Kerrigan

< [Kerrigan] Thanks for the warning! > With her direct neural interface, Kerrigan didn't need to speak, or even touch her commlink, to send the message to her team-mates. It was very useful at times.

< [Kerrigan] Keep an eye on the other two for now, we will go inside. >

Dawna-



Kerrigan and Halfpast-

Halfpast

Kerrigan

"Kay, Halfie, the two in the sedan know you're going in, but they're relying on the two already inside to take care of you."

Dawna's voice chirps quietly on everyone's commlinks. She moves to a position to get a drop on the men in the sedan in case the two of them make a move.

Kerrigan-

Kerrigan (for Halfpast)



< [Kerrigan] They will probably call for the cavalry soon, so stay alarmed. >

Halfpast

Kerrigan

Halfpast

It takes him a moment to wrap his head around it, but once the word slides over his head that the Russian's are organizing, and they're getting cocky at that, well Buscemi slips right back into full VR mode.

His muttering can be heard over the network. Bloody potato farmers. Let's see how them and Mr. Rodgers get along.

He spins his icon out, slipping and weaving through the public nodes of the pedestrians filing by, seeking out the sedan, and one of the commlinks within. As soon as his slick suited digital self gets ahold of the commlink, he dives right in, using brute force to gain access. He wasn't so lucky with the airline, but this time he's feeling fine. And as soon as he's in, those Russian's won't be communicating much longer.

No, they'll be enjoying a little Kenny Rodgers and the First Edition.

Yeah, yeah, oh-yeah, what condition my condition was in...

It all happens quickly, almost simultaneously. The Russian's commlinks begin to blast out the slick stylings of Kenny Rodgers just moments before Kerrigan's ghostly astral form appears in the room. The two Vory thugs jump up at the sight of her and the music in their ears, not reacting quickly enough to the door bursting open and Halfpast rushing in at the man next to it. The spirit materializes in the room between the two thugs at the same time as the other distractions, completely throwing the room into chaos.

----------------

The two Vory goons in the sedan jump up quickly as the music invades their silence, grasping their commlinks, trying to get the music to turn off. They are thoroughly perplexed and trying desperately to get through to their two counterparts in the apartment building, to no avail thanks to the quick work of Buscemi.

Seeing some activity from inside the sedan, Dawna brings her Manhunter to the ready and prepares to take out the Russian who is closest to the door, provided he steps out of the vehicle, of course.

The door bursts open as Halfpast charges in and across the room at the Vory goon standing against the back wall. Kerrigan's air spirit materializes around the thug standing next to the door and quickly makes work of the 'comrade', sucking the air from him and making him slink to the floor unconscious.

The second thug though fires two quick shots at Halfpast, one stopped on the combination of armored jacket and dermal plating, but the other digging lightly into his shoulder. Halfpast still clears the room qucikly and plants his electrified fist into the thugs chest, a resounding zap echoing through the room, knocking quite a bit of the air and the fight from the man.

With the sounds of gunshots coming from the building the thugs look back and forth between themselves in the sedan and try once again to reach their comrades on their jammed 'links.

Kerrigan straighten's herself and stands up, listening to the sounds and trying to figure out how things are going inside, after she left the room to get back into her meat body. She feels a little slow now, limited by the constraints of the physical world, but what could she do; from the astral she could not help at all. Each world has its own limits.

Halfpast

With interference being played out, Buscemi goes straight to work raiding the commlink he's accessed for information, stealing passcodes, address books, anything down to mother's potato latka recipie. Bloody Russians, always the bloody Russians. Buscemi takes a moment to subscribe the commlink to a few rather disturbing fetish nodes that for some reason he'd put to memory, and then branches his matrix presense out, attempting to access any building security, to make sure no nasty little calls to Lone Star are made while there's a firefight going down and they're in the middle of it.

Kerrigan

As she comes through the door, entering her own appartement, everything is calming down already. The spirit, she had summoned earlier, is just about to leave after the service has been fulfilled. With a thankful nod towards the entity, Kerrigan continues on inside. And the spirit vanishes.

< [Kerrigan] Everything clear up here now. >

“I guess we don't have much time. I will make it quick.”?

Grabbing her traveling bag, Kerrigan starts to rummage through the wardrobe and put her clothes and the other stuff inside, that she plans to take with her.

The two Russians in the sedan finally give up trying to do anythign with their commlinks and pick up their AKs, quickly checking the slides and then open their doors to depart the vehicle and head up to check on their comrades.

Buscemi easily gains access to the apartments node, jamming up the outgoing calls to the Star. A couple of the residents try to get a call out but instead get greeted with music and no Star. Seeing this as a sign that the Star shouldn't be involved, they give up and decide to stay in their respective apartments, grasping their small sidearms and hoping that the shots aren't going to be for them next.

Kerrigan

To help speed up the process, Kerrigan casts a spell to empower her reflexes. After one attempt, that apparantly didn't quite meet her standards, she tries again, and this time everything seems to work out fine.

