Wing steadies herself after her quick shift of position. She calmly ignores the new target shooting past it to demolish the remaining cultist. Darkhorse remains in cover and snaps a pair of shots, into the spirit, which it just ignores as it bounds into Wing. It lunges forward biting her arm as she brings it off her gun to fend the creature off. Whe a grunt she pulls clear before the jaws close, almost.

The jaws close down hard. Teeth skate off armour plates and armoured skin heavy lips slap the arm but leave only bruises. The spirit hardly seems to care as it shifts to press it's attack then something slams into it. It's warty skin bursts a strange green blood seeps from it's wounds. It stumbles backwards, still a threat, bloodied but unbowed.

A solid kick from Wing forces the spirit back on it's haunches. A power bolt slams into it's head and slides off doing it no damage.

Downstairs the outdoor team move into the building.

Darkhorse ploughs into the spirit, forcing it aside but doing it no damage. It lunges at Wing but she keeps it at bay with a warding off kick. Before it can recover balance Flat is up the stairs and neatly slices it's head in two with his katana. As the spirit fades existence the building falls quiet.

JW had a bad feeling as he moved back under cover ducking by the stairs. With the amount of fire that had been poured into the building, everything should have quieted down. The fight still raged upstairs.

He snatched Jun out of the spirits LOS and kept his shotgun trained on the door as he instantly sent a message to Flat

<<JW@Flat: I'll secure first floor. You clear the fight.>>

He hadn't even finished turning to Jun when he heard the characteristic ring of Flat's enchanted katana being used.

"Sorry 'bout yanking you 'round ma'am, just tryin' to keep you out the line of fi'ah. Keep an eye on the back door for me."

He composed another message:

<<JW@Team: I've got the first floor and I'm going to scan for traffic shortly. But we've cleared all the cultists by my count. I'll secure the stairs and Jun, and you four can clear the second floor. Our hostages ought to be there.>>

No sooner had Flat finished off the demon than he was bounding back down the stairs. Without even a few free seconds to do a proper psychometric read on Jun, he still had no clear idea what was going on with her, but the thought of leaving her alone with his friend JW had made his skin crawl.

He got back to the first-floor landing just as the ork hacker's message came through on his comm. Nodding at his teammate, he looked at the mysterious woman - "We've got three people up ahead. JW'll stay down here, and I'll watch your back," he said calmly, pointing up the stairs with his katana.

Jun looked between the two men and their conflicting directions. She didn't relish the thought of going upstairs regardless and opened her mouth to protest, but the tip of Flat's katana was a quiet but efficient negotiator.

With a silent nod she started up the steps, the socks on her feet stepping over and unfortunately enough through puddles of various liquids and toad goo as she went. Each and every step made her cringe but she kept walking, feeling Flat's presence behind her.

Flat hated playing the hardass - she seemed like a nice girl, a real wrong-place-wrong-timer - but being hard kept him in emotional neutral, a place he was good at staying in... and he couldn't ignore the danger signs he saw all around her - everything was wrong, wrong enough he wasn't letting her out of his sight again.

He just wanted to get this damned building swept and get a few moments to take a good long deep painsfuckingtakingly detailed read of her astral self.

<<"On it">>

Wing and Darkhorse quickly search the top floor. Two of the cultists appear to alive, if severely mauled, and a too new looking com system sits in a corner of one of the rooms. Darkhorse pulls restraints out and secures the two survivors.

Not finding their targets was annoying, but with all the crap he'd seen and been through today, that was an easy emotion to repress.

Following the gunsels through the second floor, keeping Jun in sight all the time, Flat wiped his katana on a towel, sheathed it, then typed a couple of messages in the air.

@JW<<Got some tech up here for you to look at.>>

@Toobit<<I'm finally going to give our mystery woman a real thorough scan, and I'd rather not be alone when I do it...>>

Then he entered one of the rooms, pulled a chair into the middle of the floor and, pointing to it, said to Jun, "Please. It's time to find out who you are."

