03-Apr-2071, 22:58:36, Everett, Seattle

"Was planning on it, though that might change depending on what we find.

<<He brings up a good point. What the hell do we do with this guy when we're done with him?>>

03-Apr-2071, 22:58:36, Everett, Seattle

Jasper shifted his coveralls again as he sent a reply through his datajack'ed comm <<maybe the Doc's got some peyote or somethin he can dose em with, let him wonder around like a lost starbaby for a couple of days>>

03-Apr-2071, 22:58:36, Everett, Seattle

Nuke's answer comes back immediately.

<<Sounds good. Wonder if we can find some of that truth serum stuff to use on him first.>>

03-Apr-2071, 22:58:39, Everett, Seattle

"Yea doc,"Jasper said, as to not seem like they were stalling. " I imagine we'll take him off yer hands, but we were wonderin, what kinda drugs you got handy? I mean you got some truth serum , or some heavy duty hallucinogens? we'd like some info from this guy, but we'd also like to keep him off our backs for a day or two, you know, without having to put a 22 caliber pin in that commlink's motherboard." Jasper motioned to the unconscious mans skull.

03-Apr-2071, 22:59:08, Everett, Seattle

"I have some hallucinogens, and of course anaesthesics strong enough to put an elephant under... but truth serum? You do realize that those are not as reliable as most laymen think?" Doc Vacation pulls out a few vials. "Of course this costs extra..."

03-Apr-2071, 22:59:21, Everett, Seattle

"I guess we'll have to settle for keeping him tripping balls to make sure he's out of our hair long enough, though."

03-Apr-2071, 22:59:59, Everett, Seattle

"As you wish. You'll be paying cash I assume, or is this covered by insurance? Hehe, small joke." Doc Vacation laughs, then secures Test Screen on a table that looks like made for large canines, picks up a laser scalpel and efficiently cuts away the skin around the datajack without a care for the watchers. "Do you need some skull cut awway as well?"

Stray looks a bit digusted at the sight, and decides to pay attention to the door, in case trouble comes looking.

03-Apr-2071, 23:00:29, Everett, Seattle

Nuke wrestles with keeping his cool as the doc works, then grabs a pair of rubber gloves from a box on a table, snaps them on, and opens up his toolkit to start working on the induction jack.

"Let's see how well I can get in there."

03-Apr-2071, 23:03:47, Everett, Seattle

Nuke has not much trouble accessing the datajack now, at least physically... but the memory content is probably still protected or encrypted.

03-Apr-2071, 23:03:51, Everett, Seattle

Nuke smiles as the datacable snaps into place.

"Looks like we're in business. Let's see what we can find."

The hacker settles into a chair next to the unconscious Test Screen, and drops into his VR coma to take a look around.

03-Apr-2071, 23:03:51, Everett, Seattle

"Now I guess we wait", Jasper says to Stray as he leans agianst the wall, He rubs the stuble on his fat chin and looks to Doc Vacation,"I guess this place don't have a bar eh doc?"

03-Apr-2071, 23:03:55, Everett, Seattle

Stray nods at Jasper. She's still feeling a bit uncomfortable, but tries not to let it show. This is different from a fight, where one had to beat the other side or get beaten, this was... a bit disturbing.

Doc Vacation grins, and pulls out a bottle of Jack Daniels - though the synthetic version. "Medicamentation costs extra..."

Nuke scans the node, from the ouside, so to speak, and doesn't notice much - though the node is active, so he'll have to hack in. Cutting the power might work, but also cut it off from the data he searches.

03-Apr-2071, 23:03:55, Everett, Seattle

Oblivious to the party brewing around him. Nuke mentally cracks his knuckles and sets about working on Test Screen's system. In the back of his mind, he's still not completey comfortable with having had to pay someone to cut this guy open so he could get at his commlink, but it does beat killing the other hacker and having the commlink cut out of his skull.

