"Why not make an appointment?"

"An appointment? We can see if he meets with people just like that."

"Just call him. If he is a mercenary he must be interested in new jobs. Can't imagine that he is shy." Mike replied.

plus one. He plans to skip the job, so he's gonna need a new one. And a good one, too, causa Lavadora ain't gonna let him go one-chunk just snap. He's bound to be interested. The rest is a matter of digits."

"Alright... let's do it. She looked at bnc and asked"My own link or a burner?"

Gerhardt provided us with fake SINs and associated 'links. I'm not sure whether you received one, too. If not, you can have mine. In case we blow this up, it's "only" a fake SIN burned. I got it up in my room, but I'll get it to you after we're done talking."

Fake SIN's for fake persons... to be a criminal almost by definition. Anna looked frustrated, or perhaps Yael looked frustrated... but whats in a name?
I am the same person regardless of the SIN -aren't I?

Who was she. "Sure, I'll stop by your room afterward" She replied and grinned at bnc, hoping that the skinny girl would be up for something extra.

"So, I handle Kynos - hoping to break the dangerous team apart and distract Zola. Anything else we still need to discuss?"

"Shall we do a 2nd test run?"

"A second test run sounds good."

"Alright, we'll meet up at the training site. We'll start it off with the knock-out of the hacker and the mage. Also, Kite will this time throw in random curveballs , so be ready for a ramp up in difficulty." Schmitt replied.

Back in the cold warehouse, everything was prepared once more. This time even the car with which they'd arrive and depart was there for their starting point.

bnc enters in good mood. "As we're on the site, we assume that the decker and mage are out, n'est-ce pas? Has Anna already smuggled in the drone?"

She casually draws a small plastic bag out of a jacket pocket and pops an amber-colored crystal into her mouth. She calls them Goldies, for all you know, and they do improve her mood.

"Not quite. Have a look over here." Schmitt pointed to a corner of the building where a new "room" had been added. Inside sat a dummy on an old couch, next to him an Aztec crawler drone.
"As far as I was able to learn, that setup should be close enough to what you'll be facing. The dummy has a mechanism that will show when a normal human has gone unconscious from asphyxiation.
You and Anna will have to work in concert to pull this off without triggering an alert."

Slobber watched the Mage and Decker intently to see how they would approach dealing with the decker.

"Any thoughts, Krestov?"

"Is he Vandemark or Pierce?"

"Vandemark. I probably should have made that more obvious.
Pierce is pretty safely taken care of with the grenade and the drone as back up."
Schmitt replied.

"So what happens now? How do we place the grenade without triggering the darn alarm?"

"Vandemark's the spider, sweet meat. The one you're gonna eat with that spirit of yours. Let's rock and roll!"

"So just tell me when to unleash the spirit - and perhaps as I do not normally use spirits to harm people we can discuss tactics as if on spirit type and so forth... I bet you are more knowledgable about it than myself."

"Summoning it would be a good start, honey."

While bnc said this she became aware that not only had the bio-monitor not accepted her signal, the damn thing had actually put a MARK on her.

It was not her brightest spirit negotiation, wrong postirue or perhaps not enough genuine need. At first the spirit did not come at all, no connection was achieved with that other place. Then she managed to force it through methodic skill without the 'Jazz' that she usually did - and once a spirit arrived it only agreed to a single service - which would be used to suffocate the dummy. The entire process gave her a headache and she sipped a few gulps from her canteen. Clearly unimpressed with her performance...

Trying not to appear emotional she texted rather than spoke >> Air spirit summoned, waiting for your que, sweetmeat.

Summon air spirit (5): 11d6t5 0 no glitch
retry (-2): 9d6t5 2
spirit resist: 5d6t5 1
drain: 10d6t5 1

"Yep, you can n... merde, what the fr-"
Swearing and muttering under her breath, she begins vigourously attacking her virtual keys, constantly uttering words not destined for any ear who has a person with any sense of decency attached to it. After some hard-pressed seconds, bnc begins to relax.
"Okay, baby-girl. Show-time!"

