Tasha visibly relaxes once it's apparent that they have reached an accomodation with Tom. The mirroshades that she put on right before Tom showed up go back into her pocket; she unzips her jacket again; and she unscrews the silencer, and puts her heavy pistol back into its holster.

Her voice seems slightly amused when she replies to Swarm. "Well, planning isn't really my thing, but you're makin' it kind of complicated. Breaking into a rent-a-thug joint or nabbing a clone? Hell, we just need to go to Puyallup or Tacoma where it's still knee-deep in lowlifes. The hard part will be sneaking the bloody meat back here."

Following the conversation, she chimes in about Tamanous. "Yeah, they're bad news. Organleggers with ghouls to eat the 'leftovers', and I bet anything Tom's mixed up with them."

She looks coolly unconcerned when Shark and Trent have a confrontation, but her pulse starts racing. She likes watching guys fight. Looks like maybe it won't happen this time, though. Too bad. When two guys fight, there's always that small chance it will end in a kiss (or maybe she watches a wee bit too much Yaoi anime).

-- Not a rent-a-cop joint. Just someplace that would normally be protected by them.

But sure, i guess we can try some other place full of the SINless. My concern is that they might be equally crawling with goons. --

Any conversation that's being held over AR means is most obviously being missed but Tim, instead he's debating whether he should offer Tasha his extra noodle box, the one he'd forgot to give to Eddie. 'course Eddie's just downstairs, and she's packing heat, so, yeah, maybe something else'd be in order.

'course that's when the fighting kicks in, and he moves like a blur. A hop off of the wall and a shoulder roll brings him to where Shark and Trent are. A quick duck shuffle and bob and he's between them, palms out, hands up.

`Whoa there guys, let's hold off on the name calling until later, ok. When rent's due I'll find a ring somewhere, the pair of you can square off all you like. I can be the announcer, we might even convince one of the others to wear a bikini and walk around with signs. But for now, business ok.`

As much as business sickens the hell out of him, at least getting it done and over with'll be good.

`Killing a guy just because he's got no job and lives on the street is out. I mean seriously, one wrong step and any one of us could be there. I'm for the morgue. Much as it's sick as all fuck, they can't exactly use their body anymore anyway. Hell, we'll be doing them a service by keeping them from rising from the dead and eating brains and shit.`

Fast talking, fast moving. When Tim gets going on an idea, he's just plain fast.

"The problem is Morgues are already under the ghouls control and have deals worked out with other people." Trent smiles a bit, "So you can waste your time searching every morgue int eh city but i doubt it will help ya, any scraps left over are most likely going to be given to certain friends or sold at auction to the highest bidder in bulk meaning they will be kinda pricey and alot more then we need, plus i dont know about you but i aint got the kinda cash those places are most likely to want."

`Who's to say we'll be asking for meat?` He internally cringes as he calls a human's body meat, as if it's acceptable in everyday terms as food. `Some of us have obviously tried to buy the stuff wholesale and it hasn't worked. I'm not talking consumerism here. I'm talking old fashioned flatscreen style heist.`

"If the ghouls have the mortuaries and use the mortuaries as one of their primary sources of food, then who's to say the mortuaries won't be under high security as well? Who knows, the Knights could be on this as well." Dole mentally transmits.

By this point, Dole's shaking has worsened and has become noticeable. He palms a pill and slips it into his mouth, swallowing it. His muscles relax as the harshness of the world he lives in begins to dull. His shaking subsides and he continues, more coolly, "We've gotta do something, though. Why don't we just scout out places like we've been talking about: mortuaries, cybersurgeons, cloning plants, dives, and the rest, and report back. We have two weeks, not two days. We need fifteen pounds, not five hundred. No big deal."

Obviously insulted by Trent's comment, Shark was made a move towards his hockey bag, but Tim's intervention prevented him to go further.

"Ok, I'll just make a few comcall and visit some friends, unless somebody else another idea."

