"So, the first plan of action is to start probing around for limo companies without drawing too much attention... I can only do so much online, the rest will be working through contacts... the less trace I put on myself personally, the better chance we have to pull this off without ringing any bells."

Shiver nods to Felice.

"You needn't worry about him being reticent, my assurence that I will not damage his buisiness with them should suffice."

He steeples his fingers, then smiles evily

"In fact, as we intend to keep them alive, he may get more buisiness from them when they beef up their security as a result of this, err... caper."

Felice laughs. “Yeah, I can see that. Our next job is to protect a band of rock stars on their travels.”

Alastor laughs too, grinning. "I'm sure that I can also make some enquires regarding the acquisition of a limo for a day. And if anyone would like me to add an extra helping hand with any planning of magic, I can do so, and probably get some access to some interesting stuff."

“Alright, then let's check our contacts and any online sources we got. How long will that take? A day or two? Maybe it's time to break up our little get-together here and go to work. We can set up a new meeting later, and in the meantime we still got our coms.”

Shiver nods.
"Seconded."

"Sure."

"To minimise comms traffic, I suggest we arrange an exact place and time to meet now, then get our various info and only comm if something really dangerous comes up."

"What makes you think people will be listening in on any of us? Do you advertise to possible enemies?" says Clarke.

“Paranoia is a wonderful thing,” Felice says. “But it doesn't hurt to be extra careful.”

"I'd think the exact opposite would be the best idea. Comms are fine for normal activities, but if something big hits, *then* is the time that voice and mail traffic will be monitored. I can ask some friends if they know anything that might help, but I'm afraid that limo companies are outside my normal range of affairs."

'Paranoid? Who just called me paranoid?'

Shiver's eyes dart wildly round the room, before he grins widely at his ancient joke.

'It's not before the job I am thinking of, it's after, for if one of us gets caught you can lay good money that they will be checking comms for last dialled numbers and so forth; I'm not good enough at computers to cover up that sort of thing.'

"I agree with Eury. Comms for normal stuff, but we should have a meet up place should anything big hit." He gives the name of a decent restaurant/bar place that he knows is a good runner haven that will provide discrete space to sort out plans further. "Meet there in two days if nothing big happens before then at 6.30 and see what we have?" Alastor looks round at the others.

"Yeah, that sound reasonable to me," says Clarke, "we should book a room for better security. The world may twig we're on a job but won't know what job."

Shiver nods his assent.

"A reasonable plan. See you all later."

With a few more words between you, you make your exits. The next couple of days are hot, damn hot, your glad the legwork is at a relaxed pace for the moment. At least you appear to be getting somewhere.

June 9th

Everyone receives a message from Clarke "I've booked a room from 9pm on the 10th at the bar we discussed(OOC- The Heaven Sent). Its booked under the name Lenon, seemed appropriate."

During her free time, Felice will download some videos of the band to watch. Could be helpful, and hopefully their music isn't all bad.

9th June, 14.30

As Shiver approached the building, he looked up the current English - Version WirelessWiki entry on his target location. Depending which of three writers had been at it last it was either impassive and informational, verbose and emphatically pro, or a conspiracy theory. Looks like the mods had stepped in and frozen it partway through an edit, then cleaned it up a bit.

A pleasant female voice began to talk, as she did, AR visuals showing trid images of the store appeared in [/b]Shiver’s[/b] field of view.

<"Ollivander, and Hart" is the largest independent talismongers in the Pueblo sector of Denver. It is situated on many borders both physical and mystical. It lies at the ends of Kipling Street and 88th, between earth and water on the edge of Standley Lake, between the richest of Westminster and the poorest of Arvada. The building itself takes advantage of the local topology, and a couple of quickened spells, to appear like a large Tudor mansion on the outside, while being rather larger on the inside.

The store has three floors, and several zones, the main entrance is through the "Other" Zone, full of tourist trash, cheap knockoffs and magic-imitating electronic gizmos. On the same floor is the man-aligned zone with spell formulae and telemasca for magic and foci aligned to man, the upper floor contains air and fire and is open air when weather permits, the basement is earth, and outside in the back are the water and animal zones.

There is no distinction made between the various philosophies of magic in the placement of goods, one spellcaster looking for detection spells or foci may go to the air zone whereas another could go to animal looking for the same. While this may be confusing for a first time buyer, the proprietor, Ollivander Crane, insists that the various philosophies of magic not be given any priority. Others claim that as all the goods are available for wireless order and examination the store is mainly set up for effect and the tourists.

There are a minimum of three bound spirits working at the store at any given time, picked for temperament, and usually doing impressive but not particularly important tasks. For example there is space in the basement for an earth spirit to be ‘holding up’ the ceiling, the fountains in the water zone are controlled by a water spirit, and a Fire spirit, surrounded by a ‘protective ward’ threatens and cajoles passers by to ‘set him free’ There are several warning signs asking people not to do this. Apparently it laughs and vanishes if you do.