A cold shiver went through her as she looked nervously between Flat's face and the chair he obviously intended her to be seated in. She stepped cautiously towards it before she sat precariously on the edge.

“What exactly do you mean ‘find out who I am’? How exactly do you propose you’re going to do that? I can’t tell you anything I don’t know.�

She moved slightly, shifting more of her weight to the balls of her feet which only caused the socks that she was wearing to share an audible squishing sound with the otherwise silent room and it’s occupants. She grimaced at both the noise and the feeling against her skin.

Toobit leans against the wall as the weariness of his recent actions drags at him. The dwarf tries to regain some energy as he waits for the others to complete the sweep of the top floor.

The blinking of an incoming message on his sunglasses grabs Toobit's focus. After quickly reviewing the message he sends the following response to Flat:

"Ok sounds fine to me, be right there. Hopefully she will not explode on us."

The dwarf then moves just inside the doorway of the room with Flat and Jun. He gives Flat a quick nod and then gives Jun a neutral stare. After a few moments Toobit shifts his perception the the astral plane.

Flat's message came through and JW roused himself from his makeshift foxhole.

<<@Team: Looks like stairs are secure. I'm heading to you guys to check on the tech. If someone else wants to stand watch (]b\Dark Horse[/b]?) it can't hurt.>>

JW double checked his agent's output. It showed no new nodes in the area and the tracking results were similarly empty. Looked safe. He ran a brief scan of his own to make sure that his agent hadn't been fooled. It worked well, but only the dumbest of hackers trusted their agents completely.

Arriving in the room, JW sized up the communications. Flat looked like he was preparing to work his magic.

"'Scuse me miss." As he slid past Jun and headed to comm. equipment. It was a welcome distraction from the other things going on tonight. The paranoia that he lived with in the physical world, especially when the astral intruded on it, always melted away when he got to a terminal. It was his turf and he was itching to work on it.

With Toobit on astral overwatch, Flat perched himself on the edge of a chair opposite the woman they were calling Jun. Rather than answer her question directly, he smiled warmly and just said, "Trust me. All I'm going to do is have a look at you. It's all good."

Your heart is your own and naught shall touch it. Your heart is your own and naught shall touch it. He repeated his mantra several times in preparation for whatever he might see. When he'd read the room they'd rescued this woman from, it had almost floored him, and a being he assumed was their quarry, Orion, had addressed him directly.

And then there was the other crap that had gone down in his head since then.

He'd read some nasty scenes before, but nothing like the last 15 minutes had ever happened.

Soon his shades started to strobe at irregular intervals with a kaleidoscope of hues - he had slipped into the astral himself. He had already seen Jun's own aura, now he was going to see what sort of impressions were piggy-backed onto it.

He reached out and gently laid his fingertips on the back of her hand....

Flat


Jun


For a moment Jun's head is wreathed by a golden halo. A huge unseen hand seems to pick Flat up and slams him into the wall. Even upstairs everyone can hear the crash.

Flat


Jun


JW

"Oh frag!", Toobit says as he watches Flat get tossed across the room. Then the dwarf broadcasts the following message to the other team members over his commlink, "Our new lady friend just tossed Flat like a rag doll. Some of you may want to get in here."

Toobit then moves over to check the status of his teammate but all the while he keeps his eyes locked on Jun.

Still in the astral, Flat also kept his eyes on Jun as he accepted a hand up from his dwarven teammate.

He winced as he stood - it felt like he'd maybe broken a rib. He tried to stay calm about it, but the fact was that while things had been weird before, now they were getting frightening, and for Flat, being scared hurt worse than a lousy cracked rib.

As his companions converged on the room, however, he kept his voice in its trademark monotone as he said quietly, "Don't hurt her."