“Looks like you catched a bullet there,”? Kerrigan remarks, as she sees the small wound in Halfpast's shoulder. “Lemme take care of that,”? she says and pulls out her medkit to tend to the wound.

"Bout time."

Dawna, who's arms have gotten tired keeping a clean shot at the driver, finally gets two silenced rounds off, both aimed clear at the center of mass.

"Oh this, I've been hit worst but we certainly don't need me bleeding all over", Halfpast says as he calmly stands still for Kerrigan.

<[Halfpast] How do things look down there>, Halfpast asks over his commlink as he is being tended to.

Our Siberian friends won't be getting any backup, and we don't have to worry about the Star. Soon as you all tie things up we're good to make a break for it. For once his voice is relatively calm, save for mention of the Russians.

Buscemi files away what information he can get from the commlink and starts to monitor the internal systems of the apartment building, cycling cameras until he can see the others. When he does he gives a little camera waggle to indicate he's got eyes on them.

Akita, who for her part has been keeping an eye out on the crowds and traffic near the parked coupe in case some borscht-eaters were thinking about charging out and unloading with an AK-97, looks over to Buscemi.

"They almost done?"

As the Russians start to get out of their sedan to go and see what has happened to their comrades in the appartmetn building, Dawna unleashes two silenced shots into the chest of the one departing the passenger side of the sedan. He crumbles quickly as his partner turns to see what has happened. He can't see who shot his partner, but he knows that the man got shot.

"No more playtime, Mr Vodka. I'm tired of your little toy soldiers."

Dawna, now quite sick of being in the dark, decides to take a new approach. She shuffles her skillwires and rushes the remaining Russian, going for his AK first and foremost.

Halfpast

Kerrigan

Dawna's voice broadcasts on the commlink once again.

"I want this last one alive for a little chat."

As Halfpast pockets the 2 pistols, 2 spare clips, the credstick and the 2 commlinks he hears Dawna over the comm imply that one thug is still left downstairs. Making sure that the two thugs are secure he replies over the comm "The two up here are still alive so don't get hurt taking down the last thug and let me know if you need help."

Halfpast then looks for Kerrigan and asks, "Are we ready to leave?"

Once she is finished, Kerrigan signals Halfpast that they can go.

Seeing Kerrigan's signal Halfpast nods and heads towards the door. Once there he picks up the unconcious thug, checks to make sure he is securely tied, turns to Kerrigan and says, "Ok lets go. Since we do not know exactly what is going on down there I will bring one of our friends along for questioning." Halfpast then heads to the building's front door.

Kerrigan tries to lift the other guy, in order to drop him somewhere outside on the stairway. Even though she likely won't be here in her appartement again, and there isn't really anything left she cares for, she still doesn't want the thug to lie in there, unconscious, dead or whatever.

Failing miserably, she says: “Guess I should make some more workouts...”? straightens up and then slowly levitates the body outside, while carrying her stuff, a big bag of clothes mostly, plus the minor things everyone has.

Once everything is wrapped up, Kerrigan shoots a last glance into her former home and then closes the door to follow Halfpast.

Upon hearing the news, Dawna gives the Russian an evil grin.

"Guess we don't need you anymore."

Her Colt returns to her hand once again as she finishes off the remaining sedan occupant.

As the remaining Russian putz slumps over in his seat and Dawna lifts the other back into the car Kerrigan and Halfpast exit the apartment building with one of the other Vory mobsters along for the ride. The problem is that there is going to be no way for you to be able bring the Russian goon along with you in the Comet without being throroughly squished. Luckily for you Akita's 'link starts to ring as the action winds down, your mutual chummer Bump on the other end. He was supposed to be coming along with you guys to meet the new Johnson this afternoon, but things had happened to prevent his prompt arrival and he was going to catch up with you afterwards. Good thing he has a Honda Spirit of his own or you all were going to get mighty cramped in that Comet of Dawna's.

Bump's voice is a little excited on the other end of the coms, his adrenal levels obviously up a little... and he rambles on a bit while talking to Akita, "Oi Chummer! What a night! Sorry about the meet, but Mason's Rumblers decended on The Blitz and started a ruckus; I couldn't leave Kyle in the lurch.."

He takes an audible breath and his composure solidifies. He's moved into business mode, "So did Mr Johnson go for counting in a runner not at the inital meet?"

Akita cringes when she sees the quick dispatch of the gangsters in the car. Her friends were safe and she was glad for it but killing people was something she never became comfortable with.

The ringing of the link snapped her out of her glazed reverie. "Huh? Oh! Bump, izzat you? What? No, look, listen. You haven't heard about it? Someone blew the restaurant - someone not us. Look, a few of us are grabbing our stuff now - we're gonna blow town and it might be a good idea for you to come with us. I'll let you know when the others get back where to meet us. Just be careful, alright? We've had gangers and some big Russians with guns come after us already. There's bad vibes all over the place about this one."

