Black Widow turned to Widget "I presume you will try keep the link secure and see if it leads to any info on the Johnson?"

Black Widow reached out and picked the comlink number from the package and dropped it onto her comlink initiating the call.

Black Widow
The call is placed and a small box filters into view. A petite asian woman in corporate chic answers the phone.

"Watanabe Security Consulting. I'm sorry, Mr. Watanabe is away on business. Please hold for the agent assigned to your case."

Lucky
Twisting the two batons apart, you reflexively extend them. Collapsing them back together you rejoin the parts. Each day you do this over and over, woking the memory into your muscles.

It had been over forty minutes since the fixer informed you that the information had been passed along. The team was certainly taking their time in contacting you.

Finally the phone rings and the receptionist informs you that the call is here.

With a nod Widget lets herself fall back into the matrix. Once again the world shimmers and dances around her. With her fingers she creates an equation in the air and it slowly bleeds into the arrows around her. Very soon a swirling mass of numbers and symbols springs up around her. She quickly struggles to solve the formulas as they shift and twist around her head. With a final flurry of motion she solves the last string and it settles into a dense cluster in her hand.

She quickly whiseprs to it, her voice composed of binary fragments as she rests it on the call heading out to their employer. Struggling to ride the edge of AR and the outside world she speaks with a dettached tone. "Ok the call is being encrypted and I am trying to find out more about our soon to be boss."

He starts, snapping the extended batons against the desktop as his commlink chirps in his head. Still wasn't used to the connection, but Jack had insisted, something about his Mom never having her hands free to answer the phone.

He tucked them away and dropped the shades from his forehead to his eyes so he could see the 'Private caller' where the ID was supposed to be. With a mental shrug he opened the line.

"You the couriers for the package?" His voice carries a bit of an Irish accent, just enough to make him second or third gen off the island.

"Yes we have the initial package," Black Widow confirmed.

"Great!" The voice on the phone actually sounds eager, and Lucky himself is already on the move.

"Where should I pick it up?"

"The initial package that was given to us by a mutual acquaintance. We would like further information regarding the package that needs to be acquired."

Black Widow sighs to herself, "Great an overzealout kid for a Johnson, this could cause some problems." She looks around at the reaction of the people around her.

"I'll meet you to provide the extra information you need. Where should I meet you?"

Moving this whole time, Lucky hails a cab as he hits the street, holding up a finger to the questioning cabbie as he waits for a location.

Noting Black Widow's sigh PU glances around, half expecting something to happen. When nothing does he decides this might take a few minutes, so pulls up his commlink's built in Solitaire game and begins to play, trying to distract himself and keep his nerves calm through a situation over which he has no control. The others would probably notice him fiddling with his commlink and the unfocused appearance of a person using AR, but that's better than them seeing him nervous.

I'll have to get used to this waiting drek... and depending on other people to deal with things...

It wasn't that PU didn't have faith in Black Widow's abilities, it was faith in the universe as a whole that he lacked.

"Go to Pagliacci Pizza, sit at one of the tables near the back, be there in 30 minutes, we'll contact you there."

Black Widow waited for a responce before terminating the call.

"Oh boy, we've got a live one here," turning to Widget "more work for you I'm afraid. Need to know of any relations of Mr Finn, primarily a posible son who at a hunch is our Mr J; also see what you can find out on Watanabe Security Consulting."

"Okay, Mr J wants to meet, we need to setup a secure meet location, I think somewhere else than here. If someone has a good secure location let me know otherwise I'll organise one, then relay the message to J."

"Pagliacci Pizza." He says it both to verify and to pass the information on to the cab driver. He leaned back in the car as the icon-less voice on the other end of the link terminated the call. Man, he always hated this part. Not really much to contribute to the legwork part of these jobs always left him feeling like he wasn't pulling his weight...at least, until the more physical challenges came into play.

Pagliacci Pizza was once a restaurant chain focussed in the greater Seattle area offering fresh alternatives using local produce to create innovative solutions. Now, it still lives up to those same expectations, but has shifted to become a sitdown restaurant with family style ordering practices.

The AR is filled with scents from the Italian hills and farm ripe produce. On the horizon, you can almost make out the farmers hand-gathering tomatoes, eggplant and the like into baskets.

"Black Widow" accessed her comm once more dialing through to Angel.

