"Leastwise nobody was seriously fragged. Ah'll deal with Warpath first, being that he's drivin' and all."

Danny moves forward in the van so that he is closer to the big warrior. He reaches out and touches the driver lightly on the shoulder as he casts a spell to heal Warpath's minor injuries.

As the magic takes hold, Warpath seems to relax a bit and the wound knits itself into oblivion. His driving gets a little better, though he still doesn't take any chances.

Ghost Dragon forgoes leaving a message for Mirage, who didn't pick up for some reason. He tries Jessie's phone next.

over the phone to Mirage

"Arden says there is an old parking lot at the corner of 19th Avenue and East Fir Street. Meet us there, we are in route."

Jessie then turns to Arden, "Head that way, they'll meet us there."

Jessie then takes a moment and puts a call through to both Ghost Dragon and Ohanzee and lets them both know to meet up with the rest of the group at the corner parking lot of 19th Ave and E Fir Str.

Ghost Dragon switches to the incoming call and hangs up the one he was dialing to Jessie's cell phone. He listens to Jessie's instructions and says, "Right. On my way."

At the first moment Ohanzee was confused as to who would contact him just now but then realized that it might be a member of the team. Mentally picking up the phone he listens to Jessie's instructions. Once he got the adress of the meet he feeds it into his orientation system in order for it to map the fastest route to the parking lot.
"Acknowledged. I'll be there in aproximately {x}* minutes".
He then starts to pick up the new route at the next oportunity and heads for the meet - briskly but not especially huried, which is partly because of the snow and partly in order to not attract more attention than a large amerindian with long black hair and a black leatcher coat on a racing bike will attract anyways.


*= pretty exact amount of driving time as calculated by the orientation system.

Sink makes his way back towards the bar. As he approaches he sees all the ars with the flashing lights and makes a quick call to Mirage. "Hey, you guys OK?"

With the soft crunch of snow under the tires, the Brumby comes to a stop near the rendevous point. "This it?" he asks, turning to his companions and hoping one of them knows the lot better than he does. Making a drive past the place in the icy conditions would be unsubtle, at best so he settles for making his observations from nearby.

"Don't suppose they've intercepted the cell signal do you? Nice RPG in the hood when we pull in?"

[ Arden ]

Rolling into the parking lot just a few moments after Warpaths arrival nearby, Arden pulls into a spot with less drifts and hops out. Grabbing the big brush from behind his seat and starts wiping the accumulated snow off the truck. Kicking the drek out from the mudflaps, he gets back into the Roadmaster (bashing his feet on the way in), and waits for the rest to arrive.

Turning to Jessie, he asks "did *la bonne dame say what had gone down, or are we waiting on details?"


*la bonne dame = "The good lady"

Jessie looks a bit confused at the French, but answers the question just the same, "All I know if that they were attacked and managed to get out in one peice. We'll find out the rest soon enough I'm sure. You need any help cleaning that drek off?"

Jessie goes around kicking at the tires and mudflaps, trying to help out.

Answering Sink's call, "Oui, we're fine, our rendezvous is at parking lot at the corner of 19th Avenue and East Fir Street. Get there quickly, our comms may be compromised."

Mirage turns to answers Warpath, "I don't know, I'm confident that my communications with Jessie cannot be decrpyted in real time, but given the ease that they located our meeting room, it's possible that they were tracking us by our cell phones."

Mirage slips a full clip of double-X rounds into her pistol, "We should get away from here as quickly as possible... and we'd best be ready for more trouble. Once we're together we can establish a more secure comms protocol and shut off the cell phones."

"Arden's van has just entered the rendezvous point, what do you think? Go in now, or cover from here till the rest arrive?"

Having sustained the healing spell on Warpath until the effects had become permanent, Danny then turns his attention to his other companion.

"Ah should be able t'take care o'that for y'all. Jus' relax for a moment till the spell takes effect."

He reaches out to touch Mirage's arm, casting another spell to treat her minor injuries.

