"Nanashi, you wanna translate for us so theres no mistake? Tell him that the man is a mage, so to be real careful."

Nanashi nodded and took on the charge of communications. "A mage, sir. A sniper victim. If possible, we'd like to see him back without damage to his gift."

"Of course-sss."

You can almost swear that he is tasting the air with his tongue before pulling on a mask. The doctor starts with the scalpel cutting open the wounds before digging in with the small clamps to pull out the fragments of bullets. Hours pass as the team stands watch over their compatriot. The color drains out of a few faces as people move outside to not have to breathe the fumes and watch the show.

Trixie stays in the van. After a while, she cuddles into a ball and falls asleep, the fatigue of todays events overtaking her.

Time passes in Tokyo, morning gives way to Noon and the sun slowly begins crawling towards the western horizon. Trixie rests in the van, her sleep finally dreamless. By 1400, the butcher has finished his work and Biomage carries several long gashes along his face where the bullet entryhole was stitched shut. Synthskin tinted to the biological average for a Japanese male is pulled taut over the back of his skull.

With a sickening sound of flesh peeling off bones, Nikuya removes his surgical gloves to reveal long serpentine surgeon's fingers.

"It is-sss done, five hundred yen please-sss."

I hope we got more than we paid for.

"Here," Jester handed over the Nuyen equivalent, "can he be moved?"

"Yes-sss."

The team moves their wayward teammate into the van, buckling him in place. With the debt paid, you are able to move on with the day. Jester drives the van away from the rather bizarre doctor's shop. Next stop, Nanashi's safehouse.

Jack, settled back in the van with his deck, immersed in the much more comfortable world of his programming suite, comes back to life and steps back into the "clinic" to help move the body.

Without further mishap, Nanashi directed Jester to an apartment building in a lower class, but fairly quiet neighborhood. He lead the others upstairs, passing by an older woman who looked on concernedly at the injured mage. "The usual problems." Nanashi simply explained.

"Oh you poor dears...I'll send Emi up with a little something..." A little something tended more towards a full course meal.

"But it isn't necessary..."

"I insist. Someone needs to make sure you and your friends are taken care of. I don't know why you keep getting involved in such things..."

"Well...thanks."

Continuing on upstairs, he let the party in on a small, yet comfortable apartment. Takeout boxes and projects were still scattered on the workbench. "Sorry about the mess. Wasn't expecting to bring company over. But we can talk more freely here."

Trixie walks in and does a quick survey of the room. "Nice place."

Jack steps in, glancing around with a wry grin.

"Looks alot like home, " he drawls, slinging the hardened case down onto the floor and plopping down cross-legged next to it.

Biomage thrashes about, as if trying to grab something in front of him.

"I TOLD YOU, IT WASN'T MY FAULT! HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW- ...the mage... My arm!-"

Sitting up unsteadily, his eyes, staring blank and incredulous at nothing in front of him, he says, "I SAW him! As soon as I find out-"

He wretches out a cough, which turns into a whole group of them, before finally clearing a few small pieces of dried blood from his bronchial passage and watching in amazement as they land on the floor and his own clothing.

He looks up, confused, and says, "Who are all these people?! I- ..wait.."

The biomonitor in his field of vision shows him that he is very near death. Confused, he asks, with a look of dismay, "Am I.. dead?"

Nanashi was distracted from the rest of his guests when Biomage woke up. "Are you dead? No. Though it was a close thing. Hopefully that sniper will take a bit before trying again...I don't think the mess would make my landlady happy."

"Huh? Mess? Ah, drek.." Biomage says, looking down at what he spilled.

He leans back, concentrating on a Heal spell to take the edge off of his incoherence.

"You've been out for a bit. We got you patched up...though the end result isn't overly pretty, you're still with us. Too bad you weren't consious for the process... could have used a mage's second opinion as to the nature of our good doctor...suffice to say he had an interesting astral presence."

Biomage passes out as Nanashi speaks, not even having heard the end of the first sentence. He grimaces, fighting the strain with the help of his pain editor, before slumping onto his back, where he had been laying before.

