"I concur, but I was wondering if others felt the same way. It is always best to air ideas as sometimes with slight modification they can become most effacatious."

“Going backstage during the concert and trying to fetch the guitar right under the eyes of their staff should be our last resort.”

"The only other way I can see doing this is to have a couple of us pose as groupies and snatch the guitar from the hotel when the band is plied with enough booze that they're not thinking straight."

“I always wanted to see my face on a big WANTED sign,” Felice says with a wink. “Sorry, but that simply doesn't have a lot of appeal. They would easily reckognize us, there will be pictures, and while it shouldn't be easy to find us, even with pictures and a rather good idea who stole the thing, us, that is, it still will be something we would have to deal with eventually. I much prefer the limo plan, which offers more options to remain in the shadows, so to say. If we do something, where we have to expose ourselves in some fashion, like acting as groupies, it would better not be easily connected to the theft.”

Shiver looks concerned at that.

"When it comes to faces on a wanted poster, there are ways and means."

"Indeed." Alastor grins wolfishly. "That's exactly my point. Discrete is the way to go. The limo plan is the soonest and most undercover option we have. And I'm not sure that posing as hotel staff is quite as viable an option as hijacking the limo- it's almost teh same as the groupie idea."

"On the idea of controlling the driver, I have a trick, that while less dominant than the power I think you were refering to," he motions towards Shiver, "should do the trick nicely, and doesn't hang on the subject, allowing the residue to be removed easily. The driver mistaking where he should deliver his passengers to, is easy enough to manage. Even doing it to both drivers if necessary. The band aren't local, they shouldn't notice immediately that something is up with the route, and if we block their outgoing from when the course deviates, that should give us enough cover."

Clark nods, "On the stopping the driver side, simply organising a little traffic jam should get us the the time we need. Pick a point and stage a minor accident and we're away."

Reg watches the interaction pondering... "I may not be an expert in the affairs of magic... But wouldn't the band's magical guard notice if the driver has been - or is being - 'tampered with'?" Reg accents the last words with doing quote marks with her hands.

"It's best we replace the driver. I can drive the vehicle, I could effectively drive both vehicles actually, I was just concerned that my aura might be traceable... not really knowing how it all works. Traffic jams are a good way of taking over the car - provided we don't damage them in the process. Everything has to look as untampered as possible, else we might trigger a warning before we can act."

"As for a backstage pickup, I'd like to keep that as an option, just in case the first plan fails. There are ways to disguise ourselves - both magic and tech - so that we can't be pegged later on."

“If we want to get the limos unharmed, there is little else but hacking into their pilot systems to open the windows for our magickslingers to do their gig. If that can be managed, the rest should be doable as well. A traffic jam, a replacement driver, and so on.”

"How are we going to do the lift of the guitar then from the band?" Alastor pauses. "As for diguises, nanopaste works well on a surface layer if you're not looking for auras. I'll definitely be using some and contact lenses, especially just in case I Trigger. My SURGE markings are just too identifyable."

Well, if you're going to replace the driver, that's well and good, but bear in mind that the mage will almost certainly get the driver's astral signature, and that can lead to trouble.

We need to incapacitate the mage as he goes astral to look at the driver or he will end up setting tracker spirits on us. Of course killing him will prevent that issue, but I am hoping we can work around that.

Staging a road accident is a bad plan, in this wired world a camera or two will pick it up, and we do not want traffic police to arrive and ask our assitence with their enquiries. Traffic jam is a good idea, and diverting the driver is top.

The way I see this working is we wait for the driver to pick up the marks, unmolested bar any suitable mods to the vehicle, with driver none the wiser. The mage scans the driver and all is well, so he goes back to real space and gets in the car.

All we need to do then is release a bunch of stun gas into the car, divert it's autopilot, and help ourselves. Eury and I stay astral to zap any spirits who don't wanna play, and the mage dosen't get an astral sig on us.

Perhaps stop the car over a manhole and take a cutting tool to the floor of the limo.

How does that sound?

"Or we use completely fake cars, and just delay the real ones."

"Then there is still the problem of their guard mage getting an astral signature on one of us."

“The mage is a problem either way, we have to figure out a way how to deal with him... without killing him. The idea, that you two will provide astral cover and knock him out once he sticks his head in there to use his astral senses, seems to be the best, or do you know any other way how to handle this? It's your field of expertise.”

Felice obviously speaks to Shiver and Eury specifically.

"Alas, while I am loath to say this, while taking the mage out using magic is possible, doing it with the level of finess required for the band not to notice is going to be nigh impossible. The mage collapsing when he first goes astral is quite doable, the band not noticing is harder by far.

As I expect the mage to scan the driver before he gets in the limo, this will cause no small suspicion with the band.

