Ryan shrugs.

"So could the bullet in the head if you just throw him out back in the alley."

Out of the corner of his eye Pesto catches Bubbles leave the area behind the bar. Deciding that now is a good time to act on the groups talk of leaving he lets the diagnostics run in the background while setting Clara the task of continuously scouting around the bar.

He picks out a more comfortable spot on the floor and sits down while leaning against the bar. Closing his eyes he makes the transition to the world of virtual reality. Once there the orc pops on over to his van and takes control of Gina. After starting her up he uses the sensors to take a quick look around the immediate vacinity. Then Pesto casual drives the van over to the bar.

As he is bringing her in he sends the following message to the group:

"Our ride is on the way."

Still holding the jammer wand, Ryan notes the message.

"That's handy. Still have to leg it for the bike though."

As most of the team coordinated their evacuation, Al found himself back at the bar, once again looking at the bottles of hard liquor he'd set aside earlier.

"Now kin we torch this dump?"

Ryan looks up, a puzzled look on his face.

"So, can someone tell me again why we have to deal with dead junkies when we are just going to fire the joint anyway?"

*** pop ***

Bubbles doesn't pause in her effort, but does glance down momentarily, before stating, "Wares?"

Raising his eyebrows in an overly dramatic expression of disdain, Ryan casts his gaze in the direction of Mitch's corpse.

"Does he actually even have anythin' worth salvagin'? I doubt it."

Shaking his head, he shrugs and moves over to where Al is standing near the bar.

"Now that you're done with the doctorin', hold this for a while, will ya?"

Keeping it somewhat aligned with its intended target, Ryan hands the jammer wand to Al, simply assuming that the human will comply.

"Might be best if I run an' bring my bike back now. Could save us a pile of trouble later on." The elf pauses and looks around at the others. "You sure there's nothin' else you want me t' take care of first?"

While he waits for a sign from the rest of the group, he gathers up his medkit and checks the room for anything else of note.

Busily uncorking bottles of liquor, Al crossed his eyes at the sight of the bodies being dragged off in one direction but the jamming wand headed in another - towards him!

Taking it with a grunt, he tossed several bottles around the bar hard enough for them to shatter, then grabbed three open ones by the necks in one hand and let them trail a spatter of alcohol in his wake as he trotted out after the fleeing bodies, wand pointed in their general direction.

Somewhere along the way, his lit cigarette managed to fall on the floor at his feet, but he didn't look back.

Ryan
You take a courier's pack and shove the clothing, sidearm and boots into it as you move through the bar. Double-checking everything, you mentally inventory items from each section that were of value. What you can't fit, gets loaded into the van when it arrives.

Team
The van arrives and you load bodies amidst small packages and stolen goods. Behind you glass shatters and alcoholics weep as thousands of dollars of liquour is spilled. Overproofed rum spills out on the hallway, saturating the cigarette until the embers ignite the liquid. A carpet of flame crawls across the ground and up counters.

Within minutes, the van doors slam shut and begins driving away. A low growl rumbles through the streets as a motorcycle pulls in behind the van.

After the door closes and everyone is tucked away Pesto starts Gina away from the bar. As he does so he pops up another AR window and connects to Angelina. Turing on her scanners he runs a scan of the captives to see what surpises they may have hidden inside of their bodies.

Having repacked the medkit in his bike, and reluctantly throwing the shotgun in the van with the rest of the suspect gear, Ryan was set to go. Just before the group leaves, the elf sticks his blond head in through the open driver's window to talk to Pesto.

"So, while you are all thinkin' up our next plan of action, we really need to pick up some supplies. No sense playin' the convoy when we don't know where we're goin' yet, so why don't you meet up with us at the Stuffer Shack down on Dorchester an' we can figure it out from there."

Nodding once, as if what he had just said had already been agreed upon, he spins and jogs over to the Harley, winking at Sun as he swings his leather-clad leg over the hog. Once she is seated behind him, Ryan hits the ignition, cranking the gas a couple of times just to savor the big engine's echoing roar in the confined space of the alley, then kicks it in gear, pops the clutch, and pulls out after the departing van.

Catching up with the other vehicle, the elf swings the bike out, pulling alongside and giving Pesto a wink and a wave before gunning the accelerator and speeding off in the direction of a fresh pack of smokes.