After a few seconds of consideration, Nuke swaps to the persona running on his nexus, and dives in. The default, featureless matrix icon slinks its' way up to the node's firewall and begins stroking the surface, looking for cracks or defects that it can slip through.

03-Apr-2071, 23:03:55, Everett, Seattle

Oblivious to the party brewing around him. Nuke mentally cracks his knuckles and sets about working on Test Screen's system. In the back of his mind, he's still not completey comfortable with having had to pay someone to cut this guy open so he could get at his commlink, but it does beat killing the other hacker and having the commlink cut out of his skull.

After a few seconds of consideration, Nuke swaps to the persona running on his nexus, and dives in. The default, featureless matrix icon slinks its' way up to the node's firewall and begins stroking the surface, looking for cracks or defects that it can slip through.

03-Apr-2071, 23:10:55, Everett, Seattle

Jasper takes a slug of jack and passes the bottle to Stray. "hey Doc, this is an animal hospital yeah? you know I just bought a parot for my mom back in Carolina. It cost a fortune, but It spoke like six languages. I called my mom and asked how it was, she said it was delicious. Boy I yelled at her. I said mom! that bird spoke six languages! she told me, well it should have said somethin" Jasper chuckled to himself and looked around for any response from his audience

03-Apr-2071, 23:11:15, Everett, Seattle

Doc Vacation, rolls his cybereyes. "I'd need a lot more medicamentation to find that joke funny, son." Stray laughs, but it sounds a bit forced.

Nuke manages to enter the commlink, but not without getting detected - an alarm sounds when he logs in. The node looks like an old office, with drawers, rolodexes and paper files. One figure is running around, throwing files on a smoking pile - an agent inside starting to delete files. Probably a "get rid of the evidence" protocoll in case Test Screen gets arrested.

03-Apr-2071, 23:11:16, Everett, Seattle

<<Balls. Looks like he's got an agent purging data that I set off when I came in. Shutting it down.>>

Without hesitation, Nuke's generic icon barks a quick command at the digital secretary following him, who impassively shoulders her digital assault rifle and opens fire on the panicking agent. Nuke joins her.

03-Apr-2071, 23:11:17, Everett, Seattle

Under the assault from both Nuke's agent and Nuke himself Test Screen's office agent disintegrates. Nuke manages to save most of the data, but even a quick glance shows that it's not promising: Test Screen lost contact to his team shortly after it headed into Puyallup from te kidnapping - to lie low. Since then he has been trying to track them electronically without luck, and has been ready to hire a runner or two to physically search for them in one of Puyallup's worse locations.

At least Nuke can also gather some records of the kidnapping job: The runners with Test Screen were hired to get the girl, alive and unharmed, and deliver her to a location their Johnson would tell them once they had her. More interesting though is the fact that from what Test Screen found out his Mr. Johnson is a man usually working for a local politician campaigning to become district attorney - William Gannings. The same man who later hired the team the runners accidentally shot up earlier outside Chelsea's, and who were told that someone was blocking the kidnapping investigation, and Gannings wanted the girl found and delivered to him to get to the bottom of this affair.

03-Apr-2071, 23:11:48, Everett, Seattle

After spending a little time digging through what he’s been able to salvage from Test Screen’s head, Nuke sends the agent off in search of information on William Gannings, most notably a home address or a commcode. Afterwards he opens his eyes and sits up.

�Thanks Doc, I think I found what I was looking for.�

After seeing everyone laughing and passing around the synthohol, he cocks his head to one side and sets about unplugging from Test Screen.

