Biomage nods and says darkly, "Everyone has their price. All we amount to are mercenaries. Push the right buttons and offer the right amount of nuyen, and we can be made to change sides. Anyone can; some more easily than others.

"It would make sense if this AI turned Wren for its own gain. We may never know just when that happened - or how. We should all watch ourselves now.

"Explain to me what you just said, old man, and no riddles this time. It's important. Are you saying that this AI was Zeidel's creation, and that it began with a copy of his personality?"

Calisto:
If the target is actually an AI as you hypothesize, then it is possible that he discerned Wren's identity and patricipation in this exploit. If that is the case he could have decided to utilize the man's talents. As for the hitter, I can't see any connection between him and Wren but he could have been hired through an anonymous drop by the AI. Following a fund transfer, Vladikof would stay on the job until it was completed.

Team:
"Open your mind and find there mine. Hoping you're fine and mind the mime. Rhyme schemes mend till Time sees end. Take the path of break-in math."

The Fool looks at the team for comprehension, but continues on.

"Life was made where cypher played. Idol plans of idle hands."

Nanashi:
Holding the book, you turn it over in your hands and can feel the purpose and determination that emanates out of it. A man in his middle years, salt and peppered hair cleanly cut, sits down at his desk and unplugs his deck before writing.

Later he writes again, this time the hair near the base of his head is shaved off and synth-skin holds wounds closed. He thinks and words appear on his computer even as he is writing them by hand in his journal.

The man lifts the journal up to write in it, his hair is unkempt the shadow of a beard long since given time to come into fruition. He hurls the journal across the room angered by what he sees, but unable to leave it alone in his fury, the man lifts it up and places it in a wooden box under his matress. Scowling at the bed, he moves over to an ergonomic chair. The soft white leather absorbs his body and he dreams of cyber-angels.

"Hmm...seems he degenerated after his surgery, which let him communicate with his computer without wires...last I saw, he was angry...putting his journal aside, and going off to dreams of cyber angels." Nanashi mused as he pondered his vision.

Maybe I can get him to talk if I do the same thing.

Biomage says, "You are making less sense the more you speak. Senseless speakers make no sound once still."

That didn't come out right. Or maybe it did.

He finishes with a confused look on his face.

"Time is precious, yet time is wasted. While we are still, All-Father is not still. What is his true nature, and what is his true name, the name which we dare not speak?"

Part of me wants very badly to hang this guy from a building with some rope, a grenade, and a lot of duck tape. I bet he would answer more clearly then. No, I'll save that for someone else. He says he wants to help. I wonder if he's afraid of the AI observing him and understanding what he is saying. Maybe he's been scorched. If we have to talk to this guy much longer, I don't know if I could take it.

Trixie looks at Biomage with a flat stare. "Would you just shut up. Once we're done I'll translate anything you aren't capible of figuring out."

Trixie's tone makes it clear she is loosing patence with Biomage.

Calisto knocks on the table to get everyone's attention. "Maybe we should move this discussion to someplace more secure? I'm sure Nanashi can set us up with a location that's fairly safe. When we get there we can beat our heads against this wall in private."

Trixie gives the Fool an apoligetic look. "Excuse my frie... co-worker." She glances sideways at Biomage and back, "He isn't a part of the group for brains."

"However, Calisto is right. We should get to a more secure location. It would be an honor if you would join us, please."

The Fool nods and begins to pack up his bag. The wait staff seems to pick up on the non-verbal cues and brings over a small cred-reader in whch he slots a certified credstick.

Biomage looks at Trixie and says, "I'm glad a geek like you is able to follow this drivel. I don't have the patience for this tech babble."

He stands up and watches the surroundings for signs of trouble.

Trixie[b] rolls her eyes at [b]Biomage, then turns to Jester, "Got room in the van for one more?"

Assuming he says yes... "Lets move in to our new temporary home then, shall we?"

"Yeah, I have a place we can go. We'll need to stop by the store to pick up some munchies, though. Wasn't expecting to bring company over." Nanashi said once Biomage and Trixie had had their words. He then joined the group in the van, directing them to a corner store a couple blocks away from his apartment. "I shouldn't be too long." he said before heading in.

"Ok all, let's be good guests and grab whatever we'll need in the way of food for the next couple of days." Calisto guestures for eveyone to unload and do their shopping. Before leaving she turns to Jester. "Keep an eye out for any problems. I know you can't light up the area with sensor noise but do your best. Turning back the group. "Someone grab some local papers, I want to see if anything odd has been happening in the area. Something that would only really stand out to us. Kids going missing, and the like."

Trixie frowns... "Eww... Hard copies."

Jester nods as the group starts to climb out. He sinks back into the electronic world scanning the horizon for possible threats. He leaves the Opel's engine running while they get snacks.

Slowly the team begins piling out of the van, heading into the convenience store. Teenagers rest in dark alleyways, their minds given over to the digital realms of chipped fantasy. Trixie picks up a copy of two local newspapers from the outdoor stand.