From the same building is run the Lightbringers organisation, a not for profit organisation dedicated to the advancement of magical knowledge. Free lectures are given daily on the nature of magic, as well as registered aura reading services. Most employees of the store are Lightbringers, not due to any particular discrimination against non-Lightbringers, but more because the store hires people who are interested in magic, and believe that more should be known about it, a goal very much in line with Lightbringer philosophy. For more information on the Lightbringers select here.

Current sales and profit figures for..>

Shiver cut off the feed as he entered the building. Seeing Ollivander across the store he made eye contact, then a gesture with his hands, and a few passes, his fingers making complex patterns in the air. Ollivander shivered then nodded, and walked from the room.

Once they were alone together Ollivander opened his mouth to talk, but Shiver cut him off with a gesture. A hooking motion was made with his finger, and his hand passed above his fist.

Ollivander raised an eyebrow, and made a few passes of his own, and a look of concentration went onto his face.

Shiver responded in kind, and soon both pairs of hands were making complex gestures that an outside observer may have found either mystifying or vaguely sinister.

After a few minutes Shiver smiled, bowed formally, and left.

Felice is half-sitting and half-lying in a comfy chair in her flat, relaxing, while surfing the matrix for some information concerning the band members. She mostly picks up some vague rumors, when a call comes in. *ring* *ring* *click*

“What's up, Fang?”

“Yo, Fel. Just checking how my sweetheart is today.”

“I'm not your sweetheart, Fang, and you know that very well.”

“Yo, just relax, kid.”

“I'm not your kid either. And I am relaxing... or was, for that matter. What do you want?”

“Me? Nothing. Just checking...”

“I see. Well, glad you called, actually. You could maybe check out some rumors for me. You are a good deal better at that stuff than I am.”

The face on the display now shows a tusky smile. Almost cute, if you could somehow connect this term with an orc.

Half an hour later, Fang calls again, to confirm some of the rumors, that Felice had picked up. Kelly Malaise apparantly is awakened. He also digged up a few songs of them, that Felice did not know yet.

“What would I do without you, Fang...”

“Get lost in the datatrails, most like, heh heh.”

“Bye Fang, and thanks again for the call.”

“Later, swee... err... yeah, later.”

Yeah... later...

Felice sinks back into her chair, listening to some music.

Felice sends a message to the rest of the team.

< Hey guys! Hope you had a good time during the last couple days. At what time are we going to meet? F. >

A message is sent back to felcie

<9pm on the 10th seems ok, at that place we said that time. Look forward to working with you again.>

[OOC look 5/6 posts up.]

Date:- 10th of June, 2070
Time:- 2030
Location:- The Heaven Sent, UCAS sector Denver.

Clarke walks in nodding to the bartender, who indicates a door at the back. As Clarke enters he places orders with the barman in AR for the rest of the teams drinks and a beer for himself. He enters the backroom and withdraws an electronic gizmo from his jacket pocket, then a small box. The box he places on the table and presses the top of it, a faint high frequency noise starts up. With the gizmo, which is some sort of wand he wanders round the room, pausing infrequently to use a knife to remove something from the wall. That finished he sits down and nods to the bargirl as she brings his drink in. He places the three objects he removed from the try and grins at her in a friendly way that never reaches his eyes.

Location:- Weekday Eclipse.

Perianwyr is sat in his private room watching tonights band, the Denver Surf Club, knocking out renditions of the Beach Boys, pretty good for a cover band. He has a guest well dressed with pale blond hair. Perianwyr is trying not to sweat.
"I've run over the security details for the Eye for you," he says calmly, "They look spot on the only way to break them quietly would be with inside knowledge."

"Good," says the other man, "I would hate for this display you convinced me to give to turn out badly."

Location:- Unknown.

"The item will be on display after the Solstice."
"Then the traitor is real."
"Should we trust him?"
"No, let his warriors do the work, we then take it from them."

Edit

20:20.00, June 10th, 2070
A few blocks from The Heaven Sent, Denver UCAS Sector
Shiver

Shiver finds somewhere to park his bike. He checks the local sunrise sunset times, and considers summoning some extra help. Drek it, why not?

OOC: This is the IC thread. Just edit your post into something useful.

20:31:07, June 10th, 2070
The Heaven Sent, Denver UCAS Sector
Felice

Felice is about on time, as she enters the Heaven Sent. Because of the heat outside, she is only wearing a black neckholder crop top, which has the added benefit of showing off her curves and her slender waists, low-riding loose light khaki linen pants, and sandals, as well as her sunglasses, of course. A black messenger bag slung across her shoulders holds the stuff she deemed useful for the evening.

