Trixie scans for someplace that is across from the Palace that would be a likely spot where the Fool would want to meet.

Trixie:

You scan across the hosts adjacent to the Palace. It appears that the belief of the proximity to power measures one's own power is still in effect. All the major players, Renraku, Yamatetsu et al, have marvelous pagodas worshipping their own images and the mighty nuyen.

Nowhere here looks to be the den of criminals you're seeking, but if the Fool wanted somewhere safe from the All-Father...

Only the meatworld offered any hope of safety from Deus' rampage...

Jack glances around, tugging the duster a little tighter around him and tipping his hat back.

"He was suppos'd ta meet us here?"

"He said to meet him 'across from the home of the Infant-King'. I assumed that he ment here, cause the Tokyo Palace is home to the new child emporer. You don't think he wants us there in the meatworld, do you? If we're dealing with AI, that would be one of the only places we could easily hide from it, though even there it could have its ways..."

Her voice trails off and you see her shiver a bit.

back in the real world

Biomage jumps a bit, seeing Trixie's body shudder for a second. Glancing at the monitor, her health is fine, but for a moment her brainscan spiked.

Not settling down, Biomage leans forward in his chair. With narrowed eyes, he watches Trixie's aura intently for a few moments before settling back down into his chair and monitoring both deckers once more.

"No way we're flying to Tokyo without a little more information. You manage to get any info at all on this guy?"

Calisto whips the car tightly into the parking space outside the Doc Wagon facility. She takes a moment to grab a small case from the back seat and cracks it open. Quickly and smoothly she transforms her face into one of a simpering super model. A few quick and deft twists of her hair and it becomes a towering mass of curls. Her make up screams trophy girlfriend. She takes a moment to admire herself in the mirror. Her eyes seem larger and yet more empty. "My name is Candy and you're my bodyguard, so look tough and mean." She grabs a small bottle and puts a few drops in her eyes. Quickly closing the case and tosses it back on the back seats. She pinches her cheeks hard, giving them a red and slightly swollen appearance. She takes a series of quick, deep breaths. "Show time."

She exits the car and begins a delicate run across the lot to the entrance. Her head darting back and forth. Her hands hover in the air like nervous birds about to take flight. She rushes through the sliding doors and latches on to the first uniformed worker she sees. "MY GOD!!! You have to help me find my fiance!! My agency called and said he was shot!! You have to help me!!" Her face is about to crumble into a mass of weeping hysteria.

Jester jogs in behind her. His normal jovial face transformed into a scowl. With practice ease he sweeps the entrance of the hospital. He then lifts his wrists to his mouth and subvocalizes, entrance secure.

Years of badgering ground crews with mean looks and harsh words flare back onto his face as he glares down any fool stupid enough to get within ten feet of 'Candy'.

"Unfortunately little. I know where the enterance to his SAN is, but its a tough nut to crack. I analyzed him and all I got was that he is a Decker. Want to go check his SAN?"

Calisto/Jester:

The histrionics of the latest Sim-Starlet to walk in the door brought several people rushing forward. They immediately stopped, moved their hands slowly away from their bodies in a non-threatening manner and backed away, when the silver-haired bodyguard entered. Only the poor orderly who got latched onto first is still close to Calisto.

He seems to be caught between a need to help her, a desire to free himself from her grasping talons, and the urgent sense that he is going to die if he lets his hand fall somewhere on this model that the bodyguard would deem inappropriate.

"Y-y-yes, come this way. What was the name of your fiance?" The uniformed orderly slowly pulls away and moves towards the processing computer that keeps client charts.

Calisto lets a look of confusion pass over her face at the lack of immediate response to her distress, she is one of the important people. She allows her thoughts to sluggishly pass across her face. The orderly is treated to the sight of nuerons firing in Candy's mind. Her face breaks into a scowl as she whips around, her voice laced with obvious disdain. "Would you stop scaring these people, I need them to do things!" As she stomps over to the Jester. "He's just some sort of waiter or something here." She slaps the menacing older man with all the force of a wet tissue, in the chest. "I swear."

She turns and peevishly marches over to the orderly. Her face, once again, a mask of sim starlet tradegy. "Jaron Falcone, is he ok? Can I see him?"

Calisto/Jester:
"Falcone..."

The orderly searches frantically through the computer database.

"Ah, here it is. He is in observation room seven. Just this way."

He gestures to the sign that says "Observation 1-10 -->" and starts to walk down the hallway. The orderly tries to keep enough distance between himself and the Starlet that she can't latch on to him again, but not overly far.

There are two DocWagon guards posted outside Jaron's door with assault rifles--apparently Platinum membership has its perks. As the orderly opens the door, you both see the executive turn to face you. Falcone is seated upright in a wheelchair. Barely missing a beat, he calls out.