The new device was beckoning:

<<System Online: RR Kernel 9.2.5.10
Checkiing for local disks, flash storage located
Mounting wirelss protocol
'Starting hardware abstraction layer - HAL
Searching for wireless file system

This was his opportunity, if he could have his comm. act as a primary wireless file system it could feed arbitratry files to the processor when it looked for configuration and binary data. Fooling required a nanosecond spoof so that it couldn't reach it's normal file system.

Wireless filesystem found at 77.32.A6.F8.3A
Wireless filesystem identified as JW

CRASH!

The jarring noise from the physical world was enough to convince JW to drop his delicate manipulations and swith to AR.

Flat was lying on the ground, bleeding. The shotgun was in JW's hands before he thought about pulling it; enhanced synapses launching him into action.

Flat instructed the room not to hurt her, but JW kept his gun trained unwaveringly. Just pointing it at her wouldn't hurt her, and was good insurance to boot.

In a tone that mixed menace and curiosity he asked "What did you just do to my pa'atna, miss?"

Wing barrels down the stairs.

"Hey hey! what the frag is going on here?", she roars. "Shouldn't we think about getting away from here before we round on each other? We don't know if the star is likely to turn up, and somebody should call Mary, and maybe then, we can figure everything out"

Wing walks over to Flat to have a look at him.

"You fine?" she asks Flat, "Or are you just a little bruised?"

Her hands that had been on her knees as she sat down, the very ones that Flat had touched now gripped the edges of the chair with an intensity that made her knuckles white.

She blinked once as Flat was no longer seated before her.

She blinked twice and caught sight of Flat standing across the room with two people concerned beside him.

She turned at the sound of JW's voice and stared down the barrel of his shotgun. She swallowed hard and looked between Flat and JW before she spoke, her voice meek and fearful, whether she was afraid of what she felt or the shotgun remained to be seen.

"What did I do to him? I... I don't know. I'm sorry I don't know.. I just felt him again."

Flat had been about to answer Wing when Jun's words distracted him from his pain - "You never mentioned a him before," he said calmly. "If you remember something now, tell us quick while the memory's fresh."

"I... he..."

Her eyes narrowed as she tried to concentrate, tried to focus on the feeling and the memory it evoked however fleeting. She squeezed her eyes shut and gripped the sides of the chair hard again.

She let out the breath she was holding a few moments later in frustration.

"I can't remember. There's nothing, it's all a void."

Flat winced as he replied to Wing. "More than a bruise, I'm afraid, but it'll keep until we get out of here - which is a fucking outstanding suggestion. We'll talk more once we're mobile. We should see if JW can find anything worthwhile on their comm gear and than get out of Dodge. And we all need to keep an eye on this one," he said, indicating the Hispanic elf in men's casual wear.

All that he said out loud. For the private benefit of his teammates, however, he wrote the following. <<My insights into our guest were simultaneously much less and slightly more informative than I expected. I haven't yet got all the answers, but for now it is enough that I believe she really is a good person. And for that reason, I intend to do everything I can to help her. Unfortunately, she may also be incredibly dangerous to us. In particular, I believe our quarry can at least track us through her, and hear what we say. So everyone's warned, and if you choose to keep your distance from us, I won't blame you. Although as dangerous as she is, she might be our only link to our quarry.>>

Flat and Wing were right. They needed to bail soon, but security was first. Keeping the gun pointed at Jun he said. "Keep yer eyes on the floor lady." Even JW's limited experience told him that few thing's counted for more than LOS with mages.

He overlayed his comm's log over his normal vision, the bright red reticle of his smartlink fading into the background.

... Init meta-version 0.1.23 loaded from JW
Mounting primary filesystem ... wfs-expoit-1.1
Executing boot loader ... ./hack2.0 ... sucess
admin account r00t granted.

r00t@unidentified_comm:___ (id-data loading) ...

He was itching for a chance to pore over the data, but they needed to get gone. He stood up, tapped Jun in the back with the gun and said, "Let's start walking."