Sun smiles as she climbs on to the bike behind Flint. As she settles her look shifts into a blonde haired elven biker babe. Her heels extend to impractivle levels and her bra shifts 'purting up' her breasts some.

In Sperethiel she says, "So is this how all your girl ride? Or do you have any other moves I get to see?"

Ryan shifts his eyes to the mirror and catches Sun's gaze, his emerald cybereyes sparkling with a strange inner glow. A sly grin flickers momentarily across his features, then he winks, pops the clutch, and pulls the speeding bike up on its back wheel for a block or two.



Bringing the big Harley down onto two wheels just before swooping around a corner, Ryan again grins at the elf riding behind him. Another quick corner and he nods his head toward the unmistakable neon glow coming from the Stuffer Shack sign at the far end of the block. He mocks a frown in the mirror, then shrugs as he pulls into the parking lot.

Ryan smiles innocently as he turns to face Sun after they both dismount.

"I guess you'll have to wait a bit to find out just what other moves I might be willin' to show off."

Once the horny elves had roared off, Pesto had turned a corner, allowing Al, now riding shotgun, to see a satisfying billow of black smoke rising from a structure fire a few blocks away.

For a moment, he got a bit misty-eyed at the thought of all the beer they'd had to leave behind. A glance back at the cargo they'd opted for instead - Mitch's corpse and the unconscious figures of two drug-dealing divas - showed him Bubbles also in the back of the van. She had that far-away look in her eye that told him she was busy online.

He asked, loud enough for both tusker techs to hear, whether either had any way of scanning the girls for headware, not knowing that the ork beside him was already all over that problem.

Bubbles
A digital overlay of the world crosses your vision, blocking out parts of reality and enhancing others. You go back to the cameras the team had previously identified and begin to scrub evidence and security logs. The last fleeting image you have as you log off is a Knight Errant drone arriving on the scene. In its wake several news drones begin recording the burning building.

Pesto
Passing a thin scanner over both unconscious figures has a series of images and schematics flash across your image link. The younger woman, Tara, comes back without any apparent cyberware--oddly there's a tracing of what the scanner perceives as dust along her cranium and central nervous system.

Hayden is an ugly mix of implants that are so densely packed together the scanner is having a problem identifying them. Judging by their placement along her spine and core muscle group, reaction enhancement is nearly a guarantee. She also has extensive headware.

Team
With the burning bar in your rearview mirror, you put some distance between the scene of the crime and yourselves. Eventually, Ryan pulls into the parking lot of a mid-sized StufferShack. Behind him, the van pulls in and parks a few stalls away.

Chemical clarity reminds most of you that even if you felt tired, you won't be able to sleep for a day or two. Hopefully, this job will be done before then. Heading inside, a glassy eyed clerk sits at the counter. Beside him a teenage girl is flipping through a holographic screamsheet meant to entice customers. She occasionally pokes him when he begins to drool.

As Pesto is parking the van at the Stuffer Shack he sends the results from the scan to he rest of the team. The orc then adds the following message:

"Ok looks like Hayden is the muscle but she also has a head full of gear. Take particular note of the results from Tara's head. It looks like something was there and is not now. Right before we were attacked I found a hidden node through her but did not get a chance to investigate it. It may be gone now."

Al chuckled, very pleased with himself. "Well that there confirms my thee-ree - we din't find no comm on 'er, an' now we see there ain't none in 'er neither. That damned drug kin turn reglar folk into them danged new-fangled virtuoneticals - an' dollars ta donuts they done that ta pore Mitch, an' then hacked his drug-addled mind inta doomed submission."

The scruffy little man pulled compulsively at his Lucky Strike. "Ya ask me, Pesto muh friend, our first priority orta be seein' if there's still enough o' that rapidly disappearin' devil dust in 'er system to hack this hidden node yer goin' on about."

Ryan gives the pair behind the counter a long, intimidating stare, almost daring either of them to say something about the pair of guns very obviously strapped on his hip, then busies himself filling the empty space in front of them with a growing jumble of goods. The elf's time spent stocking up for parties and raves, and his long familiarity with Stuffer Shack's seemingly universal layout makes the task go rather quickly. Soon there is quite an assortment of Nuke-n-Gnaw burgers, Krazy Krispies, Hurky Jurks, and other stuffers piled high on the counter.