As I see it our best bet is to peform the attack out of sight of everybody but the people we are attacking, and the best place for that is in the limo. We need to take them out in a controlled situation if we are going to do this quietly."

"Do we know the mage scans everyone they meet?"

“As long as we do not know for sure he doesn't, we will have to assume he does.”

"No, but we also cannot rely on him not doing so, and it is what [i]I[i/] would do on bodyguarding duty. Not perhaps everybody, but certainly people directly involved in the security of my charges."

Shiver pauses,

"But then I am a paranoid bastard when on the job, so who knows?"

"Even if he does assense who ever's driving, what's the problem, plenty of serious professional drivers use ware, headware and reflex enhancement like me and Felice have he wouldn't be surprised by it."

“As I understand it, the problem is rather to be able to track us down afterwards. It won't take long to figure out, that the driver was part of the guitar theft. If we can make this more difficult or avoid it altogether, we should.”

"I think that you are overstating the danger of assensing, particularly when applied to the unawakened. All it would mean is that the mage would recognise you if he assensed you again. The chances of that guard mage walking around Denver assensing people at random are low enough, that that would catch you is effectively impossible. The danger from assensing is that the mage will be able to see spells that are on the driver, but if we are replacing them, then that is not an issue."

“If it's not such big a problem, then things will probably be a bit easier for us. You two surely know a lot more about that topic, than I do. So, I will go with your assessment.”

"I feel that the big problem is the "search" spirit ability. If a mage can give a mental image of you to a spirit of sufficient force, that spirit can track you down in a matter of hours. If a spirit sees you it can do this independantly. As disguises do not cover your aura, that is what gives me concern about the mage assensing one of us."

"That is true on any job, ever. If you are that worried about a spirit tracking people down, I can set up a building with wards that should befuddle any searching spirits to use as a safehouse."

"Also, even drivers have lives outside of ferrying clients about," Alastor comments. "We need to get this set."

"I've seen that power in action, you have a major over done hard on for something that's crap outside of small villages."

“Alright, so let's sum up what we got...”

“Phase Zero. Preparations. We have a small number of limos that come into question. Maybe we can put some stealth tags on those before the day, so we can find out where they are, when we need it. Either way, we need to figure out, which two are being used and what route they will take.”

“Phase One. The plan is to slow down the limos with some increased traffic or something not overly obvious, hack into the pilot and open the windows so the mages can knock the driver out. Then we go in, replace the driver, and go to phase two. There are two limos and we need to hijack both of them at the same time. And we need to intercept their com traffic to sort out any emergency calls, the drivers might get out. Well, I guess we can assume, that the limos will drive together, otherwise this might be a little difficult from the logistics side of things.”

Felice makes a dramatic pause at this point to let that sink in.

“Phase Two. If everything works well up to this point, we now got two limos, with two of us driving, Clark and myself. We drive to the airport, get the band inside and from there it should be a breeze.”

Shiver shrugs

"Fair enough, I am open about my paranoia, but I guess replacing the driver is the lesser of two evils.

One thing to consider is that the driver may have some kind of encrypted comm ID or password to tell security that he is the expected driver. Can any of our technical experts add any thoughts to that?

The plan overall works for me, one of us mages should be astral to zap any spirits that make a run for help.

How are we planning to grab the item once we have the band in the limos, and where are we going to exit the limo with it then?"

"I would think it easier to use substitute limo's, no need to risk some bystander calling the Star on us during the hi-jack. We get Reggie to to work his, er her magic with the limo company and steal the security protocols they're using. Then we can hide wireless trigger gas grenades in the back."

"That idea works for me. Does anybody have any gas grenades? They are not my field of expertise..."

“Or more importantly... does anyone have any limos?”

"I did plenty of digging round, seeing what's out there; I can probably find a match. Reggie, do you know what make and model the company's limos are?"

"I can get gas grenades easy enough. They're hardly expensive. We could always contact our employer about supply of specialised equipment like limos, this it would just need to be a loan, we fake stealing them then the owners could reclaim them from the Star."

Shiver thinks for a second, then smiles evilly.

"I have had a thought. The question "what kind of limo we need" is actually irrelevant... So long as we can crack the limo company's security why not just have them tell the airport security to expect whatever the hell we choose to send them?

Even without hackers myself or my compatriot can mind control the director to do this for us, and we don't really have to worry about him being astrally scanned, at least until after the fact, anyway.

All it becomes then is a matter of intercepting the real limo before it arrives."

Shiver folds his arms, clearly pleased with himself.

I think that they'll be expecting a limo though."

“I think he meant the difference between a limo and the limo.”

“I'm not entirely sure, if I like this approach, as it adds other complications to the equation. And I would consider it more difficult to crack into the security company's computers in order to pull that off in a believable fashion, as compared to the limo's autopilot. Though, that is something Reg knows more about for sure.”