"Hello my feathered friend I need a favour, I need a secure location for a meet, and I need it in like 30 minutes, here's a little something for now, " Black Widow transfers 250, "will send some more later, unless your possibly interested in a pair of tickets to that closed "art" exhibition next week, should be able to organise some."

Tossing the cabbie his fare and a tip through the AR connection, Lucky climbed out of the cab, requesting a table in the back and ordering a pizza and beer even before he had hit the front door.

He slid into the booth, back to the wall and watching the door with his booted feet propped up on the table.

As the group makes its way to the meet Widget offers more insight.

"So the call went to some place called Watanabe Security Consultants and before anyone says it, I will do a search when I get a second." The last part is side with a lopsided smile. "As for Ikekara it has a sordid history. Starting out a single company, it divided to become two seperate B rate corps Ikeda Inc and Takara Enterprises over thirty years ago. They were run by rival sisters and it seems that their father's untimely death led to the division of all corporate assets between the two girls. The shadows saw a lot of business on both sides as these two tried to grind each other into dust. Tun-Leng Loh is the current CEO of Ikekara. She is an expatriate from the Ikeda side of the political ladder and seems to be running the show without resorting to shadow action internally or externally. Hope that helps." She grabs a jacket and quickly sends a note that she's heading out to Mr. BoBo.

Vadeux looks around the floors as the group leaves Widget's place. She dials her commlink to check availability on units wondering what they must charge for such a good location. It's got to be a fortune. I wonder how Widget affords it. She seems to recall that the young woman has an in with the Looking Glass staff. Hope this place isn't exclusive. I gotta get outta my rathole.

"So, you like living here?" she asks Widget.

Once downstairs she threads her way through the dancing throng effortlessly, seeming to move as one with the crowd.

"I can drive if any of you needs a ride," Vadeux offers. Anyone taking her up on it will see her retrieve a loose purple bundle from the coat check. She examines the contents carefully and tips generously when everything appears intact. She turns away from the crowd and opens her coat. When she turns back she is wearing a long purple scarf around her neck. Tossing one end of it over her shoulder she steps out into the bracing air. Vapor plumes from her mouth as she shrugs in apology, "I parked a few blocks away. If you want to wait here, I'll be back in moments."

She sends a command to her vehicle to start warming the seats. It wasn't anything fancy, but after learning to drive in a remote Canadian town, she had promised herself that the first car she purchased with her own money would have one feature. Seat warmers. And locking doors. Two features. Oh, and navsoft. Okay, so maybe the car was more than she needed, but her mother had insisted she drive something safe - which had been rich, coming from her - but seat warmers only came as part of a package. It was safe to say that her car was nicer than her place. Which wasn't saying much.

Vadeux shook herself out of her brief reverie as she took ground-eating paces toward her car. She dialed up the address that Widow had forwarded and sent the it on to her waiting vehicle.

********

At Pagliacci Pizza she drops any passengers at the door and parks as close as she can to the place, trotting back to the restaurant and setting her commlink to passive, refusing outside calls, but for a few approved links. On a tight link to Black Widow she messages, << Where to? >>

"I could use a lift to where every we're going." Widget takes a moment to direct the micro-drones into the pockets of her jacket before she leaves. She walks behind Vadeux while moving through the club, only pausing a moment to feel the AR buzz in the room. She falls into step beside her as they make their way to the car. "As for the living there and liking it, I would have to say yes but I have been bumping against those walls since I was a kid so I may not be the most objective person to ask."

PU shakes his head at the offer of a ride.

"Personally I've got my own wheels thanks. There might not be so many of them, but I find it more convenient than a car."

He then turns to Black Widow, saying "We're headed to the pizza place, right? And then on to the actual location your associate is arranging?"

After getting an answer he heads down with the others, being sure to avoid any particularly large masses of bodies in the club itself and collecting his hold out from the weapon check. Pausing for a moment to appraise the small pistol he slips it back into the holster in his suit, gives a nod of thanks to the attendant at the weapon check , and makes for his bike.

If I'm going to be driving around Seattle at the dead of night very often I'd better get a good, warm vest...

Black Widow
"I'll arrange something. Tell me what part of town you want and I'll see what I can do."

With the information passed back and forth the connection is severed.

"Someplace downtown will do."

Black Widow turned to the others. "Okay lets move, we'll head to the Pizza place for now, hopefully Angel will have a location before we get there. We can then redirect him from there."

Lucky
After a few minutes, the beer arrives. You watch people pass you by, moving to and fro with children under foot. Fifteen minutes later, the pizza arrives. If you didn't know better, you might think that the team wasn't coming.

