15:13 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road

ring ...ring

It's the door bell. A quick check of the hall sensor shows a familiar Caucasian woman in a cheong sam in the Peninsular Hotel colors.

15:14 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road

"Somebody want to get that?"

It didn't matter to Blaze that someone was already on their way to the door.

15:14 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road
Neko Mahou - Support Shaman

Hikaru had been sitting down at the table, slowly eating the leftover food Cloud had set aside for her. Its taste was defiantly off after the reheating, but it was good food and the teenager was really hungry after finishing the ward. ‘I haven’t created a ward in a while… I forgot how much it takes out of me.’, she thought to herself as she finished up the last bun.
It wasn’t long afterwards that the doorbell chimed and an AR window opened up automatically showing a woman standing outside in a familiar uniform. Since she was the closest to the door, the changeling stood and walked over to it. As she walked, she heard Blaze but ignored his redundant request.

Walking up to the door, Hikaru looked through the peep hole and tried to get a good look at the woman. After a second, the half-japanese girl also called out through the door, “Yes? Can I help you?”

15:15 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road
Neko Mahou - Support Shaman

Looking through the small peep hole in the door, it only took the feline teenager a few seconds to see and recognize the woman on the other side. The young shaman also noticed a beast spirit on the other side of the ward that seemed to be accompanying the caucasian woman. After blinking purple her eyes back to the physical plane, Hikaru called out through the door once again, “Oh… Sorry about that, Ms Green. Give me a second and I’ll open the door.”
With that, the pink haired girl moved back a bit and pressed a few buttons on her commlink, sending a command to the door to unlock. After hearing a few clicks and clunks that indicated the locks were working, Hikaru reached out, opened the door and stepped back to allow the older woman entrance. “How are you doing, Ms Green? I hope everything is alright… well, everything considered.”, the teenager said as she greeted the Chief of Security for the Peninsular Group.

15:15 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road

"Everything's fine, thank you. We've managed to keep things quiet for now. Some of the celebrity guests decided to use the fountains to cool off this morning after being up all night, and that has distracted the news hounds for now."

Gliding into the room Hilary Green bows politely to everyone, "How is everything progressing?"

15:16 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road

"Happy New Year to you too, Ms Green," replies Cloud in Cantonese, with the barest tinge of irony.

15:17 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road

"Phht. My new year was a month ago." , waving a package made of a stack of cake boxes. "Leftovers."

Hilary Green move to the utilitarian coffee table and unwraps the boxes and grabs a fresh fruit tart towering with fresh whipped cream. After a messy bite taken as she seats herself and puts her feet up on the table, licking the cream off of her lips, "Help yourselves..."

14:00:14 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - 6th District park, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong

While his granddaughter was cleaning up everything after the picknick, the two elders took a short walk. After going about the decline of traditions and how the quality of the air in Hong Kong had consistently deminished since they where young and actually everything had been better a few decades ago, Si Wu asks his friend who was old another question, before he intends to head back to the safe-house.

"Those nervous youngsters, the didn´t happen to mention any names, when they asked you about the outside job?"

15:18:07 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road

After a similar but reverse routin, like the one when he left for the park, the old man knocked at the safe-house´s door, a triplet of chinese health balls rotating on his left palm behind his back.

14:00:16 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - 6th District park, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong

"Wouldn't give a name. Whole thing is shaky, wouldn't even say how it happened, so I couldn't tie it to some people's techniques."

With a sly grin, "Like getting a paper clip in the ear or something like that."

"Old friend."

14:00:20 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - 6th District park, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong

"Well, I heard it was a blunt object to the head. But it wasn´t poisoned, so I guess I can rule out some old rivals."

15:18 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road
Neko Mahou - Support Shaman

As the cat-girl followed the security chief, she couldn’t help but giggle a bit on hearing the woman correct Cloud. She felt the same way about the whole ‘New Year’ thing, but had tried to keep it to herself so she wouldn’t insult the Chinese people on the team and dishonor her family and country. Her thoughts quickly changed as Ms Green offered the cakes and started eating one in front of the group.
“Wow! Thank you for the sweets!”, Hikaru exclaimed as she moved up to the table and picked up a box marked ‘strawberry’ before sitting in one of the empty seats. Taking the cake out of the small box, she tried to take a bite without getting messy but failed as she finished with a little whipped cream on the tip of her nose. Savoring the flavor of the pastry, the feline’s ears were laid back with a look of bliss on her face and her tail swished back and forth behind her while she let out a contented, “Mmm…”