He then sent a private e-mail message to Trent simply stating: "Noone insult an ork and walk with it. Be warned."

Noticing that not everyone has joined in the AR conversation, Swarm frowns slightly, and starts speaking out loud.

"Morgues these days don't exactly keep bodies for long, with the shedim around. Expect any morgue to be warded heavily too."

"Anyways, no use going over it all before we figure things out totally. Maybe we can just hop over to Puyallup. Maybe we can't. We'll need to figure it out quick, though, because if we do need to hit a tough target, we're gonna want as much time to prepare as we can possibly get. Not to mention, I'd rather not keep the landlord waiting..."

"So, has anyone been paying attention to other low security zones lately? Once we have that figured out, we just need a way to get the rent here."

`Well morgues, funeral homes, clinics... they all keep bodies on ice. A little scouting we're bound to find a soft target. Mojo and sec-men cost money after all, neh?`

Oblivious to the comm-chatter, Tim steps back and looks to Tasha as she speaks, nodding at her mention of Loveland and Tacoma. `If we can get the body, or whatever our cargo turns out to be, to Renton there's no way they can stop me. I know these streets, and a I know Renton. I've got shortcuts people wouldn't even think possible.`

He gives a little clap of his hands. `Scouting, though. We need a list of targets, then we can tag up and go to it.`

"We could probably just run a quick search of an online business directory. Chances are, that'll give us enough potential targets to work with."

Swarm absently pauses for a bit as he scans around through his drones to check up on the law in the area.

"Other than that, we need some way to move the rent. A vehicle would be nice... preferrably one that doesn't belong to any of us, since with the current situation I doubt we'll be able to go anywhere near it if they find out what vehicle we used."

"As far as finding a soft target, i dunno about that. We might find something easy in terms of physical security, but any place that keeps corpses is either gonna be heavily warded, or those corpses are liable to get up and walk away on them... which is, as a general rule, bad for business."

`The whole online thing, not really my deal. But you seem savy enough, so if you can cook up a list we're in business.`

He's getting restless, and it shows. He's pacing, bouncing in place, drumming a staccato beat on the noodle boxes he's all but forgotten.

`As for the wards and all, sure it'd be nice but we're not exactly on Council Island here. Not everyone can afford decent sustainable mojo. And I might not be a wizzer, but I'm pretty sure a ward's not gonna stop me from walking into the building.`

He blinks a moment, and tips his head to look to the roof's edge. `Shit, forgot about Eddie.`

He'd asked the Troll to be waiting down below just in case, and he'd just remembered the meal he'd planned to suprise the big guy with.

Tasha can't help but smile at Tim's restlessness; truth be told, it mirrors hers.

"Well hell, how 'bout we do what someone suggested earlier, and go scout out some prospects? I'm gonna zip out to Tacoma and scope out a few places, and you guys who wanna hit a place can pick a target. I'm not so good at the planning, but I do got a steady gun hand, so when you're ready to make your play, I'll back you up. Assuming we haven't already got someone carved up and on a platter for Tommy by then."

She turns to Swarm.

"Now, I'm itching to get on my bike and blow this hellhole for awhile, but I got a quick question. You been to the underground? How's things there? If the Knights haven't cracked down there yet, could be a good smuggling route. Downside is, probably gonna be some bribes involved, but we might wanna keep the idea on the table."

She looks a bit twitchy, if not quite as obviously so as Tim. She just wants to get on her bike, ditch Redmond for awhile, and feel the wind in her face. Too much thiiinking! Her head is starting to hurt!

"Haven't checked the underground. Don't really know my way around it either. Still, I'm sure guides can be hired, if we need. After all, it takes money to run anything, and the underground isn't exactly collecting taxes. You can only squeeze so tight, really... in the end, all the corps, including Ares, and that of course means Knight Errant, rely on crim to some extent. After all, it's hard to sell predators to gangs and not look bad if you don't have someone to smuggle and sell them illegally, with nothing to trace back to you."

