02-Apr-2071, 20:28:47, Ticklers, Alki, Downtown, Seattle

Mr. Johnson paid out the 20% advance money, and waved at the runners while they left the room. "And call me if you need a good time, or want to earn some extra nuyen, ok?"

As she's leaving the room, Flash chuckles under her breath. No way in hell.

Once outside, Flash agrees. Chelsea's fine by me.

Outside, freed of the faraday cage, Nuke stashes a copy of the recorded data on a nexus sitting in a closet, in the basement of his home.

"Chelsea sounds good. Out of the curiousity, in the recording, did Cheryl's body language look genuinely surprised? I'm really bad at reading people, but it does seem like hiring some people to stage a kidnapping would be a great way for a girl to get out of the mercenary girlfriend business. And it seems weird that they'd Stick'n'Shock the driver and taze her, rather than taze both, or SnS both."

i hope he cleaned the burns in the van

"One of you will help me view the recording please? Stick'n'Shock break driver face, neh? Please, I don't want to feel that."

Snow Flower displayed teeth in a sharp grin, "Not in business myself, but I think person like Cheryl, paid off already, always allow to leave, no pressure, they like it, come back. Good worker hard to keep if not happy."

02-Apr-2071, 20:30:55, Outside Ticklers, Alki, Downtown, Seattle

Stray's still slightly peeved at the offer from the Mr. Johnson - she's shadowrunning so she doesn't have to work there. "I dunno. Some pimps don't let girls go."

"What exactly are we gonna do at the hotel?"

02-Apr-2071, 20:31:04, Outside Ticklers, Alki, Downtown, Seattle

"Test sim if details good. And maybe driver not see everything. Some things also not record on sim chips."

"And it's away from place where people offering nuyen for my naked flesh."

Snow Flower shook her head at the thought of working at Ticklers.

no tea except those ghastly long island ones

20:31:09 outside Ticklers

Jasper brought the trucks around and finished his smoke, "Yea, if the Vans gone, the crime scene sounds like the place to start. We need to get a line on this Smith guy too. "
Hopping in the pick up truck, Jasper looked at the ladies,"And hell I'd give ol' boy a show if the price is right, but did he ask? That just hurts a gals feelins" he said as he chuckled to himself.

02-Apr-2071, 20:31:04, Outside Ticklers, Alki, Downtown, Seattle

"Looking at the logs from the driver, Cheryl's signal dropped out right as she got in the van, but it doesn't look like they used a jammer or anything. Must have dropped her in a wireless blocking bag. All their commlinks are in hidden, too. Almost looks like some other corp might have grabbed her to use to blackmail Smith."

The hacker settles into the saddle of his chopper.

"I'll see what I can find on who we think he is on the way over to the site. By the way, I'm sending each of you a quick little program that will tie us together and keep our communications secure. Run it and it should keep all but the most determined, best equipped, lucky hackers out of our systems."

Nuke dashes off a quick script to subscribe and slave the commlinks to the nexus he stashed the recording on, which he configures to handle signal encryption. The agent is set to recognize the rest of the group, and actively search for other intruders. While he waits for everyone to run it, he tasks the agent running on his commlink with looking into United Oil, and begins searching for information on Andrew Kilborn.

02-Apr-2071, 20:45:14, on the way to Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

Nuke's agent starts churning out general data about United Oil. United Oil's main offices in Seattle, located in Everett, mostly provide staff and handle paperwork and deals for the corps's offshore activities - Seattle serving as a transport center for the west coast/northern pacific area of the corp. A couple enviromental cases are pending in court, but that's been business as usual for the corp for decades. No major scandals in the last few years, not since a failed ploy to get drill licenses by toppling the government in a small Caribbean state in 2064.