After adding some duct tape and a couple of resupplies for the medkit to the collection, Ryan eyes the bubble gum momentarily while the clerk pulls down a carton of Virginia Real cigarettes, but quickly discards the idea, shaking his head in disgust that the thought even entered his mind.

Sun hides a grimace at the pile of artificial food building on the counter and braves the Shack in search of something a little more culinarilly convincing. Finding nothing with any real merit she sighs and settles for a prepacked salad bowl and a tin of peaches.

"I will take a look and see if anything is still there to hack", Pesto sends to the groups links in response to Al's comments.

Staying in virtual reality the orc attempts to find any signals coming from Tara to see if he can again attempt a hack.

Without any sign of strain the young troll unlimbered herself from her contorted position once the vehicle stopped and half slipped, jumped out. Turning back to face the interior she eyed the arranged bodies critically, then with a wad of gum stuck the jammer wand against the convenient groove in the side paneling pointing the device down into the interior. Seeing Pesto at work Bubbles strolled into the store, headed straight for the Red Hot Nuke It Burritos and grabbed a dozen El Grandes. With a practiced swipe of her credstick in one hand, with the other juggling the packages of burritos as she popped the self heating tabs on all of them in rapid fire sequence. She was half way out the door again, when she stopped. whirled and headed for the duct tape, industrial ties, and a 8 litre jug of Rainbow Brite Soda.

During cheery mid wave to the girl behind the counter a burrito package chimes, and in a flash she squeezes out the burrito and starts chewing on it, balancing chiming self heating burritos, industrial ties, duct tape, jugs, and a bites of refried soy-bean as she mentally flashes a confirmation code for the credstick to the Stuffer Shack node for her purchases.

Done shopping, Bubbles heads for the van and offers everyone a burrito.

Pesto
Sorting out the interference of the jammer is difficult, but you are able to find a thin line of data that isn't coming from the team's communications gear. It's possible that extra signals are being blanketed by the jammer.

Pesto mentally scowls at the trouble he is having with the jammer but figures that it might be to dangerous to turn it off.

The orc signals his find to the others:

"Ok there is still something there to hack but with the jammer on it will be tougher. I would like to take my time with it and maybe Bubbles can join me in case of trouble. Since going slow could take a few hours we might as well wait until we get set up somewhere."

Gratefully accepting the burrito, Al took a huge bite. For the last few months he'd been pouring all his wages into natural foods in an effort to rejuvenate his ravaged body, and he was surprised to find that he'd missed the always versatile taste of soy.

"Bitch of it all is," he said around a sticky mouthful of soycheese, "much as we's hankerin' fer a look at the other side o' that signal, whatever's on the other side may be lookin' back at us'n even as we speak."

Tossing the young clerk a certified credstick, Ryan answers his questioning glance with another silent, steely stare. Gathering up his purchases, the elf wanders out to the van, where he deposits all but one of the bags of stuffers amongst the gathered group. Noticing that Bubbles had already doled out the food she cut in line to purchase, he graces her with a highly irritated scowl.

As the group discusses their immediate plans, the elf devours a couple of lukewarm burgers, then after lighting up a cigarette to the accompaniment of an exaggerated sigh of pleasure, Ryan sets about refilling and repacking his medkit.

A tentative plan agreed upon surprisingly quickly, the blond elf swings his leg over the bike, gives Sun a quick wink and kicks the big Harley to life. As soon as his passenger is settled behind him, Ryan cranks the gas and squeals out of the parking lot without a backward glance. Next stop, The Glory Hole in Tarislar.

Elves

Entering the Puyallup Barrens, you pass beyond the human wasteland into ghettoes packed tightly with elves. Whores offer their wares on street corners anonymously. Most of them have a glassy-eyed expression showing they are drugged to the brim.

As you work your way closer to The Glory Hole, some of the street trash clears a bit. Ryan stops and makes a few phone calls. He reaches Flick and within a few minutes starts to arrange for a quiet place to use. Without money to exchange for the service, an abandoned church is about the best he can offer.

As the two big metas worked out the details of how they'd handle the hack before getting underway, Al shifted himself to the back of the van. Chewing on his burrito, he watched the two unconscious women closely, determined that they not pull any of the same kind of tricks they had earlier.

