth]

Blue listens carefully to the info Karmakaze shares. A whole new world of social knowledge opens up to him, and he makes note of the fact that, 'out here', he is a neophyte.

"""Glad you bring this kind of knowledge to the task. I wouldn't know how to begin.

"""Well, speaking of that, Daisy was supposed to be working as an escort or something, no? With a last known place of employment? Would that be a place to start? """

A wry smile comes across Blue's face. """Maybe one of us could be a prospective ... client of hers? Looking to find her for business? """

[Bastard]

"""That is a good plan, but I don't even know what her contact information is. I don't know why my contact would withhold information, so it sounds like he doesn't trust her handler. I have the area she went missing though, so we can ask around."""

[pbangarth]

""" Often such escort services ... I am given to understand ... have a matrix presence. Maybe a search would luck out and we find one with a 'Daisy' on call. """

[Bastard]

"""Good thinking. Let's search for that now."""

[pbangarth]

Blue nods and fires up his personal assistant. He looks for escort services in the Fremont area. Surely they wouldn't try to hide their services from the lonely, the desperate and the entitled.

Who knows? The two of them could get lucky.

[Koekepan]

Escort agencies? Sure, he finds half a dozen without really having to try hard. They have imaginative names like Event Escorts, Diamond Rendezvous and LBN Events.

As businesses go, they tend to pop up, thrive for a while, then vanish with barely a ripple.

[pbangarth]

"""I've found a bunch of businesses. I'll check to see if any mention a 'Daisy'."""

[Koekepan]

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on the intention, several of them do.

Daisy, depending on the business, is a human-elf-blonde-redhead-korean-chinese-anglo woman of indeterminate youthful adulthood but well-presented looks. All things considered, there are abundant pictures for comparison purposes ...

... and none of them match Booker's data.

[pbangarth]

Blue scratches his days old beard.

""" It looks like Daisy is a popular name in the business. None of the ones I find fits our Daisy's description. Maybe I'm getting paranoid here, but could be that she's been removed from public view since she herself was taken out of circulation. Her business complicit in that? Don't know. """

[Bastard]

"""Damn. I was hoping to get at least an unavailable response from one of them."""

[pbangarth]

""" Allegedly, she was favoured by some gang leaders or somesuch. Any way we can work that? """

[Koekepan]

Karmakaze is well aware that an undercover agent might prefer the lower profile afforded by a solo operator. Ladies of commercially negotiable affections run greater risks when operating by themselves, but also have more flexibility, and an undercover identity needs a lot of that. This might take a bigger, more comprehensive, and more sophisticated matrix search - or a lot of street intelligence, which Blue and Karmakaze presently lack.

[Bastard]

"""I think we really need a decker."""

[pbangarth]

""" Help me out, here. If you can tell me what we would use a decker for, I could see if Billy could do the job for us. Without specifics, he can't say if he can do it, and what it would cost. """

[Bastard]

"""To do some intense digging that goes past internet searches into these corporations and city council members. Maybe set up some sort of program to find connections between any of them.

"""We could probably find some of the stuff ourselves, and I plan to go through all the data myself, but a decker will find things outside the information here."""