Flat also stayed behind Jun as they headed out of the building. He was still perceiving astrally - he wasn't actively assensing her, but he had an eye out just the same for any surge of mana activity or other presences.

Once they were outside, he gave his car a once over, trying to determine the extent of the damage.

"To mine? I'll sort you out when we get there Flat. Plus I might have some sort of shoe that would do for Jun."

Wing gives directions for those driving.

Flat nodded and got behind the wheel of his car, grateful for a place to go and get his head together. Not to mention his ribs. Sitting down hurt like a bitch.

"Toobit, what if you rode in the back, and we keep our guest up front? I can't drive while Perceiving, if you know what I mean."

Toobit leaves the building with the others and while it is apparent that he is fatigued he tries his best to shrug it off. The dwarf nods to Flat when asked to ride in the back and then climbs into the vehicle. Once comfortably seated he resists the urge to just close his eyes for a few minutes. Instead Toobit shifts his perception to the astral plan and keeps an eye on their guest.

As the double barrels of the shotgun tapped her back, her upper lip twitched with a slight flare of anger. Anger mixed with a heavy dose of fear was never good for anyone, easily evidenced by what had just taken place with Flat and whatever he had tried to do to her. She quietly seethed for a moment, thinking of things she’d like to do to JW and where she’d like to put that shotgun the next time he prodded her along like cattle. As quickly as the thoughts sprang to mind and grew in intensity she clenched her fists and squashed the dark thoughts and shuffled forward out of the room with the “encouragement� from behind.

As they all massed outside the apartment building and around Flat’s car, the sinking feeling of just what had happened inside of it minutes ago washed over her. At first she didn’t want to get into the car at all but it was all too clear her options were get in the front seat, or stand there shivering in the snow as everyone drove away. Of course there was always the possibility she’d be forced to go along, so much like a sulking teenager she threw herself into the passenger seat as Flat and Toolbit climbed in as well. Once everyone was settled in she spoke up once more.

“You know, I might not remember much but I’m hardly deaf. Might go a long way if you don’t talk about me like I’m not here.�

She kept her eyes locked on the world straight ahead of her as Flat pulled away from the building and started off towards their destination.

Piling into the beat up Sedan behind his teammates, JW heard [b]Jun[b]'s complaint. He paused for a moment, preparing to riposte about how much hospitality they were showing to a possibly hostile mage, but he bit his tongue, leveled his shotgun at the passenger seat such that the slug would punch through her intestines and went back to his computer.

Messaging for a moment he said: <<JW@Team: I'll patch folks up once we get to Wing's safehouse. Please mark it on the map ARO.>>

The well armed ork complied and then JW went back to studying the feed from the unidentified commlink.

With Wing's place on his navicon, Flat steered his drafty car onto a parallel course. He didn't want to caravan it, presenting too obvious a target. But he also didn't want to be too far off, in case anyone needed back up. So he kept himself two blocks over from the Landy, but headed on roughly the same course.

Wings' flat was moderately sized, and decorated in an oriental style, with moveable panels that allowed her to change the size and shape, and to a certain extent the number of the rooms within.
Currently the panels were arranged to give a spacious feel. The rest of the furniture was minimalist, with little clutter. This suggested that either she was exceedingly tidy, or she hadn't been here for too long.

"Make yourselves at home", she said "The bathroom is over there, and the kitchen is this way" She pointed in the direction of the two rooms as she finished her sentence.

"Lets have a look at those ribs Flat" She said whilst pulling out her medkit. She tapped data into the kit, and then injected Flat.
"There. Better?"

Flat thanked Wing sincerely. She'd worked wonders - pulling his shirt back on produced not the slightest bit of pain.

It was good to be working with professionals.

He sat himself down on the floor in a corner, and once the rest of the team was settled in - and Jun where she could be easily watched - he started typing.

