It's been a hectic week, meeting your team mates, going through all the new hire or new team bullshit and training and qualifying on some of your new gear, but at the end of the final long day of training and preparation Jeb had taken you out for drinks at a nice club downtown. The first couple of rounds go on him and then he begs off to handle something back at the base. Your left to your own devices for a grand total of just a bit over four hour before your comlinks chirp at you.

<Grab overnight bag and return to base. Briefing is in an hour. Passes are revoked. Sorry -Jeb>

<Code Black Operations Center Level 2 Confrence Room Thursday Morning 0130 approx>

The confrence room is richly paneled giving one the sense that a tour is going to walk through at any moment. The latest in AR and VR technology is available allowing members to telepresence in from other locations seamlessly. Jeb is seated at the head of the table and waits for you to get soycaf if you require and take your seats.

"Here's the situation, as you may or may not be aware CB Team2 is out of town providing disaster support down in Amazonia. Last night Team1 had an Op in the barrens go all pear shaped on them. Bus load of corp kids got lost in the barrens when their autonav got hacked. Whole thing turned into a running gunfight cluster frag until the corp brats got out of the Z zone. Net result is team 2 is a spent force so now you guys are up. As of right now your the standing ops team until relieved. Your restricted to base unless you have a pass. You can obtain visitor passes for guests to come to the dorms. I don't know how long it's going to be, likely at least until Team2 gets back into town and gets rehabilitated. Once we get all three teams back in stable we can resume normal 2 week on two 2 week off rotations. Any questions?"

Code Black Operations Center Level 2 Confrence Room, Thursday March 17th, 2072 at 0130
[PAN: Ariel Juagahan, Public Mode, AR]

Ariel walks into the Operations Center looking around taking the place in with of all the AR technology, grabbing a Soycaf and taking a seat. Sitting and listening to the briefing paying attention to all the details and impressions from the team and Jeb to get a feel of the impact of his statement. "OK, so stuff went sideways for the other teams and now we are up for duty," Looking around to the others "Sounds straight forward to me. I'd like a pass for Joanna if I can." looking down talking more to him self, "I need to give her a call soon." *sighs* I do miss her already, with two week rotations and her rotations this is going to be interesting to say the lest.

Code Black Operations Center Level 2 Confrence Room

Helmut let himself sink into the chair he was sitting in as news of what happened settled with him. He listened quietly until Jeb was finished.


Helmut stood and called out. "Were there any casualties? Team 1 or the client's?"

Code Black Operations Center Level 2 Confrence Room, Thursday March 17th, 2072 at 0130
[PAN: Sam Archer, Public Mode, AR]

Buckshot strolled into the conference room and plopped himself into the nearest empty chair. As he listened to Jeb he could contain the toothy grin that spread across his face. Finally, the chance for some action.

Code Black Operations Center Level 2 Confrence Room, Thursday March 17th, 2072 at 0130
[PAN: Vincent Mancini, Public Mode, AR]

Vincent sighs as he sits down, noting to himself to never use that taxi company again. Damn driver almost got me killed a half-dozen times...

He sighs again as he realizes that the ever-so-pleasant buzz he spent the past four hours cultivating was fading quickly. He focuses on Jeb just in time to catch the last half of the briefing. Op went bad, team 2's out for now, and we're up. A little sooner than they wanted, I bet. Ah well. Still doesn't mean we'll get called in to do anything. Better to be ready to go, though.

Code Black Operations Center Level 2 Confrence Room, Thursday March 17th, 2072 at 0130
[PAN: Matt Cordova, Passive Mode, AR]

Zues walks in from the dorm areas, bringing some kind of highly caffeinated soda with him. While getting to his seat, he's recording visuals of all the telepresenced members, and saving any data/info presented. Once the call for questions go out, Zeus starts checking news feeds for any other info on the fiasco last night¹.

"I'm assuming these weren't regular go-gangers that brought down Team 1, but I've been wrong before. Have we been able to identify the shooters to know for sure?"

Code Black Operations Center Level 2 Confrence Room, Thursday March 17th, 2072 at 0130
[PAN: Caitlin Tennant, Passive Mode, AR]

The Doctor merely sits in the back and listens quietly, only half paying attention as she surfs the Matrix, checking her messages and watching stuff on Youtrid. Team 1 poof, Team 2 poof, us up, yadda yadda yadda. I told them we'd be up and running before they planned it. Nothing ever goes according to plan. You'd think the experienced ones would know that now.

