Keeping one ear out on the others, Alastor wracks his brain to see what he knew about the band.

“Hopefully Reg can dig something up,” Felice says, mostly just to say something, while she leans back on the comfy sofa, waiting for the elf to 'come back' into the real world.

“Hmm... maybe we can let a replica of this famous guitar be made, then we might be able to swap it out, without them actually noticing what happened. While I don't think we can manage to do this without them noticing that something happened, it might work to let them just shrug it off as some sort of weird fan/groupie action.”

Alastor nods. "I was thinking that if we could set it up so one or two of us go in as 'groupies' with the others on standby could possibly work." As Alastor says this, he looks directly at Felice. "Would you be up for that, Felice?"

Shiver comments;
"I can throw a Physical mask around people that will beat technological security should you decide to take that route, though it will probably take a few attempts to get it onto you perfect, and will show up in astral space."

He turns to Eury
"If you are confident in your ID then that is fine, but I suggest we get some information on the security of the place remotely before you go in."

“I have no problem with that in principle, but I don't quite know if that will help us so much.”

"There's also the wondrous bit of technology for disguises called nanopaste that we could use," Alastor says, grinning. "That's brilliant for getting past the security, which I can have a good guess at."

“I fully expect them to have magical security, which makes most infiltration plans rather futile. Forget disguises and I suppose when they assense me, that might raise some questions as well.”

Alastor nods, and doesn't push the idea any further. Everyone has rights to their own secrets; Hell, he was one for that. "'K. However, like I said, I can take a pretty good guess on security stuff as I know a thing or two bout security in corps, and the music industrustry will be bound to be similar enough in places. And that includes magical security shit. I've hung around with mages for long enough for a few things to rub off on me."

Shiver comments dryly

<I imagine that you know more about magical secuity than I do, Alastor, but I will stress this for the group, assensing sees through almost anything we can pull off between us, any plan that involves a covert approach would need to take account of this.

Do we know what transport they are taking yet, Reggie? If we could get to it before them, we would be able to give ourselves a big edge if we were to go for the snatch and run plan.>

Reggie comes to back to the Meat, the eyes open. The elf scans the room to see what's been developping.
"Well, some of the data I found was useful." looking up at Alastor "Can I have access to your trid? I can dispaly some of the information I've found."

With that Reg starts parsing the info stored on the commlink the elf picked up for data storage purposes. If Eury doesn't object, the info will be sent to the larger screen, otherwise the elf will use the small holo unit that came with the Sony Emperor.

For those paying attention, Reg loads the following info:
There's a map of North America as a background image. As Reg speaks various dots with descriptions follows.
"The band is currently in New York" a red dot shows up in New York and the map zooms in. "They'll be playing at Madison Square Gardens the 8th & 9th, it's rumoured they're staying at the Radisson on Central Park."
"They leave by private jet for Atlanta" the map zooms out and into Atlanta "For their concert on the 12th."
The map changes again and zips north.
"They'll be flying up to Toronto for their concert on the 15th"
Reg pauses to see who is paying attention, and continues.

"This is where we come in: They're scheduled to land in Denver's UCAS airport by 11am on the 16th. They're private jet is registered as a small craft, so they won't be going through the terminal. The cars will be waiting for them by the hangar. They'll be travelling by limo to their hotel, probably the Hilton, but - of course - they never officially release where they're staying."
Reg's face looks serious as the elf continues.
"We'll have from this time till 9pm on the 18th to somehow acquire the guitar. Once their concerts starts, getting backstage will probably be near impossible. We effectively have a day and a half once they land to figure out how we're going to get in, get the guitar, trade it for a fake if that's our final decision, and get out."

"I can already see a few options, though I want your feedback as well."

Shiver Thinks for a second

"If it's a private jet, what are the odds of being able to hack and down it, without blowing everybody or thing on board up?

Could it be possible to arrange a fake storm, that could down the plane in some less guarded area?

Understand that my knowledge of aeronautics is limited, but I'd bet an air or Fire spirit would be able to cause enough trouble to make a plane do a forced landing."

Clark looks at Shiver, "Yeah, that'll help. One, that risks crashing the damn plane. Two they'll still land at an airport, security will still be tight, they ain't going to put down in a field or anything."

