@Gwyn
You see nothing on the Astral that is out of the ordinary.

@Gwyn and Rowan
Pulling the bike down the street looking for a place to relax and hide for a moment you see a Stuffer Shack, a electronics store, two adult video shops, and an astrologer's office. On the other side of the street, the airport's main terminal.

@Lex and Akuma
The young man leads you to a table in front of the stage, more to the right hand side of it than the left. He looks at your slightly expectently and asks if you want anything to drink.

Akuma sits down, looking very uncomfortable to be so close to the stage of dancing boys. When asked for a drink, he shakes his head and looks at Lex, looking for him to do the talking, that just isn't Akuma's area.

"You up for a late night snack?" Gwyn asks. "I want you to help walk me in, as if I'm drunk. Lay me down in the booth and I'll go astral. That way if anyone asks what's up with me you can just tell them I'm passed out drunk. Whatever happens, though, don't move me." Gwyn hops off the bike and starts staggering with her arm around Rowans waist. She starts singing "My Wild Irish Rose" obnoxiously loud and off key to add to the drunken atmosphere.

Rowan smiles, "At least you have a sence of humor." She ducks under Gwyn's arm and begins to half drag the detective into the Stuffer shack. Once inside, Rowan looks to the clerk and asks, "Mind if we stay here for a little bit?" and then lets Gwyn down into one of the booths.

@Gwyn & Rowan
The stuffer shack is almost empty. Considering the hour, you're not surprised. There are two orks sitting in a booth sharing a milkshake but other than them the only other people are the employees as they clean up for the night. Except for the orkishly-occupied booth, everywhere else is open. Choosing a booth where you can see through the windows to the outside, Rowan puts the now mumbling Gwyn into a booth and watches over her as she goes astral.

"Justa beer's fine for now" Lex half turns his chair so he can keep an eye on the two doors in the back, and anyone coming or going from them. He starts casing the place, letting his gaze linger on the waiters and dancers walking around the tables, expectantly, but looking around the entire area.

Gwyn's eyes roll back in her head as she leaves her physical form and goes astral.

@ Gwyn (Astral)
Dropping onto the Astral plane, you see your own form slump over the table in the Stuffer Shack. You hear Rowan explaining your drunken stupor to a somewhat concerned employee but let her handle it as you zip your way back a few blocks at the speed of thought.

Slowing as you approach the Motel, everything seems normal on the Astral. Floating your way into the office, you see the Goth chick behind the counter, her aura one of bordum and of slight fatigue. Sailing past her and into a back room of the office you can tell from the astral presence in the room that it's probably where the money is counted. There's a desk and a safe but other than that, nothing interesting.

Floating back into the parking lot, you start at the west end of the building on the second floor. Floating through the second floor rooms, most are empty but there are a few with occupants who do not seem to be the people your looking for. Most are asleep, their auras spiking with their dreams, and one couple is not asleep, but they're most definately not "frightened, confused and anxious." Rolling your eyes as you leave their room on the east side of the building you drop down to the first floor.

The rooms are about the same as the second floor, usually one larger room with a bed -- or sometimes two beds -- and a bathroom. As you move through the first floor you don't see anything of interest ....

.... until you get to a room on the west side of the building. The door to the room faces the street and you wouldn't be able to see the office windows from it, or vice versa. Sliding into the room, you find it empty but disheveled, as if people were recently here. None of this would have caught your notice if it weren't for the inky black aura of fear eeking out of the bathroom. As you move cautiously toward the bathroom, the astral plane seems to thicken, almost as if you were forced to swim through it. Forcing your way forward, however, you enter the bathroom on the astral plan and find it empty. On the astral, you can't see much, the background aura left over from what ever happened in this room creating almost a fog around you. Risking a moment to materialize, you see attached to the exposed water pipes running into the toilet, two sets of shackes -- four restraints in all. Puzzled for a moment, you realize that one pair for arms and one pair for legs, and enough shackles for two people!

@Lex and Akuma
Watching the club yeilds little to your interest, or your tastes. However, as you look around, you notice that it seems like anyone can enter the room on the right hand side of the stage, whereas you haven't seen anyone going into or out of the room on the left so far. The rest of the clientele pays you no mind, often focused on trying not to recognize anyone for fear of being recognized by them. A few have been led off by dancers or waiters into the room on the right, usually after a short coversation and some small exchange of money, primarily corporate scrip. The bartender seems bored, and the two men who studied you as you entered haven't looked back at you since they turned away.