"By the time we got the call and mobilized the bus had already been attacked and quite a few of the kids carted off, the team had to split it's resources between getting the rest to the evac and hunting down the gangs and organ leggers who had made off with the corp brats. All the targets were accoutned for except two and one was killed before we could get there, our own casualties were 4 team members currently undergoing treatment and various other scrapes and bruises, all and all it was kind of a cluster as even street gangs are a problem if you need to go into their holes blind


There's ample trid footage of the events with most of the gangs in the general vacinity either raiding the bus or taking pot shots at the docwagon responders.

"Should we expect to be sent in to retrieve the missing children, or have they been declared dead already?"

"Negative, we've already gone above and beyond the contract at this point and even if i wanted to I can't risk another team. Besides there is intel suggesting the two unaccounted for may be responsible for the whole mess, our contracts don't cover protecting criminals from themselves no matter what the 6'ocklock news likes to suggest. One other thing I wanted to bring to your attention, within the last year or so the police contract holder for the city has been replaced with Knight Errant. There have been a couple ops we've been on for both Code Black and just Docwagon in general where the Knights have been a little lacking in professional cortesy or slow to respond on issues that should be their areas of responsibility. Corporate is trying to handle this through interfacing with Ares before things become a matter for the evening news but it's something I want to be aware of. If you see KE forces deployed on an op do not assume they are going to render you assistance or are even ont he same side as you."

"Shall we assume they're hostile and react accordingly, or let them take the first shot?"

"Shooting at the police should always be a strategic option of last resort for us and I hope we can work this whole issue out with them as we really should be on the same side once they stop trying to play stupid top dog games. He pauses considering. "Try and avoid a confrontation but the mission comes first, if they are endangering our client or our team go non-lethal if possible and let legal handle the mess."

[PAN: Helmut Leipzig, Public Mode, AR]

"Given past records, on average 'ow much hurry up and vait, can ve be expectink?"

There's a muted knock on the door and the lock clicks open. A tall hispanic man is ushered in by one of the support staff and he quietly moves over to a seat at the back. He looks up with a slight grimace at Jeb, clearly wondering how to acknowledge his presence correctly and eventually settles on a quick salute. Impoliteness averted, he gently flops into a chair and turns attentlively to the briefing.

His PAN is broadcasting publicly as Alvaro Estrada, an S-K citizen with a seemingly legit work visa and a Docwagon employee code.

"One sec Helmut, everyone this is Alvaro he's an exchange of sorts from our friends at SK Prime and will be helping you guys out with magical duties. Alvaro i'm almost done here then you can get aquinted with your squad."

The door opens once again and an orc in a docwagon uniform comes in. He's well groomed including a closely trimmed mustache, his hair though long is carefully kept in a single black braid. His only other distinguishing feature is a plain gold cross worn around his neck on the outside of his undershirt.

"Thanks for joining us Peter and putting on a good appearance of punctuality for the newbies." Jeb remarks shaking his head his tone more paternal and joking then actually reproachful. "Everyone this is Peter Delgado your team pilot who you are lucky to have as he consistently ranks as one of the best in the company and can more or less pick his assignments.

Peter quietly sits down in a chair. Your pardon my capi'tan there was an abelata in distress on the way over hit and run, I could do naught but help." He says by way apology nodding to the rest of you. "Jeff is too kind towards my own humble talents none of your dossier's have disappointed and it will be my honor to get you to and from whatever crisis you are needed for and assist in any way I can."

Jeb continues. "Ok Helmut here's the short answer, not long. As you may have already noticed Code Black gets two kinds of jobs, things where our existing HTRT need help and throwing additional teams at the problem won't be a direct benefit and things that either corporate or the franchise wants a special touch on. Either of those sort of taskings can come at random but needless to say you likely won't sit idle too long before something comes up.

Helmut nods at the response, and sits back into his chair, folding his legs in front of him. He pulls a stick of gum out from his shirt pocket and pops it into his mouth trying to get rid of the alcohol taste from earlier this evening. He accesses his commlink and sets it's public mode to unavailable, leaving the DW channels open. He then quickly remotes into his nexus and runs the autoupdate software, wanting to make sure everything was ready to go should he need it.