Calisto watches the struggle with a neutral eye. "Ok all, let me him rest while he can. Let's see if we can figure the mystery here with the Fool"

::Day 3 1500::

The wounded mage collapses back into the couch which seems to be doing its very best at devouring him whole. The Fool has been poking around the table of half littered electronics, randomly lifting components and snapping them into other bits as if completing a large three dimensional jigsaw puzzle. At the mention of his name, he raises his head and turns his nearly colorless eyes towards [b]Calisto.{/b]

Jack drags his deck case across his knees, sliding out the battered looking piece of hardware, and a small skeletal frame that he quickly unfolds into a satellite. He shakes a small aerosol can and sprays it across the assembly, putting up the disposable dish with practiced movements.

"Fool," he calls to get the strange mans attention.

"We need more information. Show me." He gestures at the deck and the satellite assembly, already powering up the homemade deck.

Team:
The Fool silently nods to Jack's deck and reaches into his satchel to pull out a pair of cables whose ends are still hidden inside the bag. One, he connects to an FUP on the beaten and battered deck, the other is slotted into the base of his skull. Taking a seat, the odd decker's eyes lock onto Trixie and half of his body slumps down into a relaxed almost dead position.

Inside:
The deck registers a secondary device being connected to it and a secure data transmission channel established. Covered in the same motley paint as before, the Fool walks up to the log cabin that you are standing in front of.

"What information do you seek?"

Trixie nods to Fool and settles down to jack herself in. Before doing so, she looks over at Nanashi, "You comin'?"

Not waiting for an answer, she jacks in and her body slumps.

Biomage continues to rest on the couch, the fatigue of his injuries being enough to let him sleep.

"Well that didn't last long..." he commented as Biomage conked out again. Returning his attention to the others, he wondered just what The Fool was making out of the components he had left scattered on the workbench. Before his oldest visitor could finish, the others called his attention back to the reason they were there. One by one the group jacked in. Not wanting to be left out, Nanashi joined them.

"We need to track down this mad bishop and deal with him. I'm convinced he is the one sending out he assassins after me. He may even have an Otaku team working with him, so we'll need to dig up what we can on them as well."

Inside:
"Do you wish to take Mennon here or in his own land? I can begin a search if you give me some key words or a name. I will also need to check in with the others in a few hours to see what they have found."

"As far as 'taking' him goes, I'm not sure. That is something the team as a whole will need to plan out. I've got a large ammount of info on Mennon already, but I lack the TraceRoute to follow it back to its source."

Inside:
"I cannot trace him any easier than you can. The others will be able to do it. But I still do not know what information you are seeking, what do you want to know that I can answer for you?"

"Pardon me if I'm still a bit behind, but what is the connection between Mennon and the AI?"

Inside:
"I believe that Mennon is an unwitting pawn. He had an encounter with the All-Father much as I did, but where my experience left me somewhat damaged, Mennon gave in to the conditioning and his brain worked it into his own preconceived notions of reality."

::Elsewhere::

RTG Roma is dotted by various smaller grids making up the monuments and spectacle that Rome itself is known for. The Catholic Church has a strong matrix presence, settting themselves out as a large NeoGothic Cathedral made of ivory.

An angelic form coasted along, heading up to the cathedral doors. The massive planks of digital oak open to reveal an aging Priest carrying Michael's sword. The guardian at the threshold holds the door open for his ward to enter, his eyes locked on to something in the distance.

"Mon Dieu"

The young girl heads in, turning briefly to look over her wings at what the priest is watching. She sees a crackling storm crawling across the grid from another, at the head of the dark host ride four dark figures. One wears armor and carries a missive axe, the second is emaciated and hungry looking. The third man looks out over the grid and segments of parks shrivel away. The last simply moves forward, a shadow more than a man...

"Run my child, tell them it is time..." The priest ages before her but rather than growing weak, his icon seems to be hardening like leather

"Who are they, and where will I find them?"

Scars ripple across the priest's face until they cover one eye and the sword lengthens into a massive ashwood spear. "Find the Msgr. Mennon, tell him the army of darkness approaches--he was right, he must not lose faith."

"And where?"

"He travels to St. Peter's, find him there."


"Alright. I won't let you down." The young decker with an angelic form hurries off to St. Peter's.

"We suspect that the All-Father is an AI, right? We also figure he got into our good Doctor's head and screwed him up right good, and apparently this Memmnon fellow as well. We figure he hit the doctor because of the wireless 'trix in your head research he was doing. Why would the AI be after that tech?"

Jack glances up from scratching a digital basset hound behind it's digital ears at the others logged in with him.