Watching the two women as the techs worked out their game plan, small details started popping out at the increasingly drowsy Al.

Of course, they were both nude, except for the wide swath of blood-stained bandages wrapped around the waist of the one called Hayden. And yes, that was a bit of a distraction for Al. But it wasn't as though he hadn't seen far more than his share of naked beauties in his time, and he was sure to see more once his career got underway. And they wouldn't be drug dealers. So it wasn't long before the lusty bits sort of faded into the background and he started seeing new things, points that, upon reflection, struck him as more intimate than the girls' exposed body parts.

Tara had a number of tattoos, and as a connoisseur of good inkwork, Al took special interest. Most were the sort of cheap, faux-subculture, shock-the-man jobs that seemed popular with the kids he'd seen since getting back to the world, and to him they just reinforced his image of the woman as a filthy poison peddler. But there was one that caught his eye. The work was of far higher quality than the rest. It was a scroll partially unrolled across her left shoulder - the texturing was magnificent - and on it were written three lines of a language Al couldn't read. He doubted she could either - looked like Latin and she probably had just run whatever she'd wanted it to say through a translation program. Maybe thought that'd look cool, or just didn't want many people to know what it said. He caught himself trying to imagine what it might be. A motto? A fuck-you to the world? Maybe just a simple declaration of love? If so, the fact that she hadn't crossed it out or lasered it off suggested that whoever loved her was still around. Maybe he was nervously pacing their apartment, watching his comm, wondering why she hadn't called from work to say hi the way she did every day. Maybe they'd made love this morning, and said goodbye not knowing...he caught himself.

He realized he was operating under the assumption that once they'd hacked this girl's brain she was going to get a bullet in her head for her trouble. Well, what the hell? She was a damned drug dealer - better her than the next poor sap she hooked on this damnable techno-whatsit experimentation killer brew, or whatever nastiness she was up to. Blazes, she was worse than a drug dealer, wasn't she? She wasn't just selling cram or deepweed or horse, she was lying to down-and-out working stiffs, maybe turning them into guinea pigs for some diabolical corp plot, for all he knew.

But he still felt bad for the imaginary guy that had kissed her goodbye this morning, not knowing - he made himself think it - not knowing it'd be the last time he saw her.

Things weren't any easier, he found, looking at Hayden. Of course she was the worst of the two. Certainly more dangerous. Had tried to kill them all. Hell, she basically had killed poor Mitch, and Al had sure taken a liking to that boy. No, this one for sure was bad news, and criminy, he'd shot her himself - his practiced eye could read from the markings on her flesh that it wasn't as though he'd broken her cherry in that regard. He'd meant business when he'd pulled the trigger. He didn't second-guess himself when someone was playing for keeps with him.

Only then he'd patched her up. Something that happens when you get up to your elbows in blood trying to save someone's life. It was a bond he'd felt many times before, which always sucked when it happened and then the person went and died anyhow. Well, come to think of it, that was what was going to happen to this one. Why that should bother him when he'd as much as put her in the ground himself was hard to say. Because he'd tried to save her? Because they were going to wake her up and talk to her first, and she'd know it was her last conversation in this world, and they'd know, and they'd all be lookin' at each other? Or just because she was a woman? Al'd never killed a woman before.

That Flint was a hard one. He'd do the deed and not flinch. Al was glad the elf would be the one. But if he didn't feel proper doing it himself, how Christian would it be to just have someone else do it?

Dammit to hell and back, Alouicious Guthrie, she's a damned killer and worse. You let her walk and the next sucker she wastes or mindfucks or just addicts to some devilish concoction, that'll be on your head. That's somethin' you'll be answerin' to St. Patrick for at the Pearly Gates. Yore ma din't raise ya ta be so softheaded.

Well it jist ain't right ta be killin' womern.

And that's you goin' off and doin' yer thinkin' with The Elephant again an' not the brains the Good Lord done give ya.

And round and round it went for what seemed like a long time, though it was probably no more than a few ticks of the clock. And all the while, his eyes kept registering little things - meaningless things - a chipped toenail - a pale strip around a finger where Flint must have stripped off a ring - a scar that could have been from a knife fight or just as easily a Caesarean section - meaningless things that set his fancies spinning through endless permutations of possible humanities that made these two women somehow more than a couple of assets to be disposed of.