When they are alone, she produces a small black scanner (Radio Signal Scanner) from the bag and does the same thing, Clark has done shortly before. Just to be sure. Afterwards, she puts it back in.

“So, there we are! Let's see how far we have come.”

When the others arrive, especially Reggie, Felice will inquire about the limousines, and whether it seems doable to proceed with their plan to hijack or replace them, so they can simply fetch the band from the airport. She will also detail, what she has found out about the band members.


Band Line-Up:

Not long after Felice makes her entrance, Alastor arrives, decked out in smart black jeans, slip on ankle boots, and a dark smokey grey shirt, his white mane tied back. Upon seeing Clark and Felice, he sends them both a private message over their comms, making sure that the room had been checked. Openly he speaks, "Hi guys." He then proceeds to wait for the others to arrive, standing in a corner of the room, waiting for them to arrive before he tells them of his results.

20:33:07, June 10th, 2070
The Heaven Sent, Denver UCAS Sector
Reggie

Following shortly after Alastor, Reggie arrives. The elf seems to be a little more comfortable in the element. Instead of the plain urban explorer jumpsuit the elf has usually been seen in, Reggie is dressed in something more comfortable for the bar scene, and no grease smudges or oil tarnishes the elf's face or hands today.

Loose black jeans, and a snug black Harley Davidson t-shirt shows the elf actually has a leaner figure than most would expect, though the well toned figure would hardly be called skinny, at least not for an elf. Reggie seems to have picked up some stylish cowboy boots instead of the worn old riding boots the elf normally wears. Reggie's hair style and appearance - as the elf wears no makeup - is still rather gender neutral. Reggie's chest (normally flattened or hidden in baggy clothing) gives her true gender away. Though not well endowed, the clothes Reg wears tonight were designed to compliment her feminine curves, rather than hide them.

Reg smiles, wondering what impact 'coming out' will have on the rest of the crew, walks over to the table and picks up a bottle of beer, impressed that Clark got her favorite brand.
"Hoi chummers, been a good week to yas I hope."

Reg leans on a chair back taking a drink, and waits for the others to show.

"Not too bad," Alastor replies, his expression neutral as he takes in the sight of Reggie's figure, taking a sip of his own drink. He sends her a private message over his comm.

Reggie:

Clark camly checks his watch (how quaint), shaking his head at Reggie just a little."Trust the mages to be late." he says in a tone that lies perfectly between humor and annoyance.

Shiver strolls casually in.

It appears that the notion of making an effort is somewhat beyond him, he appears to be dressed about the same way as he usually is. Flats, a duster, a big hat, shades, and a warm grin. He probably still has his urban camo suit on under the flats too.

He wanders up to the bar and orders a large soft drink with lots of ice. Making his way to the booked room he gets straight to buisiness.

"Room been swept astrally?"

“Not by us,” Felice says with a slight smirk.

Eury strolls in briskly, heads over to the booked room, and heads in. "Sorry for my tardiness, got swept up in things. Have you started discussions, or were you waiting on me?" Eury pulls out a seat and sits down. "I found some information that might be useful, depending on the plan of action we are going to use."

"It's not a party with out you, bookworm." says Clarke, "What have people found out? Are we clear astrally?"

Felice has prepared the information she could gather on the band members (OOC: see spoiler on bottom of page 19) in a nice and clean data file, that she shares with the others over their private network connection.

“I still think we should try to jack one of those limos and then fetch the band and move on from there. If we can, that is.”

"Checking it now" Eury goes foggy eyed for a few seconds as he looks around.
"I have some other information that might make a carjacking very easy. Hackers are lovely people, when they're on your side." Eury shares the files he was given about the company and drivers over the private network.

Once the mages arrive, Reggie gets down to business, kicking away from the table, the elf pulls the chair out and sits down.

Reg scans the info that Felice and Eury provide, comparing it to the data store in her commlink's memory.
"Pretty much matches what I found, I also have the list of the 5 drivers that will be working the night the band arrives. So it makes it that much more likely that our sources are accurate. It'll require a little more discreet poking around to get the most likely driver to be picking up the band without ringing any bells... This part will be tricky, relying on friends not to get blabby. Anything out of place and someone might get tipped off that we're a little more than just eager fans."

Reg looks around the group. Reg didn't really like legwork, it really wasn't the elf's favorite part of the job process. Even though Reg was good at digging up data; there was always the risk of triggering someone's alarm if you dug too deep, or asked the wrong question... If this was going to go smoothly, they had to be ghosts, otherwise the opposition would be a heck of a lot tougher.

"Otherwise we'll have to target all possible drivers. This not only spreads us out, but we may lose an oppertune moment if we shadow the wrong car for too long."