Alastor nods at Reggie a 'yes', before paying attention to the trid.
"Hmm...... if we could somehow infiltrate the airport security team, or be in one of the cars picking the band up would be my guess for now on how to grab the guitar."

“Thanks, Reg. The airport security is probably tough, but the pick-up crew with the limos might be doable.”

“And for those who do not know who our target is... the line-up of the band consists of Kelly Malaise, lead vocals and synth rig, a bisexual elf girl who might have a chip habit; Mike Malaise, her supposed brother, backing vocals and the band's songwriter, a handsome elf ladykiller; Deadman Wade, drums and backing vocals, a creepy guy who claims to be a necrophile; Hecate Kincaide, cello, she has a known drug habit (novacoke) and has been in rehab, a straight, slinky goth girl; and Reaper, synthbass and backing vocals, he's a black orc complete with dreads and tattoos, but otherwise maybe the most normal of the bunch.”

I like the "Jack the Limos" plan, but we still nead a viable method of escape. Can we get storm drain or sewer plans for the area?

Reg brings up pictures of the band members as Felice lists their names, band position and personality quirks.

Listening to the suggestions, the elf nods. "Commanding a limo would probably be the easiest way in. I can check with some sources, if we can hijack the cars, then we can deal with the band on our own time... "

"Trying to force the plane off course or to change destinations could backfire on us and leave the group split kilometers apart. Originally I was hoping the band would travel by bus... I guess bands don't do that anymore, at least not a band that has shows spread out so far..." Reg points to the map with it's dots scattered all over the east coast.

Reg gets up and stretches, the fabric of the loose jumpsuit tightens, showing a slighly pronounced chest. The elf looks to Alastor, "Do you have anything to drink?"

OOC: It's Alastor's place.
IC:

Alastor nods. "Sure. Drinks are in the fridge, and glasses in the cupboard two doors to the right of the fridge. Help yourself."

"If we can get into the airport and onto the runway to meet them, I think I can get us the guitar, although a distraction would make that easier. Carrying a guitar through a sewer is not the best way to keep it in good condition, although if it's dry, the storm drains would be clear.
Subtlety is probably our best bet, unless we are sure it will work, because then we can make an approach at the hotel as well."

"Well, if we go in as the team with the cars, we can simply knock them out, replace the guitar then, and take them to their hotel. They'll just believe that they nodded off to sleep during the journey."

“Getting the limos definitely would give us the easiest way to deal with the whole situation. Now, the question is, can we get the limos?”

"They're rock musicians, how bright do you think they are," says Clarke, "We're not being paid for secrecy or making them believe that they broke the real think, so fuck it."

Shiver nods his agreement
I concur, so why be in the limo when it drops them off was my point.

Alastor shrugs. "Well, drugs are a sure-fire way of them finding out that something was up. I was thinking more along the lines of using magic. As for jumping out of the limo, it kind of looks a hell of a lot more suspicious. A group of fanboys and fangirl going to the trouble of rigging the limos as a means to get the guitar screams shadowrunner to me, if anyone in their entourage has any brains. That'll get security on the lookout for us straight away."

Shiver looks somewhat confused.

They will know "somethings up" as soon as the guitar starts going in a different direction to what they want it to. When the limo pulls up, how do you expect the meeting between you and the hotel porters to go? Either you have to explain a car full of unconscious people and/or why exactly the guitar should not be going straight to their room.

There are two kinds of magic I know of that can do what you want, a stun spell, and a contol spell. A stun spell, well, you know when you've got hit by one, and they are hard to judge, it is possible to seriously injure somebody with a spell that on a different day just gave them a huge headache. They are for when you want somebody on the floor but not enought to want them dead, they ain't subtle.

Control spells wear down with time, and don't always take on the first casting. It takes even fairly weak willed people about one minute maximum to shake off the effects of one. Repeated recasting of it would leave an astral signature that would be rather easy to trace. An influence spell may work, but it would require several castings, one for each target.

Add the fact that mages can be tracked through the spells they cast, and if there is somebody awakened in their entourage they would need disabling for any of these spells to work as planned.

Alastor gives another shrug, folds his arms, and pushes himself from against the wall. "Ah well. I was just shooting ideas at you guys."