Jester:
Your sensor heightened awareness spreads out over the neighboring city blocks, there are hundreds of people moving in the nearby area, filtering out the background traffic of gridguides and passerbys you get a hit on something resting on a nearby rooftop, it is hard to say what it is due to some sort of sensor baffling material, but it may be some sort of metahuman with a similarly cloaked weapon.

Jack crawls out of the van, stretching, anxious to get ahold of something not resembling packaged rations. He glances around once, casually, and turns back to close the van door once everybody's exited.

Biomage selects whatever he can find that most closely resembles spicy shrimp rolls and yakatori chicken that doesn't seem as though it will make him sick, and he heads over to the counter to pay for his food.

Stepping out of the convenience store, arms laden with bags of disposable soy snacks, the team starts moving towards the van. There's a crackle of energy as your comm systems come to life but before the words come out the sound of two wet sickening thuds escapes from Biomage's chest and head.

Calisto tenses up, waiting for the van to spring into action. She quickly makes a mental map of everyone's location.

The van's engine roars to life as Jester pulls in a tight half-loop. The side door rolls open as Calisto moves in to catch Biomage before his body hits the ground. The mage's formfit armor is doing a good job at keeping the exit wound in his back pulled shut, but his heart is still pumping blood out quickly. Fragments of skull and gray matter soaked in the red fluid that grants life to all of meta-humanity lay on the parking lot. With a heavy grunt of exertion, the female assassin is able to lift the cyber-armed mage's body into the van.

Trixie was in mid bite of her snack when the attack came. Those that notice her, see that she is staring blankly at the blood on her hand, where she was just about to take a bite.

Nanashi was likewise stunned and splattered, this being the closest he had ever been to a sniper's victim.

"Down!" Echoe's over the comm as the Rrigger slams the van into gear. His mind reals as his sensors register the hit on the mage.

You wanna play sniper eh? Jester says to himself as his mind puts the pre launch on the firebat.

"Tango is 090 degrees, 150 meters and 35 stories up."

Calisto draws a breath. "MOVE YOU TWO!!" She snaps her voice, hoping to jar the other two into action.

Indeed jarred back into action, Nanashi grabbed onto Trixie's arm and pulled her after him towards the van. Hopefuly the sniper was content with his target, and wouldn't start shooting at the rest of them.

Trixie hardly notices as she is pulled into the van. Her pupils are diolated and her arm is stiff in front of her face, where she stares at the splatters of blood.

Inside her head, the flashbacks hit her like a ton of bricks. Blood, gore, and robots float through her. Friends, parents, and children... and inside it all, he is there watching her. The old man in black with the scar over his eye.

Jack helps, dropping everything in his hands as he pushes Trixie towards the van, still mostly in shock himself.

Trixie:
The one-eyed man looks around your mind's display and a raven flies through the mayhem to land on his shoulder. "I'm sorry my child, choices were made. Come to me, let me end this pain."

Team:
As the young otaku is pushed bodily into the van and the last of the team climbs inside the large door slides shut. There is a quiet whirring noise as the rotordrone is launched through the top of the van. Rolling of its own accord, the vehicale begins to leave the scene of the accident and head for a hospital.

Jester feels the wind on his face as the Firebat surges through the air. His muscles strain as he pushes the rotor to it's maximum speed. The Ranger arms rifle rotates around in it's cradle looking for his target.

The Firebat soars upwards out of the van and begins to close the distance with the sniper. Climbing steadily up, he reaches out with the augmented senses to try and find his mark.

Below the rigger in the van, Calisto rips the medkit from the back of the driver's seat draws out several bandages forming quick tourniquets to stifle blood flow and applies heavy pressure to the head wound. Convinced that the mage will not die en route to the hospital, Lady Death sits back with her blood stained hands and assesses the requirements for cleaning this van so it won't look like someone got killed in it.

Its been almost two minutes now and Trixie is still laying catatonic in the back of the van.

Nanashi was glad that Callisto was the one applying the first aid. He was still queasy at the thought of looking at the wreck made of the mage, let alone actually touching him. He probably could have gritted through it to apply a healing spell, but that would only hinder professional medical care. So instead, he focused on Trixie. "Is she like that every time you get into a fight?" he asked.

Calisto moves from Biomage to Trixie. She quickly checks her over for any wounds. "I don't get it, she seems fine. No wounds or anything. It might be a side effect of the conditioning but I thought the doctor cleared that all out." She quickly does a check on her vitals while talking to the van. "Jester, he's not going to die but I can't do anything else for him. He needs to be checked out and soon." She shakes her head over Trixie's unresponsive form. "I can't find a reason for her condition, physically she checks out."

The image through the rifles scope was fuzzy, but it was the best Jester could manage. The wind buffeted the drone as it climbed up between the skyscrapers of the japanese town.

*CRACK*

The rifle barked as the high velocity slug spat out the barrel in a cone of fire.

Jester:
The form of the assassin shifts and wavers like a mirage in the hot desert sun. Taking the shot, the report of the rifle brings audible screams from the street below as people run for whatever cover they can find. There is a muffled explosion several hundred meters away as the bullet explodes against the wall of the building. The assassin turns to look back, not seeing the small drone in the busy streets of Tokyo, he opens the roof access door and begins to run down the stairs with it swinging lazily shut behind him.