Coming back to herself after a few seconds, the pink haired girl wiped off the cream from her nose with a finger and quickly licked it off in one motion before taking another bite of the cake. This one was cleaner than the last with nothing to clean up afterwards and though she still had her tail swishing back and forth, she kept enough of her senses to thank the woman again, though she unconsciously switched back to Japanese instead of the local language. “Umai! Arigatougozaimasu, Green-san!”
Realizing afterwards that she had reverted to her home language, Hikaru quickly blushed and repeated in the local language with a sheepish grin, “Sorry… Thanks again. It tastes great.”

14:00:30 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - 6th District park, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong

"You know more then I do then. Though it was someone important enough to get the numbers out beating the streets real early, especially after the kind of entertainments the youngsters would have been doing last night. Someone got them out of bed early."

"Chicken!"

15:19 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - 6th District park, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong

With Ms Green evidently not catching the reference, Cloud simply shrugs and replies with a raised eyebrow,"Of course."

Afterall, one does not show up one's employer. An ethnic mainlander Chinese or native Hong Konger would not work on New Year's Day, but a foreigner would and Ms Green was quite evidently a foreigner.

Working on New Year's Day to a local was inauspicious. Serious work like what they were doing now was nigh verboten, it messes with the juju for the rest of the year. He does not voice the obvious: for anyone wanting to commit a crime in the hotel, compromising the security chief or someone on the security team would be a good move.

13:15 Tuesday, 11 February 2070
Fooey - hidden
Vector Xim - passive


>>
Greetings, once again, fellow Tigers. Chan here. Hope you enjoyed the snack. In case you haven't figured it out yet, the starred commcode numbers belong to members of the Tiger Team. Like yours, the other commcode numbers are not easily identifiable.

I was thinking about sending a message to those numbers, to see who responds. It occurred to me that sending it from Mr. Wong's commlink might stir things up even more. Then, I figured that one of Mr. Wong's relatives could probably think up a better teaser than I could.

Do any of you volunteer to do that? If not, then I will. Otherwise, I will continue investigating other areas.

Has something happened to Gabe, or his drones? He hasn't shared any data with me. I'm going to send up my Stormcloud, too. If any of you want, I'll subscribe you to it, so you can move it around, etc. One at a time, of course. It should be over the safe house in about an hour.

Fooey leaves this channel open. Meanwhile, he preps, and then launches his Stormcloud, and directs it toward the safehouse. He programs it to follow the highway, rather than letting it take a beeline to it's goal.

15:19:10 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road

As someone let him into the save house, the oldman greeted Ms. Green and everyone present verypolitely and then helped himself to the last pice of cake very unpolitely, without asking if anyone else still wanted some.
While he stuffed the sweet and creamy dessert into his mouth -carefull not to expose his teeth too much- he mentally checked his comlink for new messagesand discovered that the dwarf´s call from two hours ago had just arrived on his in-box. I need to have that thing looked over! After hearing through it, he spoke to the gathered cowd, relaying the conversation via com, to any team-members not present at the moment.

"I have thought about our Hacker-friend´s suggestion and decided that I will send word to Mr.Wang´s contacts, that he is still alife. He is at a very safe location at the moment - anybody who could harm him there has enough clout to already know of his condition!"

He licked the last of the cream from his fingers, then went into the kitchenett, to wash his hands. His granddaughter would argue that this kind of food was poison for his heart, but he didn´t care.

"So, what´s next?"

He cast a questioning look on Willow, who seemed to be cooking up something.

15:19 Tuesday, 11 February 2070
Fooey - hidden
Vector Xim - passive

Fooey monitors the senior Wang entering the safe house. The Renraku Stormcloud is so perfect for this kind of surveillance that they are almost ubiquitous. The thought makes him wonder who might have been watching Fooey this particular morning.

After observing the oh-so-proper Wang, Fooey realizes that no action is going to be taken on the comm code list today if the old man thinks of it as work. Fooey, on the other hand, thinks New Years Day is the perfect opportunity to contact someone for no other reason than to say, "Happy New Years". Fooey's problem is that he figures the list contains both business and personal contacts - casual and intimate. Some of them might find a generic greeting offensive, causing Johnny to lose face in those eyes.