As far as the online search, like I said, it should be easy. It should be public access information. Hell, the companies are actively trying to get people to know they exist." He grins slightly. "I probably just have to use a public search program and turn off my spam filters."

Through his slightly translucent blue goggles, you can faintly see his eyes go distant if you look close.

-- Alright Melissa, got some work for you. -- He calls up her program, hoping his corrections have taken hold. -- I need a list of every morgue, clone facility, and medical facility you can find in the Seattle area that might have cloned or preserved human body parts. Arrange them in order by security zone, lowest security to highest. Also, if they have publically accessible floor layouts, link that into the list too, and place the smallest ones closer to the top of the zone group, going up until you have no floorplans. Let me know when you're done, ok? Once you've got that, take a look around and see if you can't get me some maps of the area they're in. --

Andrew was still ascending into those blissful clouds of perfection thanks to his fix, but he still knew when the conversation was leaving him behind. He decided to pipe up, the first time in this conversation he used his actual vocal chords to speak and not his commlink. His voice sounded exactly the same, but it was at least of note that the man opened his mouth.

"I'm good for a lot of things, but street level intel is not one of them. If anyone needs some protection I'm their man, though. He looked around, but especially at the two elves and Swarm. He didn't know what surprises they packed but the prospect of such a dainty race as the elves having too much to offer, especially in melee, was almost laughable, as was such a... civilian looking man as the former wageslave, even if he is an ork, having any advantages in combat.

"I'm no meat-shield, but I hold my own," he continued with a grin breaking through the permanent grimace that is his face.

"So who DOES have info or a plan, cause i've already given mine." Trent says, seeming to begin to get bored.

After a few minutes of sitting quietly, waiting, sifting through the results Melissa brought back, and so forth, Swarm gets a disgusted look on his face and pipes up,

"Well, I think I've got a possible target here. This has gotta be the creepiest place ever, and I can't say i feel too badly about being the cause of Bad Things™ happening to them even. Hell, this place is a hazard to society... we're practically doing the world a favor to discredit this place."

-- Several AROs are swiftly transferred around to anyone who has a commlink, including any who have already left to scout around. --

Swarm proceeds to narrate the visuals. "What you are watching is from a place called Second Life. Supposed to be a funeral parlor. They actually keep a few unwarded areas around specifically so that shedim can inhabit the bodies and people can view them. Given it's a funeral parlor, and large numbers of visibly armed guards would be in poor taste, we can hope that they won't have more than one, maybe two guards, probably armed with flashlights and maybe some riot control gear... I can't imagine the locals feel too happy about the place being nearby. Probably all have wallspace blocking off the fact that it even exists, if they have any choice in the matter."

-- Included amongst all the information are floorplans for the building, though security measures are of course not included other than the fact that certain rooms are explicitly not warded --

"Now, the room itself isn't warded. And unless they keep tame shedim," he pauses and an incredible look of distaste shows across both his real face and the face of his icon, an anime looking anthropomorphic dragonlike robot, "They presumably need a corridor of some kind for the filthy fraggers to come in. Probably through some walls, but with the right gear those can be removed." He grins briefly. "And I am pretty sure I have the right gear."

"That being said, anyplace that intentionally brings shedim in is worth looking into a whole drekload deeper than what they make public before we go in. But at least it's something we can actually start looking into, for those of us who are too impatient."

"As far as cloning facilities, there's not much info available on them. Mostly I can just find locations, unless I want to break into their systems. And we don't have that much time to break into that many systems the safe way."

"If nothing else, I can put a few drones on surveillance nearby... My larger ones have pretty decent range on their sensors, and once we get a bit of a feel for the outside I'll send something in a little closer."

With this newfound bunch of allies, however temporary they may be, Tim had the feeling he was going to end up needing to get ahold of a commlink. The though alone nauseated him.

