Mojo lifts out of his body and sees the ephemeral watcher spirts taking up flanking positions around him. Pushing his way out of the apartment and into the air above Bethlehem, Mojo orients himself using South Mountain and the Lehigh River as reference points and zips off, with watchers in tow, towards St. Lukes hospital, only a scant mile and a half away from Lex's apartment.

As the hospital comes into view, Mojo can see the two building structure of the hospital. There is a smaller bulding set behind the larger main hospital building. Neither building has a ward, but as you move closer to the main building and slide up towards the fifth floor window of Gio's room a small, astral being flies away from you. Confused for a moment, you glance around you and notice your three watchers are still with you, What the hell was that?

<<OOC: I got to use the word ephemeral!! >>

Mojo watches the thing go, though he realizes what it probably is. Moving quickly, he peeks into the room and glances at the inhabitants before fleeing back to his body, taking a circuitous route.

With a quick glance in the window, Mojo confirms what Lex had already discovered: Gio was injured. Assensing him briefly, Mojo also notes that he is heavily cybered and his sleep seems drug induced rather than natural.

Glancing towards the easy-chair that Lex noticed earlier, Sophia remains still asleep. Looking about for any astral signatures approaching, Mojo risks one more moment to assense our errant Caroletto as well. She seems worried in her sleep, as if having a nightmare, and he is surprised to find that she is Awakened! Her strength is roughly equal to Mojo's, though perhaps a bit higher as a result of Mojo's bioware implants.

Gathering what information he could, Mojo buggers off, as it were, and returns to his body.

Shaking off the stupor, Mojo sits up in the apartment. "Something spotted me as I was taking a look around. Probably a watcher, though who the hell would have one there is beyond me." He gives a sigh. "Our good non-com Sophia is apparently a mage, as well."

"Are you sure she is a mage, not an adept?" Rowan questions, "In either case she is probably involved with Gio somehow." She thinks for a little bit, "I'd like to go in and visit Gio as a guest tomorrow morning, that is if the rest of you dont object."

"I'd like to go down to the hospitol tonight and have a look around the grounds... Anyone else want to join me? Lex, you think you can run matrix along us? For now I just want to check out the outside grounds and his window, but if we can get inside and check a few things out, that would be nice too."

"Maybe an adept, hard to be sure sometimes."

Lex grins, "Looks like my Romeo and Juliet story isn't too far off."
Lex nods at Akuma, "If we're just running a bit of legwork, I'd like to tag along. Matrix work won't really be needed if we're just poking around, I've already poked around enough. I think it would be best to check the grounds out tonight, maybe do some info gathering from the inside tomorrow, and make our run tomorrow night."

At Mojo, "Isn't the fact that Sophia's a mage going to be a problem? I mean, what if she knows we're coming and is ready for us?"

"Yes. You say there was a spirit waiting for you there... Perhaps it was there to let her know if someone came to check the place out?

Hmm... in any case, why don't we all pack up and head over to the hospitol to see what we can find out?"

"Personally Id like to know if this Sophia is on our side or not, I really would like to be able to talk to her in the morning without her being on gaurd so much." Rowan says, "I dont mind checking out the joint tonight, but we have plenty of time to make the bust tommarow."

She looks at each of the other runners, trying to measure them, but to no avail.

"I just want this to be as easy a job as possible, and if this girl is on our side it will be much easier. Thats my take on it anyways."

Standing up and pulling his backpack over his shoulder, Akuma grunts.

"However, if it turns out she is not on our side, things could get much harder."

"Well I want more information on this Sophia character, but you are right, it would make this a lot harder if we confront her too soon." she sighs. "The best I can do is make a few phonecalls to get more info on her. Particularly her magical capabilities should be looked into."

She turns to Mojo, "Do you think you could find out if she is emotionaly attached to Gio?"

"The fact that she's watching over him has to mean she has some kind of emotional link to him, in my opinion. Maybe she's worried her own family will get to him. There's a chance she could be on our side, as long as we can be fast to convince her that we mean him no harm. I don't like dealing with mages..." Lex looks over at Mojo, "...present company excepted, of course." Lex goes back into his room, grabs his toolkit and holsters his Browning, "I'm ready to go whenever you are."

Alice double checks her twin Predator III's and slips them back into their holsters. She sighs out loud but quietly listening to the various takes on the situation. Deep down she knows no matter how they go about it, no job is ever easy. Then she thinks about this Sophia chick and wonders why the frag they must even involve her when they were told to leave her alone. Then she thinks for a second and realizes that she's in the room way after vistors hours so there must be something really up for them not to say anything to her. With all that she stands up and slams the rest of her synthahol and burps quietly.
"Excuse me," she says quickly afterward, then mumbles "I'm ready as well."

Akuma takes out his micro-transceiver and hooks it into place. "Lets synch up our comm gear."

"How's 102.1 for a main frequency, with 99.9 as a backup sound?"

"Actualy I didnt bring any gear with me, but I can always meet you on site." Rowan says noticing she doesnt ahve a radio on hand.

"Alright. Those who have their comms, you know the channels. Lets get going."

