Akuma sits back, "Thank you for being so upfront. It is... refreshing."

He then glances to Rowan and Lex to continue their questioning, this just isn't Akuma's thing, so he just listens. However, to the empathetic, he does seem a slight bit uneasy for some reason.

"Once we have Gio, where do you want us to take him? I'd like to transfer him into your care as quickly as possible."

Alice sits back listening and staring at the credstik. She speaks to Mr. J in her quiet school girl voice, "Are we allowed to use any force needed?"

"That sounds good to me," Rowan replies, "they have good galic bread, and the brandy they serve there isnt bad either."

Mojo does his best not to talk, that little voice in the back of his head letting him know that schoolboy glee at the mission was not the best thing to project. Instead, he took another peek astral, just to make sure no one had dropped in on the meeting. That done, he tried his best to relax or think of useful questions. He wasn't very successful at either.

"I know the place, also. So once we grab Gio we'll bring him there. Just make sure your men know we're coming." Lex grins at the thought of their four cheese rigatoni alfredo, "I could use a good bowl of pasta, it's been too long."

"If no one has any questions I'd like to let Allesandro go, and get to planning this caper."

Akuma gives a stiff nod.

"Allasandro, before I forget," starts Rowan, "I'd like to see if you can get a driver for us. It would be useful in getting Gio around, all I have is a bike after all."

"So we'll just get some plastic, or even just a bunch of towels if you're so worried. Granted, if Gio's in the shape where he's in the hospital and still bleeding, we'd have more problems than just your leather."

Once Allasandro is gone, Mojo seems to lighten up a good bit. "Let's blow this joint. Never trust a Johnson when it comes to leaving you with a secure room. I'm in the mood for a slice anyway." He mumbles a few words and waves his hand around when the group decides to leave, cleaning the place of all traces of their presence. He then spends a few minutes in concentration to wipe his own astral fingerprints from the place.

Why dont we make the pickup here at 9am tomorrow? It's nice neutral ground. Alice, I can get you here on my bike, and you can drive the SUV back. Of course we'll return the SUV along with Gio at Ana Mia's.

"I would suggest that we all stick together from this point out. We can setup a safehouse for us to use tonight. With the war between the families going on, the streets may get ugly, with us running in the middle of it all. We need to be able to watch eachother's backs as all times."

We all made it here in one piece, didn't we? I don't think this family is going to hunt each of us down in our sleep tonight, so we're good for one more day. I like the safehouse idea, so lets discuss that after this meet's concluded.

@ Mr. J: "Yes I can drive a SUV, and thank you for setting that up for us." She winks at him.

@ Lex: "Hmmm...yes that sounds like a good plan. We could meet here and I can ride with you to the SUV. But I agree with Akuma, let us discuss all the details together in another location."

With that Alice gets up and gives Mr. J a curtsey as she follows Mojo outside. Once outside she asks "So what's the plan as far as a place to discuss our business? Are we going to a safehouse or are we to split up? I think it would be best to stick together and get a good feel for one another and our plan on going about this." She then leans against her "baby" displaying her figure as she stretches.

@Alice. Mojo nods his head. "Splittin' up is bad. If someone's going to hit us before the show, we're toast if we split up. As for a place... let's just pick a joint at random. Less chance that someone will be able to find us if they're lookin'."

@ Mojo: "Okay I'll just follow you. Unless you want to ride with me." She winks at you before getting into her car.

Rowan nods a farewell to Allesandro and then walks out after Mojo and Alice. "Dont you it be better if you waited for everyone else before leaving?"

OOC: The walking out thing doesn't happen till after Allesandro is gone, I just pre-posted by a few minutes.

Adding "Big A's" number to his internal phone, Lex packs up his deck and Looks over at Akuma, "You OK? You look like you were trying to bluff with a pair of three's back there." <<OOC: I made my rolls to notice your uneasiness>>

Akuma's hard gaze drills into Lex... "I'm fine. Do not concern yourself with it."

With that he heads for the door, but pauses before opening it. Without turning back to look at Lex, he says, "We all have ghosts who follow us wherever we go. I was just a little concerned I was getting to close to some of mine. But really, it shouldn't be a problem, I am good at keeping ghosts off my trail."

Realizing he's the only one left in the room, Lex gets up and goes to meet with the rest of the group.

