Here's the return of the MotTTE IC thread. The link to the old one is on the first post of the OOC thread and here. It looks like Sparrow is up, now that I'm back...and remember to throw some mojo into it this time.

"Well if you guys are gonna be here for a bit longer...im gonna head out and get that NovaCoke and stuff, after all, I cant do much of use here..." With that Jim heads out of the door, jumps into the car and disappears off into the night, looking for one of the many dealers in NovaCoke and some decent drink....

"Okay, here goes."

Sparrow concentrated as much of his power as possible into the Influence spell this time. He underestimated the rigger last time, he was going to pour it on thick this time. (Ooc: Full spell pool, max force.)

"On (insert date here) you will shut off the surveillance in the train until your next shift. They don't pay you enough to be working as hard as you do. Just one shift, that'll teach them."

Sparrow feels the spell slip through the rigger's defenses and implant itself in his mind, like a virus waiting for its time to start replicating through his psyche. Moments later, he sags as drain hits him like a ton of bricks, making him stagger against the room's bed as Farrel drops back in his chair, mumbling "Ungrateful bastards" under his breath.

After having stopped off at the local off-licence to get a couple of bottles of Whisky Jim heads over to a lowlife pub called The Brownstone... Where he knew for a fact drugs were easy to get hold of (He had found out while bugging a mid level exec from one of the local corps before blackmailing him!)..

Walking into the bar Jim orders a drink and looks around.... As the bartender is pouring his SynthVodka Jim smiles "Hey, I don't suppose I could get a errr... side order with that could I?"

The bartender smiles...."so would that be food? or something with a few more chemicals in it?!"

"Well im looking for some coke....enough to get me through the night, you got some?" Jim looks around the bar casually, judging by the junkies in here...he knows the answer will be a yes!

"Ive got whatever you need my friend, its twenty bucks a hit and ive got as many hits as you have bucks!"

"Well in that case I will take five hits..." and with that Jim hands over a certified credstick... moments pass as he waits for it to be checked and as soon as it has, he is handed the capsuls of Novacoke, waiting to be used.

Picking them up he finished the drink and heads out into the moonlit and neonlit night and heads back to the motel.....

Sparrow collapsed on the floor of the room and wiped some sweat from his brow.

"Whew. I guess I've gotta brush up, huh? But, it's done. Our boy here will be getting lazy just at the right time for us. And maybe you girls can coax a couple of those passes from him, hm?"

"Excellent work Sparrow," Crow said as she moved about the room. The short elf quickly tore the bed apart, scattering the blankets and pillows, then ripping the sheets off the bed and dropping them back on in a lump. Then she moved to Farrel and untied him. She slid the ropes under the bed out of site. She hefted him up and dropped him on the bed.

"Gimmie a hand with his clothes masquerade," She said to the blond elf. She ripped his shirt open sure to pop all the buttons, then through it agains the wall. The shoes went in opposite directions as did his socks.

"We want to make it look passionate right," she says by way of explanation. She flips him over and finishes taking his shirt off then his pants. Now only in his boxers she runs her nails down his back, one on either side. Leaving long scratches down either side. Before the welts start forming she does it again leaving another set, and then one more time for good measure.

"Guys love it," she says with a smile to Masquerade. Once she's done inspecting her handiwork she looks at Sparrow.

"Ok Sparrow, time for you to leave, go hang with Jim in his vehicle but keep an eye on us astrally if you don't mind. I want at least some reassurance that he is buying our little game."

After Sparrow departs....

"Ok heres the tough part Masquerade," as she talks she maneuvers Farrell into the middle of the bed, points to one side, "you take the left, I'll have the right."

Crow then slips out of her skin tight pants, and removes her small shirt, leaving her clad in her white lace nightwear that contrasts heavilly against her blue/black fur/skin. With a wink at Masquerade she lies face down on the bed and covers her "strategic parts" with the bed sheet. She then does her best to sleep. Hoping the mark wakes soon and wishing she was on the other side of the bed.

This better work or I am going to ring that little mans throat.

Masquerade calmly considers the unconscious man in the bed, before casting Makeover on him to give him a few lipstick marks in various places, muss up his hair a bit, and give him a bit of scent from both of the women's perfumes. Taking the handcuffs from her belt satchel, she puts one end on one of the top bedrails and leaves the other open - just a suggestion that something kinky happened. For herself, she settles for wetting her hair to make it a bit less spikey, mussing her makeup a bit, taking off her stockings, and tearing a small rip in her minidress. Then she settles in to the other side of Farrel. At least after taking that stunbolt, he won't feel up to much of anything but suffering in the morning, and he'll put it down to a huge hangover.

Sitting in the car....Jims mind starts to wander onto the thoughts of what they are doing in there (hey, he's only human!!!-figeratively speaking of course!). He opens the windows so that the car doesnt mist up with their breathing, anther old survielance trick that worked suprisingly well...