Inside:
"Zeidel wasn't researching wireless matrix ware, he was trying to prove a hypothesis. Have you ever read his doctoral thesis? Zeidel believed that the matrix was alive, a similar belief to some Otaku. His hypothesis was that if evolution gave one set of apes a heightened sense of self-awareness and consciousness, then computeres were capable of the same thing. If you made a complicated enough web and flooded it not only with facts but also emotion, then an overwhelming consciousness could be created within the Matrix.

A few years ago I found traces of something like the All-Father in a nascent form. I didn't know what it was except a system anomaly that seemed to feed on processing power within the grid and it bounced from host to host resting until the Sys-Admins noticed their system bogging down and it moved on.

That was the problem that Zeidel couldn't account for. AIs just like other computer programs need active processors to continue their programs the same way that meta-humans need food and oxygen. I can't prove any of this, but I think the All-Father is using human brains as his processors. The existence of Otaku proves that it is possible for a direct neural connection to the Matrix and now it's exploiting the knowledge it was given."

"Hmm...so does he have any particular attachment to Otaku?"

"Well, he used to think we are Demons, but aparently his view has changed since All-Father re-wired him."

Inside:
"The All-Father also seems to be collecting Otaku tribes. I don't know why he would prefer them to normal people unless something about their brains allows him better control or more processing power--similar to the difference between a cyberterminal and a SOTA deck."

The Fool seems to fold in on himself as he ponders this new idea, you can almost hear the his thoughts bleeding through the transducer, as if the cyberware isn't sure whether these are supposed to be broadcast or not.

Jack chuckles softly.

"Guess I stand corrected. Alrighty then, so this Memmnon guy is out to slaughter the Otaku, like Trixie here," he nods to the girls Icon.

"And the All Fathers rounding them up and using them as his own little army, both in the Matrix and eventually real life, we have to assume. So we need to find out what kind of resources the All Father has at his disposal, neutralize them, and then deal with him. Seems like Memmnon might make a good alley if we could convince him to leave the Otaku alone for the moment. We can always deal with him later, but we can use every spare megapulse we can muster against the All Father."

"Mennon is a mad-man, I don't see him working with us freely. It would be a good idea to try and track him down though, so we could somehow put an end to his Otaku hunting."

"I hate to write off his assistance before we even try. He's got the church behind him, after all. But if you think it's not worth it, we'll have to deal with it later. I think we need to worry about the All-Father before Mennon, although I agree, we need to get some general information just to avoid him. Fool, what kind of resources can you bring to this? Right now we've got the three of us and our decks."

Jack gives a twisted grin. "Not to discount it, but it doesn't sound like alot when we're going up against an AI. Any chance you have an army of Otaku in your backpocket?"

Inside:
"I've got the deckers you saw earlier scouring the Matrix trying to find traces of the All-Father's coding. That should tell us where to find the host that he is primarily reliant on unless he can fully sustain himself through gray matter. Besides that, I've got a pocket full of rumors and enough paydata to arrange some secure access when we are ready to make the foray."

"That's something, at least. The only thing ah'd worry about is the AI jumping the boat if we attack over the 'trix. Once we find him, we need to find a way to shut the SAN, keep him from skipping town out and into another system.

In the meantime, what's everybody running? Everybody got top-rate gear and app's? Mine's a breadbox, but ah built it myself, and it'll outrun just about everything on the market. What about you guys? If we have some time, we might be able to rustle up some paydata, pick up some better gear."

Trixie grins at Jack when asked about what equipment she uses.

Calisto quickly moves around the move, checking all the possible exits and entrances into the area. She walks a path that keeps the slumped forms of the deckers in eyesight. As she walks, she turns on her phone and places a call to Jaron. She pauses to give Bio-mage a quick look over as she waits for a machine or a person to answer.

Inside:
"Mine was built from a few spare parts that I found laying around, but it sees me through. How about your friend on the outside, is she going to go on the hunt as well? Once we find the All-Father, it is likely that we'll be in deep enough that her skill set will come in use."

Calisto:
The phone rings twice before it is answered by Jaron's smooth timbre. Running water is muted down and you barely register the sound of water lapping against the side of a bath tub.

"This is Falcone."

"I built my own deck as well. Utilities are pretty good, but still plenty of room for improvement."