Andrew Kelborn, age 50, looking like 30, is a manager in United Oil, though he is not a real executive, he just heads up the legal staff. By all accounts he is rather laid-back, treating his staff - mostly lawyers from the ivy league - as colleagues and not subordinates, and the management of the local branch doesn't really care as long as they produce results.
Andrew Kilborn himself had had a messy divorce 5 years ago, which included some personal sim records being leaked to the press, and has since then not pursued a serious relationship, but cultivated a playboy image. The sim records Nuke finds as well, though they do not contain anything illegal. He's been seen a number of times with Cheryl at parties in the past few months, but for the last month has contained their visits - once or twice a week - to hotels, and not public events or his own appartment. A quick check of the two girls he has been appearing in public with during the last month marks one of them as an employee of Knight Errant and the other as a paid escort.

02-Apr-2071, 20:33:55, Outside Ticklers, Alki, Downtown, Seattle

Stray chuckles at Jasper's joke, then straddles her own bike. "Sightseeing's good."

02-Apr-2071, 20:48:14, on the way to Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

Digital fingers dance across a virtual keyboard as his real hand and fake hand steer the Harley through evening traffic.

AR windows full of articles, stock exchange quotes, and legal briefs about United Oil mix with the sea of pictures, video, legal journal articles, and professional blogs about Andrew Kilborn.

The relevant bits are relayed as he finds them, and the whole data collage is saved to the nexus for future reference.

<<Lots of history with Kilborn. Think someone might be trying to get to him? He split with his wife years ago, so knocking on his door and asking about his favorite joygirl shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Anyone know the cop with him in the pictures?>>

02-Apr-2071, 20:48:20, on the way to Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

Jasper wasn't a fan of autopilot unless he was kneewalkin drunk, but there was a lot to do. He closed out the call with Slim and relayed what little he found to the group. he scanned through the stream of info from Nuke.

<<Damn son, you done tore through Kilborn"s garbage like a junk yard dog..as for the girl, can't say as I know her, but where is he pickin up Knight Errant girls in Seattle? Does United oil use KE?>>

@Snowflower<<How's Charlene treatin you snowpeach? If the smell aint quite right I got some air freshener's in the glovebox, also my other Ruger's in there, help yourself to either>>

02-Apr-2071, 20:48:39, on the way to Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

Nuke continues digging through the information the agent is filling his head with, oblivious to Jasper's comments on his talent for pattern recognition, and the efficiency of his search tools.

<<Yep. Looks like United has a Knight Errant contract. Doubt I'll get details without breaking into their contract storage servers. Given the situation, think you all can convince Smith to just tell us who the Knight Errant woman is?>>

02-Apr-2071, 20:48:40, on the way to Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

Snow Flower sat comfortably in Charlene and turned off her metalink. As usual, for reasons she wasn't quite certain of, it was overloaded and stuck in a continuous reboot cycle. She'd ask Nuke or Jaspar to take a look at it later. Fortunately Charlene has internal displays and interfaces to provide her with the information she needed, and a means for communications.

Not that she really needed Charlene. Snow Flower bent her head down and whispered a short prayer, willed the kami to appear before her, and then stared the 20 cm tall 8 winged dragonfly in it's eyes until it twitched submissively. In japanese she instructed it, "Find Butterfly and tell her I would be in her debt if she can instruct me in the matter of the people whose information I have sent her." Before the dragonfly shifted and left she had uttered her next minor prayer. This kami appeared as an eagle winged puppy. This one she sent to Jake the Oni. Using Charlene's HUD she collected the pictures and other data on the people and instructed Charlene to forward the data packages to Butterfly and Jake the Oni.

Queries sent off, she sat back and started reviewing the streams of data coming in, opening multiple windows and getting utterly confused.

Snow Flower let a small sigh and concentrated on limiting the amount of things to think about.

"Who is Ruger?" she asked aloud, relying on Charlene to relay her speech to the others whom she knew were almost always listening to everything.

Andrew Kilborn... how can we reach him?
the security woman... she has the skills and contacts
the ex wife would know his personality
we need to find out more about Cheryl... the pimp mentioned drugs.. who is her pusher?

"If we can arrange for me to meet these people face to face and talk, I may be able to find out more about them. We can also watch and follow them like the last job."

"I find this KE woman very interesting."

02-Apr-2071, 20:51:19, on the way to Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

The hacker sends everyone a picture of a highrise, full of high end condos, in a very, very nice part of Downtown.