<Code Black Operations Center Level 2 Confrence Room Thursday Evening 1834 >

Despite being cooped up on the installation as the ready team things aren't too bad all the previous bull drek of team building and other mandatory duties have stopped other then some mandatory PT. Naturally the call to the briefing room comes up when your sitting down to a catered dinner. Within the briefing room a holo display shows a forty story building with an AR Tag identifying it as the Heavenly Doors a posh hotel downtown hotel catering to the wealthy and elite. Piped in on AR feeds are trid casts showing Knight Errant and suprisingly enough Lone Star response vehicles showing up at the sight. A small crowd is also forming around the barracades despite ARO's and loudspeakers instructing them to depart. Jeb is waiting there for you he skips the pleasantries in favor of brevity.

"Here is what we know and it's not much. Approximately twenty minuets ago a gala event at the Heavenly Doors being attended by several important NAN and UCAS dignitaries was interrupted by a precision attack seizing the hotel. Preliminary intel indicates some of the sites security staff were infiltrated as they assisted the attacker. The end goal appears to have been to take hostages which they seem to have succeeded. We're still waiting for a list of names and a head count. Intelligence chatter indicates this may be an attack performed by a Native American splinter grouo called the Eastern Brotherhood. I've never heard of them before so I couldn't tell you more, additionally for a group I've never heard of they seem to have some serious technical skill to plan and execute an operation like this. Jeb visibly sighs.


The situation on the ground is a cluster, news hasn't been trickling out and there are reports that at least before KE rolled in with their blanket jammers someone was actively suppressing information and sewing disinformation onto the matrix about the events. To make matters worse the area is a jursidictional nightmare. KE runs the city however the Door's was one of Lonestars last accounts in this berg so their going to get into a pissing contest. Additionally for all the two companies posturing the fact that foreign nationals and diplomats are involved means neither of them really wants to go rushing in there. The FBI might take a crack at it or they might not. In any case I expect we've got about twenty minuetes half hour max until we're asked to submit a proposal for rescuing the hostages by a national or city agency after that we may get the green light we may not but we need to make the best lead time we can. Here's what we know, the hotel has a helipad which could be used for fast rope insertion the floors especially in the central areas near the elevators are windowed which while it's not stealthy could be cracked quite nice with a breacher. Other then that there are the ground floor entrances, three plus and additional four fire exits. There may be some underground access but I don't have any data on that. Initial thoughts?"

Vincent leans forward and steeples his fingertips, all business now. "What's known about the hostiles in the hotel?"

AR image displays come up showing a variety of still of armed men and women, most but not all with Amerind features, some are dressed in in street clothes wearing leather or armored jacket and armed with assault rifles of varying type. Others are dressed as a valets and other hotel staff and armed only with pistols or SMG's

"Very little, we know they disabled some or all of the security staff in co-ordinated surprise attack and assassination tactics" Another still flashes up, an Amerind woman in the latest Zoe fashion performing a rear choke on a sec guard with a garrote.I t must be concluded that they posses some level of paramilitary training and co-ordination and relatively light armaments. At the risk of racial profiling, if they are in fact a Natam affiliated group they will have some level of magical support.

<Code Black Operations Center Level 2 Confrence Room Thursday Evening 1841>
[PAN: Helmut Leipzig, Public Mode, AR]

Helmut listens in as he begins to get to work, he's got a few targets to start on already and time was a wasting. To tell the truth he was pretty excited right about now, he finally had the chance to do something other then sit around.He decides to start with hostiles, and pulls up a new AR window in off to the side so he can still pay attention to what Jeb might have to say.



"I'm vorkin on gettink some info now." He moves the AR window in front of him to emphasize his point. "Have ze hostiles made any demands?"

<Code Black Operations Center Level 2 Confrence Room Thursday Evening 1842>
[PAN: Caitlin Tennant, Passive Mode, AR]

Rolling her eyes as Helmut went to work, she instead calmly cupped her hands together, reached into the ether, and blew into her hands. In her AR view appeared a swirling mass of cloud forming into the body of a nubile slyph with dragonfly wings. Mentally, she communicated with the data sprite. Sorry to take you away from the Deep Resonance like this, but I need a few favors, and you seemed the most suited for them. First, could you please look into whatever you can find on the Native American splinter group calling themselves the Eastern Brotherhood? Thanks.

