Behind the Crown [IC], Behind the crown are shadows Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Switch to: Outline Standard Switch to: Linear+

[pbangarth]

::: Spirit friend, come protect the two of us from accidents as we flee those who hunt us.::: Connor takes off after Carlos, hoping the spirit's power will guard them from trips and stumbles.

"""Don't get too far ahead of me, Carlos. If I have to use magic to counter the gas, I have to touch you.""

+++Multiple spells at once, in the daytime. What will Owl think?+++

[Koekepan]

Connor and Carlos scramble down the hill as fast as their respective legs will carry them, away from goons, gas, and who knows what else. The ground is sodden, and within moments the marks of dead yeast cultures are forgotten next to moss stains, earth stains, bark stains and whatever nameless crud air pollution left.

The headlong rush does appear to work. Whatever wicked gas Mitsuhama's favoured muscle uses does not assail their senses, and perhaps it is desperation, or distraction that keeps them ahead of pursuit, but it works. What seems to be an eternity, but is probably a few minutes' worth of running through the forest, comes to an end as they reach a creek, and Carlos half-slips down the bank to splash, ankle-deep, in the ice cold water. Connor, a little behind, sees the fall and hears the splash, and pulls up in time to prevent a similar fate.

No more shouts can be heard, just the steady dripping of rain off foliage, and distant highway traffic. Contact has been broken.

Above, the grey sky is more-or-less visible through the branches. The BioZu office is no longer visible behind them. Looking around, Carlos mostly sees brambles reaching to drink his tender mammalian blood - or at least, rip his clothing - while Connor, from his position above the creek rather than in it, sees what looks like a ramshackle dwelling off to the northwest, downhill.

It could be deserted. Enough people were driven out of the area, between war, volcanoes and plague.

[pbangarth]

Connor points at the building and says, """Hey, Carlos. I see a building over that way. That anywhere near where you wanted to go to meet your friend?"""

[Koekepan]

Carlos can't immediately see the building, but it's not impossible that the building might have a plausibly accessible road surface leading to it. It's also quite possible that what used to be a traversable gravel road years ago is now overgrown and quite unsuitable for even the most intrepid taxi. He'd have to look to be sure.

The other question to consider is whether they have enough distance from goons, and what drones he, or they might be able to command in a test of wills.

[ntwi]

""Give me a sec to get out of this stream Conner"" Carlos replies as he picks his way up the bank of the stream before squatting down at the base of a tree and pulling out his electronics to check them over.

After a moment of flickering eye movement Carlos grunts, """Ugh, our best option looks to be about a kilometre that way, it doesn't look like this connects with anything anymore. Give me a minute to get things set up to start watching for their drones and pull my eye in the sky this way as well.""" Carlos gets his scanner booted up and routed through his pocket sec to start looking for the Mitsuhama radio nets before routing his RC deck through his signal amplifier
<<<Honda-GM 3220, at 1700hrs drive to the Tacoma mall and park in the Eastern parking lot. Condor, stay at current elevation and transit to the Exit 108 interchange along I-5>>>

Carlos waits for the acknowledgement from his drones before turning off the signal amp and packing it back away. """Our ride is about 30 minutes out and I'd like to keep putting more distance between us and the goons. I'd like to stay off that road to keep the trees over our heads until I can confirm no drones in the sky. It's going to be a wet and messy hike but it's better than the alternatives"""

[pbangarth]

"""No problem, Carlos. My friend here will make sure we don't get too scratched up."""

:::Continue your protection of both of us, please. We carry on through your domain."""

"""You have the map, so lead on, MacDuff."""

[Koekepan]

The spirit guides Connor along a barely-visible but surprisingly passable path. It must be a wildlife track, but where it trails, the footing is firm and the cover from the drizzle about as good as it can get.

It would actually not be a bad stroll through the woods, in more pleasant weather, but it doesn't take long for fingers to get numb with cold, and ears to feel as if they're glowing. A cold breeze makes the trees hiss overhead, and drops big, fat drops of rainwater that somehow manage to hit the back of the neck with unerring accuracy and soak into clothing beneath. Undergrowth that strokes trouser legs deposits water with every move, and while the spirit still leads them, it's nonetheless a miserable walk made barely more tolerable by the tension driving them there.

After what feels like an eternity, but is probably twenty minutes of determined slogging, they crest a slope and look down over a valley - and see a ribbon of rain-slick paved road beneath. No traffic, but it winds along. Now just to trudge down the hill and find that ride.