<<Found Mr. Smith's address. Nice place. Want to go talk to him tonight? The ex-wife will be something a problem, since she's in Boston in the middle of becoming someone else's ex-wife.>>

02-Apr-2071, 20:51:59, on the way to Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

Jasper laughed to himself about the Ruger comment.

<<I'm game, but I imagine security will be tighter than a Nun's snaredrum. Are we still swngin by the chelsea site? Probly not much there, but we could stumble on something if we see the whole scene in person>>

02-Apr-2071, 20:52:29, on the way to Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

"Like a reconstruction, seeing how we'd have done it?"

02-Apr-2071, 20:52:35, on the way to Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle
Flash

"It's a good place for us to start at. We can make sure we're not missing anything obvious, and we might be able to spot if the footage we've seen has been modified. "

02-Apr-2071, 20:52:35, on the way to Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

<<Thats kinda the tune I'm hummin boys and girls, and maybe Snowflower can pick up on some mojo that the cameras wouldn't have>>

02-Apr-2071, 21:12:16, Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

There was a tickle and a hypersonic buzz sensation in her consciousness, Snow Flower paused as she was disembarking from Charlene. A few seconds later she spoke projecting her voice into the interior, "Our client is Slick Jim and operates downtown, and in the place where we met. He pays insurance to the mob. Doesn't use violence for management and uses in house talent for his personal needs. Used to be a Renraku Entertainment Division Personal Escort."

"Explains why he needs us to look into the violence."

Stepping onto the sidewalk she walked off to get a feel for the area.

A pause in front of a Mortimer's display window allowed her call out for one of the local kami to assist her

02-Apr-2071, 21:12:16, Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

From the pavement an astral form rises, forming into a vaguely human-like form with shifting features and changing colors - flickering like the lights of a city at night. It stares at Snow Flower.

02-Apr-2071, 21:13:22, Near Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

The silence in the moment after Nuke kills the chopper’s engine is almost deafening. He pulls his sunglasses off and tucks them into the top of his sweatshirt then climbs out of the saddle, leaving the big bike nestled into a parking space a block from the hotel entrance.

Rounding the corner, he looks up and down the street for anyone who might be watching the group. Nuke settles into a comfortable loitering pose against a street lamp and stretches his mind out into the local matrix, looking for the nearest gridguide node.



<< Someone want to go talk to the hotel desk clerk to see if they saw anything that the driver or the limo’s cameras might have missed? >>

02-Apr-2071, 21:14:22, Near Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

Jasper has "Shelly" drop him around the corner and sends her up the street. pretending to peruse the flats in a vending machine, he brings up the sensors for charlene and shelly to scout the site.


"these things aint never got my size" he mutters as he strolls towards the apartments. Jasper unsubscribes his Agent "JD" and leaves him instructions to patrol his dummy commlink, then Brings "Bud" online. The Doberman drone whose chameleon paint defaults to a dog hair pattern sits up in the back of the van. Stay in the van Bud, I'm just gettin you ready if we need ya.

<<whats the aproach on this clerk? Lonestar follow up? concerned relative? scary people he should cooperate with and fergit he ever saw?>>

02-Apr-2071, 21:14:31, Near Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

Nuke spots a man in dark clothing leaning on the side door of his cab, having a smoke. It looks normal, but the man's a bit too focused on the front of the hotel on the other side, where the kidnapping happened, and he simply looks a bit too alert for a cab driver on a break - not to mention that few cab drivers wear long armored coats.

Charlene and Shelly don't report anything unusual on their sweep. But it seems the "cab driver" noticed them while he did not notice Nuke.

Stray parks her bike - it runs great, she can't think that often enough! - and peers around, trying to look as if she's deciding whether to enter the diner a bit ahead, or goes to the foodstall across the street. She does have a bit of an appetite, actually.

02-Apr-2071, 21:14:39, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

<<Looks like our lucky day. Jasper just got made. Cabbie across the street isn’t really a cab driver. I’m digging a little deeper into who he is, but we might have just gotten a really nice lead.>>

The “cab driver� is tagged with an AR flag, an image is snapped of him, and saved. Nuke then begins tweaking his antenna, looking into the cab driver’s matrix presence.