Reg comes back from the kitchen with a carbonated beverage.
The elf looks at Shiver as he comments and responds in turn.
"How would they know if the guitar is leading in a different direction from where it's intended to go? I can make sure that we scan for any electronic tracker's on the package and either remove or disablem them, that would make it hard to track us down."

Okay, when do you plan for the guitar to leave the limo?

“Maybe we should start with finding out about the limos. If we get their routes and can find a way to intercept or replace them, then we can worry about the guitar and how to get it out of there with or without any attention.”

"Yeah, sounds like a plan. Before we get too carried away with planning for this modus operandi. Only other way I can think of is to send one or two of us in as groupies, and take the guitar then."

“That has the added difficulty, that there are probably many who want to be close to their idols, so it might simply not work for that reason alone.”

"But that does mean that someone looking into where their limos are probably won't alert undue worry, since they'll expect groupies to be doing that."

“Well, I'm open for anything. But I believe that getting in control of the limos will have the best chance of success. If we can get someone inside, however, that can be a bonus and make things easier for us.”

Clarke nods, "I like the Limo plan, if we can get ourselves in control of them this should be a cakewalk."

Alastor nods. "The idea in this is to go for subtle infiltration. If it would be possible to have the guitar put into a modified compartment of sorts that has the fake in it secreted away in a revolvable hidden section, the exchange could be done without the band even noticing. Would that be possible to do, Reggie?"

“You know how big a guitar is?”

"Yeah. I'm just throwin' ideas at ya. And usually limos are pretty big cars, the last time I checked. What we need is a trunk compartment in limos."

“Hmm... considering, that the guitar girl is said to always carry the guitar, I somehow doubt she would put it into any other case than her own.”

“Anyways... let's see what we have now. The way I see it, we have two somewhat independant options. One - replacing or hijacking the limos and fetch them from the airport, putting us into a position, from where we can do pretty much anything. Two - getting one or two of us close to them as groupies, so we have someone on the inside for any improvisation that might be necessary.”

"Do we know if any of their entourage are awakened?"

I don't know if any of them are awakened.. that didn't come up immediately in my search, but I could scan through the data and see if it's come up...

As for the limos, I'd like to check with some sources... see if we can somehow commandeer the limos. From there we can either drive to a drop point and take the guitar, or knock them out - as it was suggested - perform a switch and drop them off at the hotel.

The main goal I see here, at least for me, is to see if we can get ahold of the limos. Once we have them, or can pay off the drivers, then we can perform any option within our means... as the band would effectively be under our control.

If we can't get ahold of the cars, then we'll have to find some means to hijack them, which will be a little more difficult.

With regards to jacking the limo, I have a few options for slowing them down/speeding them up should it come to that.

“I think we are in agreement about the limos. Let's see what we can find out beforehand about them, and then estimate how good our chance of success is along that route. Then plan for secondary approaches.”

“What else do we need? A location where we could best get noticed by them posing as groupies. Information about their expected security personell.”

Seconded. If somebody can point me at where the limos are parked I may be able to pick and astral signature or something off of one. There are too many questions at the moment to make a good plan, so perhaps some more data digging is in order?

While that is being worked on, I wish to table a new discussion, if or where to set up for the week before the run goes off?

I don't know the UCAS sector that well, do people feel it would be wiser to do the planning all today, and meet again day before the run for finalisation, or to go into hiding together for the week?

I have no strong oppinion either way, but those are the options I see, there could be more.

“With Reg's help, we can set up a reasonably secure meeting place in the matrix as well.”

"I think not doing any big changes to our schedule is best, attracts less attention to us. Planning for today, and meeting up a day or two before we act sounds good to me, and of course we let each other know if big info falls our way. I admit that my knowledge of the UCAS is limited as well, to my shame."

"That sounds like a good idea. I think the sooner that we can get a decent base of info on these guys and what their customs are when touring, the better, so we can adapt our plans with more flexibility when we come to doing the run."

Shiver considers fora while before speaking.

I suppose there is somebody I could ask about the group's magic backup, he's one of Denver's top talismongers, maybe he can look up their purchasing profile, he may even have sold them stuff, indirectly. He is discreet, but I still would like all of your ok's on that before proceeding...

"I'm cool with that."

"Fine by me," says Clark.

“Unless you know him very good, maybe he won't give info about his other customers? But it doesn't hurt to ask, so go for it.”