[ntwi]

<<<Hey Vigo, got a grid for you, back road in the middle of nowhere. We'll be coming down the hillside to the road>>> Carlos updates Vigo on their location and ETA before double checking signal strength and traffic on his scanner. With a wry grin he turns to Connor """It looks like we may have successfully quit our jobs and now find ourselves unemployed. I think that calls for a few drinks once we're fully out of here."""

Having said that, Carlos sits down and pulls up the feeds from his Condor, taking a close look with the thermals for pursuit and activity. """I can't just say things like that without double checking, but we are looking clear for now""" Carlos leaves the aerial imagery running on his display link in the corner of his eye while he begins to pick his way down the hillside towards the road. """I think I'm going to need a few stiff drinks tonight before putting out some feelers tomorrow"""

[pbangarth]

Connor smiles at Carlos' suggestion. """Drinks work for me. I'll see if anything tracks us on the astral.""

He opens his perception to the astral plane. His spirit friend is still there. :::Please continue to guard us in your domain. As your last service, let me know if anything in the astral is paying attention to us.:::

[Koekepan]

Vigo responds fairly quickly. He probably has his vehicle in autopilot, cruising along with the line of traffic unobtrusively while he takes care of everything else.

<<<Makes it pretty easy, chummer. Once I'm off the main roads it should be quieter than Humanis's troll outreach office. Your grid makes my ETA maybe 15 minutes right now.>>>

Carlos's feeds don't appear to show immediate pursuit. The extreme range of the Condor's sensors do suggest that there are people heading out of the BioZu building into the bus, and there are a couple of unidentified drones hanging around the BioZu building, but none of them seem to be trailing Carlos and Connor, nor any apparent ground teams after them. What's happening at other BioZu locations is much too far away for the Condor to tell, of course, and so Carlos would have to check if he could pick up any internal or external reports through other media to get any kind of hint of anything happening.

The spirit merely flicks its tail, showing a flash of white that in the language of deer means: Follow me. Large, sensitive ears and eyes swivel and peer through the gloom, but there is no alarm that the spirit shows either. The path continues down the hill.

[ntwi]

"""And to think, I started the day making sure I had the "Polite Words for the Boss" skillsoft loaded. That would turn me into my own "Yes man" now. Not quite how I expected the morning to go""" Carlos muses to Connor as they pick their way down the slope.

[Koekepan]

Connor is perhaps a bit distracted by the twin requirements of watching where he puts his feet, and their spiritual guide, but Carlos has an easier cognitive burden. That may be why he hears the soft notification beep of a message hitting his 'link.

At a glance, he can see that the subject is: <<<Sorry we missed you!>>>

[ntwi]

"""It looks like our former bosses have noticed that we left. Do yourself a paranoid favor and only open that on a secured burner phone with location obfuscation set up, if you need to open it at all.""" Carlos comments to Conner before ignoring the email for now.

[pbangarth]

Connor nods. """I figured it was them searching for us, Carlos. My security is probably nowhere near what you have on your systems. Should I turn my commlink off?""

[Koekepan]

Aside from the vagaries of social media invitations, they manage to pick their way down the hill without any major difficulties other than being perhaps slightly footsore. At the bottom, there's a ditch, then a guardrail, then the road. At least the guardrail's posts afford them a fairly comfortable place to sit and wait.

Not that the wait is particularly long, because in the quiet of the country roadside, the hiss of tyres on a wet road can be heard some way off. Vigo's taxi pulls up.

It looks so ordinary. Just a regular family van style ride, a Chrysler-Nissan Alpaca, with attachments for towing, for handling wheelchairs and similar devices, and all the other things that one might expect in an urban taxi. It's Carlos's discerning eye that notices little details, such as the adjustable suspension systems peeping out from behind the overspec wheels and tyres, the soft purring of a high efficiency external combustion charging system, and the tight seams where deployable aerodynamic flanges hide.

The side door slides open. There's a slight waft of sandalwood and clove, and Vigo himself in the driver's seat, fibres leading from his skull, turns a little and smiles. """Where to, chummers?"""

[pbangarth]

Connor climbs in and snuggles into the seat after a longer walk than he usually takes. """I think I need to get a few things from my doss right away. time may be of the essence before it is unwise to show up where I ... used to live."""

[ntwi]

"""Head up towards Tacoma while my chummer and I sort out some details Vigo.""". Carlos responds before turning towards Connor.