02-Apr-2071, 21:15:12, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

Nuke doesn't take too long to find two hidden nodes - one associated with the "driver" and the other with the "cab". Intercepting the traffic and decrypting it, he starts to catch the following coming from the driver: "...pect. It's a van, and I see drones. That might be the kidnappers scooping the area out for another victim. No sign of the 'Star, which fits as well. Gearhead, try to hack into that van."

02-Apr-2071, 21:15:29, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

Not Lone Star and not the kidnappers. Who the hell are you? They’ll probably be in our communications as fast as I got into theirs. Time to see who else is watching us.

Nuke routes the audio to the others, then connects to the agent patrolling his security nexus, turning off the psychotropic option in the Blackout program. No reason to do any permanent damage.

After that, he starts digging deeper into the haze of wireless data, and waits, curious to see what else the cab driver’s team will do.

02-Apr-2071, 21:12:20, Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

The strain made her left shoulder and right hip ache maddeningly in alternating unnatural waves. It was bothersome but she controlled the reflex to stretch out her joints. After a few hours of rest the ache would leave. For now it didn't really do anything except remind her there was a price to pay for disturbing the kami. In deferential mode she addressed the kami in japanese, "Honorable one, I ask that you reveal to me what in this place is concealed from me because I am blind to the spirit world."

Snow Flower hadn't thought it much of a problem but the last job and this one, and future ones no doubt requiring it, her blindness to the spirit world was going to have to be overcome more easily. So far she had not yet been able to meet the price for a kami to train her the rituals or bestow the power upon herself, but she was getting closer and closer to giving in.

02-Apr-2071, 21:12:30, Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

The spirit took on a slightly haughty air, responding to the defrential treatment even as it is bound to Snow Flower's will. Its voice has a slightly foreign, and part alien accent, yet fits in perfectly into the street. "There is another spirit watching us. An elemental spirit. Fire. There are wards on the house behind me (the hotel). They shook recently, but still hold. Many strings met here, and got entangled, and some may need to be cut to unravel the knot."

02-Apr-2071, 21:13:10, Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

Snow Flower bowed in thanks, "You bless me with your knowledge Honorable One." She waited while the kami faded into the background, and then proceeded to walk around the block observing the area to get a sense of the place.

21:15:30

The different pattern of vibration on her commlink alerted her, and she listened to the repeat of the message. Guiltily she then ran back through the past few minutes of conversation in summary form and reviewed it.

Knowing her commlink would repeat it to the others, or so she understood, she spoke to herself, "I shall take a taxi neh?" and she changed her course and strode directly towards the indicated cab and driver.

02-Apr-2071, 21:14:42, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

TARNATION! Jasper, you sloppy old coot!-

Jasper's trigger finger was itching. But it sounded like Nuke wanted these guys alive. plus he knew this guy wasn't alone. He hit the alert on his comm's firewall through the Datajack. and made his way around the corner to the hotel. He sends a command to Shelly to turn around and wait up the street.

<<Just say go, and I'll let the dogs out Nuke, If cabbies a look out, you think his buddies are inside?>>

02-Apr-2071, 21:15:49, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

Nuke takes a moment to querry the Predator holstered under his sweatshirt. After confirming the round in the chamber, and the full magazine of Stick'n'Shock rounds, he returns his attention to Snowflower crossing the street.

<<Curious to see how the driver reacts to Snowflower. Not sure if they connected her to you yet. Looking for his backup now.>>

02-Apr-2071, 21:15:39, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

Nuke's sniffer cotinues to feed him the conversation the "cabbie" is having, with this "Gearhead's" answer: "I am on it, Reaper. Give me a few seconds to find the hidden nodes there. And be careful - anyone that can make the 'Star drop a kidnapping investigation can make a gillette disappear as well."
Then a new voice cuts in: "Fred reports that some spirit was summoned outside the hotel."
The cabbie almost panics, and visibly jolts in the meat as well: "Frag! Limey, tell your pet to waste the spirit! I can't handle one of those alone."
"Fred says the spirit is gone."
Good work, Limey!
That wasn't me.