Fooey has a Eureka moment. He decides to send a draft of a generic greeting to old Wang for approval. He's sure the old man won't resist the urge to embarrass Fooey by correcting his "mistakes".

>>
Chan here. Since no one has offered to prepare a New Year's message, I've come up with this. I'll give you a few minutes to make suggestions before I send it:

Guo Nian Hao!

Gōngxǐ fācái; Hokkien Keong hee huat chye.

Johnny Wang

>>

15:19:15 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road

Blaze paced around while the others talked of forging messages in chinese, tracing the hidden identities of his contacts, and other generally impractical nonsense. It wasn't that Blaze thought that the contact list wasn't their best lead, or even that the idea wasn't going to work - but it wasn't anything that he could really contribute to, and he would much rather be out there shaking some people down, or destroying something.

The problem is, when there isn't a Johnson there to tell you who your enemies are, somebody else has to do that sort of legwork. That somebody just wasn't Blaze, and his frustration and feeling of uselessness had caused him to burn through the rest of his pack of cigarettes in the earlier part of the day.

Eventually resting near the front door he said, "If you guys come up with anything, you know how to contact me. I'm gonna run down to the store and grab some smokes - anyone want me to pick up anything?"

15:20:15 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road



Wu Xian nods in greeting when the old man enters the safehouse. The young man then politely turns away to hide his smile as the old man quickly gobbles up the last of the treats.

Being couped up in the apartment all morning is also getting to Wu Xian so when Blaze mentions going out for some smokes the young man says, "Blaze, if you don't mind I would like to tag along. My legs could use some stretching."

15:21 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road

Cloud raises an eyebrow at the electronic message and replies,"I think that this would be a more appropriate message, 'During this festive and joyous occasion, may this message find you in good health and great happiness. I wish all my dear relatives and friends a prosperous and bountiful year ahead. Good fortunes during the Year of the Tiger!' If there are no objections I recommend that a more tech savvy member of the team send this so that it isn't traced back to us. If you can spoof it such that it would be sent from a location that is more appropriate for Johnny to send such a message like a temple or a restaurant, it would be better."

15:21:30 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road

Blaze nods at Wu Xian and then steps outside. After he is joined by Wu Xian he looks around and asks, "So, I don't suppose you know where a store is...."

15:21:45 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road

"This isn't exactly my regular neighborhood but I saw a couple of places within walking distance when I drove in this morning. I am sure we can find something suitable nearby", Wu Xian answers as he heads out to the street.

Once on the street he takes a quick look around to see if anyone is paying attention to them.

15:21 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road
Willow – Stealth Adept

While it could be construed that she was working on New Year’s Day, she could argue she had just spent the last many hours watching television feeds as all of her attempts at analysis had come up short. She simultaneously closed all the video feed windows at once with a wave of her hand and a hissy sigh of frustration.

“I’ve got nothing. Well nothing concrete at least. Perhaps we need to investigate a way to get our hands on…”

She was just now aware of Hillary Green’s presence in the flat in all of her laid-back glory. Her demeanor changed almost instantly and she was pleasant as pie. She still didn't trust the woman so her guard was up the moment she became aware of her presence.

“Hello Ms. Green, forgive me for not being more timely in my greeting, I was otherwise occupied. A most prosperous and happy new year to you as well.”

She smiled and then looked about the room, noticing a few that were absent and one who had joined them again.

“What did I miss?”

15:21 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road

"Still some pastries left."

15:30 Tuesday, 11 February 2070
Fooey - hidden
Vector Xim - passive

Using the info about Wang's commlink provided by Gabe, Fooey configures his Renraku Stormcloud to impersonate it. He then relays the New Year's greeting through the drone to the starred entries in the distribution list.

15:30 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road

Commlinks buzz, blink, chatter, vibrate, warble and chortle in various way as determined by their owner as a high priority message arrives.

15:40 Tuesday, 11 February 2070
Fooey - hidden
Vector Xim - passive

After a short debate with Old Wang, Fooey sends an unsigned version of the New Year greeting to the rest of the distribution list.