Gwyn returns to her body post haste and bolts upright in the booth. "We gotta go, now!" she says as she grabs Rowan's arm and leads her from the Stuffer Shack.

Akuma glances sideways at Lex, "Do girls ever work here? I'd suggest getting a dance in the back room to see whats back there, but... I don't think I could let a guy dance on me like that."

"C'mon, where's your sense of adventure?" Lex's tone sounds almost forced. "Besides, it might loosen you up a bit. Worse comes to worst we tie up the dancer and do some recon of our own" That last part Lex sends over the comm. Trying oh so subtely to get the attention of one of the dancers, Lex pulls out a well-worn deck of cards and starts shuffling.

@Gwyn/Rowan
As Gwyn awakens, you see Rowan still chatting amiably with the waitress who looks rather surprised to see you wake up, let alone wake up lucid.

@Lex/Akuma
Lex succeeds in getting one of the employees to come over to the table. "May I help you, sirs?"

Akuma locks his eyes on the boys forehead, trying hard not to think of what he isn't wearing and how uncomfortable Akuma is here.

"Don't mind her she sobers up fast." Rowan speaks to the waitress.

"Now, lets see if we can walk you home." Rowan says as she turns to Gwyn.

Outside Gwyn relays what she saw astrally in the first floor west end room to Rowan. "They were there recently and they left in hurry. We should go back and question the receptionist again. They had to leave a liscence plate number or something to reserve the room," Gwyn says as she climbs back on the bike.

@Gwyn/Rowan
It takes you two minutes to get back to the motel -- you got stopped at a red light and didn't want to risk blowing through it -- and when you do the scene is largely the same as it was when you were there the first time. However, there is now a black-painted sedan type car parked in front of the office. The car is idling with its lights on, so you can't see if there's anyone inside as you come towards the motel.

Rowan looks over her shoulder at Gwyn, "That's probably them, they must have moved the hostages after they saw us. Should we follow them when they leave?"

Gwyn tells Rowan to keep driving and pull around behind the motel. When they get there she tells her, "I'm going to summon a spirit to follow them and then astrally project again, so watch my body."

Rowan sees Gwyn talking to the air for a moment and then her body collapses as she goes astral and becomes unconscious.

Astrally she goes over the motel and pokes her head through the rear windshield.

@Gwyn
On the Astral Plane, you don't see anything out of the ordinary in or around the car when you take a peek. Rowan nods at your suggestion and drives around the block, pulling to a stop behind the motel in a small alley. There's little light here, which helps to hide you both.

Summoning your city spirit takes only moments. As it coaleses on the Astral, you ask it to follow the sedan and report to you where it stops. The spirit, in the form of a small, dirty child of the streets, nods to you and heads through the building towards the front of the motel.

Propping yourself against the wall of the motel in a seated position, you zip out of your body after warning Rowan about what you're doing. Pulling yourself up and over the motel, you can see the the the car as a metallic block on the Astral. Your spirit waits behind it, and slightly to the side. Moving up from behind, you push yourself through the rear windshield. There is a woman in the passenger seat with an aura of fatigue and a little stress. She doesn't appear to be doing anything at the moment.

@Gwyn (Still)
Extricating yourself from the vehicle, you float over towards the office. Pushing you way in, you see the bored aura of the goth chica and another aura, a gentleman's. He seems almost as fatigued as the woman out in the car but less stressed. It seems that they are exchanging something; the nebulous representation on the Astral doesn't give you much, but you get the impression from the goth chica that this is business as usuall.

"He's probably paying for the room," Gwyn thinks to herself, "But where's the little girl? Maybe there was another car that we missed." She decides to return to her body and cast clairsentience to try and figure out what is exchanging hands.

@Gwyn (Still)
As your new sense takes effect, the alley around you seems to shimmer and fade. Taking shape in front of you is the office of the motel. As it comes into focus, you can clearly see that the goth is giving the gentleman a key as well as a credstick, "Your change is 6.99, sir. You'll be in room 108, that's out of the office on the east end of the building, right in the front. You'll probably want to pull the shades with the Airport lights and all."

"Thank you," the man replies, "Can we have a wake up call at 8:00?"

"I'll leave a note for the guy who'll be working then. Can't promise you he'll call, but I can promise you I'll leave the note."

"Thanks, again."

As the man turns to leave, it occurs to you that the goth chick seems to be much more polite to customers than private eyes.