OOC: Oooops, that was me T~S misreading that one when tired!

"Well, we have to hack the driver's comms or incapacitate the drivers before they can call for help anyway, and there is the possibility of the boss of the limo company checking up on his charges to see how they are doing, what with this being an important job, and all.

To prevent disgruntled drivers making off with the goods, I would guess that the limos will have both remote over rides, and a remote location tracker. Hacking the windows open so I can zot the drivers may well be easier if our tech heads have admin access to the limo company net.

All in all, I feel that someone on the inside could cover a lot of bases at once."

Shiver counts off on his fingers

"Coverage of the limo company comms, advanced warning of security flags on the captured limos, and the ability to disable them, the ability to communicate with the security team as the limo company to allay any suspicions airport or band security may develop, the ability to over ride, delay, or at least misroute any human factors in the company attempting to raise an alarm, or just wallpapering the readouts to just show the limos are driving along just fine, arrived ok, and picked up the band without incident.

Did I miss anything?

Please note that with not much by way of personal effort and a line of sight to the manager, I could both disable him, and get him to broadcast to a waiting hacker full access codes, and procedures for their entire security setup, provided he has them.

I personally feel it would be worth the time invested."

“Sure, it certainly has some appeal. Question is, if it can be done reliably. Reg?”

Reg, up to this point, was a bit distant.... not that the elf wasn't paying attention, more along the lines that she was sorting out the best possible option. Going over scenerios, running simulated events in mock environments, figuring out and hashing out what would be required to intercept and either spoof or block certain signals as needed.

Felice's last question finally broke Reg's deep thought and the elf looks around at the group. "Yes I know what cars the company uses, and could pick up mock cars as replacements from a few trusted friends - on loan of course, so we need to make ensure they won't get damaged."

"I could create a traffic delay, effectively keeping the intended cars away from their pickup, long enough for us to get them instead. This way we don't need to worry about hacking into transponders or locators. We pick up the band in the fake transports, gas them, do our pick up, drop them off at the hotel as they're waking up, and drive away before they get their witts about them. This would be the easy way."

"The hard way would be for me to run Matrix recon, keeping a tab on transmissions, and such, spoofing or blocking signals as needed so as not to trip any alarms. From there we can procede in knocking out the drivers, and keep them someplace safe while we pick up the band. Knock out the band, get the package, bring the cars to where we have the drivers, drop them in the cars and let everyone wake up, wondering what's going on... This would also mean keeping them out of touch till they're back on their intended route." Reg pauses to take a breath, hoping that she hadn't left out anything. "Which of course would lead to a lot of unanswered questions, more than if we use our own cars.

Plan A could also be blamed on a rival limo company trying to profit off of picking up the band themselves, what happens in the time the band is out cold would spin off a load of rumours and debate. This would make a whole media/legal issue between companies. Limo licenses aren't easy to come by, so it would have every company in the city poking fingers at each other, leaving the whole Shadowrun as a sidethought - particularly if we have a dummy guitar to replace the one we swipe."

Reg runs a mental note to see if all the ideas that were running through the elf's head were covered and gives a simple smile to see if any of the ideas sound plausible.

"It's traditional for a pickup vehicle that is going to be late to call in, even if it is done manually, and gridguide can route most stuff round traffic snarl ups.

Have we got those bases covered?"

“For plan A, we would still have to intercept the traffic from the limos when they get delayed, because they could inform the clients and then they would wonder why we got there on time.”

"Regarding the difficulty of hacking the limo company, perhaps if we conducted the first part of the operation actually inside the limo company itself would that make a difference?

If we can take out the drivers before they even reach the street then that greatly reduces the chances of ouside interference does it not?

I believe that I have mentioned a line of sight on a system admin for the place should result in any hacking attempt on the place becoming markedly easier..."

"Not a bad thought, we do it subtle enough we'd have a good safe location for operations."

“So, you mean we should break into the limo company's main building and take control of it, pretty much? Sounds like fun.”

"It's got risks, we need to know when the limo's are all leaving right? Hiring the other ourselves could sort that, but if it works it'll be sweet."

"Yeah, I agree. It sorts out some of the problems involved by taking out the powers above the limo drivers themselves. We simply inform the real drivers that there's been a change of plan, and send them elsewhere, away from our objective. We then send out our own limos and pick up the band. Voila." Alastor grins. "Sounds fun."

"Redirecting the cars, or as Shiver points out, replacing the drivers at the source would probably be the best option." Reg looks pensive. "Hacking into the limo companies control program and dispatch would be a lot easier than trying to control the grid guide system... I tried that once, and nearly got myself fried for my troubles... Grid-Link doesn't like to be tampered with."

"Or we just knock them all out and use their cars, less expense for us, less chance of them sounding an alarm. Plus we do this disguised right?"