"I think you all are being a bit too paranoid about the whole thing. Just because we just finished negotiations doesn't mean the Caroletto's are going to automatically be on our case. We have 36 hours to pull this off, I think for at least tonight we don't have to worry about Mafia hit men. It's not too late yet, how bout we all just go to my place and I can pull up where our package is. We can figure out what to do from there."
<<OOC: I'm going to assume you all know where my apartment is. Middle class place>>

Mojo nods. "That sounds fine. While they might not know who, the other guys definitely know that Big A's going to want something done about this mess, and a good old consulting group is probably the best way to do it. If they want to stop the party, then they'll have their eyes peeled for us, or another catering company to get their invoice. And when that time comes they'll do their best to... umm..." Mojo pauses, apparently lost in his own mixed up lingo, "Balloons, yeah, pop our balloons."

"If one of Big A's... umm... cooks is really cooking dishes for the other team, then we might not even have all night to... fry... frag it. Time short, plan big." He shakes his head, having confused even himself.

Alice walks over to Mojo and rubs his back "It's alright I understand what you're saying." She then turns to everyone else, "For now lets go to Lex's place and we'll hammer out the fine details there. Mojo's right, if somebody from the Caroletto's is near by or working for Big A then they might be on to us already. It's always good to stay on our toes." Alice walks over to her Saab and disarms the alarm. The driver side door pops open a little way as she starts to climb in, she then looks up at Mojo "Wanna ride?" She climbs in and fires it up.

Akuma collects his weapons on the way out, then climbs on his Aurora. He then waits for his companions to get ready to go and follows them into the night...

Mojo grins at the backrub and gives a small nod. When offered a ride he looks a little embarassed and shakes his head. "I've got my own." He slips off and shows up at the apartment on foot, right around the time everyone else does. He's apparently got transportation, he just prefers to park a little ways off.

Lex's place is on the second floor of an apartment building in a low-end project on the southside of Bethlehem. Leading you past what used to be a security gate, Lex moves up the stairs and towards a room on the left at the end of a long, damp hallway, "Don't mind the humidity. This building is still heated by steam and one of the pipes burst a few days ago. I keep my rooms pretty dry with portable de-humidifiers. Can't let my electronics get wet, huh?" As he reaches his door he gets down on his knees and examines the door jam. Pulling a folded playing card from inbetween the door and the wall, he stands up and shows you all the ace of spades, "Can't be too careful in this section of town ... but the rent is cheap!" he says with a flourish as he opens the door.

His apartment consists of a main room, a small kitchen off to the right, a bedroom on the left and a bathroom door behind that. A small couch and a trid unit are the only luxuy items. Over the couch, hangs the ubiquitous dogs playing poker picture, "It ain't much, but it's home. Anyone want anything to drink? Got some synthahol and maybe some milk, if it hasn't gone bad. You could try the tap water, but I wouldn't suggest it.

Inside, Mojo gets to business, putting up a weak ward and setting a couple of watches on patrol inside the barrier. The whole process takes about an hour, but from previous experience, the group knows the effect of the ward will last for weeks, making this a relatively safe meeting place in the astral sense. Once he is done, he joins the group in discussion.

Alice smiles as she walks into Lex's apartment. "Very nice place you got here." She then replies to his question about a drink, "I'll take some synthahol please." After that she walks around for a little bit trying to get a good vibe from the place and watching over Mojo as he does whatever it is he does. After everyone shows up she takes a seat next to Mojo and sips on her drink.

"I think Ill see if that Milk isnt sour." She walks to a small micro fridge and opens it up. "Ugh!" She quickly closes the door. "I think something more than your milk is sour, either that or something died in there."

"Now you see why I only eat out," Lex says as he throws out what used to be a soycheese soysteak. "I figure with my trid' poker earnings I can cover small expenses...like food."

Walking back into the living room, he gets right to business. "OK, so we're working on a very short timeframe, 36 hours. This Gio is either at St. Luke's, or Lehigh Valley Hospital. If you all want to make yourselves comfy I could hack in and try to find out where he is...should be quicker than actually going to the hospitals and this way we could avoid any unneccesary run-ins with the Carolettos."

"Yeah, get on that, see if its public access first though, just to save yourself time." Rowan replies to Lex. "The rest of us should think of what we should do while you work at it." Im all for going in with Alice as Candy stripers with Mojo as a Doc and Akuma as a Paramedic or a Patient, then swaping him for Gio. That way if anything goes wrong Akuma can handle himself. Meanwhile I can defend Mojo and Alice if nessassary." She puases to see everyones thoughts. "Of course we should talk over the details, and we need to find out the hospital first." As she completes her last sentance she sees Lex jack into his deck, which is now hooked into an odd mess of wires comming out of a oddly colored section of mildew covered drywall.