In the van:
Some of you turn your head slightly at the sound of a single gunshot in the street. Trixie does not have any wounds, she simply seems caught up in her own personal horrorshow as her eyes beat furious rhythms against the backs of her eylids. Biomage's breath is raspy and shallow, he won't die in the immediate future, but Calisto's aid will only keep him alive a matter of hours or a day on the outside.

"Dammit!" Jester's physical body screams and jerks.

In his mind he cursed himself for missing. A simple switch put the drone on an autopilot vector to return to the van. He then sent his mind back to his body, and to direct control of the van.

"Sorry guys," his voice echoes over the internal comm. "the bastard got away, I am bee lining for a hospital so if anyone has a better idea, now is the time to let it out."

Jack shifts Trixie to a slightly more comfortable position, more confident now that she had been cleared of at least physical wounds.

"We haven't really done much fightin', but she did kind of look like that when she bumped into that AI on the 'trix."

"I don't know if he has a SIN we can use." Calisto turns to Nanshi. "Do you know a street doc that can handle this sort of trauma?"

The top hatch opens for the drone to drop down through. Distant sounds of sirens build louder as patrol cars plow past the discrete van at high speeds. Soon witnesses would be questioned and answers would be sought.

With a flip of a electronic swith the library transponder switches modes and the license plate displays new information.

Trixie's eyes flutter open. She slowly sits up and currles into a ball in the back corner of the van, weeping softly.

With a look towards Nanashi to keep watching their "patient", she moves over to Trixie. The discomfort is written all over her face as she struggles to offer comfort and support. Lowering her voice she speaks softly. "What happened back there?" She hesitates, uncertain what physical comfort to provide. She settles on a hand on the shoulder.

Trixie looks up, cheeks stained with tears, and horsely whispers, "Sometimes... sometimes I kinda blackout. Its like I'm back at the Arc all over again. But now I see All-Father there too. He keeps telling me about 'choises being made' and wanting me to come join him... Why did Biomage die?"

"He's not dead, just badly injured." She turns to block the view of his body for the moment. "Does he say what choices?"

She shakes her head, "No.. just they were made and that he wants to end my pain."

"Ok, just take some time and collect yourself. We're going to get some medical help" She gives the girl's shoulder another squeeze amd moves back away. "Jester, any sgin of pursuit?" Her voice once agin is strong and even.

"Hmm...let me check..." Nanashi said as he once more placed a call, this time to Suzumi.

"Hello?"

"Hey Suzumi, it's Nanashi."

"Long time, no see...where you been these days?"

"Been busy on a project, then Yoko asked me to give some friends of hers the grand tour. Unfortunatly, trouble seems to have found us. You wouldn't by any chance know any street docs that are good with trauma?"

"Sure thing...Dr Nikuya should be able to fix your friend right up. He's a block down from Laiko's."

"Thanks a bunch. Talk to you later."

"Alright. Don't be a stranger."

Hanging up, Nanashi turned his attention back to the group. "Seems it's time to see the sites in Old Tokyo." he said, giving Jester the directions.

"Thanks doll, rerouting now," came the voice over the intercom. The large van suddenly took a hard right, cutting of a small two door electric job. The echoes of a curse in japanese faded through the air as the rigger took another right down an ally.

"Everyone grab something."

The van accelerated, the hum of the EFC engine growing audibly. Suddenly a barrage of horns and curses assaulted the vehicle as it darted out into traffic. Slicing like a knife between car as Jester maneuvered the vehicle through the cross street.

Tires screamed as he threw the van into a left turn, nearly trading paint with a cargo truck going the opposite way.

"All right were on the right street now, ETA five minutes."

After several long minutes of erratic maneuvers, the van puts all four wheels back on the pavement and finishes the drive sedately. Old Tokyo, lays in the shadow of the 21st century's mega-corporate growth. A sprawl that is going the way of all forgotten cities, there are burnt out neon signs and ganger-trash groups lurking on street corners. Pulling in front of the address Nanshi gave for his street doc, you realize the emphasis was on the word "Street".

Dr. Nikuya, which linguasofts translate closely to Butcher, runs a clinic that services sprawl fighters and amateur urban brawlers who have gotten too injured to go to real hospitals. In comparison to the clean sleek lines of Dr. Roth's clinic with new high-tech gadgets, Nikuya has a stainless steel table in the center of rust or possibly dried blood colored tiles. The stench of bleach and sterilizing fluids buffets you from meters outside the door.

The skinny doctor comes out in a darkly stained apron that used to be white, surgical gloves already on to supervise the unloading of Biomage's body. He pulls out a thin pair of long handled clamps and a small tray with needle, thread and scissors. Nearby on a table lays his surgical kit, still glowing in thermographic from the autoclave.

"SSS-So, what has come to us-sss today?" His Japanese has a slightly sibillant tone as he speaks.