Sparrow threw a quick grin to Jim.

"Well there, Jimmy. I guess it's just the two of us until Drekbucket in there rouses. I'm going Astral for a while to watch over the girls. Don't you do anything indecent to my body while I'm gone, now."

Slipping out of his physical form as if it were nothing more than a collection of robes, the mage floated up, up and through the roof of the car. Going Astral was the ultimate freedom. No wall or ceiling could hold you, the earth was powerless to hold you to it's whims.

Sparrow slid easily through the door of the sleazy motel and kept watch on the three figures inside.

Farrel rolls out of bed about eight the next morning, or just about when the two runners inside the hotel room are starting to think that they're going to have to flee his odor if he doesn't rouse within the next half-hour or so. Thankfully, he doesn't seem to be up to any additional activities- or coherent speech, for that matter- once he awakens. Groaning incoherently, he stumbles to the bathroom, from which he emerges twenty or so minutes later looking like he was only hit by a medium sized truck, as opposed to the main battle tank that had previously appeared to have interfaced with his body. Focusing his eyes on Masquerade with a visible effort, he manages to get out,

"Whew, must have been a heck of a night...I can't even remember most of it." He tries to put a charming grin on his hung-over face, resulting in a facial expression that makes the onlooker want to shoot him dead out of sheer mercy. "Afraid I feel a bit under the weather right now...but any chance I could get you girls' phone numbers?"

I was going to transition straight to the train, but I'll give you this opportunity if you want to try to talk him out of security passes. Up to you.

An hour passed and Jesse forced her body to relax, concentrating on her muscles, she tightened them group by group then relaxed them. Letting the exhaustion flow out of her. Lying in bed next Farrel and Masquerade awakened some long dormant memories for her. The added pressure of having to convince the guy of what they did was a heavy burden for her. Ending with her toes she managed to drift off into a fitful sleep, her memories coming back in her dreams...


"It's real easy Jess, may I call you Jess," the human looked down at a much younger Jesse. Her eyes were hard but her face and body still retained some semblance of her awkward teen years.

"Go in there, take your clothes of get into bed and do what come naturally and your 10K richer. We film the guy, black mail him and boom, you get another 5k on the back end."

The way he explained it made sense to Jesse. And she needed the money, badly. While normally very fit her figure had slowly waisted away in the last month. Her body slowly eating itself to stave of starvation. Her ribs were clearly visible and her breasts seemed larger than they were for lack of body fat around them. The team didn't care though. They had drugged the mark and needed her unique physiology to blackmail the guy. He came from a very racists background, and was a minor politician running on a semi segregation platform. This would finish him.

"You wanted to be a Shadowrunner right? Well baby this is it, your running the shadows, now get in there."

Nodding in defeat she walked into the room, the man was drugged and semi coherent. The door closed behind her, the room was reflected in the large two-way mirror. Her sensitive eyes could pick out the recording equipment behind it. She moved slowly to the bed, the man becoming aware of her presence. His eyes didn't seem that hazy, and he had a lecherous grin on his face...



Jesse woke from the bed with a start, sitting bolt up hands flying out to either side. Her right hand grabbed something soft and warm, her other gripped the corner of the bed crushing the synthwood like playdo. The sound of someone taking a shower echoed through the room, she looked down, her hand was grasping Masquerade,

"Sorry Masq, bad dream," she said as she layed back down. She rolled over closer to the blond elf, lifting the sheets up to cover them both as she did so. Pressing up close to her, she whispered in her ear, "Didn't want him to hear us," she said by way of explanation.

"Seems like he bought it, must of worked like a dream otherwise he would be out screaming by now." Jesse heard the shower turn off and she quickly mussed the sheet a little, draping a leg and arm over Masquerade as she did so and pretending to be just waking up.


After Farrel comes back in


"Great night hon," Jesse says as she sits up, she lets the sheets slide a little to low, but nothing overt.

"We don't really have a permanent number, why don't you leave yours and we'll give you a call, a night like that is worth repeating," she says in her best little girl voice.

The next day dawns clear, bright, and unseasonably warm as the team makes their way into the downtown Seattle train station. There are no problems with purchasing coach tickets for everyone using various false identities and some of Mr. Johnson's advance nuyen, although you do learn from observing an unfortunate in line ahead of you that the railroad does not accept ticket payments via certified credstick, even for coach- in other words, some kind of identity check is necessary to get aboard any section of the Tir Tainagre Express. For coach, however, this simply involves slotting your credstick into a reader that doesn't appear much different from the one at a medium-fancy department store and keying in a passcode. The detectors built into the sides of the train's tunnel entrance cause a little more anxiety, but everybody's running clean today so they stay quiet. It's something to think about, though.