Then a video feed is added to the communication stream - showing the view of the hotels outside through its security cameras. Gearhead must be doing this. The two drones are tagged as "threats", but no one else is - yet.

02-Apr-2071, 21:16:15, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

On the video feed, all runners visible outside the hotel are getting tagged as "suspects", as well as a young man in a suit getting a hot dog from the foodstall nearby. The cabbie gets even more nervous "Frag! Doll, get out of the lobby - there are too many of them. And one is coming right at me!" The man stares at Snow Flower, who is walking up to him. He's likely to keep the rest of the runners in his field of vision thanks to AR feeds as well.

Nuke's sniffer also catches Gearhead's comment "That's a tough firewall... I may get compromised, if I am going in hot."

02-Apr-2071, 21:16:22, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

As the tension builds, Nuke shuffles software around, tweaking the agent’s loadout and his own, then goes looking for the other hacker to stick his nose out.

02-Apr-2071, 21:16:22, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

The man was certainly paying attention to her. She smiled. "I will go with you in this taxi?"

It appeared there might be something other then the memory of psychic puppy licks in her mind from the kami she'd sent to Jake The Oni. The vast majority of his response was a wall of scatological nomenclature and terms she'd actually had to ask Charlene to reference for her. Apparently the kami had disgorged some ephemeral puppy goop onto one of his passengers. It couldn't do anything permanent, but the psychic trauma was considerable. And it ruined Jake The Oni's chances to pursue the potential relationship between the driver and his fare. However, buried in the wealth of material for study there had been some information on Slick Jim's drivers past that might prove itself useful in the upcoming conversation.

"You are a cab driver neh?" Snow Flower prompted as she positioned herself be the rear passenger door in anticipation of entry into the vehicle.

02-Apr-2071, 21:16:25, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

Jasper watches Snowflower out of the corner of his eye as he walks toward "Charlene". Time fer subtlety is comin to a close. Jasper drops "Harry" from the roster, deciding to use the pistol manually if needed. He then brings "Rosie" on line, slaving her to his comm. He knows that talking is out the window if he launches a roto drone with an LMG, but he wants to be ready. One twitch, and all hells breakin loose.

02-Apr-2071, 21:17:00, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

The man seems confused for a few seconds, staring at Snow Flower, his hand on his hip as if stuck to the belt. "Oh... ah... yes, but... I am on a break. Please call another taxi." He seems still ready to start shooting, but not about to right now.

The tap on the other team's commnet continues "What is she saying? What is she saying?" "I am inside, I am inside"

Nuke gets the alert from the system - someone unauthorized passed through the firewall into Jasper's van. The agent locates the intruder, but Nuke doesn't see him just now.

Stray bites her lower lip, looking around for anything they might have missed, ready to draw on the cab driver. All that technomumbojumbo goes over her head.

The man at the foodstand is taking a bite out of his hotdog, then blinks, and stares at Snow Flower. Swallowing, and pasting a smile on his face, he takes a few more big bites, then throws the hot dog away and walks toward the woman who seems to have some trouble with the cab driver.

02-Apr-2071, 21:17:03, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

<<Shits hittin the proverbial fan folks!>>

Jasper sends bud to secure the lobby, and launches Rosie to neutralize the cameras in the area, as he moves to takae cover. Sweat is rolling out from under his ball cap. the only thing that rattles the old guy is someone compromising his system. If they're in there I might as well give em a lot to do.

02-Apr-2071, 21:17:00, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

Nuke responds to the alert by swapping his Attack program for Exploit, and begins hunting for the intruder in earnest. Well aware that communications are probably already compromised, he sets about network sterilization before breaking comm silence.

The agent responds to the foreign hacker's presence with all the compassion and patience one would expect from top of the line intrusion countermeasure software carrying top of the line black IC.

Its’ NERF sniper rifle thumps softly, sending a bright orange foam dart of code at the offending icon as the system begins attempting to force him out.

02-Apr-2071, 21:17:05, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

The hotdog suit approaches Snow Flower and the cabbie, smiling widely "Miss? Do you need help?" The cabbie moves a bit back, looking even more nervous and tense.

So far no one seems to have noticed the rotodrone.