"My dulcet darling, come to see your beloved in his tragic state?"

"Jarone!" She rushes past the orderly as she breathes out his name. Quickly falling to her knees by his side, she gingerly puts her arms around his neck, burying his face in her curls as she smothers the side of his face with pettite kisses. Placing her mouth just next to his ear, she whispers.

"Things have gotten a little out of hand. We went to the doctor's and had someone watching us with a drone. It seems "who" ever killed the doctor is cleaning up after themselves. We met a "friend" in the matrix who may have more info but nothing yet."

Tossing her hair back and switching to the other side of his face. "I was so worried!" She begins to kiss her way down his face to his other ear, whispering again.

"What's going here? Hafiz spilled the beans that you were working with the deceased. I found a wierd trode net that had some serious code in it. We are having it cracked right now but we're playing catch up here."

deleted.

Calisto:

As your eyes scan across the room, a motion sensor for the lights and a vidphone seem to be the only threat to security.

Calisto/Jester:

Jaron locks his eyes onto the rigger-bodyguard.

"Please, come in old friend. Orderly! Close the door and remove the guards. This man has been protecting me while they were still wearing diapers."

The orderly scrambles out of the room at the crack of command in Falcone's voice. The door slams shut and the sounds of booted feet moving, echo down the hallway.

Jester moves in quickly behind her, ushering the orderly out with one hand, and closing the door with the other. He stands next to the door with his back to the wall.

Jack shrugs.

"We may have to drop by in person after all. Stay here, and ah'll head back and check out the chip, and do a search on the Fool and see what we can find out."

He leaves a commlink open to Trixie to his deck, and rezzes out of the virtual world.

Jack blinks open his eyes, and blinks at Biomage for a moment.

"Alright, ah'm going to slot the chip in cold ASIST and see what it does." He gives a half hearted grin, "If I start twitching or anything, go ahead and pull the plug."

He dives back into his deck, opening up the port the BTL is plugged into and watching it begin to construct it's virtual enviornment.

Calisto/Jester:

Jaron wheels back a little bit.

"Ok, quickly, what names did you use on your entrance if they ask later? As for Zeidel, I'm not sure what is going on, that's why I hired you. He dropped off my radar about two weeks ago. Before then he was researching how to create an AI in a sub-matrix that was being made up through wireless links. Who is this friend?"

Jack:

The log cabin dissolves around you, until you are standing in an open field. You are drawn forward to a small mound covered in grass with a rabbit hole. Momentary panic overrides the simulated link as you fall head over heels down the hole.

Music blares loudly from a Thrash-Metal band as you pull yourself back up to your feet. Children slam-dance with their elders while men and women of all ages and races travel through the crowd passing out drinks and fruits. You take a moment to sip at the beverage handed to you. The cool liquid vaporizes as it touches your tongue.

Three doors stand open along the wall. The center one glows with a sickly green color, framing it on the left and right is a short metal door that comes up to your knees and a passageway shrouded by a scintillating lovebead curtain.

Calisto stands. "Candy. A decker by the name of the Fool. He/she gave us a disappearing SAN to meet." As she talks she pulls out her phone, powers it up, and dials out to Biomage. "Let me check with the others and see what come of it."

Trixie frowns, a little unsure of what to do next...

I guess going back and checking on that SAN couldn't hurt...

The matrix shifts around her as she moves at the speed of thought through the LTG. In a nanosecond she is back in the alley, just outside the SAN.

Biomage:
You almost jump out of your skin as your cellphone begins to ring at your side. Both deckers seem to be doing fine despite that fact that they are both folded over in ways that only a cat finds comfort in.

Trixie:
Landscapes blur past you until you are standing back in the rundown alley. It does not appear to have changed since your last visit. The rat looks at you and waves wimsically.

Jack:
The music thrums on, reverberating through your body. The Simulated Sensation seems to be flawless as it waits for your choice to trigger the next step of the program, meanwhile the concertgoers continue their party.

Wren:
The calm hush of the hangar is broken only by the sound of your newest member's cellphone. With two of your party out and two more unconscious, vying for information through the digital world which overlays your own, the team seems to be a small pebble thrown amidst tidal forces beyond its comprehension. Only the thought of doctor's bills and miracles waiting to happen keeps your mind on the task at hand, rather than dwelling on your young child.

Jester:
Jaron seems to be remarkably healthy for a man who came out of trauma surgery only hours ago. If it wasn't for the wheelchair, he might still be the man you remembered from the matrix and his cyber-foyer.

Calisto:
A stray bang falls down from the mass of curls and crosses your vision. You push it aside without a thought as the cellphone rings.