Akuma sits down on the floor, folding his legs under himself, lotus style. "Lets see what Lex can find out before we start to formulate a plan. It is always best to be informed before doing so."

"Alright, this'll be easier than playing spit with a quadriplegic." Lex says as he jacks in. "Heh, candy stripers..." are the last thing you hear from Lex as his eyes roll back into his head, a slight grin on his face.

"I guess that's alright if we want to go in that way. I figured we could just do a simple snatch and grab when security is low. If the Carlettos are waiting for us it will turn into a firefight anyway, no need to have us unprotected." She sits back sipping the synthahol wondering how exactly they are gonna go about this.

"I never said going in unprotected... Just looking less threatening.. That way the Star are less likely to get in our way... Even if the Carletto's don't want a gunfight, Id rather avoid Star getting in our way on the way out. One enemy is more than enough." She pauses, "Another idea might be to get Star to arrange to transfer him to another location, maybe leak info that the Carletto's are going to snatch him up, then hijack the Van star moves him in."

Edited for spelling

Slipping the data cable into the port of the datajack feels to Lex more like coming home than entering his apartment ever does. Taking a deep breath and running his hands across the green, felt top of his poker table, he acclimates himself to his new virtual surroundings. Taking a quick look around, he grabs his deck of cards from the table, and moves to the door. As he opens it, his quite abode is assaulted by the din of the information superhighway.

Moving out of his space and onto the regional grid, Lex pulls out his deck and shuffles for a moment. Taking his cards into one hand, and beginning to spin in a circle, he throws one card in every direction watching for the one that will lead him to the access node for the St. Luke’s Hospital grid. As his utility does its work, Lex waits for the results and in a few moments, success!

Speeding off down a data trail following a small representation of the 7 of Diamonds, Lex quickly comes to the access node for the hospital. The white ‘H’ on a field of blue marks the spot. Entering the hospital’s network, Lex is confronted with a virtual version of a real-world hospital. A waiting room lies to his left with a reception area in front of him. Behind the reception is a set of double doors through which Lex can just make out what looks like an emergency room. Moving through the waiting area are a few nurse icons and there are a few icons who seem to be twiddling their thumbs, so to speak, in the waiting area. Straightening his derby hat and his handlebar mustache, Lex walks up to one of the receptionist icons, “Hello there, darling. Perhaps you can help me out.”

“What is it that I can do for you, sir?”

“Well, I’m looking for a patient, but I’m not sure which hospital he was taken to. It was either here or Lehigh Valley. Can you look him up for me?”

“Sure!” the receptionist says, pleased to help out. “What is the patient’s name?”

Lex pauses for a moment, should I call him Gio, Giancarlo, Bradely? Ah hell, time to bluff, “His name is Gio Bradely. He’s my brother.”

“Your brother. Okay, I’ll look him up.” The receptionist pauses as her display shuffles through the current in-patients at the hospital. Looking startled for a moment she says, “Oh my! Sir, it looks as if your brother has been shot!”

“Yes, I know. What is his condition?”

“It looks as if Gio was shot twice in the chest. One bullet was lodged in some of his cyberware, but the other punched through and into his body. They have removed both bullets and he is in guarded but not critical condition. He is scheduled for another surgery in two days to repair the damage to his cyberware, as well.”

“Can I see him if I come over to the hospital now?”

“No, sir, I’m sorry. Visiting hours are between the hours of 10:00am and 5:00pm. If you would come back tomorrow you can go up and visit.”

“What room is he in?”

“508.”

“Thank you very much for all of your help,” glancing at her nameplate, “Diane. You’ve been a doll.” Tipping his hat to her Lex turns and leaves the reception area moving towards the waiting area. Moving out of the line of sight of the other icons on the floor, Lex pulls up the collar of his jacket and out the Jack of Spades. The Jack reaches into his pocket and pulls out a key which Lex inserts into a wall and pulls down. Stepping through the hole that his key made in the wall, Lex pulls the key back up and closes his cut job.