Black Widow
Twenty minutes pass by before your commlink chirps. An incoming address for a coffin motel is listed.

Black Widow looked up from the Commlink. "Okay got us a spot, local coffin motel." She forwards the address to Vadeux.

Black Widow climbed out of the car and headed into the resturant, waving off the approaching waiter she headed towards the back. She walked passed Lucky giving him a quick look over. Reaching the back she turned and started to move towards the front once more, dropping a note on the table. Quietly she said, "20 minutes at that location." She then moved to leave the resturant.

Vadeux is waiting outside with her hands stuffed into the pockets of her coat. Her commlink chimes with Black Widow's address and she checks the message on her image link. She shuts the image link off and sets the address to her car's nav system.

The willowy Widow passes Vadeux on the street as the taller woman enters the pizza joint. The two make brief eye contact, Vadeux nodding as tucks her glasses into a coat pocket. She opens a channel to P.U., Copperhead and Widget, << We're moving out, >> she messages, forwarding the address to P.U..

She gets back into the car and speaks as it pulls away from the curb "I am hoping neither of you wanted any of the pizza."

*****

Vadeux passes the coffin motel and pulls the car into a non-descript, pre-pay parking lot.

<< Black Widow, >> Vadeux looks up at the stacked modular cubby-hole rooms, << Which room?>>

Vadeux forwards the passkey to Widget, hoping the other young woman will navigate the AR swamp of the street-level world. She leers at Copperhead, "So, when you woke up this morning, did you think you'd be headed to a hotel with two striking young women?" She sidles up to him and shoves him playfully with her shoulder.

PU noticed the icon flashing on his AR vision, and pulled it up before him. Setting his bike to the location he rubs his hands together for warmth, breathing on them for a few seconds, before riding off. Noting the appearance of the car the others were in for future reference, nd taking a snapshot with his cybereyes so he can remind himself later, he heads to the coffin motel. Naturally he goes around a different way, and intentionally arrives after the others.

Parking his bike at the other side of the lot to Vadeux's car he takes the key out of the ignition, slipping it into his pocket and briefly enjoying the warmth on his hands compared to the cool night air. PU then enters the motel looking for the others.

No sense leaving my bike next to their car, that'd be too obvious, right? If someone's onto them they might expect them to head for their car, but they might not have expected me to come on my own vehicle.

Reassured a little that he would have a chance of escaping if things went badly he meets up with the others and waits.

Lucky pulls his feet off the table as the woman walks by, dropping a note and whispering just like a 'runner from a trid movie.

I knew this one would be more fun... he grins, unfolding the note as he stood, slotting enough cred to cover the drink he'd had as he strolls out the door.

A moment later finds him in a cab, heading back to Watanabe. If he was heading out somewhere, he'd be better off in his own wheels.

The van pulled up at the motel 25 minutes or so after she dropped off the note, and Lucky bounded out, seemingly unhurried as he strolled up to the hallway that held the coffin number he'd been given.

Widget looks around and shudders. This is a life I want to avoid. She waits until the group is all together. "Before our Johnson gets here let me get a few things set up." She leans against the wall of the room they are meeting in. She drops to a point where she could feel the pull of the machines around her. She quickly touched each of the of the drones in her web of her soul. Easy skirt, just a little push here and there. We don't need to be sitting here in the dark.

The mircodones quickly crawl from her jacket and spread out in the corners of the space. The flying drone moves to nestle in her hair out of sight but its sensors were active and online.

"Ok folks I will be checking out for a sec to see what I can find out about the firm that our man was waiting at." With that said she drops completely out of her body till all that's left is the hum and pull of the tech. Once again she sings out a tune of clashing notes and waits for the answering echo. She quickly grabs the raw stuff of the binary around her and gives it a shape of sorts. With a few soothing sounds she sends it off before slipping back in the slow and dull world.

"Back."

The man behind the counter of the coffin motel handed a key to Black Widow and with a weasel faced grin at Copperhead, gestured towards the stairs going down.

In the basement, there is only one door with a key card reader which matches the one you were given. It exposes a ten by ten room with a metal table in one corner. The bare floor sinks slightly towards the center of the room where there's a drain in the floor. Suddenly the citrus scent of cleaning products takes a whole new meaning.

Widget quickly rises off the walls. I don't even want to know what they cleaned off these... She fidgets, her unease clear in the lines of her body as she walks around the room. She pauses to tap into the drones hidden around the room and to try to ease her nerves.