Anna unleashed her spirit on the dummy with an order to sophocate him until he loses concioussness, without completely killing him.

"D'uh, wait a tic, honey, I just forgot something. Jee... Yep, th-
Oh shit! Hit him now"

The spirit attack was actually quite slick: The airspirit manifested just above the unmoving dummy. The small drone immediately jumped at the intruder, but couldn't get a grip on the cloud. In one smooth motion it surrounded the dummy and the AR window showed that the dummy immediately "lost consciousness".

Schmitt nodded: "That was quite impressive. We might want to do that again later, just so you get a bit of routine. Let's hope this robot dog is as isolated from the matrix as the spider's girlfriend said."

bnc just nods silently, not making any remarks for once. She knows she messed up. Twice. If that happens outside again, the shit hits the fan.
Was ist the Goldie? It couldn't - it's s'posed to - gal!, you're losing your grip. Get yourself together.
Her finger itches instinctively, with no specific target. This problem can't be solved with a patch.

"Mike," she says in a toneless voice, "the RP capes, please. Kite, please prepare the spirit and spell and drive up the van."

She then pulls up her hoodie, in an almost symbolic way of protecting her from the looks of her mates, and waits for the van.

Mike busily hands out the capes and Kite opens the doors of the van in front of the mock bank building. Once the team switches on their trodes, they are immersed in an AR simulation with a pretty uncanny replica of the real island surroundings.
Schmitt joined them in the car, geared up.
Flatline called up a Spirit of Man, grunting a bit as the energies burned him slightly

"I'll split sustaining the stealth and invisibility spells with my spirit. Krestov and Anna are the first two to be invisible. Krestov, you go to the camera and plug in the cable."
He did as he said, but grunted again when cast on Anna, muttering: "I'll use reagents during the heist. That stung."

Krestov disembarked - noticeable only because the van lightened. Between the spells, the spirit concealment, the RP cloak and Krestov's not unconsiderable grace at moving there was no other sign of his passage.
Except for bnc of course who could track the friendly AR icons of her comrades' trodes. Still, it came almost as a shock when the end of a thin fiber optic cable was shoved into her hand, allowing her to connect to the camera above the door - the direct connection to the security host.

Anna skillfully sneaks down after activating the RP cloak. This time she stops before each door and move only once bnc gives the all clear.

Slobber does a gear check and then drapes the cloak over his FBA and moves up behind Yael. He takes a deep breath and then slowly excels, deliberately closing and opening his eyes in time.



"Hey Doc, Mike, did you build this AR rig with the ability to provide an accurate response to me trying to read motion through these doors? Might be necessary. If we're facing invisible masked mercenaries or something. But who would ever expect those people at a bank"

bnc reboots her deck before entering the van. She waits silently for the cable, either brooding or just concentrating. When Krestov hands her the cable over, she whispers an almost silent thanks, then dives into the virtual world.

Kite replied to Slobber's request: "Nope, didn't know about that skill of yours. But that's no problem, I'll tell the simulation to reveal the virtual wire frames of the simulation objects within 3m to you."
And just like that, Slobber was able to notice the movement of two "guards" behind the wall of the bank.



The camera offered little resistance to bnc's sneak attack - and gave her the needed MARK to enter the simulated security host.

Once bnc has access, she loads the program Mike organized for her and puts it on the task. She monitors it closely (and skeptically), but once the task is set, she relaxes.
"Right chummers, bring forth the key, Frodo."

"Sorry. Guy's gotta have some secrets."

Yael. Two guards behind the wall."

Yael glanced at Slobber and suggested "One for each?"

The three runners are next to the door, almost invisible beneath their RP cloaks. As far as Slobber can sense it, the two guards have come from upstairs and are now in the process of checking doors and looking into rooms.
Anna's target, the women's restroom is about 10m down the hall and will be checked in approximately three minutes.

"Let's keep to the plan. They're patrolling. Just be more careful. You've got 2 minutes to sneak into the restroom and plant the grenade.