<<Sorry about having to do this by text - I know it's a pain - but as I said, there is a good chance our enemy, the shadow spirit Orion, is watching us through the woman. Let me recap what my astral investigations have turned up over the past hour.
First, I did a read on the room. I got far enough to know some damnably bad things had been done to people there, but I wasn't able to see exactly what because I was confronted by the spirit. At least, I assume it was Orion because its visage was composed of seven stars, which matches the number of primary stars in the Orion constellation.
The funny thing was, it was not actually astrally present - it had somehow impressed itself on the psychometric resonance of the room. I don't know if it had done so as a sort of "recorded message" for us to find - which would in itself demonstrate amazing power - or if it was actually "broadcasting" to me through the room's aura. If it is the latter, this would be an extremely rare event bespeaking immense mojo.
Worse, the thing knew who I was - it actually knew my name. Not Flat. My real name, the name I was born with. And it promised we would meet again.
Then I assensed our new friend. Based on that initial read, I am confident that she is telling the truth about not remembering anything. I also found that she is an initiated Sun shaman. That's one of the reasons I think she is innocent in all this - while it is true that anything can potentially be corrupted and twisted, most followers of Solar traditions devote themselves to destroying evil spirits of Shadow - I mean, just the symbology of the archetypes is totally obvious. Her magical power - and the fact that she still access to it on a subconscious level, was first demonstrated when she blasted the spider creature that was messing with my ride.
The next significant thing that happened...>>
Here, Flat paused in his typing. His brow furrowed, and his hands seemed to shake. Then he continued.
<<Anyway, after we wasted the two spirits I had a chance, as you all know, to try a full psychometric read on her. Now, I'm probably the best reader on the East Coast, but again, all meaningful imagery beyond basic feelings of fear and confusion were completed blocked from my view, and Orion once again confronted me. Note, however, that the pain and confusion seemed to alternate with happy feelings. I will come back to this. In any case, Orion spoke of my read creating an astral link between us. This is something that CAN happen, although again it is very rare. But at that moment, I was tossed physically away from the woman. Perhaps our mage can confirm this, but I feel certain that it was she that did that - a psychometric read requires physical contact, and her action broke that contact. I believe it severed the link the Shadow was building between us, because in the moment following, the spirit furiously called her a bitch.
So to conclude, I think she is somehow possessed. The problem is, textbook possession as we understand it almost always involves full spirit control of the vessel. But in this case the control appears clearly to be contested. This also is very rare but there are documented cases. The split emotional impressions. The loss of memory. The power that only manifests itself subconsciously. And above all, the fact that she actually saved me from the astral link to the demon.
That is why I am determined to help her, but also why I fear she is extremely dangerous to us, since the spirit is either in her or channelling through her.
So from here I see a few things we can do.
One would be to confront her with what we know - it could bring back some memories - or drive her crazy.
Another would be to try an exorcism, but I am honestly not sure if Toobit is strong enough for that on his own, or even if the spirit is actually in her in a conventional sense.
Finally, Orion is a name taken from this world. It seems unlikely that this spirit would adopt the name at random. The constellation has many names, but I will assume that since it uses the Classic version, it fancies itself akin to the Hunter of Greek mythology. Even there, however, there are a number of conflicting legends. I am hoping to have a look at the pictures JW took of the writings in the sacrificial chamber, see if we can gain some insights into the spirit from those.
Naturally you all have thoughts and opinions of your own as well, now that I've finally had a chance to>>
again he paused for no apparent reason <<yeah, to...to fill you in. As best I can. Best I can.>>

As she was herded into the apartment Jun stuck to the edges of the apartment, almost slinking along the walls as she felt alternating pairs of eyes on her at each and every movement.

There was a constant ebb and flow of tension running through her, between the soothing simplicity of the decor that she found pleasing and the feeling of constantly being under a microscope and watched like a hawk.

She watched the group almost as carefully but with a little more restraint. After Wing had given Flat medical attention Jun was actually relieved to see he was ok. She had no reason to wish harm on any of them, or at least could not remember a reason. It was obvious by the way that the majority looked to Flat on a regular basis and the way he was constantly typing that there was some type of communication going on that she would not be privy to and was most likely about her.