15:40:10 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road

Still anoyed about the assortment of comlink-ringtones a few minutes ago -hasn´t this generation got any sense for discretion- he straigtened his face none the less and addressed Miss Green - whome he´d really prefer to leave as soon as possible, so they could start the real planning. If these kids can come up with any plan worth listening at all. It had been so much easyer back in the day. The low numbers would do the foot-work, the boss said who was to pay, a well placed needle in the nack and the problem was solved.

"So, we made contact to Mr. Wang´s contacts and are in the process of finding out, who exactly had an interest in our last year´s operation. Of course any leads you can provide from your investigation of the hotels interior is wellcome."

Why do I have to get rid of her? And where the ten hells is that spook, did he pick up the hair or did he leave it for Green? He sideglanced at Willow, still curious what she had to say to them in private.

15:40:13 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road

The caucasian woman smiles, "You already have all the data form the hotel sensors. I had hoped one of the cheeky young men would have been able to find something by now."

Reaching into a pocket she pulls out a flat piece of jade trimmed with red silk and gold thread and looks at it's flat surface. She shakes her head.

"And you've managed to get a hold of one of my personal private commcodes already."

Standing abruptly, she makes a small curtsy to everyone.

"I think I will leave now, and let you deal with your business."

15:40:25 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road
Willow – Stealth Adept

Willow had terminated the vibration of her commlink as soon as it began, slightly annoyed that the others had theirs with ringtones blazing. She had let the more technically savvy handle the message supposedly to be sent from Wang. She did have to admit that when Hillary Green’s very own personal commlink chimed with the message sent by Fooey she was put even further on edge. The fact that her commlink code was in Wang’s list could be nothing more than a innocent coincidence, but believing in innocence and coincidences didn’t keep her alive for this long.

She smiled and waved her fingers after Miss Green’s departure from the flat and when the door clicked and latched shut behind the woman, she then let out the breath she was holding in a long rush and sigh.

“I’m thinking we can’t trust her farther than she can be thrown. The fact that we have proof Wang had her number seemed to put her on edge.” The adept shook her head. “One more thing to now investigate, Miss Green’s connection to Wang outside of the hotel. If he had her personal commlink number…” She left that hanging out there for anyone else to continue.

15:40:30 Tuesday, 11 February 2070
Fooey - hidden
Vector Xim - passive

Fooey is caught completely off-guard by the sudden sea change. He decides to shadow Ms. Green with his Stormcloud. He zooms in on her face as she leaves the building.

15:41 Tuesday, 11 February 2070
Jack "Goose" Logon; PAN=hidden + LTG; SIN=Derek Wong

Goose navigated through traffic, switching control over to the pilot program when the message light blinked. He connected to the shadow-server and picked up the message which he then ran through the linguasoft to translate. I gotta spend more time studying Chinese and be less dependent on the software.

Hmm... A new years greeting..? Ah, this must be from the fixer Dizzy Sally was supposed to be hooking me up with.

He considers a moment how to reply, Ain't never got a new year's greetin' from a fixer before. Guess I should send a reply... and let him know I'm interested.

As the pilot program takes a gentle left turn through traffic and continues down a side street Goose, the handle Jack is using these days with his new name Derek, composes a reply: <@Mr. Wang [Goose] Greetings and a most prosperous new year Mr Wang. Thank you for well wishes. I look forward to conducting business with you in this new year.>

He translates the message into Chinese before sending it back to the sender via shadow-server and the LTG he received it on.

15:41 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road
Neko Mahou - Support Shaman

With a few keystrokes on the commlink’s keyboard, Hikaru quickly silenced the low techno tune alarm that was coming through her earbuds. She opened the ‘urgent’ message and quickly read it over before closing it, almost immediately identifying it as the message Fooey was creating. She did wonder why some of her teammates didn’t do the same though. It was just more polite in public not to have it blare out and it was easy enough to change in the settings.
Putting that aside, the pink haired catgirl took note of the Caucasian woman’s own ringing and following exit from the flat. Hearing Willow’s long exhale and sigh, Hikaru turned her head to focus on the older woman. With that display, she expected that Willow wanted to get something off her chest and her expectations weren’t wrong.

“Maybe she knows Wang-san sort of how we… well, know him? From what my dad told me, Wang-san is one of the big fixers in Hong Kong. He probably knows a lot of people or the other way around. I mean, Green-san looks like a powerful mage of some sort so…”, the half-Japanese teenager trailed off, not really wanting to get farther into that, but left it up to the imagination of those present.