`Care to provide an address for us Matrix ludites? I can go check out the terrain, scout out extraction routes and the like.`

He wanted to be moving, and he knew Eddie'd want to be back to hunting down his shade of red. Then again, maybe Eddie'd come along. Corpses were bound to have some red to 'em.

Tasha can barely restrain herself from fidgeting as she prepares to go through the last checkpoint. When the self-important Knight Errant goon with an electronic clipboard finally waves her through, a wave of relief washes through her. Finally, she is free of stifling Redmond, her racing bike zipping through the mean streets of Tacoma.

She will hit the sleazy nightspots, monorail stations, and other areas, looking for someone scummy to mark for later geeking. And maybe for a new friend or two to spend some time with... all work and no play is not her thing. She gets Swarm's message as she is sitting at the bar of a basement club, sipping at a beer while watching the thrashing revelers in the mosh pit.

She snorts to herself. A shady operation that animates corpses - and he thinks it'll be a cakewalk? They should be working out how to get a stiff back to Tom; instead, they want to bust in where they already got dead people, even though it's way harder that way - why not just geek someone? And with all of the 'charming' people she's scanned from just a few hours in Tacoma - dealers, loan sharks, and worse - it's not like there's not plenty of possible targets. But then an attractive shaven-headed orkish woman in biker leathers coaxes her to the dance floor, and Tasha decides to forget about business for awhile.

"Hoi, chummer. You seemed to have something on your mind, figured I'd do you a favor and distract you from it."

The music is hard, and fast. You know you're going deaf just listening to it, but you don't care, you're that into the flow of it. She makes you feel comfortable, her dance style a perfect complement to your own.

As more information comes available on the suggested target, Swarm begins to get worried. His brow starts to furrow itself, and he absently begins chewing on his lip before he is given a pointed reminder of how sharp his teeth are now.

He quickly dumps a message into everyon's mail.

-- OK, scratch that... the more I find out about this place, the more i begin to suspect it isn't a real funeral parlor. While i'm sure we could get a lot out of hitting this place, i suspect we're more likely to become displays than we are to get away with one... I'll keep looking, but the parts of town where we don't have to worry too much about the star are probably gonna be harder targets than I might like... much as i hate to say it, it may end up being less noticeable to dress up like gangers and hit some SINless bum... and i worry about how we might get away with that unnoticed as is. So unless you're really attached to the idea of hitting this place, I think we need to look elsewhere. --

Tasha's evening progresses well. although she doesn't get Swarm's message until the next morning, as she gently disentangles herself from the orkish woman and the human suit that she wound up leaving the bar with. She exits the cheap hotel with a spring in her step, feeling a bit revitalized.

To be honest, the message only confirms her own misgivings about the place. It sounds like he's coming around, though, which is good. She snorts at the 'dress like gangers' bit, seeing as how it wouldn't be much of a change from her usual attire. She scowls, though, as squatters are mentioned; she didn't like it when Trent suggested it, either. There's no need to kill some homeless scub when there are plenty of nasty types out there - maybe they'll put up more of a fight, but she'd rather have a scrap than coldbloodedly geek someone who doesn't deserve it. And why is he assuming they'll do it in the middle of KE-occupied Redmond? Better to do it somewhere else, then use the tunnels, or Tim's connections in Redmond, to get the grisly meat back.

The Lieutenant Commander sat on the roof of the complex until the bliss wore off, checking Swarm's messages when they came and watching the sun go down in that sunset mottled with gray that was Seattle's trademark. Dole didn't know whether it was that he was crashing back down into reality or a genuine feeling, but the sunset seemed bittersweet. On one hand, it was exhilarating being able to watch the sun descend toward its nadir, like he was stealing a peek on the enemy, what he was missing -- the serenity that came with it. On the other, the bleak, charcoaled sunset reminded him of the shithole he was in, like a factory town with the ash from the smokestacks hanging over its workers, tinging them with its glow.