She forced her attention to the various shoji-like screens that divided the apartment and other little intricate details in the hopes it would keep her from being fully aware of what was happing just feet from her.

"Anybody else want treating?" Asks Wing whilst looking round the room.

<<Buggered if I know about anything magical, I'm just here to hit things and heal you guys up..>>

JW took a seat near Jun with his shotgun resting in his lap, casually pointed her direction. He was hacking furiously, the comm. gear's secrets still evaded him.

As Flat finished his speech he let his AR overlay go transparent for a moment as he turned to his self-appointed charge.

"Sorry to be keepin' ya under lock and key like this, Ms. We'ah just bred to keep our own security as ah' highest prio'ty. Hope ya' understand."

Returning to his electron world he messaged the team.

<<JW@Team: Forwarding images now, I'll clean them up in a second. At the moment I'm still trying to defeat that godawful encryption from the comm. gear on the second floor. We'll have it soon.>>

Toobit finds a comfortable looking spot and plops down with an audible sigh. The lure of taking a quick cat nap is quickly winning him over when incoming messages start to appear on his glasses. Shaking off his weariness the dwarf starts reading the messages and watching the others. When there is a pause in the messages he decides to add his own two cents:

"I am sure I can handle the exorcism on my own but I agree it may not solve her problem. Even so I am willing to give it a try. We would need to find an appropriate location and set up the correct defenses. I would like some spirit assistance/protection and if we could get another mage that would be great. Those files JW is working on may provide a better direction though."

<<All right then. JW, as soon as you get a chance, why don't you forward me those images so I can be working while you're beating on that encryption? In the meantime, Toobit, what say you get started on whatever preparations you require for the exorcism, so that it's ready to go as soon as possible after JW and I find out whatever more we can? Wing and Darkhorse can handle security, both external and internal.>>
Flat gave a pointed look at Jun while typing the last word.

After 30 seconds of effort, JW's eyes focussed back on the real world. Checking to see that the room was unchanged he messaged the team.

<<JW@Team: Alright, results are in.

First, I apologize for the images; the cameras were using MCT129 hardware compression chipsets so they could cut corners on bandwidth, that chipset is lossy as hell. I managed to clean up the pictures enough to suggest that we're looking at three humans. Likely the mage who blew away the KE guys and possibly our two hostages.

Second, Encryption reveals that there are three tickets to France for today. Probaably the mage and our two hostages again based on the quality of the fake IDs. They could be at Logan as we speak. More as things develop.

Forwarding the untouched ritual room pictures with this message || image data attached.

More to come.>>

And with that, JW appeared to go back to dozing.

So much for some time to get my head around that other shit, thought Flat.

<<So, we make best speed to the airport? And what do we do with our new friend in the meantime?>> he texted, still reluctant to conduct relevant comms in any astrally perceivable manner.

<<We could try asking Mary, and see if she has a safe place we could leave Jun temporarily, with guards (obv) whilst we go to the airport?>>

Wing wanders over to Jun, "Are you hurt?" She asks whilst kneeling down in front over her.

"No, I'm fine. Physically at least."

She took a moment to look the woman kneeling before her and then averted her gaze to the floor.

"I just want answers. And I don't know how to get them. I don't know if the people you're looking for can give them. I just want the chance to ask them."

<<Okay - first thing is we get mobile - that means the Landy since my car is having airflow problems. Whatever we decide to do, we can do from the car while en route to the airport. That includes calling the Dracos, Wing. And maybe booking ourselves tix to Paris, JW.>>

With that message, Flat picked his sword up off the floor and turned to Jun - "Well, let's go try and have a chat with them."

Darkhorse looks up. "If I can get to my bike I can act as an outrider on the way to the airport. Maybe wonder in from a different direction to everyone else."