Turning back to the group at the table, she spoke up, quietly yet firmly. "What other information do we have on hand immediately before we start digging for more? Schematics of the hotel? Have any of the doors been welded shut or broken permanently open? Locations of hostages and hostiles within the building? Any entrances on the roof, either overt or less so, such as air ducts?"

<Code Black Operations Center Level 2 Conference Room, Thursday Evening at 1843>
[PAN: Ariel Juagahan, Public Mode, AR]

Ariel arrived to the conference room still tucking in his shirt and wiping his sweaty face with a towel, it's apparent that he was doing his own workout. Siting down and catching up with the briefing after the other questions Ariel asks, "That's some good background information on the OPFOR but do we have the number of operators, any idea of there location in the building yet, and I can make a call so see if the FBI really is looking at going it or not if you like."

<Code Black Operations Center Level 2 Conference Room, Thursday Evening at 1843>
[PAN: Matt Cordova, Passive Mode, AR]

Matt walks in as Jeb is going over the situation in the hotel. Staring at the AR images of the Amerindians, Matt asks, "So which one do we think is in charge of these party crashers?"

While listening to this and input from everyone else, Matt sits down in a comfy chair and pulls up a 3D AR window viewing into his own commlinks node. He starts running through public address listings until he finds the public node for the hotel.

"Any issue with us taking a looksy for ourselves? Real quiet like..."

<Code Black Operations Center Level 2 Conference Room, Thursday Evening at 1843>
[PAN: Alvaro Estrada, Passive Mode, AR]
Alvaro turns up ten seconds behind everyone else who was at the dinner, having taken the opportunity to fashion an impromptu doggy bag. The big man has certainly seemed to enjoy American food since he arrived.

"Any magical presences seen? Spirits, wards, mages? Suprises make me unhappy, you know?"

He pops something from his folded napkin into his mouth and munches pensively as he stares at the holo.

<Code Black Operations Center Level 2 Conference Room, Thursday Evening at 1843>
[PAN: Sam Archer, Passive Mode, AR]
Buckshot lounges in his chair, taking all the information in and waiting for some of the additional questions to be answered. His trigger finger twitches in anticipation.

"No demands as of yet, the only confirmation we have yet that the Eastern Brotherhood is involved comes from an anonymous posting an anti-anglo chat board claiming responsibility, even that cannot be taken as gospel but it's our most solid identifier yet when taken with the racial pattern of the attackers it fits, precluding there's not some sort of false flag op going on, which while something to bear in mind doesn't change our mission parameters one bit. I'm currently waiting for analyst time to sift through the raw data we've got from the attack so I can't say who leaders might be or what precautions might have been taken on site. If any of you wants to go through that as part of building your profile your more then welcome to do so. Likewise if you wish to do physical recon you may, if you wish you can go down in Docwagon uniform or not and pretend to attach yourself to the ambulence crew we've already got there or any other way you like. You can tap any friends or contacts you have and I will re-emburse any itemized brib.....errr fact finding expenses less then 500 nuyen. Anyhting more then that shoot me a link. Rembmer we're still in just-in-case mode as of yet, we havn't received a request to intervene although based on my own experience and the opinions of the rest of management one is likely to come.

As to magical security and layout of the building, we've got the layout, as the attack was occurring all the buildings exterior facing windows in common areas and rooms polarized completely. Our astral recon reports that the hotel's original wards are still in place meaning the terrorists have subverted them some how as they shouldn't have had time to put up their own I'm givne to understand, that might be something worth following up on. Strictly unofficially I'll cover for you if you want to do a sneak and peek on the sites matrix node, until we're officially on the job I can't get you anything more legal then that.

He brings up the reports and video data to show where he's getting his source work on what he's given you so far as he takes a drink of water.

Now lets talk resources, we're working on the assumption that eventually we'll be allowed to enter the situation under color of law with sanction from the government and the property owner. We should map out point of ingress clarifying the picture once we gain more on site intel. I can put a HTRT at your disposal to help with the extraction or securing areas as your team clears them or breaching an alternate entrance.

<Code Black Operations Center Level 2 Confrence Room Thursday Evening 1847>
[PAN: Helmut Leipzig, Public Mode, AR]

Helmut nods as he listens the continued briefing.