Presence or absence of weapons and other fun stuff was not specified, but since I believe you knew about the detectors, I've chosen to assume that nobody decided to be a flaming idiot on a recon run. If anyone wants to do otherwise, let me know.

The coach car of the train isn't a car in the traditional sense, but rather a divided-off section: the train is a solid cylinder, since any interruptions in the outer surface would prevent the maglev effect that suspends the train within the magnetic tube. From one bulkhead to the other, the car is about ten meters long, and about three wide, with airline-style seats three wide on either side of a central aisle. The seats are relatively nicely upholstered, but they don't recline and there isn't much legroom- have to give people a reason to upgrade to first class, you know. The only other main fixture of the compartment is the lavatory space, which is in the rear, on the right side of the car as you face forward. It's a small space, about a meter by a meter and a half, with a toilet, a sink, and not much else. From the information you've previously gotten, you can find the outline of the service panel leading to the lower level on the lavatory floor, with a mechanical key lock and no handle on it. In addition to picking the lock, it looks like you'd need a crowbar or someone with very agile fingers to get around the edge and haul the panel up.

There doesn't seem to be much obvious security in the car, but there's a single trideo camera mounted on the forward bulkhead. Since there's nothing above the level of the seats in the car, it has a pretty much unobstructed view of goings-on in the car, but there don't appear to be cameras on any other angles.

The hatches on the bulkheads at either end of the car have small credstick slots next to them. To open one, you slot your credstick, allowing the train's security system to read the ticket encoded onto it and determine if you're allowed in the car that you're trying to access. If you are, it unlocks the hatch. You don't know what happens if you're not, but you safely assume that an alert is sent to the security rigger on duty, if nothing else. Currently, the team is in the furthest forward of the five coach cars, so the forward hatch leads to the first class/coach lounge car and the rear to the next coach car. Your tickets don't specify seats, so you should be able to move to both of these cars without any problems. Forward of this car are the first class/coach lounge, the two first class cars, then the luxe passenger car, luxe lounge, and front engine. To the rear are four more coach passenger cars, followed by the rear engine with the security rigger and security team break room.

As you finish taking these details in, there is a soft hum of generators cycling up to their operational speeds, and you feel a moment of forward motion as electrical motors pull the train into the sealed portion of its magtube. There is a low rumble as a hatch closes over the rear of the tube, followed by a brief rocking sensation as the train's rigger works to balance it on its newly active electromagnets. There is a click, and an easy, personable male voice comes from speakers in the ceiling of the car.

"Attention passengers, this is your engineer speaking. I'd like to welcome you aboard the Tir Tainagre Express, nonstop service to San Francisco." Although the voice sounds friendly, Jim recognizes it as "John Wayne 5.4", a standard synthvoice mix used by riggers to make canned announcements when they're too busy to talk, specially engineered to sound warm and competent. "We are now adjusting ourselves onto our magnetic levitation system preparatory to starting our run, which is calculated to take two hours and seven minutes, for an arrival at 14:47 at San Francisco station. As a reminder, this is a sealed-tube train, and we will be making no stops between here and San Francisco. So, if you don't want to visit beautiful California, well, you're going to now." The voice chuckles, and there are actually a few smiles on the faces of the coach passengers.

Through all of this, the train is still wavering slightly as it adjusts itself, indicating that the rigger is still hard at work. There is an instant of stillness, then another rumbling. John Wayne 5.4 comes on the speaker again.

"Attention passengers, we have now completed depressurization of the interlocking segment and magnetic adjustment. We are now beginning our run." There is a slight feeling of acceleration, pressing the team slightly back in their seats as the generators cycle up to a higher pitch. After about ten minutes, this feeling levels off, and you're off to San Francisco aboard the Tir Tainagre Express.

As the train gets up to high speed, the rest of the team sees Shadow get up out of her seat and stroll to the front of the car. She bends down in front of the hatch, a female Night One with blue fur, and begins examining the maglock that secures the hatch closed in full view of the rest of the car. Several of the passengers look at her strangely, and one sarariman type drops his Ashai Shimban printout in his lap and stares, a suspicious expression on his face.

As Crow performed her examination of the lock systems, Sparrow decided to look... deeper. A moment of concentration was all that it took to peer past the veil of the living world and into the world of spirits. The mage would get down to business and see what kinds of magical protection the train had.

Realizing her mistake, turns and steps toward the lavatory, holding her lower stomach and blushing,

"I thought it was the bathroom," she says off handedly to the first person, a smile on her face. She then hurries to the bathroom.

As Sparrow projects from his body, his first sensation is of great speed, as the ghostly form of the train rushes through its translucent tunnel, bearing its precious cargo of bright living beings. A quick look around the train reveals little in the way of astral security: there are fairly strong-looking but obvious wards around both engine cars and not much else. Apparently, the Tir is a little paranoid about letting anyone bring spirits or other, more advanced forms of astral security into its territory. Astral space around the train in general is pretty unremarkable.