Biomage takes a second to jack his phone, and answers on his transducer, "What?"

He continues to watch the two deckers during his conversation with Callisto.

Wren waits patiently as Biomage takes his cellphone call. Hopefully it would be good news for a change.

"Biomage, I'm with our mutual friend and he's on the mend. I needed to know how the research was going. Did they find out anything useful?" Calisto walks over and leans against the far wall.

Biomage replies, "I dunno. They're still jacked in, so maybe not. Nothing's happened to them yet, so everything seems fine. I'll let you know."

He continues to watch the two deckers as he speaks. In mid-sentence, a flash of a possibility passes into his mind. Cellphones can be traced, but anyone who wants to know where they are or what they are saying would already have drones in place. What about spirits? Would a rogue AI hire runners to give magical surveillance?

Biomage does a quick scan of the hangar on the astral to see if anything is out of place.

Calisto takes a deep breath. "Jack's deck should have a keyboard interface. Do a quick message and see what's happened in there." She waits for Biomage's reply.

Biomage:
Scanning the room quickly, you don't sense any astral lurkers within the hangar.

Jack steps forward, shrugging his shoulders to shift the virtual jacket across his shoulders, and touching the green door in the middle.

Jack:
The acrid smell of acid washes across your nostrils as you pass through the doorway. The landscape shifts once again to a large chamber with middle-eastern architecture made of glass. Silk pillows float on pools of green ichor, beautiful women laying upon them.

The sirens beckon you closer and wrap their well-toned arms around your shoulders, waist, hips, and legs. Lips with the smell of fresh strawberries pout slightly until they pull you all the way into them.

"Come closer, join us, give us your body and take pleasure in ours."

The desire to kick into a full sim-feed becomes almost overwhelming as you look at the proffered flesh.

Biomage checks out Jack's deck and finds the keyboard. He types a message to Jack.

Find anything? Callisto needs an update on your progress. - Biomage

Jack watches the message flash across the corner of his vision, and starts, sending back a quick reply.

I'm going to need a few hours to... No, no, scratch that. He rethinks and sends a different response.

Typical BTL so far. Still checking, as he pulls away from the women, thoughts roaming back to Sully as he tips his hat and steps back through the door.

Trixie looks the rat over a bit more, seeing if there is a way to get this SAN opened up.

Trixie:
Under your scrutiny the inner-wrking of the rat are laid bare and it is a thing of beauty. Custom crafted, the rat interacts with the world around it on a limited scale, but seems to be drawn to the Fool enabling it to sniff out the decker across the Matrix.

Expanding your prying senses to the alleyway you are standing in, shows the patch codes holding this rundown section of the grid together to be done by the same artist's brush that crafted the rat. You don't see any trace of the door that opened out of the Fool's personal playground.

Jack:
Turning away from the women, you see the green haze that you passed through is gone. Passing through corridors filled with the same green ichor, you scramble from pillow to pillow. The hallway branches off at several different points, but you avoid the evil garden gnomes with corkscrews plunged into the minds of people in the smaller chambers and reach the massive doors at the end of the passage.

The sound of gears turning becomes audible as you approach within arm's reachof the doors and they open for you. A horse with western saddle stands tied to a post--slung over the saddlehorn is a lariat. This melodrama is completed by the rodeo-clowns tumbling away from you as a bull stamps its hooves into the ground a few times and charges towards you, horns lowered to gore your midsection.

Trixie assumes that the rats current dorment state means that the Fool is offline, so she takes another step towards tracking him down. A real easy one, he lets him track her. She reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a notepad and a small roll of tape. She quickly writes down her cell number on the paper and then tapes it on the floor, just under where the wall ripped open for the SAN.

"If you want to meet in the meat, we'll need to talk a little first.

-Trixie"

Taking one last look around, Trixie lets herself fade from the Matrix and return to her body. Her eyes flutter open as she reaches up and unplugs the datacord from her jack.

She looks at Biomage and smiles, "How is Jack doing?"

Biomage, cell phone in hand, replies to both Trixie and Callisto, saying, "Nothing so far. He says it's a typical BTL. Let's hope it doesn't pack any surprises."

"Did they get any new info from the decker that Trixie ran into?" Calisto moves and leans close to Jaron's right ear. "We think there might be a BTL connection here, don't ask but so far no good."

Jack's eyes flash open in surprise, and he dives out of the path of the bull, scrambling towards the horse and the lariat, leaping astride and wheeling the horse around to face the bull.

Jester walks around the room, examining the mundane objects with a careful eye. He glances out the window a couple of times, careful to replace the blinds.