Ghost Dragon stops at a gas station along the way to the parking lot and fills up his tank.

Something tells me that I will be driving quite a bit more. Ah... credit card fraud. If money was less tight, I would pay.

He charges the gas to his forged credstick and then drives on to the parking lot. Once he arrives, Ghost Dragon pulls up next to the Brumby and stops, looking up at the driver's side window. He parks his bike and walks over to the side sliding door of the vehicle.

Warpath nods, his own cell phone not having been on the whole op. "Yeah, that'd be good. Maybe ditch the old ones just in case, they ain't hard to come by."

"Got it" he says, hanging up and shutting off the phone. He makes his way slowly towards the address he was given, and pulls in on a side street next to the parking lot. He reaches under the seat and slips a shortbarrel shotgun into his coat, gets out, flips up the collar on his coat in an attempt to keep warm, and walks around the corner and joins the others.

"Everyone in one piece?" he asks with a note of concern."

Ohanzee cruises along on his bike, joining the others on the parking lot. He looks calm as he parks the bike and unmounts. He nods a friendly nod and gives everyone a quick scan to see whether there have been any injuries, also glancing at the vehicles. As he sees that there haven't been any significant casualties he asks: "So, what happened?"

Jessie hops out of Arden's huge ride and walks over to join the conversation.

Once everbody is together Mirage quickly explains what went down......

"...... I would have stopped shooting so that we had a prisoner, but they just didn't give it up. One of them took a shot at Warpath while he was collapsed, almost dead, on the bar."

"There was an exchange of money with the barman, I figure they were paying for the damage, but it's possible that he sold us out." She looks at Jessie, "have you dealt with him before? He could have pointed me out, and then I'd have been fragged."

"Anyway, I've got this image of the guy who still had a face his mother would recognise, and they had expensive looking german clothes, so I got images of the labels."

"Anybody got any questions, because I think we should get somewhere less exposed quickly. Warpath has also suggested that we dump our cellphones, they could be tracking us though them."

Mirage unplugs the encryption and memory modules from her pocket secretary, and throws the phone into the gutter.

Jessie frowns when she hears about the money exchange between the bartender and the men-in-black.

"I haven't had a lot of dealings with him, but I have used his bar a few times. I'll have to have a ... chat with him about this. If he did sell us out, he did it only for the money, otherwise he would have figured you in the bar. I could likely pay to find out who paid him."

"This 'ere run's been bad mojo from the get-go! Ah say that after we pick up the suit, we pay Mr. Johnson a visit an' have ourselves a little tete-a-tete."

"Frag the Johnson. Once the job is done, I say we be a lot pickier about the jobs we take and the Johnsons we work with."

"That there's a given! Ah jus' don' like the idea of bein' set up, s'all, and if'n that proves t'be the case, I ain't interested in leavin' enemies behind."

Ghost Dragon says, "Well, I do not plan to throw mine away. I can simply stop using it. Our time is short. Perhaps we should all present our information now and move on to our objective before we have another group of assassins drop in unannounced."

Ohanzee agrees: "Yes, indeed, we should hurry now. Obviously someone is knowing what we"re about to do and is trying to prevent us from doing it and it doesn"t necesarily have to be our Johnson setting us up. It could also be inner-corporate power struggles. Whatever it may be, I don"t think we have the time to find out, even though it would be interesting whether the operation is a planned failure or whether we have a realistic chance of succeeding.
I would also think that we should refrain from using our cellphones during the run. I will keep mine since it is hardwired to my brain but it will be deactivated during the operation."
Ohanzee disables his headphone and waits for the reactions of the others.

Warpath smiles humorlessly at Jessie. "If you need some help talking to him, I'd love to help. I don't enjoy being sold out. As for the Johsons... well, if he ain't behind this, and I don't think he is, he done nothin' wrong." After a second, he adds, "Yet, anyway. I can put up with a lot of attitude so long as his cred scans."