As Jesse turns and heads for the lavatory, the sarariman stares at her for a moment, then shakes his head and turns back to his fax. Apparently, the news of a blackout in Nagoya, which put the lights out in the local baseball stadium and led to the cancellation of a key post-season game, is more important than the vagracies of one gaijin's stomach.

Thinking he remembered there being a food section on this train Jim takes out his passcard and calmly walks over to the reader five minuites after his chummer tried checking it out... running the card through the reader he does it deliberately too quickly the first time, buying him valuable extra secounds to have a look at this piece of hardware... the secound time he runs it through again and heads to find the food area.


OCC: If there is no food area to find, then Jim wouldnt do it as he wouldnt want to draw more attention to himself then he needs to.

Masquerade sits primly, half reading a newsfax and half glancing around, looking bored. Actually, she is making mental notes about the people in the train - their social strata, how alert they are (or aren't), and their overall general appearance, both to get a handle on the variable that the other passengers will present, and to prepare herself for crafting an appearance that will blend in.

She doesn't check out the MagLocks, which are not her specialty (although she gives an internal wince at Crow's near-gaffe), nor the wards - no matter how strong or weak they are, she has NO plans of trying to get past them. She does do some astrally perception to add to the data her mundane senses are picking up.

Like Jim, she checks out the food car, but she waits until about half-way through the trip to do so.

About half of the people in the coach car look like corporators of one strain or another: conservative business clothing, mostly off the rack rather than custom-tailored, briefcases and bags, and either looking into laptop computers for most of the trip or poring over the paperwork that has never quite disappeared from the office. A fair number of these have Big Ten company logos somewhere on their gear, and a scattering of others have logos from Big Ten subsidiaries but apparently either don't know or don't want to advertise that they work for a megacorp. The other half of the passengers are a mixed bag: some look like corporate citizens with not as nice clothing, marking them as government or policlub types, some are fairly obvious tourists going down to San Francisco for a few days, and there is an Imperial Japanese Marine junior officer sitting in one corner of the car, looking straight ahead with a blank expression. Overall, the people in the car seem to be fairly well-off: even the tourists are well dressed and carry fairly expensive camera equipment. Masquerade's best guess is that most of the lower class either don't possess the identification necessary to buy a ticket, or just don't have any reason to travel.

Jim gets pretty much the same look Crow got at the credstick reader, except without the sarariman staring at him.

It's not a card reader- it's a credstick reader. You slot your credstick, the lock reads it, and the door unlocks if appropriate. In this case, it is appropriate.

The lounge car is another segment of the train, the same size as the coach car. As you enter from the rear bulkhead, the corner to your left is taken up by a bar/counter, from where one can buy cocktails, wine, soda, fruit juice, snacks, sandwiches, and the like. There are six round tables scattered around the car, with six chairs at each- a rather tight fit in places, but not oppressive. Each of the two long walls of the car has three flat screens on it, designed to resemble windows and currently displaying images of a pastoral countryside rolling by. The car is empty except for the two humans behind the bar when Jim comes in, but by the time Masquerade appears it has filled up with various people from the coach cars, as well as a few passengers back from first class. The first class passengers don't seem to be of a different social class than the coach passengers, by and large- the ones you see mostly appear to be corporate types who managed approval for a larger expense account on this trip.

Jesse returns from the bathroom a few minutes later, and sits quietly in an isle seat.

Stupid girl real stupid. This could be a good gig for your rep and you do something dumb like that? Real clever. Use the damn cam corder, it's why you brought it.

Reaching into her coat pocket Jesse pulls out the slim camcorder. Barely larger than a cd the device has enough optical recording time for 12 hours. Using the side panel display to maneuver it, she uses the 12X zoom to zoom in tight on the Stick reader. She hold the zoom for about five seconds and then zooms out so the door is in the view finder. Then she turns it off and slips it back into her pocket. She sits and snoozes for a half hour. after resting comfortably she stands, stretches and heads for the lounge car.

Jim wanders around, and slowly gets within a decent viewing distance of the card reader for first...looking to see if it identical or overtly different.

To all appearances, the lock seems to be the same.

By the way...these aren't card locks, so there's no card to get away. You're talking about swiping someone's credstick, which is like their wallet- they're going to notice fairly soon, and they're going to be very, very interested in getting it back.

Once in the lounge car, Jesse wanders around. She orders rot beer and sips on it as she slowly wanders the circumference of the car, the way a very bored passengers might. Inspecting the artwork, the "windows" etc. She thinks long and hard on the "tactical problem" of the job. While sitting her mind wanders back to her considerable training trying to think of a solution to the maglocks...