Standing inside the emergency room, Lex peers around looking for anything that could cause him trouble, now that he’s actually intruding on the hospitals private network. Moving along the wall and dodging a few other icons, Lex moves behind the nurses’ station and sees a bank of screens, displaying hallways and patients' rooms. Nurse icons sit at the screens and idly scroll them by taking only a cursory glance at the patients before moving the camera displays onto the next room. Wonder if I could get a camera into Gio’s room … Lex thinks to himself. Pulling his deck of cards, he tosses them into the air in tried-and-true 52 Pick Up style. Unfortunately, they all land at his feet. Damn. What about the node that controls those camera images. Pulling his cards back into his hands, Lex repeats his search, this time looking for the node controlling all of the cameras rather than one specific camera. 51 of the cards land at his feet, but the 2 of clubs hangs in space and begins to move away. Gathering the rest of the deck Lex moves off following the 2.

The 2 leads our old-fashioned protagonist out of the emergency area and into an empty hallway. Making a left, it stops for a moment and then rises up. Looking upwards, Lex notices that a data line is exiting the hospital iconography through the ceiling. Following that data line, Lex rises into a data node controlling the flow of the camera data to different terminals, virtual and real, throughout the hospital. The camera images surround him in a cylinder marked with letters around the top and numbers down the side creating a grid system. Shuffling his cards and invoking his browse utility, the cylinder of images begins to rotate until one camera’s image is centered before him. This image expands to 200% its original size and shows an image of Giancarlo Rosseli propped up in a hospital bed.

The image shows him sleeping. There is an IV drip entering his left arm at the elbow. Attached to his other arm is a biomonitor. He’s tucked in pretty well for the night, so Lex can’t really see any of his wounds. There is an alarm for the nurse’s station on the wall next to his bed within arm's reach. There is a second bed in his room, but it is empty at the moment.

Looking closer at the image, Lex notices that a person is sitting in the room just out of the camera’s field of vision. Quickly grabbing control of the camera’s system, Lex attempts to pan the camera to the left. Luckily enough, it does! As the camera pans, the figure slides into view becoming not just a pair of sneakers and crossed legs, but eventually the form of sleeping person in an easy chair. Looking closely at the image, Lex lucks out once more. The sleeping figure turns its … no her … head towards the camera and Lex can clearly see the image of Sophia Caroletto! How did she get in there! Ah, hell, this just got more interesting.

Stepping out of the camera’s controls. Lex pauses for a moment, thinking about what he’s just learned. Shrugging for a moment, he decides to quickly try to look into the fifth floor hallway and see if there are guards on Gio’s room. Accessing the camera for the hallway, he finds that there are two guards outside on of the rooms in his field of vision. The room number can’t be seen, but logic states that it’s probably Gio’s room. The guards are seated outside the room on either side of the door and seem to be having a conversation despite the late hour.

Backing out of the camera node, Lex does a quick search for Gio’s chart. Could be helpful, I guess. Locating the file quickly and downloading it to his deck, he logs out of the hospital network, erasing all trace of his present in their grid.

One more stop to make … Lex thinks as he fires across the digital landscape toward the City of Bethlehem Hall of Records. Entering the hall, he is confronted by a huge archive of virtual data. There are 15 icons at a help desk waiting to serve with the glassy-eyed look of programs waiting for input. Stepping up to the desk, Lex inquires, “I’d like to see the blueprints for St. Luke’s Hospital please.”

The program he’s facing sits up and says, “One moment please.” Turing to wards the archival “shelves” the icon extends its arm which moves off searching for the requested data. The icon’s head swivels and faces Lex, “Data retrieved. Purpose for viewing data?”

“Homework. I need to re-copy the blueprints for my architectural drawing course.”

“Accepted. Please provide name, address, school, and SIN on the display before you.”

Leaning over the display, Lex enters the information – not his information, of course, but information none the less. Checking the input, the icon thanks Lex and hands him a digital copy of the blueprints, “These data will be available for 7 days before automatically degrading,” it says to him.

Thanking the icon for its help, Lex turns and leaves the hall of records. Zipping back towards the grid location of his own jackpoint, Lex comes to a halt back in his own, comfortable poker hall. There on his table waits Gio’s chart. Placing the copy of the blueprints on the table with it, Lex looks around for a moment before reaching up to his datajack, in both the real and virtual worlds, and pulls out the data cable.


Editted for spelling and style.

Lex comes out of his 'war room' rubbing the back of his neck.

"Hey guys, you'll never guess what I managed to find. OK, so Gio is in St. Luke's, under the name of Gio Bradley, and guess who's with him? Sophia. I don't know what we're going to do about her, but I'm more worried about the two guards that are posted outside his room. I couldn't make out if they were Star or not, but either way they're trouble for us. So I managed to find Gio, Sophia, and..." he throws some schematics on the coffee table, "...here's the layout of the hospital. Gio's on the 5th floor, room 508. I've marked it...right there. I'm going to hazard a guess and say that those two guards are Star, because if they were the Caroletto's, then they wouldn't be accusing the Roselli's of kidnapping Sophia."