15:42 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road

Cloud receives the New Year's greeting as a silent scrolling message on his glasses visual display. He silently observes Ms Green's reactions as well as the various ring tones of his team members, noting them down for future reference. "What have we found out about our Johnson that might have gotten him dead?"

15:43 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road

While walking down the street with Blaze looking for an open store a flashing indicator appears in the corner of Wu Xian visual display. Using his AR glove the young man brings up the message and grunts as he realize it must be the one sent by the team. After reading it he glances over at Blaze and then continues walking.

15:40:30 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 Nathan Road

Once outside the caucasian woman in her traditional Cheong Sam waves hand in the air, and after a brief pause speaks commandingly. A cloudy heat haze begins to obscure her, though not completely as she resumes her hurried purposeful stride north to the harbor and the direction of the Peninsular Hotel.

Meanwhile, high above, tracking the woman, the stormcloud, perhaps a portent, receives a reply sent to the currently spoofed address impersonating Mr Wang.

In Aberdeen Control Center an software agent idly notes a hit and reports as directed, but the message is re routed before it reaches it's normal analyst inbox for processing.

Somewhere in Temple Street a display light starts blinking green.

15:40 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 Nathan Road

High above Nathan road, as it tracks a woman walking north, the machine starts accepting responses directed at it in it's temporary identity.

Incoming Message Stack
<@Mr. Wang [<NULL> {38F939F1-AD43-4C90-8C8C-E79F0974F496}] <NULL> >
<@Mr. Wang [Golden Dragon {38F939F1-AD43-4C90-8C8C-E79F0974F496}] What kind of sick joke is this?>
<@Mr. Wang [Drunken Monkey {6A97BD3A-FE6B-46F9-BC30-8EC6B66E55F7}] Whispers from the grave? Perhaps I should not have had that last toast.>
<@Mr. Wang [Golden Lily {A876B79E-9C47-4FB2-B7FF-5EAA57A84D5D}] Help yourselves to the rest of the cakes.>
<@Mr. Wang [Aberdeen Container Center {0790E4BF-6CD4-48D3-9E16-79F104A57564}] Succulent Jade Water>
<@Mr. Wang [<NULL> {8A5507E0-C14B-4E00-AFB0-633927A18F75}] <NU..(*^#$()^((#QOKHF(*&$%R_Q#(#^*)@(%^)(YF(&EYF(&^FEW(*FB^^_DF*(AS^F> [Return signal disconnected]>
<@Mr. Wang [Goose {3C4AE848-1CC6-4761-B476-EBCA03B9F005}] Greetings and a most prosperous new year Mr Wang. Thank you for well wishes. I look forward to conducting business with you in this new year.>

15:42:30 Tuesday, 11 February 2070 - Flat D, 14th floor of Alpha House, 27 Nathan Road

Now that the hotels head of security was gone, the old man made little afort to hide the fact that he was disappointed about the situation - or how things where running - or maybe just that there was no more cake with cream-toping left.
Putting his red and blue gaze on Cloud, he replied to the younger man´s question - ignoring the girl´s discussion for the moment.

"We know what he asked us to do. But do we know what results it had?"

He moved his eyes to Willow, with a look that told her that he wouldn´t forget that she wanted to say something, when she finally noticed Green´s presence.

"Beyond that, we only have a list of com-codes and honorable Wang´s appointments, and what useless information Ms. Green could provide. There also was a long hair on the bed, I thought Mr. Root had picked it up - did he arrive here or send a message to anyone since last night, by the way? And what about our very young friend Gabriel?"

15:50:00 Tuesday, 11 February 2070
Fooey - hidden
Vector Xim - passive

Fooey studies the replies received by his Stormcloud, and shares them with the others.

"I wonder what's up in Aberdeen?", he muses.

Placeholder

16:00:00 Tuesday, 11 February 2070
Fooey - hidden
Vector Xim - passive

Fooey decides for the umpteenth time that waiting around for results is always boring. He decides to amuse himself by probing the Aberdeen Center. He has no idea whether this will lead to anything. It shouldn't hurt (Fooey knows better than to think it couldn't, and these days the word hurt is literal!).

Fooey figures searching for "Succulent Jade Water" will most likely trigger a Data Bomb. Something more subtle is called for. Plenty of time to think up something after he gets in. Fooey wonders when that will be.