�Didn’t realize I’d taken that long. Pass that over here. I could use a belt after what I just found.�

<<Get this, turns out Test Screen, DLC, and the other two were hired by a guy working for William Gannings, the guy who hired the crew we ran into in front of the hotel. The first group were supposed to grab Cheryl and deliver her to him, but Test Screen lost contact with them as they entered Puyallup, and presumably Gannings’ man couldn’t find them either, which was why he hired a second time to bring her in. Turns out that I found Test Screen not because he was checking his team’s backtrail, but because he was in the middle of trying to locate them. Poor slot was on the verge of hiring someone to go track them down for him, presumably so that he can get paid. Want to cut this guy loose then go talk to Gannings to see why he wants Cheryl?>>

03-Apr-2071, 23:11:48, Everett, Seattle

"Help yerself son" Jasper was glad to hand off the bottle. He'd end up a little sloppy if left alone with it."Thanks fer the help doc, I guess if you dope up our patient, we'll settle up and be out yer hair"
<<Well, don't that beat a bat's dick. looks like our buddies at the Hotel were just a second team o' kidnappers.Yep, Time to have a little sit down with this Gannings fella, You wanna leave a note on this guys comm? like,"hey, no hard feelings, yer employer hired a replacement team">>

03-Apr-2071, 23:11:48, Everett, Seattle

Stray mulls this over - it looks straight at first glance, but the different explanations given to the different runners... that sounds odd. Feels odd, rather.

Nuke has no trouble finding the commcode of Gannings, or his adress - the man is campaigning, after all, and there's aton of information about him - wife, 2 teenage kids, smiling and waving, kissing babies - though the picture where the troll baby accidentally bruised his nose was quickly becoming a classic on humor sites - as well as clips from his career as an attorney, mostly a few famous cases.

03-Apr-2071, 23:11:48, Everett, Seattle

Nuke plugs back in, leaving a quick note scrawled on the virtual wall of the office representing Test Screen's commlink, along with images of Reaper, Limey, and Doll.

<<Looks like your Johnson hired a second team to look for yours right around when they disappeared. They're a bunch of trigger happy hotheads, so I'd lay low for a while if I were you. We represent a third party who's taken an interest in finding your team's target, and hope we didn't do any permanent damage when we grabbed you. All business, nothing personal. No hard feelings.>>

Afterwards, he disconnects and knocks back the bottle.

"Thanks. That hit the spot."

As the fake whiskey burns its' way down his throat, the hacker puts away his electronics kit, then forwards Gannings' address to Jasper and Stray.

03-Apr-2071, 23:12:55, Everett, Seattle

Stray looks the data over, forgetting the presence of the hacker on the table while Doc Vacation starts to sew the head wound close again.

"That looks dangerous... both from the Gannings side, as well as the likely location we'll have to search for the girl. Deepest gang country. Ghoul country."

03-Apr-2071, 23:12:55, Everett, Seattle

"yep", Jasper starts as he hooks his thumbs in his coveralls,"We got a good idea where Gannings is, but security will be tighter than a frogs ass. The girl on the other hand could be anywhere in the barrens, and could be dead or dying as we speak. So there's a time issue. Anybody got any ideas?"

03-Apr-2071, 23:13:03, Everett, Seattle

"Trail seems to point to Gannings. Clock could be ticking on the girl, but right now it feels like he's our only lead. If we can find out why he wants her, and where he was expecting to get her delivered, it might give us a clue where in Puyallup to look for these cats."

03-Apr-2071, 23:13:37, Everett, Seattle

"Sounds like a plan to me" Jasper looks to the Doctor,"What's the damage Doc?"

03-Apr-2071, 23:14:37, Everett, Seattle

Stray shakes her head. "I am not sure. From what you found they headed to Puyallup to lay low and lose any pursuit until they got the delivery destination from Gannings, and then disappeared in the middle of this zone. Test Screen did not get any location from Gannings."

03-Apr-2071, 23:14:58, Everett, Seattle

Jasper looks back over to stray. He was thinking the same thing, but Nuke sounded like he had a plan. "I'd go after the girl first if we had a lead on her. I'm sure if we can get her alive, she 'd have a good idea why she was kidnapped. But we're talking needle in a haystack sugar. Unless you got an Idea?"

03-Apr-2071, 23:15:15, Everett, Seattle

"It's not exactly needle in a haystack." Stray, with some slight delay, displayed a map on a shared AR window, fiddling with her goggles. "The hacker excluded most of the areas already, and knows where they left matrix coverage. But no matrix traces doesn't mean there are no traces or tracks. Just that we'd have to search for them in person. Or with drones, but there might be zappers."