Eury looks at the room astrally, the aura's surrounding him are familiar and not showing any worrying signs. A spirit floating near Shiver watches him curiously as he scans the room. It appears clear, unwarded but clear for the moment.

"I have some details of the people bodyguarding the band," says Clark, "They may be a slight problem if this goes bad. But nothing we couldn't handle. Apparently the mage on the team relies on spirits for astral overwatch."

"Regarding the mage," Adds Shiver.

"From what I hear either Eury or myself would be able to disable him with minimal personal risk, the security firm he works for rank mediocre on punch but low on the corruptibility scale. The only other expected magical influence would be Kelly Malaise, a near burnout artists way adept. On that front not much to worry about apart from a frational possibility of her getting an astral signature on one of us then, uh, recognising us later?"

Shiver seems totally dismissive of any threat posed by her.

“All in all, that does sound quite promising,” Felice comments the incoming results. “And we still got a few days left before the gig is going to start. Should be plenty to figure out how to do this in detail.”

Alastor nods in reply to Felice's comment. "Contrary to what I was suggesting before, possibly the route to avoiding her getting any kind of astral sig on us may be, as well as reducing suspicious appearances is minimizing the amount of contact the band has with us.
"One way I reckon that we could avoid the problem of which driver's going to be picking up the band is by getting hold of a same model limo as what the company uses, and insert our own driver, although that causes problems in itself. Or, we just listen in to the different drivers with some bugs, and try and find out who's getting the job, as it will likely be discussed as part of preparations."

"That idea could work nicely, if we can get the actual limo's stuck in," Clark pauses to make bunny ears with his hands on each side of his head, "freak traffic. We have a few days to sort that out and to get something appropriate for ID. I'm still for gassing them all for the snatch."

“I could see one problem there. If the actual limo is slowed, they might inform the band of the delay.”

Alastor thinks for a few moment, the tip of a fang biting into his lower lip. "The only thing I can think of round that is substituting the actual driver with one of our own, and using voice mods to mimic the driver's, when in communictions to base. But all of that requires observations for a number of days of all of the drivers."

Clarke looks over at Reggie, "Unless you know some way to interfere with the signal."

“Every problem has a solution,” Felice says with a sly smile. “We just need to find it.”

That would be perfect! Alastor thinks in responce to Clark's idea. "And we just have to substitute in our own driver then. We'll just have to be very careful about making sure than all contact going in or out is cut out whilst we make the run."

Reg looks to Clarke, her face blank for a moment in thought. "I should be able to block any kind of signal coming from the limo. Either on site or meshed. I guess the only question now is: who drives? A good shaman friend of mine once told me that my aura is rather unique, and may draw some attention. - not that I have any magic, more along the lines on how my connection to the Matrix makes my aura resonate different than most... among other things."

"With a few calls and pulling a few favors, I could probably pick up a simular model of car... Though apprehending the car they will drive in would still seem a little more do-able."

Reg looks thoughtful again. "I can only see 3 times where the band would be vulnerable: As they land, in transit, or outside the hotel. Anything outside of that - either in the hotel or the concert would be risky." Reg shrugs. "So worse comes to worse, we could always try a grab and go kidnapping at a weak point - the trick is making sure that weak point is when they have the guitar with them... It would be foolish to kidnap them, only to find out that the guitar was put into the gear truck."

Clarke nods, " Remember they're travelling in two limo's but probably haven't seen the drivers, ever, so that shouldn't be to much of a problem, I drive one, and one of you guys does the other."

“Yeah, replacing the drivers isn't the biggest problem for sure. Just get a neat suit on and be courteous. If we can block traffic from the limo, so they cannot sound an alarm, it should be possible to stop them. Just send one of your spirits in, that should do the job, right? The spirit could just tell the driver, that if he plays along, noone has to come to harm, or something like that. Not sure how brave these guys are, but that could do the trick.”

Shiver looks to Felice.

"Hrm. Setting a spirit on the driver is quite doable, but relying on it's ability to intimidate the driver is less desireable. I feel there are more opportunities available magically on the front of "hacking" a window open and throwing in a stun spell or two. Stunning him on the street is easy enough, but obvious.

If I can get a line of sight on him, I can temporarily steal his volition. I suppose I could arrange matters so that the spirit could do that too, but to be honest the metahuman touch would be more advisable on that front. The problem with this is that I will have control over the driver for a very limited period.

If we are replacing the diver before the mage bodyguard sees him, then we are good for magical assault on the driver. Please note, however, that if the mage knows his biz he will astrally scan the driver before he gets in the limo, I am sure you can figure out the problems associated with that for yourselves.

For elimination purposes, what effect do people feel getting a backstage pass would have on our ability to lift the item at the concert?"

"Pushes it very close I reckon, and could well make us more open to getting caught possibly."