You hear that last bit coming from the kitchen as Lex reappears with a Justa Beer. "So, where do we go from here?"

Alice absorbs the information and her brain begins to formulate a plan. Like a white dry/erase board, she draws out multiple plans, wiping them clean everytime she doesn't like what she sees. Then a simple 'old-fashion' plan displays itself in various greens, reds, blues, and blacks in her head.

"I think I have an idea," she says quitely. Wondering if it's even worth mentioning. "You mentioned us running in as nurses and various other forms of personnel. I think that would work. But what I thinking was a little more extreme, a little more risky per se, but in the long run it will work. That is if minimum amount of problems arise. Now he's on the fifth floor, which would normally make a window entrance/exit impossible. But I believe that is exactly what it will take to get him out without the guards even knowing. If Lex can record and loop the imagine of Gio before we enter and have that displaying continuously, then all we have to worry about is Sophia. If we knock her out quickly and quietly then all is left is lowering him out the window to the ground. Then simply exit the same way we came in. While this will take two or three people, the rest of us can pose as personnel or patients in the hallway, NO WAIT! Visitors of other guests, if you can find some guests, Lex, that can't exactly talk, then they can't alert the guards as to way the frag we are in their room. That way some us can be there in case something happens. But if guests don't work, then we can resort back to personnel or patients. Like maybe a guy in a wheelchair and one of us ladies as a nurse pushing you down the hall. That's an easy way to conceal weapons and not stand out like sore thumb."

Alice thinks some more about the plan she layed out, thinking about possible 'what ifs' and holes in it. But all in all she feels strongly it will work, and be the most discreet way of getting him out.

Akuma sits, lotus style, and contemplates, taking in all the information.

"We could go about this a few different ways. Best thing to do would be getting a few of them to work and in case one goes bad, we fall back to the others. Or we could combine a few of them as needed. Anyway, lets get some ideas rolling then...

We could go in through the window. What is outside it though?

We could bluff our way in like already mentioned.

I'm not a fan of going in guns blazing, so lets try to avoid that.

Anyone else got some ideas?"

Akuma smiles as Alice mirrors his own thoughts...

"I've got all the climbing gear and grapple guns with extra lines. I've even got glass cutters and gear to make them quiet...

We need to know what is outside the window though. If we're lucky, there will be a small ledge, but even without that we can still pull it off. What about people on the street being able to see us? We'll have to do it late at night."

Mojo wipes a hand across his brow, the warding complete. "So that's the location... Maybe I should take a peek as well. It's possible someone's got something going on that'll make this harder than it looks."

If/When the group gives assent, he will sit down in the lotus position and meditate for a few moments before raising his hand, causing a faint apparition to form. He does this three more times, each movement of his hand causing another ghostly figure to come into being. The things are hazy and transparent, but they don't look human.

He guestures and, one by one, they fade back into astral space completely, though they never really left it. That done, he takes a deep breath and exhales, his body going completely relaxed as he does so, though he still maintains his lotus position.

Freed of his body, Mojo looks at his companions from the astral plane for a few seconds before ordering his watcher swarm to follow him as some added protection, allowing each of their forms past his weak barrier. That done, he tries to zero in on the correct hospital and room, pushing through the astral at the speed of thought.

Akuma watches Mojo go through his rituals, always having been facinated by the flow of mana.

"Lets see what he can find out before we continue, perhaps there is more to this picture than we know."

Alice nods her head and takes another swig of her synthahol. She crosses her legs, then rubs them quickly to see if they are still smooth. They are silky smooth still. While Mojo is in his trance, she is waits patiently for him to return, keeping an extra eye out for him.

"I agree with possibly combining a few ideas into one. We could always check out the street outside the window before the hit. Late at night is always the best time to do anything like this. Well at least in my opinion." She takes another drink before sitting back on the couch getting more comfy.

"I like the idea of going through the window, but that would require a lot of things going our way. What if Sophia is awake when we get to the window? She could alert security before we even get out the glass cutters. Going in as visitors of other guests would mean we'd be going in broad daylight, probably when there are a lot of people milling around the hospital. I can see posing as orderlies, and just walking in past the security, with something like 'I have to change bedpans', and THEN go out the window with Gio. Yeah, I'm more of just going out the window, rather than going both in and out."