As the talk turns to cellphones, Warpath nods. "Fraggin' things are cheap, toss 'em if you can and get a pager or screening service. If we need to contact each other via cell, it's not going to be so urgent that a two minute delay will prove critical. How is everyone on radios for the party?"

"I doubt they tracked us by the phones, I'm thinking that somehow we got sold out by the bartender, or they had us followed."

Ghost Dragon says, "Yes, that is what I thought as well. The possibility of someone placing a tracking device in my phone is very small. Tapping my number is easier, but I think they followed us from the warehouse. At any rate, we must move on."

The sky get's suddenly darker and the level of snow falling increases. A strong wind blows in from the harbor cutting through light clothing and chilling the flesh underneath.

[ Arden ]

Pushing open the door from his spot in the driver seat, Arden leans his head out from where he's been listening to the conversation, safe in his van.

"Uhh... people? How about we hit this place now? We do it fast and hard and response won't be able to even get there, let alone stop us. Not to mention that if this drek gets any heavier, nobody is gonna be going anywhere."

"Anybody who's got something beefier then a crotch-rocket get moving. The rest, load up! We've got to do something now..."

"Y'all got a point there. Ain't no time like the present."

Danny returns to the Brumby and buckles himself into one of the seats in the back.

"I am glad that you are finally beginning to see things my way," says Ghost Dragon with a smirk. He climbs into the van and buckles in after making sure that his bike's stand is in place.

I hope that my bike will still be here and that I will be able to find it after it gets buried in snow.

"That seems to be a good idea. The current weather can only work to our advantage. Tracks will be disguised by the falling snow, sight is limited and the wind and snow scatter any noises we might make. I just need to get some gear first. Where do we meet exactly? I propose somewhere just out of sight of the facility. We need Arden to pick us up as we make our escape. So lets not lose any more time." After having spoken he waits for a proposal for the meeting point, especially from Sink who knows the surrounding are better than the others. After everything is taken care off he mounts his bike and drives to his appartment. He drives briskly but tries to attract as little attention as possible. If in doubt he will slow down in order to keep a low profile. He also keeps looking for any followers in the rear view mirrors and using his thermal vision when making turns to look back inconspiciously. The thought of being followed home, of leading his foes directly to Lily makes his insides harden. He wished he had taken his equipment to a safer place beforehand and makes a mental note to do so in the future.

As he arrives in the parking garage he parks his bike in the usual spot next to his car and walks upstairs to the appartment to gather some equipment. Taking an old duffel-bag from a closet in the hallway he gathers several pieces of equipment that have been stored in assorted places all over the appartment: The Remington hunting rifle, the grapple gun and rope, climbing gear, his microtoolbox for fiddling with electronics as well as 4 flash and 4 IR Smoke grenades. He checks that the fighting knives and the tomahawks are still in place in his boots and under his belt and that the Savalette Guardians in the quickdraw holsters under his arm are fully loaded. He then grabs five regular rounds for his Remington (just in case the ammo from Jessie shouldn't be enough) and heads back to the parking garage. He places the duffel bag in the trunk of his Americar and drives off to the meeting point, glad that he has a roof above him and four tires below him in this weather. On the way there he keeps checking for followers.

With a stony glare, Danny eyes Ghost Dragon for a moment, before shaking his head.

"I'm of the 'pinion that I'll never see things quite the way y'all do. Leastwise I'm hopin' not anyways!"

"Alright, but we should go over the game plan one more time, just to make sure everything is clear."

Warpath continues the discussion over the radio system if necessary. Even over secured channels, he is careful not to mention names or people which could lend value to his transmission in the hands of anyone who doesn't already know the topic. "Fast and hard is alright, but it ain't going to work if we don't have a good play for it. At the least we need to plan a distraction to make funtime less fun for the other team."

His Brumby seems ideally suited for this type of weather, and his own sensor suite makes the blinding snow almost transparent. "This weather is going to make a hell out of getting to the party if we're not careful."