As she makes her way back to her starting point she suddenly stiffens as something......twists....and breaks. She turns to the wall feeling ashamed and guilty as she chokes back tears. "Uhm....seems the people behind this are a little more beefy than I thought so no info sorry all." She feels the small wound in herself where the sprite once was connected to her. She pushes it down and turns to group, trying to put her jaded game face on.

"Well.. I did wake up in a hotel with a thrashing headache, so I really wasn't expecting anything other than my fraggin head to explode. We meeting the Johnson at this place? I woulda preferred the pizza."

Copperhead catches himself patting his pockets for a rollup.
Damn. This is getting rediculous

"Not my first choice in location either but its secure and all that was avalible on such short notice. Any posible leads on our J outside of Watanabe? This is a weird one, usually they are the ones setting up the meet locations."

Black Widow eased herself into the nearest chair, "Lets see what Mr J has to offer, I suspect this meeting is going to be slightly out of the norm."

PU looks at Widget's sudden shock and slowly walks over to make sure she's okay.

"I don't have any of my usual gear with me, and I don't understand how the whole machine-magic thing works, but if there's anything I can do let me know. After all, I've a feeling we'll need all of us in good shape for this one."

PU does a quick inventory of his pockets to see if he happens to be carrying anything that may help, finding the trauma patch he put in there earlier and pulling it out to see what it is.

"Heh, bad habit. Hopefully won't be needing that. Didn't even realise I had that with me."

With a mixture of a chuckle at the situation and a sigh at this habit showing up again he puts the patch back in his pocket.

Vadeux whistles low as they enter the room. She tries not to look too closely at the stains on the floor.

She winces as she looks around, carefully not touching any surface, seeming even to stand lightly. I'm going to want a bath after this. Come on, hurry up, Monsieur Johnson.

Her breath catches when Widget, normally sunny Widget, stiffens and looks abruptly away. She looks on with concern, but moves back into an unoccupied corner Widget appears to put the pain aside.

"I will give the room a look-see really quickly."

She closes her eyes, bracing herself for what the Astral echo of this dank place may hold.

He knocked lightly on the door, shrugging the armored jacket to settle it a little better around his shoulders. It always sat awkwardly with the pistols underneath, but this was supposed to be a shadowrun, right? What would they think if he showed up unarmed?

Vadeux moved to the door, eyebrows raised, asking with a glance if all were ready. When she feels they are ready she opens the door and moves aside, saying only, "Mr. Johnson," by way of greeting.

She looks through him and lets her mind and senses warp to see the life energies of the place and the man in front of her. Her stomach twists as her perceptions shift, her stomach's not good in AR or Astral, but seeing magic didn't make her dizzy, just vaguely naseous. And jealous. She reaches out with herself to brush the new arrival's aura.

Weapons. Cyber. This man is as armed as we are.

She waits until he moves fully into the room before keying her commlink to message the group. << Armed. Cyber. >>

Noticing the knock PU moves to a side position to position himself where the door will block sight to him as it opens, in case a surprise is needed. Making sure his hands are free and his arms are relaxed.... as relaxed as they can be in the situation... He notices the message over his commlink...

Drek, this isn't what you usually think of when meeting a Johnson... A runner maybe... What the frag's going on?

PU doesn't move, but triggers his wires just in case.

Wish I'd brought a bigger gun... If he starts anything with this lot though he'll regret it.

Widget takes in the mutliple feeds of information from the drones. Quickly she sorts through the data and then messages the team.

<<Agreed, he's packing something and he's been altered. I am trying to narrow down the exact toys he's got.>>

Black Widow remained calmly seated behind the desk watching the others move around her as Lucky arrives.

Hmm Johnsons don't rock up at meets in unknown locations alone.

<<Definatly not your normal Johnson, be prepaired for either action or some unusual negotiations.>>

Stepping into the room, he notices the alert and somewhat wary looks from the assembled runners. He holds up his hands, palms out, in a traditional gesture of peace, and smiles.

"I'm sure me telling you that I'm not here to hurt anyone won't do nada but jump you up on high alert, so I won' bother. I do have a little more information on the run though, and it should relieve you to know that I'll be going along, so if there's anythin' shady, my hoops in there wit' ya."

His accent carries a slight hint of Irish, and quite a bit of street.