Stray points at an area even most gangs don't venture in, which had been the turf of a neo-luddite gang until they had pissed off the 'Star once too often, and ended up as last year's main demonstration of what the cops could do in the barrens if they made an effort. With the matrix wrecked by the luddites, and what infrastructure had been left by the 'Star's heavy weapons, no known gangs had been keen to move in. Which meant it was a good spot for fringe "groups" to hide in - to use the term lightly.

03-Apr-2071, 23:15:26, Everett, Seattle

Think she's onto something. How the hell did I miss that?

Nuke takes a moment to check on his truck up in Auburn, then glances over the map, looking at the highlighted gap.

"That looks like a workably small haystack. Let's get rolling and see what we can find."

03-Apr-2071, 23:15:31, Everett, Seattle

Jasper fires up the trucks. "Let's do it"

<<You guys think we need more firepower? Rosie's got the only heavy weapon. After that we're down to Uzi's and pistols. I think the truck armor should hold up, but if we get swarmed by gouhls, you might wish we had a few more bullets. that reminds me. I need to get Harry back outa your bag Nuke>>

03-Apr-2071, 23:15:39, Everett, Seattle

Nuke picks up the unconscious Test Screen in a fireman's carry, pay's Doc Vacation the fee he states, and slowly heads for the door.

<<My only other gun is my Desert Strike, which is great in the right situation, but playing Rourke's Drift against a swarm of ghouls isn't that situation. Might be worth swiping a few traffic observation blimps from Auburn and using those to help narrow our search before we put ourselves into harm's way. Worse comes to worse, if we can trust them not to kill Cheryl, the go-ganger wackos might be convinced to help us out. But that's a pretty big if.>>

03-Apr-2071, 23:16:50, Everett, Seattle

"I've got a Remington 990, which should do ok against most of the riff-raff, but it's not exactly good for suppressive fire."

03-Apr-2071, 23:16:50, Everett, Seattle

Jasper made his way back to the vehicles. This time, after getting his other ruger back, he hopped in "Shelly". He thought over the tactical scenarios they might encounter with the weapons they had, "We better stay mobile as much as possible, don't want to get boxed in on this one" After everyone loads up, Jasper Drops into VR, His persona sitting in a Rocking chair on a Big porch in the country. "JD", his virtual guard dog plops down beside him scanning the countryside. The scene is quickly darkened by the camera feeds from the trucks, Bud (who he's kept active in the van), and Stray's sunglasses. He pushes these back a bit and pulls up an overhead map of the area in question. He plots a course like an Ares astronaught trying to obtain orbit. <<Well, Buckle up kiddies, we're on our way>>

As they pull out of the clinic, Jasper pulls up a quick maintenence check on all the drones.

03-Apr-2071, 23:18:21, Everett, Seattle

Stray buckles up, and stashes the shotgun in her bag - no point in carrying it in the open until they have entered Puyllaup. The young adept looks through the window, but focuses on the feeds in her AR enhanced field of view. Not her favorite place, Pyuallup.

03-Apr-2071, 23:18:33, Everett, Seattle

The bound, sedated Test Screen is strapped down like a piece of luggage in the back of the van before Nuke settles into his own seat. After tightening his seatbelt, the combat hacker double checks his Predator, adjusts the body armor under his sweatshirt and leather jacket, and settles in for a long night in the chair.

"Don't know about the rest of you, but after the last few hours, I'm starving. Want to hit a drive-through burger spot on the way south? It's going to be a long, long night."

03-Apr-2071, 23:18:42, Everett, Seattle

<<You read my mind Nuke. Ya'll got any particular slop house in mind? Oh! and where we dropin sleepin beauty at?>>

03-Apr-2071, 23:19:00, Everett, Seattle

"Anything edible is good. Not McHugh's though." Stray once worked there as a waitress, and she hasn't eaten there since. "And good question - the safer the drop is for us, the more dangerous it'll be for him..."