Gwyn drops the clairsentience spell and makes a frustrated 'ugh' sound. "It was a false alarm. It was just a guy and his wife checking in." She calls her spirit back and cancels the service of following the sedan. She signs and starts biting the nail on her left hand index finger as she thinks.

She grins and raises her eyebrows at Rowan when an idea comes to her. "Ready for some B&E?" Gwyn asks at Rowan as she pulls out an autopicker from her coat pocket.

She motions for Rowan to follow her around the west end of the motel. She peeks around the corner of the building to make sure the parking lot is clear.

Rowan smiles at the though, "Its nice to be back in my sandbox again." She winks and draws out her pistol, checking it over quickly she turns back to Gwyn. "Stay behind me if anything goes down, I can more than handle myself."

@Rowan & Gwyn
Moving down the west side of the motel, the airport lights twinkle at the end of the street. Traffic is light and despite the fact that the door of the room to which Gwyn is leading the both of you faces the street, you're not too worried about being spotted.

As the airport becon swings away from the alley you're currently hiding in, Rowan peeks out and around the corner of the motel. She can see the couple across the parking lot moving some of their luggage into their room for the night. After a few moments, they enter the room and close the door and all is quiet in the lot. You can see the light from the office illuminating some of the blacktop and the red, neon sign above your buzzes in the night.

As Rowan takes up point position outside the door hiding her gun as Gwyn comes around and goes to work on the lock. Looking at it for a moment and then pulling her Autopicker, she inserts it into the lock and the door swings open silently. With a raised eyebrow at Rowan, the two of you move quickly into the room and shut the door behind you.

The beds are both slept in and unmade. There are a lot of emtpy take out chineese and Stuffer Shack backs about the small table. Used chopsticks and forks litter the floor. Examining further, you see that the drawers are empty, the sink and bathroom are clean -- excepting, of course, the restraints earlier seen by Gwyn. Upon closer inspection, they locked around the toilet as well as around the person they were restraining, and therefore, it may have taken too long to get take them with when the occupants of the room left in what seems like obvious haste.

"What now?" Rowan asks.

"Well, we can see if there is anything lying around that might give us a lead as to where the moved them to. The other option is to give our little goth friend some excitement in her life and ask her who rented this room out. We might need to be..." Gwyn pauses searching for the right word, "persuasive," she finishes with a wink at Rowan.

She begins scanning the room, checking countertops, under covers, around the floor, under the bed and in the drawers for any clues.

"Lets go talk to the goth..." Rowan starts, sliding her gun back into its holster.

Rowan and Gwyn walk down to the office to talk to the goth girl.

"We need to know who rented one of your rooms." Rowan smiles.

@Gwyn
After looking through the sheets, underneath the bed, through all of the drawers, and even turning on the 'trid to see what station they were on (the news), your search comes up with pretty much nothing. You do notice, however, that there is no blood in the bathroom on the floor, toilet, walls, or shackels, so whoever was held in the bathroom was well cared for, so to speak.

@Rowan and Gwyn
As you enter the office, the goth looks up. She rolls her eyes at you and takes off her headphones, "Look, I'm off in like ten minutes. You still can't see the cameras unless I call the ma..."

She trails off as Rowan interrupts: "We need to know who rented one of your rooms."

"I can't tell you that!" she seems startled and a little nervouse.

@Gwyn
You notice that her gaze rests on you for a moment before she responds to Rowan. She swallows hard before turning away to respond to your teammate.

Gwyn pushes aside her long coat so the goth can see the concealable holster under her shoulder. "Listen close, hunny, the person or persons who were in that room are suspected kidnappers. If you don't provide us with the information and help necessary to possibly apprehend them and save the victims before the kidnappers decide to add homicide to their list of offenses, then you're guilty of obstruction of justice and I can bring you in for that. So just tell us who rented the room and thing's will go a lot easier for you, I promise."

@Gwyn & Rowan
The goth chick's eyes go wide as she sees your gun. She stammers for a moment before starting to speak quickly and somewhat quietly, "I'm sorry. I didn't know they were bad. They had the room for two days. I don't know who they were. I didn't know they were kidnappers. How could I know they were kidnappers. The cute one seemed nice, too. I didn't mean to tell them that you were here earlier. They paid me, see?" She holds up about 200 nuyen in scrip. "I didn't know I was doing anything wrong. I just wanted an extra buck. You can't blame a girl for trying to get a few extra cred, can you?" Her voice trails off and she begins to study her shoes when she finishes her catharsis.