Black Widow raises her eyebrows at Lucky's enterance. She gestures to the seat on the opposite side of the table.

"Well then, lets hear what information you have to add."


<<I don't think 'relieved' would be the correct description>>

"Well, I'm not entirely sure what you already know," he says, taking the proffered seat.

"I was told you would have the bulk of the information already." He leans back in the chair, clasping his arms behind his head and propping his booted feet up on a corner of the table.

"Basically, you're being sent to collect some data and a willing extraction from some sort of clinic. Just to clarify, the data is the primary target. If the extraction looks like it's going to jeopardize that, we'll leave him. You should already have the address, but I think that's all the info we have on the facility.

Any questions?"

"Where do you fit into this picture? As for information tell us everything you can regarding the job and we'll fill in the gaps with what we know. Yes we have the address."

"Also upon completion of the job where is the data to be delivered to along with the extractee."

Vadeux replies to Black Widow's quip. Who would want their Mr. J actually ON a run?

<< No kidding. >>

Who would want their Johnson actually ON the run? Vadeux pondered on the matter and couldn't remember if she'd ever heard of such a thing or not.

After the man entered, she shut the door and put her back to it. She relaxed into a ready stance and gave Black Widow a nod. His accent is nice.

PU discretely removes his commlink and taps in a message to Black Widow and the rest of the team, trying to look like he's consulting information held on it.

<<Let's hope we still get paid if this fragger gets himself geeked>>

With that he nods in satisfaction and replaces the link in his pocket.

Vadeux's eyes widen. She hadn't really embraced her own mortality. Young thing like she is and PU's frankness takes her aback. She smiles weakly and swallows, shifting her weight to another foot. She watches Black Widow handle the meeting with grace and takes mental notes.

Lucky laughs, the sound derisive. "You've got to be kidding, right? We're paying you, not the other way around. If you've got questions, I'm answering, but my boss would null my code if I just spilled everything I know. It's a need to know type situation, so ask, and if you need to know, I'll tell you."

He glances around at the room for a moment, letting his gaze touch on each of the runners casually. "I'm digging the neo-torture chamber deco though."

Widget supresses the laughter that bubbles at the back of her throat.

<<He's got a point there, he is footing the bill and is the boss or at least the boss's point man. Maybe we should switch gears here and play all nice with him to see where it takes us.>>

Maybe we should switch gears here and play all nice with him to see where it takes us

<< Best fraggin' Idea I've heard all day. Shall we move on to the questions Ms Widow? And keep this channel clear unless it's important. You don't know who's listening. >>

Kids these days had way too much confidence in wireless security. And Copperhead was right to be wary about unwanted recording. He was doing it. Why wouldn't anyone else?

This ork liked to operate in "black hole" mode as often as possible sucking in data and giving nothing in return, finding out who and what was scanning.

Unfortunetly in most areas this was thought to be suspicious, even illegal.

Fraggin paranoia just takes all the fun outa the job

<<Okay we play nice.>>

"Okay then. What can you tell us? You did say you had more information for us correct? We only recieved the job information just over an hour ago. We have done some investigations to get a feel of what we are heading for but we could use some more info."

"What do you know about the security of the building, physical, magical and electronic?"

"What can you tell us about Mr Finn, while he is a secondary objective, if things go wrong we could end up having to deal with him, besides being "tacticaly augmented" do you have any knowledge of his abilities."

"Well," Lucky says, leaning a bit farther back in the chair.

"I can tell you that I don't have any specific information on the security of the location. I can tell you that you won't have to deal with Fixx in any case. I have been assured, and take this however you want, ladies and gents, that Fixx is a perfectly willing extraction. However, he's secondary, so if he won't come along nicely, we don't bother. Heavily augmented, from the data floating around the streets, but not crazy. He's not going to hurt anyone if we pop in and ask him if he wants to leave.

It's the data that we're most worried about, so you can leave off worrying about him and focus on that. I assumed ya'll got someone that can work the mojo with AR and snatch the data we need?" He glances at the runners again, looking for some sort of indication as to who the decker was.

Nodding Black Widow replied, "Yes we have the mojo to get the data."

Notices Lucky glancing around the room sizing everyone up, "Well seeing that you are going to be joining us, I presume Mr J is not entirely applicable in this case, what do we call you, and what skills do you have to offer?"

Waits for Lucky's reply.

"I do have one further query regarding Fixx, if security is light as initial probing seems to indicate, which we won't take at face value, whats stopping him from just walking out?"