"Sounds great," said Flat, clapping his dark-skinned companion on the shoulder. "Let's go."

Soon they were all outside, Darkhorse climbing onto his bike and the rest piling into the Landy. Jun sat in the back between Toobit and Flat, who kept tabs on her astrally. As usual, JW was constantly busy with the Matrix.

Once Wing had them on the road toward the airport, she initiated a call to the Johnson.

JW settled into the formiddable Land Rover and said "I'm gon' be out for a while. I'll keep y'all posted with what I've got."

And the frigid car ride reality vanished as he was catapaulted forebrain first into the virtual world surrounding them.

Immediately, streams of data began pouring in from the corners of the matrix. JW settled back to do some serious hacking as a window with direct access to the airport's published flight arrival times opened and he started to scour the airport nodes for sign's of their quarry's datatrail.

He knew that he only had a few minutes before they arrived at Logan, but he was in luck. The hash of the cultist's SIN's was actually stored in the reservation receipt he'd pulled off of the commlink.

The commlinks processors ground to a near stall as it tried to crack the hash, these peopel didn't know enough about dictionary matching though. The Enlish language only has 2-3 bits of entropy per letter and he'd guessed the key and reversed the SIN in seconds.

Next was tracking the datatrail to identify that the commlinks in question were at the airport. He was in luck. Their security had been opened up to a particulary aggressive advertiser who had failed to close an unsecured port. Moments later he had administrative accounts on all three and none of the attempted travellers had working tickets.

He messaged the team <<@Team: I've found our targets in the Unitrans terminal. They don't have valid tickets anymore so that ought to slow them down. I'm having my agent get us a live feed of where they are. Plane's on time should be arriving at the gate in about an hour.

Means we need to book it over there.>>

Sitting behind his ork teammate in the Landy, Flat was struck by the irony that despite their radically different specialties, they were now doing the same thing, both immersed in the computer world - although while JW was no doubt deep-sea diving in shark infested waters, Flat was splashing around in the shallow end of a public pool.

He'd turned the astral watchdogging over to Toobit in order to concentrate on the images JW had gotten of the chamber where they'd found Jun. Overlaid on his field of vision was a veritable jigsaw puzzle of AR graphics - he'd broken down the strange scrawls into bite-sized chunks and was sorting them orthographically through half a dozen university linguistics and archealogical databases he subscribed to. If the language their quarry had used was known to modern academia, he would find it.

But no dice - amazingly, there were seemingly impossible similarities to ancient writing systems of India and South America, with possible references - very interesting references - to myths from India and Egypt. Did this being pre-date the Awakening?

He hoped age didn't equal power...

<<@Team "Mary says that they are willing to cover expenses for flights, but not for bail. Remember guys, this is an airport.
Also, we'll have to cart Jun around with us for now, as Mary can't think of anywhere safe enough, fast enough.
If it all goes tits up, and we need to wait for flights, Mary also wants to have a word with Jun and have some kind of mage chat with Flat.">>

Wing then turns her full attention to the road, and puts her foot to the floor.

Immersed in an AR sea of Egyptian and Indian mythology sites, Flat shot back - <<We should make those conversations happen whichever way it goes - in the lounge waiting or on the plane flying - we should put those chats together.>>

As he continued his study, Flat also took part in a hurried conversation with his teammates - still in text, wary of their mysterious guest.

After a few minutes, it was decided they'd make a play for their quarry at the airport with two major conditions - first, they would walk away at the first sign of their plans breaking down; second, they would book sub-orbital passage to Paris as a back up.

The plan in broad strokes was for JW to learn the details of the airport's evacuation protocols, especially where the fleeing masses would be directed. Then, while the rest of the team set up at that location, the ork would trigger said alarm and they would hopefully scoop up their targets as they were ejected from the terminal with the rest of the crowd.

Naturally there were lots of details to work out, but they had enough for now for the hacker to get started with his work.