Halfpast pauses in the doorway to look around outside before bringing the thug out the door. After his quick survey he sends the following via commlink:

"Well all we need is one of them and a quiet place to ask some questions. Although it looks like things might be a tight fit in the car. Do we want to bring him along or just drop him?"

Dawna slams the sedan's door shut on the very dead thugs and considers setting the car on fire. Fuel being as expensive as it is, she dismisses the idea.

She eyes Halfpast's prisoner with interest.

"Is he chatty? Tell me he's chatty, or at least long-winded. I don't want to have to bite off another guy's ear just to find out what's going on. Plus you never know when they're into that sort of thing."

Bump is silent as Akita speaks, listening intently. Blew it up?! Gangers?! Russians? Ð?д Oh!

He then replies, "I have my travelling pack and blade in the trunk since I was expecting to be working with you all tonight.... With the Russians involved in this.. if I'm tied to you all, the Blitz and my apartment are both Ñ?компрометировано.... Let me know where to meet. I'll head over to the University till I hear otherwise."

He sends a quick message to Kyle:

Halfpast smiles and answers Dawna over the commlink:

"I don't know how chatty he is but I am sure you can fix that. Whey don't you clear out the trunk of anything that he can use to escape. Then I will bring him over. Oh yea, someone will need to scan him to make sure he has no signals coming off of him and we should try to make sure he has not gear in his head."

“Well, there's not much in his head for sure...”? Kerrigan says to Halfpast, winking. “No cyber either.”?

(( moved to ooc ))

"Public street, guys." Akita sends to the rest of the team. The building violence may or may not have been muffled as far as she could tell, but they were still parked on a very obvious public road.

"Also, Bump called. What do you want me to tell him on where to meet?"

Dawna pops the trunk on her car and moves her autopicker, chisel, climbing gear, flashlight, survival kit, and medkit to the backseat. She tosses her rope to Halfpast

"String him up and lets get out of here."

Halfpast waits until Dawna clears out the trunk. Then he hustles the thuig over and throws him into the trunk. He catches the rope Dawna throws his way and adds it to the other bindings around the thug. Then he slams the trunk shut.

"Ok lets get the frag out of here and head over to the old library", he says as he squeezes into the car with the others. Once inside he hands Buscemi the commlinks from the thugs in the apartment while saying, "Here I thought you might want to play with these. Just make sure that we cannot be tracked by them."

Halfpast then sends Bump a text message telling him to meet them at the library.

The street lights flashing by one, two ,three... Bump barely notices them, his thoughts on the news he has so far; The rest of his focus simply on driving. Already near the campus, he picks up the message from Halfpast and routes a new course for the old library. Hopefully they have more information than what they've passed on so far...

October 15th, 2070- 7:13:47 PM- The Old Library, North Dakota State University, Fargo, UCAS

The old library looms up over the campus around, mainly landscaping that has gone to drek and few buildings for quite a distance in any direction. What used to be the pride of the campus, the old library fell into disuse around 2060 when the new library was built on the other end of campus. The library was completely abandoned with the Second Crash in 2065 and it has become free gang territory since then. It is currently the claimed turf of the Dark Lanterns, the campus' local wiz gang. They fancy themselves Neo-Gothic Satanists and often use the old library for rituals around midnight, lighting up the skeleton of the old building with bonfires and magical light.

A harsh fall wind blows through the corpse of the building as you approach, blowing the last of the leaves from the surroudning trees and rustling up the piles of debris from around the building. The building currently looks unoccupied, the only person visible around the area is a bum sitting on a worn wooden bench outside the library, a bottle shaped brown paper bag in his hands and a couple of worn grocery bags at his feet. He looks up as your cars approach then turns back to his bottle, ignoring your pressence.

The wireless in the area approaching the old library is really patchy, but it gets much better as your commlinks pick up a node in the building. The AR overlay of the old library is made out to look like a skeleton of an old gothic mansion, complete with crumbling statues and gargoyles on the roof and balconies and even more decrepit landscape around the library. It appears that the Dark Lanterns really don't want anybody around their ritual space while they are out.

Driving across the campus, Bump feels a twinge of regret looking at the halls. Regret of an opportunity missed... then optimism. Its never too late.. One day..

By the time he pulls into the library parking lot, the momentary distraction of the campus has fleeted. He now focuses on the situation at hand. He takes note of the bum, then smirks at the AR and pulls the Honda Spirit TLX to a stop.

He takes another moment to scan the area for threats then unpacks his mosterous frame from the little car. He rolls his shoulders in a stretch, tilts his neck to the side till it pops and straightens his jacket before walking towards the team's approaching vehicle.

Dawna parks next to Bump and watches her surroundings as he steps out.

"Nothing yet."

She steps out of her own car, moving to the trunk once Halfpast is out, popping it open remotely to help remove their prisoner. She messages Halfpast:

"Do you want to play good cop or bad cop?"