03-Apr-2071, 23:19:18, Everett, Seattle

<<Not picky. First thing we can see from the interstate's fine with me.>>

Nuke takes a moment to pull up a list of fast food spots along I-5 in Snohomish.

<<As for TS, I'm not worried about his safety. I just want to be sure he's out of our hair for the next few days. Whether he gets locked in a basement, dumped in a brothel to be kept distracted until we give them the word to kick him out, or we take him along as a last ditch ghoul bribe, it's all the same to me.>>

03-Apr-2071, 23:19:18, Everett, Seattle

<<I know a place with damn good immitation Yard bird. uh, thats Chicken to Ya'll. We can leave T.S. in the parkin lot, or hang on to 'em don't matter much to me. >>

03-Apr-2071, 23:19:30, Everett, Seattle

"Ok." The adept does not detail wether she's agreeing to the plans for dinner, or the ones for dealing with Test Screen, or both, preferring not to think too much about the latter.

The next restaurant - if you can call the fast food joint that - that comes up is a korean food stall next to a parking lot, not quite gang territory, but apparently a preferred hang out for the local youth. A bunch of teenagers are sitting there, about ten meters away from the stall, surrounded by empty plastic bowls, and passing some chip along.

03-Apr-2071, 23:19:38, Everett, Seattle

<<If we hold onto him, no one else finds out that we have him. If we dump him in the parking lot, who the fuck knows what'll happen next? If we leave him with someone, it's one more person that we're paying to lie for us. Let's go get some chicken.>>

03-Apr-2071, 23:19:52, Everett, Seattle

Jasper drives past the Korean place and heads for the highway. He heads south, And hops off I-5 in Tacoma. Right by the highway is a greasy shack with no sign. Just an ARO of a chicken being shot with a flame thrower followed by flaming letters that read "Super Hot Wings!"

<<There we go. best chicken I've found up here. But if you get the wings, I don't recomend Super hot. Tore me a knew one. >>

03-Apr-2071, 23:49:52, Super Hot Wings, Tacoma, Seattle

"Certainly smells good enough."

Unconcerned with the total lack of ambiance, Nuke orders and digs in, still watching the Puyallup map hovering before his eyes.

03-Apr-2071, 23:30:09, Everett, Seattle

It doesn't take that long to eat the food - a bit spicy, and not really meat, but accepable for a late night meal in this area. The teenagers nearby seem more occupied with chipping then trying to raise some trouble, and after a bit the runners are fed and ready. Test Screen is still out.

03-Apr-2071, 24:00:09,Puyallup, Seattle

It doesn't take long to get back over to Puyallup. Jasper passes through his own stomping ground and then deeper into the Barrens.

<<Ok, we're gettin close now>>

04-Apr-2071, 00:05:18, Puyallup, Seattle

As expected the area they are about to enter is more reminescent of a war zone than a slum. Ruins, often burned out, line the streets, which are littered with potholes and wrecks. Almost no light is visible, and not many signs of life.

04-Apr-2071, 00:05:31, Puyallup, Seattle

<<I'm gonna put Rosie in the air, I think we're off the grid enough. Any Idea what we're lookin for now?>>

Droping into VR again after coming up for some chicken, Jasper launches "Rosie" from the rack on top of "Charlene". He's on full alert, looking for movement of any kind.

04-Apr-2071, 00:05:36, Puyallup, Seattle

<<I'm just looking for encrypted radio traffic or anything else really, really out of place.>>

04-Apr-2071, 00:05:59, Puyallup, Seattle

There's no wireless traffic in range that's not coming from nodes outside the area. No encrypted traffic.

Rosie takes to the air and her sensors have to deal with various fires, but manage to make out humanoid figures moving in response to the van entering the area - some push debris into makeshift barricades. From a closer look at one coming near a fire they seem to be ghouls. That's just the "entry" area where the team is right now though.