He descended down the stairwell as it got dark and headed into his room, again through the window, and locked it behind him. He shed his weaponry and hung them from his bedpost except for his Hammerli, which amidst the pills on his nightstand. The day weighed heavily on Andrew, and he took another of his multicolor pills and slept. He would wake again the next day promptly at 5:00 a.m., this time with the aid of an alarm (though he didn't really need it).

As soon as the others start to break, Tim literally drops off of the roof. He sits on the wall and rolls backwards. He's done it before, knows the area around the apartment well, so he's confident in a blind landing. When he lands he brushes off the eerie feeling the meet has given him and takes off to find Eddie.

When he finds the yellow clad Troll, Tim'll offer up his thanks in the form of two noodle boxes. He's suddenly not hungry. `Odd goings on man. I wonder if you've got feelers that know about a place called Second Life, apparently they welcome in the zombies that've been takin' over people's corspes.`

Trent leaves his number with the others, email, ar ect and then hits the streets.

"Any of you guys get a hit call the rest of us aye?"

And with that takes off in look of some promising "victims"

While exiting the hotel room, a cloaked, hunched-over old woman with what looks like a 20th century non-automated shopping cart passes Tasha by. She feel's something like a man's palm groping her butt, and before you turn around to kick his ass, she hears the crinkle of fresh, folded paper coming from her back pocket.

*************************************************************

Eddie takes both boxes in the palm of his left hand, not seeming to notice the strange, absorbent coolness that only unheated food can have.

"You'd think it'd pick up by now. Well, I'm glad everthing turned out alright." He seems utterly nonplussed. Aside from his art and his friends, he doesn't appear to care about much.

************************************************************


The streets are mostly barren, but dirty. KE's cleaned up the streets in only the most figurative fashion. No music, no random domestic arguments filtering down from the upper floors, nothing. You half expect there to be a tumbleweed blowing across your path, perhaps with some chrome plating to postmodernize it.

An armored KE squad car pulls up to you.

"How's the night going, citizen?" he asks in that oh-so-innocuous-but-not-really way that police officers have.

Tasha 'hmms' as she slowly turns around. She briefly considers chasing down the mysterious faux-bag lady, but she decides to respect the anomynity of the messenger. Especially if it turns out to be a mysterious benefactor.

Ducking around the corner out of the main street, she takes out the piece of paper and carefully unfolds it. "If someone sent me a note, I hope they didn't use a lot of big words," she thinks.

It's handwritten and very neatly folded; clearly they didn't want the note logged on any computer.

"Meet my boss at Pug's Place. Ask for Solo at the bar. The password is 'jolt.'"

With a mental shrug, Tasha decides to follow up on the note. Either it's someone aware of her desperate circumstances, offering help (for a price, of course), or it's a job offer. Either way, it's worth looking into. After committing the note to memory, she feeds it into a nearby trashcan fire, ignoring the curious looks of the squatters huddled around it. Tapping into the Seattle public directory, she locates the bar, then zips over there on her bike.

With studied casualness, she steps warily into the Pug's Place, her keen eyes, hidden behind cold mirrorshades, taking in the details. Stepping diffidently up to the bar, she addresses the bartender.

"Hey, I'm looking for Solo. He around?"

"Password is jolt..." she thinks to herself as she waits for a reply.

"I was wondering if you could help me with something. It's a crossword puzzle, I'm doing it over AR, it's four letters, 'To wake them up you give them a _______.'"

"Doing great officer" Trent says with a gleam in his eye, hes got nothing against the KE but he sure isn't a fan either. "Just out for a walk, figured I would enjoy the day. Seems you guys have managed to clean this place up, i commend you, it was going to shit in a hand basket, now if you can just get rid of all the gangs you will be my hero" Trent means the last part with and it shows its truth across his face as he goes from a smirking face to a dead serious expression.

"A... jolt?" replies Tara, an impish grin on her face.

"Well, we're working hard on that, let me tell you.

"Well, stay safe, citizen."