In the end, as his teammates slipped the trode rig over Tara's head, his logic was still telling him loud and clear that the elves were right, that the only safe choice was to punch their tickets.

But then Al had not exactly lived his life listening to logic.

Once they got the trodes Pesto starts up the van and leaves the stuffer shack. As he is pulling away he says to the others, "Bubbles go ahead and get Tara ready. Al you mentioned something about getting your tank refilled. Just give me an address and I'll have Gina drive us over there."

Once he gets the location from Al the orc starts programming the van's autopilot. As he does so he is hit by a sudden flash of memory from the fight at the bar. 'At one point I was exposed to something that may have been those nanites. Damn, I better do a self diagnostic before doing anything else.'

Pesto quickly runs a scan on himself for any signals that do not belong.

Once Pesto's scan comes back all clear he moves into the back of the van, connects the trodes to his commlink and starts the slow process of a long hack.

Five minutes after leaving the Stuffer, the ork was deep in the virtual world when the van stopped at the the dive shop whose address Al had found on the public directory. Making sure Bubbles had her eyes on the girls, Al hopped out, the van's engine still running.

Five minutes and his last five nuyen in the world later, his tank was flushed clean and refilled, and Gina's autopilot carried them on their way.

Van Team
With Gina driving across the Greater Seattle area, Pesto drops into VR. Probing slowly, the spider's web immediately has several open holes that would allow for access. Upon closer examination, he finds that the majority of the entrances are dead-ends and traps.

The ork looks at Bubbles and Al before dropping back into VR and initiating the exploit. Pesto crawls through the webs without triggering active defenses. Standing inside, the meatball gains arachnine features with a hard carapace and fangs.

Tara is sprawled out in the middle of her mind--several spiders the size of small dogs are crawling over her collapsed form. Scanning the room, the hacker can tell the host is not on alert and is more advanced than anything he has ever accessed.

Chewing noisily, Bubbles twists herself around in the cramped space staying out of the way most of the time, and lending a hand or hold here or there as necessary. In response to Pesto's request to keep an eye out, she holds out her large hand and pops out a set of gleaming razor nails, then carefully places a thumb and forefinger around the woman's trachea.

"Potholes be bad." *** POP ***

Flick lets his booted feet slip from the bench opposite to the one he occupied in the corner booth. His frown as Ryan approaches in clear indication that the Ancients sub-chief is still irritated at the elven gunslinger after their recent conversation. It is only Sun's presence that keeps the meeting civil, and prevents the ganger mage from dismissing Ryan's request outright.

Even then, the atmosphere between the two friends remains quite strained. Both know deep down that the other is right, but neither elf is willing to back down from what they believe to be their only course of action.

Flick, ever the street hustler, uses the opportunity presented to extract a vague promise from Ryan that he will not actively pursue his personal vendetta against the Spikes for the next couple of weeks. He knows his friend won't be deterred by the passage of time, but hopes that his superiors in the gang, and especially Green Lucifer, will have dropped the matter by then.

In the end, neither ganger is particularly happy with the results of the exchange, but like it or not, both have made some progress with their short-term goals.

A short trip later brings the pair near the edge of the Ancients 'territory' in Tarislar, approaching the turf claimed by the Princes of the Blood. The area is lined with boarded-up or burned-out shops and boutiques, with the occasional small brick walk-up apartment block scattered about here and there.

Parking his Harley in an alley a couple of blocks from the church itself, Ryan activates the bike's security system. From there the elves cautiously approach the church on foot.

Pesto
With half a thought, you scan the closest spider. Your utility reports back that the closest spider is an Agent with the same rating as the host. As you look at the source code, there is a moment of hesitation as what you see is not what you get. Despite the fact that you can see the spiders solidly, there are absences in the code to accomodate for the various spiders.

The Church
Formerly a Lutheran ministry, the building is a single-story affair with fenced parking lot. The fencing shows heavy damage as whole sections appear to have been torn free without the proper tools.

Inside, signs of squatters having been rushed out are obvious. Fresh blood is smeared across the floor at the doorway.