"Now's fine wit me" Sink says to the others. "I just need to swing by my place and pick up some stuff. My car ain't worth a fraggin thing in da snow. Can one of you pick me up once I get my stuff?"

Ghost Dragon smiles wickedly at Danny's remark.

Joining the conversation, he says, "I will leave my bike here. The snow will likely bury it, concealing it here. The weather is too bad for me to drive it home, and we are short on time."

Ghost Dragon takes off his sunglasses and continues, "I think that the original plan should still be followed, with some modifications. We should go forward with a full assault; hard and fast. First, we break through the front gate and eliminate any immediate opposition. While we are driving through the gate, I will send my bound water elemental over to break the water main near the rear gate. This will both create a short diversion and begin the process of helping us to cover our escape. In this weather, I doubt that anyone will suspect that a spirit had something to do with the pipe bursting.

"Next, the rest of you continue to patrol the grounds, wiping out our opposition. Danny is your magical support to deal with the mage they have on duty. Ohanzee and I will leave the team and try to take down Mr. Archer and secure our target. With any luck, you people in the main group will finish early, and one or two of you can come up and help us if we need it. There is the very real possibility that our target will not come willingly, so Ohanzee and I may need help to carry him out, especially after the fight with Archer-san; one or both of us may also need to be carried out.

"We will need to be able to communicate our status to each other once the team splits up. Ohanzee, I believe, has the appropriate cyberware, however I do not. Should Ohanzee be killed or knocked unconscious, our communications will be severed. I will keep my cellphone on. In the event that such a thing happens, I can try to give one of you a call to let you know the situation, when and if it becomes safe to do so, therefore, I recommend you fish your phones out of the snow. It is far more likely that we were followed after the meet than that our phones were tapped, and we will take a big risk if we begin flying blindly after our communications go out, if that happens.

"Afterthoughts... we could perhaps nail a powerpole with a missile or similar explosive on the way in to cut power to the facility and disable or cripple their ability to call for help. The quickest, and probably easiest and safest way to deal with Mr. John Archer will be to kill him, so Ohanzee and I will use lethal force to restrain him. Also, make no mistake, your lives will be in danger as soon as we enter the complex. The guards I saw all had cyberware, and there were dogs muzzled and being led around that had a lot more cyberware. I suspect that this facility is actually a well-disguised prison, so do not be surprised if the guards attempt to utterly destroy you. If we make this quick, the water from the pipe should not totally freeze before we make our exit. Provided that it does not wash out the road by the other gate, we can crash through it and make our escape by the interstate. Plan B would be to go out the way we came and use the Seattle streets for our escape. I think the operation should take 30 minutes to 1 hour at the most, and we need to hurry.

"After we're done, someone will need to drop me off either here or within walking distance so that I can pick up my bike and go home."

Ohanzee looks mildly irritated as he struggles to grasp what has just been said and supress the uprising feelings of confusion, anger and repulsion, not knowing whether this sugestion was meant seriously or as a joke.
"I'm afraid I can't follow you. Our original plan, which you intended to modifiy slightly, did not - if I recall correctly and I'm pretty sure that I do - involve crashing through the front gate, eliminating every guard while bursting the water pipe right away, rushing in, killing the guard, grabbing the target who might be, as you suggested, a willing prisoner in a disguised prison and rushing out through the front gate again. If I am not totally mistaken the plan was about making a silent entry throught the park and over the perimeter wall, while bypassing possible defenses while attracting as little attention as possible. The bodyguard was to be disabled but not killed and the exit was supposed to be made via the balcony of the target's appartment and out through the park. I don't see a lot of things those two plans have in common.
In adition I want to add that I might be a lot of things but I'm not suicidal. If we should indeed pursue a plan like proposed by Ghostdragon I would like to take a passive role and stay off-site for I have duties to fulfill in this world and can't afford to die yet."