He pulls away, under the speed limit, of course, and out of the corner of your eye, you see a man jump right in front of the car. You can't believe you didn't see him before, and it's certain the KE personnel think the same way. It's not until he pulls out the detonator that you notice that he's wearing C4.

The mad bomber times the detonation perfectly, with the explosion going off right when the car touches him. The fireball goes through the windshield, and you're pretty sure nothing is left alive.

*************************************************************

The barman rubs his eye. Just a bit of sleepiness, don't mind him. He makes sure to point, for half a second, towards the door to his left.

"That question just grabbed me, and wouldn't let me go. Thanks"

The room is filled with tobacco smoke. The man on the other side is shrouded in darkness, but that absurdly theatrical measure seems completely unnecessary. There's just that much smoke.

"You come here because there are many things we have in common. Common... goals, common... enemies." You can't believe your ears. He's copying that drawl that's shared by EVERY Karl Combatmage villain. You remember from discussions with your fixer that this dates back to a 20th century 2-d film called... What was that? Oh yeah, the Matrix. How could you forget such an obvious name?

What you do know for sure is that you can't help but burst out laughing once the door's closed.

As her chuckling subsides, Tasha turns a bit more serious as she studies the figure before her.

"Heh. Okay, nice trid-badguy imitation. But you do have some serious biz to talk about, right chummer?"

She is still alert, but her pose is one of relaxed confidence - it's not all an act, either. She has no illusions that she's the biggest and baddest out there, but she does know that she's a deadlier gunslinger than most people. Unfortunately, she's not as good at conveying that deadliness. What she thinks of as "calmly confident" usually comes off as "cheerfully oblivious to danger" instead.

`Aye, everything's gonna be alright, as they say. Well Eddie, I've got to get while there's still some light out, see about getting out of the Barrens for a bit, maybe hop a train. Gotta scope out this weirdness firsthand if I plan on borrowing a body from the place.`

He's speaking a mile a minute, amped up now for a good bit of freerunning. Eddie wouldn't be a stranger to this mood of his. He gives the Troll a slap on the shoulder again, and tips his imaginary hat, then he's off with no plan in mind other than to scope the Second Life place out, maybe see if he can ask someone what their deal is.

Not one to stick around when the time is screwed Trent decides to walk away, no sense in sticking around to get blamed for blowing up a KE vehicle and spending the next 3 days under a spot light.

I guess KE isn't keeping control as well as they would like, and what the hell would possess someone to do that...

Thinking on these lines Trent decides its worth a shot to do a quick walk by on the explosion... maybe a few pounds of flesh made their way out mostly intact...

The Lieutenant Major awoke to another miserable morning. Perhaps not as miserable as the past couple of weeks, but still no walk in the park. He took his remedy, his blissful escape, and continued his morning routine. The exercise that he skimped on the past couple of weeks in favor of silence pumped the narcotic-filled blood through his veins. His blood pumping and his mind slowed, Andrew felt the best he had been discharged. Returning to his normal routine energized and sedated Andrew at the same time in a way that was indescribable by even him. It would take a poet of words, not war, to describe this feeling.

The Lieutenant Major finished getting ready, taking a shower and putting on his blasted civvies, this time even without the usual branding and with his ratty-from-use leather jacket and his regular load of armaments (his pistol and knives). He also used his front door also for the first time in weeks. Locking it behind him, Andrew went down to the foyer of the apartment complex and left through the front door, acknowledging the guard with a nod.

It was about 7am when Andrew stole out of Bloody Oaks intent on finding his kill with a high that told him that he would find it, and it wouldn't be a problem. Today was the day he would get his kill, even if the ransom was now fourteen pounds more. That's what his high told him, at least, and he desperately believed it.

Deciding he'll go over all the information found through the matrix later, Swarm decides he'll instead just stick with finding someone useful. Figuring the barrens are just crawling with way too many cops, he instead sends his aerial drones off to the areas around the barrens, this time paying much closer attention to what they turn up as he continuously looks for a likely prospect. preparing for night to come, he braces himself for another effort to bring in a friend from the resonance to continue looking throughout the night, this time going into full VR for the extra help it gives.