When the information about the chat board comes up, he pops off a quick message to Jeb. < Have a node address for that BBS? >


He glances to the Doctor on the other side of the room. <Think we should tackle the building? Pretty sure they've got a trix jockey in there, otherwise the windows wouldn't have blacked out.>

Jeb responds with an address, it's at least on the cover a NAN revival site celebrating the cutlure and heritage of the NAN peoples, but pretty quickly gets down your standard fare hate site. The posting in question is still up but anonymized. You'd have to hack the site to gain any workable data.

The Doctor reads over the information that the sprite retrieved for her with a nod, half listening. When she gets a message from Helmut, she quirks an eyebrow and with a thought shoots him a response. <More than likely, but I say we wait to go in until we know everyone else is too. Twenty nuyen says this hack runs hot sim, and in the off chance he spots us, we don't want to alert his friends when he dies at our hands. On the other hand, couldn't hurt to take a look at the node from the outside, look for weaknesses for when we're ready to dive in.>

Alvaro chews reflectively as he assesses what Jeb's saying.

"I guess I'm gonna wander over to the building in an ambulance uniform, get a closer look at what's up. Those wards sound funky, and I don't like that. They seem pretty keen on no-one seeing what's going in there.

Anyone else in for a ride?"

Peter/Duster raises his hand.

"I will go with you at the very least sir, lets grab one of the crisis response trucks, it's big enough to hold a full suite of gear if we want to use it as cover for a ground insert, go in dressed normal, come out when it's time to rush the building in tactical armor."

<Code Black Operations Center Level 2 Confrence Room Thursday Evening 1851>
[PAN: Helmut Leipzig, Public Mode, AR]

Helmut shrugs as he receives the reply and fires off another, headed by an animated character looking very tired and ready to fall asleep. <Jeb gave me address for that board. I'm gonna try and see if I can find out who our poster is. Lemme know when we're ready to go for the main score.>

He opens another window in his AR and goes to work. Security should be pretty light on a forum, but he's seen some weird things before.

Almost in response to his message, Helmut soon saw an elven street witch in his AR field of view, winking at him and nodding, while in the physical world the Doctor simply seemed to slump over, asleep. Everyone with their commlinks on them at that moment suddenly had an ARO of a spinned cadecus appear in their field of view, followed by the Doctor's voice coming over their speakers, as though she were speaking through subvocals. <I'm gonna go take a look at the node from the outside as well as from the public access level, see if I can find some weak points in their Matrix security before we go in, make our job quicker. I'll be keeping a window open connecting to my link's video and audio inputs, so I'll still be able to keep tabs on the meeting, but if something really important comes up, make sure I know. Diving in now.> And with that, Helmut saw her icon shimmer and shift from a street witch outfit to a more business class elven woman, ready to take on the Hotel's public node, just like any other visitor. With a wave, she was off at the speed of thought, vanishing from his AR view.

For Helmut:
The iconography of the forum site is off the shelf matrix iconography dressed up with Tribal and National symbology depending on the SIG's and threads it represents. There are several hundred users lurkering and many more registered with anonymous accounts. Security presence is light with some home brewed ice patroolling the corridors betweeen the SIG's looking as much for flame wars and forum violations as for actual violations. The back areas you breach are stark and utilitarian catering to a small moderation staff who shortcut between threads with their high resolution icons keeping an eye out for trouble. While there's little obvious security there's enough original code in the moderatiors section to indicate some of the contributors dabble with some level of proficiency. THe greatest security seems to be clustered around the access logs as the site takes it's posters privacy very seriously.

(To try and gleen something from the logs please give me a computers + track roll, also give me a matrix perception roll please)

For the Doctor:

The palatial site representing the parent companies web nexus is what you'd expect for a multinational hotelier, slick programing and site layout the palace itself blending Arabian, Eastern, and European themes tastefully. Transactions and visitors flow in and out of the various well marked areas of the site including reservations and trip planing. A arabian style room of doorways whisks visitors off to the site for individual hotels. There is a press release bot currently giving out statements to visitors that enquire about the situation at the doors and a few press tagged icons ask it questions to be forwarded to management. The portal to the doors is sealed off in AR style tape and the portal itself is a dark hole in the otherwise bright and airy iconography.

<Code Black Operations Center Level 2 Confrence Room Thursday Evening 1853>
[PAN: Helmut Leipzig, Public Mode, VR]

Helmut slinks along the paths of the node, side-stepping the public front of the forums he makes his way into the utilitarian backend. Noticing the access logs he moves closer to them and begins having a look inside.

He checks his surroundings while taking his looksee, not wanting anyone to notice him.