"Geez Jaron, I want your doctors. Hafiz thought for sure you were dead, and look at you. I expected to walk in here and see a man on life support."

Jester:

Jaron laughs a little bit and it turns into a racking cough.

"Well my friend, you are looking at a man with eleven hours of trauma surgery under his belt. Which was followed closely by a visit from some tribal healers. They put me back together as best they could, and gave me a polished, healthy glow to convince the doctors that I'm well enough to be released. I should be back on my feet, figuratively speaking by the end of the week."

His voice drops off to a bare whisper as he recognizes his handicap.

Jack:

As you roll out of the way, the bull's horns catch your flared out jacket and tear the base severely. Worried more for your life than your coat, you mount up and kick the horse to action. Everything you know about horseback riding seems to pour out of your hands and feet into fluid motions between you and the beast.

Wheeling the horse, you begin swinging the lariat over your head with one hand. you take aim for the spot just ahead of the raging bull, allowing for it to come to the lasso. The one thing you weren't expecting was for your horse to start singing your favorite country tune. The unexpected chorus throws your aim off a little and you are forced to pull the line back in to try again.

Thunder's just a noise boys

After a few more attempts with the lariat, you succesfully rope the bull's horns. Quickly wrapping the other end of the rope around the saddlehorn, you and the horse work the line until the beast's mass reaches a critical balance. Pulling hard, as the horse turns, you are able to jerk the bull off-balance and he lands with a heavy thud.

Lightning does the work.

You dismount with grace and stride over to the beast to tie it up. The crowd cheers, a deafening roll of thunder from the rodeo fans. Standing amidst the horde, the Roman Emperor extends his hand, ordering death be dealt.

The rodeo clowns race forward to give you a gun. The familiar weight of the Cavalier Deputy is comforting in your hand.

Biomage answers, "No word from Trixie yet. She just jacked out. Trixie... Did you find anything?"

"Not much. The Fool is paranoid. I'm gunna try one more time to setup an online meet, but if that doesn't work, he wants to meet in the flesh. In Tokyo. He said he wants to help us against 'him', whoever 'him' is. Likely either the priest or All Father. I left him my number to contact me, hopefully we'll get in touch soon and get more info."

Biomage reports, "Nothing. Trixie says the Fool wants to meet in the flesh and help us against some guy. She thinks it might be the priest or the All-Father. She left her number for him."

"Ok, we'll be there soon after finishing here and collecting our pay stubs." With a snap the phone is off and back in Calisto's pocket. "It seems our friend is another trained professional like Jack. He wants to meet but it's over seas, Japan to be precise. He claims to have info about our mutual friend who cut up the good doctor. You mention covering travel costs?"

Calisto:

"Well, I trust your judgment. I presume that Hafiz is wherever your team is working out of, tell him how many people are traveling and what gear it will be necessary to either sneak past customs or arrange to have in Japan. Transport should only take a few hours to get reservations made, the gear might take longer."

Jaron seems to have no problem taking you at your word that this is necessary for the job.

"Now, come my darling, let us go see the doctor. The sight of my fiancee has given me the strength I need to pull through this crisis of the flesh."

Jack frowns, turning the pistol over in his hand for a moment. He glances up at the crowd, still cheering, and the Roman-esque emperor, and holster's the weapon, swinging back up onto the horse and pulling it around to search for an exit.

There's no way someone built some sort of rodeo BTL that's the hottest thing around...how did it know?

Jack:
You mount back up as the hordes realize that you won't satisfy their bloodthirst. Wheeling your mount, you see the passage that the Rodeo Clowns have been using.

The horse begins to gallop forward at the touch of your heels to its side.

Clearing the arena, the screams of the crowd are replaced by the roar of an engine. Your steed has become a huge Harley Davidson as you barrel down the burnt out corridors of an abandoned town. The feeling of Sully leaning against your back, brings a sharper edge of clarity to the world.

She points across the plains as you leave the charred husk of Dallas, a cabin rests in the distance.

Biomage announces somberly to the group who is listening, "Jaron is still alive. Callisto is coming back with some money for us, and hopefully, some information."

He types the same message to Jack, Jaron is still alive. Callisto is coming back with some money for us, and hopefully, some information.

Adding, Find anything?

He continues watching Jack's vital signs with astral perception.

Jack nods, smiling, and guns the engine a little more, watching the cabin grow near. A second passes as Sully leans against him, and then Jack starts, glancing back over his shoulder.

Not my memory...it didn't get everything...

With that thought, Jack dumps himself out of the chip, glad the ASIST wasn't running hot.

Jester followed the happy couple out. In his head he starts calculating what would be needed to run the Japanese boarder. And it wasn't going to be easy. Not easy at all.