Can also choose to just wait for them to leave"

Anna, seems disapointed - but keeps to the plan and carefully sneaks past the guards not wanting to waste any time before planting the grenade.

Once the two are in, bnc sends her MCT-Nissan Rotodrone after them. "I'm with you twofold, chums"

bnc notices at once that she has forgotten a pertinent detail: She only hacked the outside camera while forgetting about the inside ones - and her drone is more than visible on the feed sent from the Kanmushi drones the team will have planted throughout the building. The same goes for the still active cameras in the hallway and on the stairs.
A blaring siren interrupts the team as simulated guards begin to storm down the stairs.

"Simulation reset in five. Go get yourself a soycaf or something," Kite sends over the team channel.

Pissed off Anna takes of her helmet and shruged... She went directly to the kitchen and asked "What happened this time?".

Frag it, we're going to have to be better than this

"Alright, let's run it from the top. No one except our invisible infiltrator goes in unless we call and audible. Otherwise we wait until the gas grenade goes off. Also, did anyone send them the message that the emergency entrance was being opened unannounced?

bnc takes off the helmet, slightly annoyed. "Damn, Mike, wasn't the agent supposed to kill the cams? What's the use of a sophisticated agent system, if I have to watch its every step?
Okay, I'll keep it in mind next go.
Doc, can we be sure that the spider and the guards are the only ones for certain who watch the cam feed?"

Mike retorted calmly: "It was - but you didn't tell it to go inside the host to connect to the other cameras. The readout says he was only tasked with taking care of the outside camera - which it did without a hitch."
Kite fell in: "Doesn't matter anyway: Anna you didn't put an invisibility spell around yourself once you crossed the barrier. The RP cloak is good, but eventually the sensors would have spotted you.
Alright. I've reset the simulation, all bugs are back in position, we'll continue from the point where you hacked the outside camera."

"Crap... I don't like to rely on magic much, it makes one sloppy and stupid. Better to be really good at sneaking, but I'll remember to use it the next time."
She wanted to just shoot something, preferably a moving target. All that planning and thinking conflicted with her chaotic personality. Her mind seemed to refuse to fall into the dicipline and patterns required by the job - but it was a bank - not a gang. Less room for error, yet would a plan really survive the impact with reality?

bnc falls silent for a second, her tooth working. Then she flatly says: "Wakata.
I gotta pee. Be back in 2 minutes."

bnc walks over to the restroom, and locks herself in. After two or three minutes, she returns, her face slightly redder than usual.

"Do we have to suffocate the spider again or shall we start with driving up?"

If the latter's the case, bnc gets into the van and dons her helmet.

Anna sneaks past the 'ward' casts invisibility and cleans up the astral signature. She quietly made her way to the ladies room to place the grenade only opening doors once bnc gives the alright.

"Nope, start again just after Krestov handed you the cable." Kite replied.
Schmidt nodded and smiled at bnc, trying to be encouraging without it seeming patronizing. He seemed entirely relaxed about the botched rehearsal.

Kite continued: "Remember: There is a camera on either end of the corridor you have to cross to reach the ladies. The restrooms aren't under surveillance - at least not from the bank people, but the patrol will take a look inside on their rounds. They are moving methodically, looking into every room, using the stairs to go down. Once they are in the cellar, they take the lift to go back up. The interval between their rounds varies but is likely not less than 5 or more than 15 minutes."

Let's take our time on this part. Our hard clock doesn't start until the gas goes off and the shooting starts. Take a cycle to check and then double check you've done what you need to do.

bnc runs through her hair in what you learnt to be a very bnc-like fashion, then unconsciously bites her lip in a (failed) attempt to give an encouraging/encouraged smile.

"Yeah. To battle."

bnc plugs herself in, leans back, then goes limp. With your goggles, you can now see bnc's disturbing persona, that grotesque cyborg whose only feature showing facial expressions are an eyeless mask fixed 4 four inches in front of her expressionless robot face. The persona quickly vanishes as it enters the security host.