With that Rowan commits the chanells to memory, and walks out the door. "See ya there chummers." she says. She walks to her bike and ride home. At home she gives a call to Timmy, asking if he knows anything about a Sophia Carletto. Then she grabs her tranciever, not really sure if its nessassary when people are just scouting around. She turns her cellphone on vibrate and walks out the door once again. She hops on her bike and heads for St. Lukes

Mojo watches the frenzy of activity and settles down to wait for it to come to fruition. His efforts were less than stellar, and poking around much more on the astral is probably a bad idea. Instead, [edit] hangs out in the car waiting for the others to get done with their snooping.[/edit]

"Timmy here. This better be good cause it's getting late"

"Timmy, Rowan."

"Ah! Hi, chica. What can I do you for?"

"I'm looking for some intel on a member of a Family?" Rowan continues, ignoring Timmy's banter.

"Mine?"

"No. Caroletto. Sophia Caroletto."

"Sophia, huh? Word is that she's cute. Other than that I can't help you much. Give me some time to make a few calls and I might be able to dig up some information. Call you back in the morning, say 10:00am?"

"Can you make it any sooner?" Rowan askes.

"Probably not ... the people I need to call won't be happy about getting called this late -- and the other people I could call may not know anything. Listen, I'll put the net out and see what I can dredge up and I'll call you ASAP. Sound good?"

"Sounds good. Regular price for the intel?"

"Of course."

"Thanks, Timmy. Call me when you can."

________________________________________________

@ All << I'm going to assume that Rowan arrives about 5-10 minutes after the rest of you because of her detour and phone call let me know if the Lex and Akuma wait for her or not. >>

St. Lukes hospital sits inbetween two hills, nessled if you will, rising up on the north and south. Surrounding the hospital is a parking lot, and in case of a really busy day, there is also a four floor parking garage at the east end of the property. There are two main buildings, one that houses the emergency room and the other which is the main hospital building. They are connected by a bridge between the fifth floors. There are a few entrances that you can see from your vantage point at the south east corner (<< a note -- the perspective in this image is from the southeast>>) including the main entrence and the emergency entrence.

There are a few lights on in the building, despite the late hour. However, counting up five floors and over eight reveals a darkened room. Lex confirms that the light was on previously in Gio's room.

The night is cold and the moon hangs low in the sky. The hospital grounds are illuminated by streetlights in the parking lot, but the soft pools of light also create darker areas of shadow at their limits. If you want to get closer, it shouldn't be too hard to pull off without being seen.

The group hears Lex's voice craclke in their coms, "Well Gio's probably asleep. This isn't exactly a maximum security prison here, lets make this quick and get back to planning for the interior." Lex makes a note of the entrance below and to the right of where Gio's room is located, "What about that entrance?" he says, pointing to the one closest to Gio's location, "That seems like a good place to start."

Alice sits in her Saab for a moment getting that bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. She follows the team to the hospital and sits in her Saab with her Enfield AS7 in her hand. Her grip is nice and tight as she stares up at the window that Gio is in. The light is out and she figures he is asleep.

Rowan looks at the building, and thinks for a bit. "I wish Mojo were here, then he could tell us if Sophia has any tricks in store for us." She pauses to think some more. "Do we want to climb the building or just go on the inside?"

Akuma's cybereyes scan the building over, his low-light, thermographic, and magnification doing a great job of getting in close to look at everything. He checks the roof for cameras, then checks out the two sides doors for any security messures.

He then sub-vocalizes into his comm, "Give me a moment to have a peek around. Mojo, how are things looking on the Astral? Anything different from your last visit?

Also, that light being out is a little bothersome. Perhaps when Mojo checked out the room it alerted Sophia. I sure hope she doesn't try to move our boy before we can get to him..."

Risking a quick glance on the Astral plane from the car, there is nothing of note that Mojo sees.

"Lex, what is the easiest way to get to the roof? I'd like to get up there if I can and check it out."

Mojo's voice breaks in over the radio. "I can get you up there, if you can find us a hidden corner of the building to do it from. I can cloak you from cameras on the way up, no problem, it's just people and spirits we have to worry about."

Alice leans over to Mojo.

"So what do you think about all this Mojo? Do you think we're going to have much trouble tonight? What's your opinion on how to get Gio out?"

Alice looks around towards the building just keeping an eye out as she waits to see if Mojo answers.

Mojo shrugs. "Whatever's goin' on, there's more to it than we know. But that's always the case, ain't it?" He looks back up at the hospital through his binoculars and the polarized windows of the car. "Smash and grab 'd probably work. Someone's got some astral security up, though, so we'd have to be damn fast about it."

"Send someone tough through the window like a bird when he's alone, grab Gio, and fly back out. If we can do it in under ten seconds, shouldn't be a problem."

Lex shoots a message back to Akuma over the comm, "Fastest way's the shortest distance. Got wings on ya? If we're gonna do this pull tonight, give me 15 to shoot back home and hop into their grid. I can keep everything nice and silent for ya."