Straining again to call a sprite, he succeeds this time, and sends it off to keep an eye on the drone's feed, and to make a list of likely prospects for him.

Drek, he just won't stop, will he? Seemingly oblivious to your laughing, he continues in his Agent Smith drawl.

"I come here with a proposition. We have a mutual enemy: the privatized "police" that have usurped control of your home.

"We... believe... that by cooperating, we may discredit our mutual enemy.

"I wish for you to obtain a ritual link of your landlord so that our agents may probe his mind for information that would be damaging to our mutual enemy.

"Should you refuse this, there will be... consequences..."
*****************************************************************


The place is as Swarm described it: the first floor of an otherwise unremarkable skyraker.

You see a hearse with a full procession of cars enter the underground garage.

*****************************************************************


You find a severed forelimb; 2, 3 pounds without the bone, you wager. The rest is all twisted metal and a pink-red mush that you're sure they don't quite have a name for yet. Man-slurry? Anthro-sludge? You file it away for future contemplation, or you don't.

Trent Grabs the Arm meat, 2-3 pounds aint bad for having done jack, with that he stashes it under his jacket and makes a strait line for home, gotta stash this shit before someoen see's him cause god only knows the questions you would get walking aorund with a severed arm under your coat...

Tasha's lips curl up in a slightly contemptuous smile at the man's not-so-subtle threat.

"Common enemies? The hell? Tommy-boy and those Ares goons ain't my favorite gents, but they're not my 'enemies'. So if you want me to cross a nasty mojo-thrower with nastier connections, to help you out against one of the frickin' megas, you damn well better give me a good reason, and that good reason better have enough zeroes before the decimal point. 'Cause if you're wasting my time trying to lean on me, I won't be the one dealing with 'consequences', got it?"

She scowls fiercely at the man. Most of her scowls merely make her look cute and fiesty, but this one is actually a decent one, maybe because she's genuinely annoyed at the moment.

Tim
The coast is most definitely not clear; it is, after all, in the middle of a busy city, and respect for the dead isn't exactly forthcoming.

To tell the truth, you'll have better luck going in through a conveniently open window, assuming you find an open window, which you do.

It's a floor above Second Life's faux-brownstone facade.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tasha

"Threats? No, that was merely a statement of an... inevitability.

"And compensation will be forthcoming. We are willing to do much to break the errant knights' hold over the Barrens. All we ask is a small favor.

"We wish for you to kidnap Tom. If you do this for us, we will make sure that you will never have to hunt human flesh for your rent ever again, among many, many other things.

"if you agree, there is a pound and a half of sealed human collagen waiting for you in Evo Corporate Park. It is all that you can safely carry past the checkpoint."

--More tomorrow for everybody else. Sorry, guys.--

Tasha sighs, a slightly exasperated sound. Once again, this prospective Johnson seems to be off in his own little world.

"Okaaay," she drawls, with exagerated patience, "but you're still being a bit vague on the details here, chummer. You know, like how much you're going to pay me - and now it's gone up to a kidnapping. And don't even start with your 'sealed human collagen' - that's nothing but logistical support. (she internally beams - she got to use one of Renald's big words! Logistical, logistical!)"

She gives the seated figure a penetrating look. "All I've heard so far is vague talk about taking care of me. Get this straight - I'm a girl with a gun, not a damsel in distress. I don't need to be rescued from anyone. I'm not looking for a sugar daddy. I work for cold hard nuyen, sometimes favors - but for favors, especially from people I don't know, I need to know a lot more than mushy assurances."

She is starting to feel frustrated again. She could probably get the others to help her, and taking out Tom might be the only way to get out of Redmond without winding up lumped in with organleggers and other unsavories - hardly what her fledgling reputation needs. But this damn Johnson won't close the deal!