Jessie nods as Ohanzee speaks. When he is done she includes, "Exactly. The plan was that we'd have as few guards as possible aware that we were there in the first place. There is one thing that I want to do before we hit the target. I am going to be purchasing a Camo Body Suit for myself. I already have one, but its for urban purposes. I need one for snow now. If anyone else wants one, speak now so I can get the order in."

Danny sits in the back of the Bison as he listens to Ghost Dragon lay out his plan of action, the expression on his face a mixture of bemusement and disdain. He is visibly glad that Ohanzee and Jessie do not immediately agree with the mage's suggestions

"Y'all must admit though, that it was one purty story."

Ghost Dragon looks somewhat annoyed at the lack of motivation in the group. He says, "We cannot spend the entire day sitting around and talking about what we are going to do. If we are going to do anything, let us put our plan into action now."

"Which plan is that? The clusterfrag you described, or one that has at least a possum's chance of succeeding?"

[ Arden ]

"People!" comes Ardens now rather loud voice from where he stands next to the Roadmaster. "We've got the plan we worked out earlier. Fast and quiet," he finishes with a glare at Ghost Dragon.

"If we follow the one we've spent time on, we can work faster and more confidently. I mean... it's not like the plan is that complex, so ol' Murph won't be able to screw us too hard."

"Anyway, with the size of the complex, it won't be too hard to lob a couple concussive 'dissuaders' just about anywhere in it."

"I'm with Ohanzee and Jesse, the original plan was to enter stealthily via the park, and to try to avoid killing anybody."

Mirage turns to Ghostdragon, "You are aware that your cellphone can be tracked without any need to tamper with it aren't you? The sealed room in the site's security building suggests on-site riggers, it you take an active cellphone in there, you're likely to compromise us immediately. As long as you stick close to Ohanzee, your lack of a secure radio shouldn't be a problem. Alternatively, maybe you could provide us with astral cover? I also seem to remember the plan was for Sink to carry out the target."

She then turns to Jesse, "My coat is equipped with ruthenium and thermal masking, so I should be fine."

"How many of us need to enter the target building? I'd say just Ohanzee and Ghost to look out for Archer, and Sink plus one other to get Morgan, everybody else should be covering the approaches to the building."

"I'm a pistol fighter, so ordinarily I'd suggest that I go into the building, but given the current weather conditions, I'm probably as good as anyone to cover outside the building. If Ghost is going in with Ohanzee, then Danny should probably be outside as well so that both teams have magical protection."

Ohanzee loosens up slightly: "Good, so we have a consent. I would gladly accept ththe camo suit since my ordinary work clothing would stick out rather clearly in the snow..."

That worked perfectly.

Ghost Dragon smiles and says, "Good. Then we have a working plan now? Let us put it into motion. I can turn off my phone, since I will not need it. I will stay with Ohanzee in the physical realm. Danny will stay in the vehicle and provide cover for the rest of you. Sink will assist us once we have the target. Does that mean that he is coming in with Ohanzee and me? And how much time do we have? Getting the camo suits will take some time."

Warpath shrugs. "I've got plenty of camo and stealth gear... it's the electronics that worry me on that front. As far as killing people, I ain't for it, either, but that's not what I meant. If the cover goes, we need something big and loud to make them wonder which way to run. That should help a bit, at least..."

He shrugs again. "I've got grenades which could do the job, as far as that goes. If you want me outside, I've got no objections, but if that troll shows up in close quarters... well, I might be better off there."

"I'll go in with you. I've got the access codes and I'm pretty good with electronics in case we need to crack a door. Plus, if you do run into any guards, I may be able to just talk our way past them. As for how long the camo suit will take, let me make a phone call real quick. Does anyone else want one, speak now or forever hold your peace."

Jessie puts a call through to Zoe, asking her how long it would take to get two Full Body Camo Suits, white for snow use.

Danny just rolls his eyes in response to Ghost Dragon before turning to Jessie, a smile quickly flittering across his features before he can suppress it.

"I got ever'thin' I need already, but thanks anyway."