Akuma grunts over the radio, "Hmmm... It may not end up being a bad idea really... If Sophia has been alerted, she'll be trying to move the target to a different room, perhaps even under a different name...

Why don't you go back and log in and check the room out again. If all is quiet still, maybe we should just go for it right now. What does everyone think?"

After hearing the comm Alice looks over at Mojo "Well what do you think? It seems like somebody has telepathy and knew exactly what you were saying to me. Maybe my car's bugged." Alice looks around for a minute. "Well what do you think? Should we hit it tonight?"

Akuma waits a moment for a reply, caught a little off gaurd by the silence.

"Well? Do you guys want to see about doing it tonight, or do we just come back tomorow?"

Rowan replies to Akuma, "I'd rather wait till tomorrow, but give me a second." Then Rowan jogs around the building looking for a service entrance. When she gets to the service entrance, she speaks over the radio, "See if you guys can pull a fire alarm or something."

The service entrence is around the back next to a few larger shipping sized door (think a place for trucks to load and unload equipment or gear). There are some plants around for landscaping, and Rowan has no problems hiding herself within the shadows.

"You want us to pull the alarm right now? Can I ask why?"

"I want to go in as a cleaning lady, best way to get in is to get one of them out and hide them for a bit while i go in thier place, that way we can get a look around, maybe even clean Gios Room, or at least get near it."

Mojo's voice chimes in over the radio. "Why not wait till quitting time, then? I can knock one out, and you can do what you need to then. Let's not go pulling an alarm or anything."

In the car, and not on the radio he sighs. "I think they want to pull a fire alarm to grab a cleaning lady..." He shrugs to Alice. "If they do that, I'm thinking about a vacation to the CAS. You in?"

"Everyone, this is a team. Lets not go off making any decisions without checking with the rest of us first. And so we're clear, I agree with Mojo, no alarms are needed right now. There are other ways to go about this and too many things could go wrong with the alarm idea. I don't mean to stomp on you Rowan, I just think we should talk over ideas before executing them. Thats why I asked about doing things tonight before I moved, and being that I got a no from one person, its not happening that way. We make decisions unanimously or not at all. Ok?"

"Fine with me, I hadnt heard anyone say no, and I was just going along with what I was thinking might be the best ploy if we were going to run it tonight. I'd much rather get some rest myself, but I would like to slip in after a shift change just to look around. No need to knock out a cleaning lady or anything like that after all." Rowan smiles from her hiding place, thanking that they indeed werent doing anything tonight.
"I didn't mean to go off impulsively, sorry about that."

Alice smiles at Mojo "Yes I think that would be very nice, not to mention I'd shread the tires getting us outta here. But sounds like nobody is doing anything, so we're good to go." She continues scoping the place. "Should we drive around to help keep an eye on everything?"

"Why don't we get out of here for now and do a little more planning, now that we've seen the place? Lex, is your place fine to use again?"

"I'm all for that. I have the blueprints of the building back at my place, and I can hop in to make sure our target's still there. A public hospital shouldn't be hard to break into, hell it's public. I'm heading back. I'll head out now, since I'm gonna swing by the stuffer shack and grab some beer. Anyone need anything?"

"Alright, I'm out of here as well, I'll see you all back at Lex's."

With that, Akuma disappears into the night. You don't even realize he is gone until you turn around and his bike is speeding away down the street.

Alice turns to Mojo and nods, she then starts up her Saab and heads out. She follows Lex to the Stuffer Shack so she can pick up some beer as well.

@Mojo: "Need anything?"

"See all of you at Lex's" Rowan speaks over the radio.

She stares at the window where Gio is supposed to be and thinks to herself. I wonder if she can see us, or even knows we were here. Somehow I think tommarow will have a few too many surprises in it for me She turns and walks away from the building, recovering her motorcycle she drives off, not sure what to expect.

After a quick stop at home, Akuma shows up at Lex's place with a small brown bag. He digs around inside and pulls out several rolls of sushi and a bottle of sake.

"Alright, lets do this. Here is the idea that I have so far...

Rowan and Alice, you go in as nurses and make your way up to the room with some help from Lex who will be riding shotgun in the Matirx.

Mojo, I'm not on the up and up with your skills. Would you be better off staying in the car, or do you think you can go in with these two as a doctor? It may not hurt to have you right there with us to help deal with Sophia if things get ugly with her.

I'll head up to the roof with setup my gear. I'll repell down the side and wait outside the window for you guys to get there. The Star will need to be dealt with, and possibly Sophia. I'll come through the window, ready to back you all up from a different direction... only so many people can fit through a door after all. This way we can come at them from both ends. We deal with the opposition quickly and quietly. I'll then strap the target in and take him out the window with me, down to where we have our driver waiting for us.

A few things that change. It may not hurt for one more person to come from outside with me. Alice? Rowan? Either of you good with climbing gear?

Lex, I'll need you on the video feed to let me know whats going on in the room before we are Go. I want to do this late enough that we'll hopefully catch everyone sleeping.

Anyone have any ideas to add or see any holes in what I've come up with?"

With that, he sticks a slice of tuna into his mouth and chews, looking around for the thoughts of the rest of the team.