"Then just be a good girl and tell us where the left to, give us an address or a licence plate. We won't hold it against you." Rowan says kindly.

"You're right, you couldn't have known and there's nothing wrong with wanting to make an extra buck. Hell, we all do," Gwyn says as she lets her long coat slide back into place. She waits a moment and when the goth doesn't respond to Rowan's question she prompts, "Do you have an answer for her question? The woman and little girl in the picture I showed you might be dead in the next few hours if we can't find them, so any information at all that you can remember that might help us..." Gwyn lets the sentence trail off for effect and awaits an answer.

@Gwyn & Rowan
The goth looks up at you, "I don't know where they went. They didn't leave their liscence plate and I didn't look for it -- we usually don't. The parking lot gets used by people from the area and we generally don't have that much business ....." she trails off for a moment. With a sigh, she continues, "They told me to call this number if anyone came by asking questions that seemed funny. I thought they were cops or something."

She hands Rowan a small business card. It's blank on one side and on the other is a typed phone number. The area code is for this area, so you know they can't be too far.

Taking the card, Rowan comes up with a plan. Dialing Lex on her wristphone she speaks to Gwyn, "If we have thier number Lex can trace it to a location."

While waiting for Lex to answer, Rowan digs into her pockets and tosses about a hundred nuyen worth of scrip, "Its not much, but you did the right thing." She drops the money on the table in front of the goth girl.

@Gwyn and Rowan
The goth smiles a bit, revealing fake vampire fangs that you couldn't see while she was talking. "Thanks! Just don't tell them I told you." She finishes, looking a little scared again.

"Don't worry, we won't," Gwyn promises. She turns to leave with Rowan while they wait for Lex to answer and then adds, "Enough excitement for you?"

Smiling at the dancer, Lex starts to say something, but gets cut off by a buzzing in his pants. "Hold that thought," he says to the dancer, "my pants are vibrating," Flipping open the phone, Lex looks away from the dancer, thankful for the distraction, "Who's this?"

"Hello, sir," Rowan begins, "we are having a problem at the office I was hoping you could help us with."

Rowan smiles and continues, "So whenever you are finished with your dinner meeting, would it be possible for you to return to the office and straigthen things out?"

She waits for Lex to answer.

Gwyn raises her eyes at Rowan, confused about the office and dinner meeting talk she overhears.

who the drek...I don't have an office

"Who is this? What meeting?" Lex looks over to Akuma, confused.

"Its Rowan, we have an adress we need you to find, associated with a phone number."

Looking at Gwyn, "I guess I've gotten too used to code phrases in the past." She shrugs, trying not to look too embarrased

Gwyn stifles a laugh.

"Oooh, gotcha. Perfect, that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Where do you want to meet up?" Lex looks around the room trying hard not to look at the dancer's package that's somehow become eye-level with where he's sitting.

"Back at your place a guess, that seems to be where you are used to working." Rowan answers cursing herself for looking like such a fool.

"Right. We haven't...um...finished here, but we'll work that out later. Right, we'll meet there." Lex flips the phone closed and looks over at Akuma, "C'mon, we gotta get going." Paying for his beer, Lex gives the dancer one last half-hearted once-over and then quick-steps to the exit, all too happy to be out of there.

@Lex and Akuma
On your way out of the club, the Ork at the door chuckles and comments, "Not what you were expecting, guys?" He grins at you and snorts, "We get that a lot. Thanks for not making any trouble." He nods at you once in respect and then goes back to watching the parking lot.

It takes you only about 20 minutes to get to Lex's apartment, the same low level one that he worked from prior to getting Gio out of the hostpital. It seems odd that you only did that earlier today!!

Rowan and Gwyn are waiting for you guys, having been closer to Lex's place. Entering the apartment, Lex lets you in through his door, "Sit anywhere you like. You can just move the pizza boxes to the floor."

"So you said you had something for me to look up? Akuma and I haven't finished checking out the club yet." He looks over to Gwyn, "And you. I bet you found that funny, huh? Mincing words like that, make it sound like a regular strip joint. If we have to go back there, you two are going in. I'll wait in the car." Lex clomps to the kitchen, still trying (unsuccessfully) to burn the images from the club from his brain. Almost neurotically, he pulls out a bar of soap and starts scrubbing his hands.

"Hmm?" Rowan asks.

"Anyways I have a phone number here, its the number the girl at the desk was to call if anyone came around asking. We figured you'd have an easier time figuring out who it belongs to than the rest of us."