"""The simpler, easier and potentially more secure way might be to have a moving service pack up your place and truck it to a storage unit. If you're that concerned about the Corp staking out your place, one phone call and they're already there. My thought is to have a drink and some food, make a phone call or three and act, not react."""

[pbangarth]

"""OK. Makes sense to me. I'm going to have to adjust my thinking to adapt to my, our new situation. The reality is, anything I have there I can buy most anywhere. It's my magic lodge materials that concern me the most. They might be able to use them to track me.

"""It might be wise to send a spirit to track down my lodge and disrupt it. I'll think about that a while and decide."""

[Koekepan]

Vigo closes his eyes and slumps back in the driver's seat before performing a clean U-turn. Comfortable, smooth, just how a competent rigger does it. The rain patters on the windscreen while he accelerates back towards the highway.

He maintains a steady pace, just at the speed limit. No drama, nothing to draw attention.

Messages are definitely coming in now. The taxi of course has an antenna relay that boosts comms for the convenience of passengers.

<<<Wizzer Benefits!!!>>>

<<<Applying for your new passport>>>

<<<Selecting your housing options>>>

<<<Medical data releases and transfers made easy - the whole family at once!>>>

<<<Orientation process at 8AM, 18 March 2060>>>

<<<Meet your new supervisor>>>

<<<Mitsetiquette>>>

Someone out there cares, clearly.

[Koekepan]

It's a quiet Wednesday morning, chez Daweson. The automated cleaner 'bots are doing their job. David is off at school. A Fistful of Dollars is running in the background, where the Man with No Name is taking the brutalisation of a pack of thugs. They think that they have won.

It's impossible to get good cornbread up here, and really hard to obtain ingredients - but that's the biggest question of the day so far. Contracts don't grow on trees, which is a shame, the way that trees in this soggy corner of the UCAS grow like weeds.

But how to raise a Texas boy right without cornbread? Stone ground corn is a necessity.

[Foxx]

Cornbread. At this point she would take a beating like the man with no name for real cornmeal. Bad thing about contacts was how they balk at being used for frivolous reasons. Amusing as it would be to send a message to Mr. Johnson about cornmeal he might respond with a tragic kitchen fire via ballistic rocket. Not that he would, but he was too vauble to bother with foolishness. What she needed was money and that she could get from her contacts.

As the man with name was about to deal deserved retribution, Heather paused the trid and began the process of delving into her complex network of encryption and code to see who needed help with. Maybe someone will need cornmeal heisted off a boat. That would make her day.

[Koekepan]

Why call Mr. Johnson, when he can call on you?

Heather's pocket secretary bleeps at her. Incoming call, and it's Johnson. The invitation heading reads:
<<<Possible bodyguarding opportunity>>>

No mention of cornmeal, though.

[Foxx]

Well, well, fate does favor the bold. Heather quickly responds: <<<Time and details.>>>

While she waited she was going through her list of how-to's and what-to-do in case this was a rush job. Get the messages to the right people to - like telling David mama' was going to be out for a little. Let the babysitter on call know that she would be going out and to watch David. God she loved living in this high faluting fancy condo. After so much sitting around lately, heather found herself getting bouncy at the prospect of going to work.

"""Easy girl, don't get too excited,""" Heather said aloud. """Still have to found out whose body we're guarding and if they're alive."""

[Koekepan]

Johnson's response is to open a direct, encrypted comms link.

<<<Good morning.>>>

<<<My organisation has been made aware of certain specialist assets that might be resisting exfiltrations by a rival organisation.>>>

<<<The idea is not to exfiltrate them to my care, but simply to assist them, and thereby deny the benefits of their services to our rivals. The situation is presently a developing one, and needs may change, but if you can maintain their independence for a week, without any induction into extraterritorial citizenships, we can consider the job successful.>>>

<<<The location is the Seattle enclave (for now). Further details such as the identity of the personnel in question pending agreement.>>>

<<<On offer for success: NY5,000 each.>>>

That's his style. Crisp, businesslike. Terse.

[Foxx]

"""Ah damn.""" Heather commented. Somebody just had the stones to say no to a 'rival organization'. Heather bet some suit head was misfiring from the audacity. A week-long excursion keeping some tenderfoots out of trouble and out of sight. She could only wish it was as easy as it sounded.

<<<Keep away from the rival organization. I'm on it. Send the details when you are ready.>>>

<<<Will additional assets be available pending changes in the situation?>>>

A week-long game of hide-and-go-seek. Looks like the baby-sitters were going to earn their overtime. While she waited for her employers response she began plotting the best way to make hot assets disappear from angry corporate employers.