In the matrix, the other team notices when the cameras start to blank out. "Gearhead, what's going on?" Gearhead, of course, has currently other problems - mainly the giant nerf dart that nailed him to the ground. Nuke spots him this time - his icon is a cybernetic skull made of gears, currently a bit disturbed by the nerf piece messing him up. Straining with the effort, his icon fraying at the edges already, the hacker manages to log out, the icon fading from view, the nerf dart dropping to the ground, then vanishing.

The doberman sneaks into the hotel lobby, where the clerk at the reception desk is talking with a beautiful young woman, but right then gets distracted by something on his AR display.

02-Apr-2071, 21:17:10, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

In rapid fire japanese Snow Flower complained, "I need to meet my husband at an important function at the Muramoto Towers, but this cab driver refuses." haltingly she continues in north american english, "Muramoto Towers? Is important. Is cab, neh?"

She reflected briefly that she really wasn't pretending to be anxious.

02-Apr-2071, 21:17:10, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

Watching the hacker grit his way through disconnecting from the nexus, Nuke can’t help but smirk. The freshly ejected intruder most likely has no idea how much worse things could have been.

<<Intruder's out. Looking around to see if he broke anything before I got him.>>

Before the digital dust has settled, Nuke is hard at work digging through the system logs for any indication that the hacker did anything in the nexus other than get spotted, get attacked, and disconnect.



The agent resumes its’ vigil.

02-Apr-2071, 21:17:13, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

Jasper was suprised to hear the intruder was down already. He watched the scene by the cab unfolding and the scene inside through Bud's sensors.

<<Bud is stormin the lobby! I count 1 + a desk clerk>>
He made a move for the van as the doberman sprayed the front desk with stick and shock rouds.

02-Apr-2071, 21:17:15, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

The man smiles, though it doesn't look like he understood the japanese words. "The man is on a break, miss. You should call another cab." He doesn't seem to suspect Snow Flower to be anything other than what she appears, but the way he keeps his eyes on the cabbie and how tense he is indicates that he suspects the cabbie is no real cabbie. Snow Flower also notices that he keeps his right hand free, and closer to his chest than would be natural.

Inside Chelsea's "Bud" sprays both the woman and the clerk with suppressed SMG fire. Both get hit, and scream with pain as the Stick'n'Shocks discharge their electricity into them, causing them to spasm on the ground - not knocked out, but not going anywhere for a few seconds. Two guests that were just entering the lobby from the elevator area scream at the sight and start to panic.

To Nuke it doesn't look like "Gearhead" did anything else than enter and get fried - logs show nothing either, and he should not have had time to tamper with them. The other hacker gets called on the commnet "Gearhead? What did you find? Gearh..", but interrupted by a "scream" from "Doll" "AHHHH... I am hit!"

Stray shifts her weight, and shifts her attention from the cabbie to the hotel entrance and back.

02-Apr-2071, 21:17:22, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

Satisfied that no damage was done, Nuke returns his focus to the crisis brewing on the sidewalk. From the tone of the message from the lobby, it sounds like Gearhead’s dumpshock might have finished what the agent’s blackout started.

<<No sign of any damage done. Looking into who these clowns really are.>>

02-Apr-2071, 21:17:20, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

As soon as he hears the scream over the commnet, the "cabbie" springs into action, his hand darting behind his back, starting to pull out a pistol while the door of his "cab" opens automatically, revealing what looks like a folded blanket thrown over something the size of baseball bat. At the same time "Mr. Hotdog" is drawing on the cabbie himself - pulling out a Ruger Thunderbolt, for those who know guns - and he shouts "Lone Star! Freeze!" while trying to push Snow Flower out of the expected line of fire with his left hand.

The commnet you're tapped into lights up with a stream of profanity coming from Limey, which apruptly is cut off.

Snow Flower hears some profanity coming from the cab, with an english accent.

02-Apr-2071, 21:17:22, Outside Chelsea's, Downtown, Seattle

Nuke is scanning for the hiddn node - a bit easier, since he alrteady has tapped into the network - and discovers that the "cabbie" has his commlink run through the vehicle's node.