As Pesto is eyeing the spiders he sends off a text message to the rest of the team:

"Even though she didn't show up with any headware on my scan this girl has a very sophisticated node. I don't see any sign of the secret node. It may be gone after all this time. Also it looks like she has some uninvited guests besides me. There are four agents attacking her matrix persone. They may be trying to stop her from revealing anything to us. I am not sure I can defeat four of them at once, if that is the thing we want to do."

:: Tarislar ::

Ryan pauses before crossing the threshold of the dilapidated church, casting a wary eye down the street in each direction. Turning to Sun, his care-free grin somewhat forced, he gives a small shrug.

"Betcha didn't think our first date would end up bein' a religious experience."

Pesto's message made Al realize that in all his theorizing, he'd overlooked another, simpler possiblity. His preternaturally dextrous fingers compensated for the tiny size of his commlink's keypad as he rapidly typed a reply to the ork and the rest of the team, manually flipped his signal strength to zero, and then, interposing his body between his comm and the girls, shot the message toward his two companions on infrared, assuming their encryption was better than his and that they would route his thoughts to the rest of the team.

<<Still think the drugs turn people into wireless nodes, but seems this particular girl MIGHT be one of those TMs for real. None of the three of us have talked to her, so hard to say whether she's more or less useful awake or brainwiped, and you need to decide now. You're the one in there, it's your call - just let us know how we can help with whatever you decide to do.>>

"I find that men who can't give me religious experiences aren't worth a second date."

Pesto is not sure if he could beat four agents so while he is mulling it over he makes a minor change to his loaded programs and then tries to track down where the spiders came from.

Pesto

It's hard to say if the missing data in your programs is making the trace more difficult, but it appears that the spiders were created here and have no data-trail.

The meatball face of Pesto's persone scrunches up in utter confusion when the orc gets back the data his track program turned up. 'What the frag', he thinks.

Not quite sure if his next idea will work, Pesto gets his tools ready by altering his loaded programs. He then uses his command program and the the fact that he is an admin on the system to order the spiders to stop what they are doing.

Pesto
The spiders hiss and begin to move in your direction. Around you, the webs begin to shake with vibrations from their movements cascading out along the edges of the node.

Elves
Glancing up and down the street doesn't show anything out of the ordinary. Inside, evidence of a brief struggle can be seen. Chairs are knocked over with a blood splatter on one wall where a skull was obviously introduced to the concrete.

*** POP ***

<<TM, that like a BM?>>

Bubbles glances quizzically up from her awkward pose holding her huge hand delicately on the throat of the woman Pesto was mind raping.

From his deep VR trance Pesto forces his mouth to work in the real world and gives the team a quick update, "Spiders are attacking me!"

He then launches his meatball throwing attack against the nearest spider.

:: Tarislar ::

Ryan takes another nervous look around, knowing that this is not the best neighborhood in which to be caught by surprise. Satisfied that they were safe, at least for the moment, the elf turns and takes a couple of steps over the church's threshold, then looks back at Sun.

"So, what d'ya think? Why don't you give the others a call and let 'em know where we's at, and then we can check this place out?"

Pesto
The lead spider scuttles to the side as the glob of meat splatters against the web. They quickly begin to move in concert. All around you, the spiders jump and scamper, weaving a tight cocoon of silk. It begins to constrict against your amorphous form breaking you into smaller sections.

Pesto is pretty sure that things are not going to go well for him now that the spiders are attacking but he grits his teeth and sticks it out a little longer. Maybe he'll get lucky he thinks as he launches his next attack.

Pesto
The webs constrict your movement and the sharp barbs dig into the meaty form of your persona. As you fling another glob, the spiders dance to the side but one of them catches a glancing blow from the attack. You see the lead spider hold fast, concentrating on contracting the web over you more. At the same time, the other three begin to layer on more webbing, obviously attempting to destroy the carrier signal between you and your projected consciousness.

Bubbles
Logging into Pesto's comm, you look over his digital shoulder and see the fight in progress. There's a half second where you think about hacking into the node yourself but realize the fight will likely be over before you can get in to help. Examining the code for Pesto's persona, you start trying to come up with the necessary programs that will hold the form together under the interference coming from the bizarre agents.

Online
There is almost a triumphant glee from the spiders as the web strands pull tight and eviscerate the large wad of meat. Pesto's digital consciousness crumbles away as the carrier signal is overcome.

In the Van
The ork hacker's body jerks and limply falls to one side.