The Texan moves with the group, carefully to try and plant his feet lightly as they progress into the interior of the corporate building.

Trace looks back at Jack and points at the sign reading 'Copy Room'. The nod from Jack confirms Trace's thoughts. "Sully," he says over the subvocal. "Were going to deposit Jack in the copy room then head up stairs." He then points at Wraith, and then the stairs, "check the doors for sec devices, but let's wait for Jack to get in before proceeding."

"Check. Lets wait for Jack to tap into the security system before moving upstairs though, that way he can fill us in on where any bogies would be."

Wriath moves over to the stairs and checks them out for any security devices.

:: As you progress through the halls, the light is minimal. Small low wat lights are sporattically located along the baseboards in the hallway giving just enough illumination for someone without vision mods to navigate through them. Each of you is painfully aware of the tile floor in the cafeteria and how it seems to amplify every movement, yet it's mostly paranoia. As a group, you are frighteningly quiet. ::

:: The doors to the copy room are frosted glass and unlocked. They are basically stylized swinging kitchen style doors, however, once inside, you are disappointed. ::

:: Along the back wall is a long counter laden with all sorts of mailroom tools. There is a shelf above it that seems to be cubby holes for all staff members to reveice their mail and the counter has everything from coalating machines to postal meters. The side of the room that shares an outer wall is lined with 3 industrial strength copy machines, but to your dismay, they are only plugged in for power. There is also a phone mounted on the wall next to the side door and that's where you get your first indication that the building isn't empty. The row of LCD lights along the top half of the phone indicates which lines are being utilized and you see 2 seperate lines lit up. One is labeled Greaves, the other is labeled Sec. ::

"Crap," Trace mutter over the com. He taps Sully on the back and points at the door leading to the hallway, then to his eyes. He then concentrates for a moment and switches to his astral vision. "Ember," he says quietly, I need you to scan the building astrally see who's here and who's not here, don't pass through any wards though."

"Right away," Ember replies.
She follows Trace's instruction, floating through the building at the speed of thought, but careful to avoid any wards that might be in place.

Sully relaxes further and begins to tune into the area around her.

:: As Sully relaxes, she can heard the steady, if tense breathing of her teammates and the almost silent buzzing from the idle, yet still powered machines in the room. Other than that, you hear no sound. ::

Trace grimaces, a black cloud passes through his mind at the teams obvious mistake. Dammit, I can't believe we missed that. His anger only manifests for a moment before he is back in control. He lets the speed spell slip away, like dust in the astral wind. Once it is gone he touches Jack's arm. Gathering his will he focuses on the decker. Once it has reached sufficient levels he speaks, "vanish". The word triggers the release of the spell. Mana encompasses the decker obscuring his form. He repeats the process for himself.

"Ok, we need to move up stairs, quietly and alertly. Sully take point."

They don't even have combination copy machines and printers...geezus, the bosses here must be cheap.

Jack creeps along with the rest of the team, trying to make sure he doesn't collide with any of the less visible members.

"Doors on the stairs are clear of any maglocks."

If there are any cameras, Wraith points them out to the team so they know to avoid them.

Sully will glide forward heading towards their next destination.

:: The stairs are unguarded, no camera, no maglock. ::

:: As Ember floats up and away from the group, she wanders through the halls like a spectre. The ground floor is dark and quiet but as you head upstairs you witness your first ward. Right where you might expect it, the high security room. ::

:: Further exploration of the offices upstairs reveals two men in a room filled with some sort of equipment. You quickly recognize their surroundings as the security center and can clearly see the view present on the monitors. It seems that most camera's are pointed outward from the building to watch the parkinglot, and the exterior doors. There is also a camera guarding the entrance to the secured room. ::

:: One of the guards seems to be chatting on the phone. From the content of the chatter, it's probably a girlfriend, and his buddy occasionally throws comments at him in a teasing manner. Obviously two men never expecting anything to happen on their quiet watch. ::

:: Moving deeper down that hallway, you finally come to the room marked President on your map and there is a man sitting at a desk jacked into his system. Since he's the only other soul in the building besides your team, you are fairly sure that he must be on a call, but is transducing through the datajack because you hear nothing from him. ::

Ember quickly returns to the team where she carefully repeats to Trace what she saw.

"They seem unaware of our presence, for the time being."

Trace nods to her Astral form, "Thanks Ember. Watch our back, I'll check in periodically, if it is an emergency let PD know and he can radio us." Trace blinked twice and his vision slipped back into the normal. He quickly fills in the rest of the team on what Ember saw.

Sully leads the way up the stairs and into the lounge. She pauses to make sure the room is clear and then motions for the rest of the team to move in.

"The Pres is here, eh? We may be able to use him to get into the room if it comes down to that."

Jakc chuckles under his breath as he moves quietly along.

Yeah, I'm sure the company still wouldn't be suspicious about the information in their computers after that.

Once they are up the stairs and in the lounge, Wraith moves to the far door that leads into the data center and goes to work on the maglock protecting that door.

"Alright Jack," Trace subvocalized, "find yourself a port and get busy, we don't move until you are in and have uploaded the data. Don't get burned."

*click*

The door opens and Wraith step into the Data Storage Room.

"Clear."

Wraith then takes a possition next to the door that leads to the main hall, ready in case any security guards come this way.

Jack whispers a "Thankyee kindly," and gives Wraith another grin as he slips into the room, glancing around for a brief second before finding a likely looking access point and settling down to lock in the dataline tap.

Trace Enters the room behind Sully, wary of any cameras and listening devices the mage moves slow and quiet, and he sticks behind any equipment he can find. Once he finds a good spot to hunker down for a few moments he switches his vision to the astral, "Hey Ember," he says to the shaman, "can you do another scan of the place?" While she is scanning he takes a good long look at the ward, trying to figure out what to do about it.

:: The data storage room is humming with electrical activity. Behind each of the data towers is a heavy bundle of cords that connects it to the wall. There is a desk between the door you entered and the door to the secured room that seems to have an access terminal for the data storage. There is also a security camera mounted so that it covers the door of the secured room. ::

:: As you all shuffle into the room, you realize that your decker, while invisible, doesn't seem to be making a very successful attempt at being quiet. Sully's ears prick up as she notices a shift in the background sound. ::

:: Closing her eyes, Sully recognizes the shift. The music that had been softly playing in the security room has been turned off and a muted conversation drifts your way. ::

"Did you just hear something?"

"No, turn the music back on."

"Frank, I think I heard something down the hall."

"It's probably just Mr. Graves."

"Yeah, well Im just gonna do a quick walk through to be sure. SOME of us care about job integrity."

"Ok, Mr. 2 hour Personal Calls."

"Frag you."

Sully quickly moves to a concealed position by the door the security guard will enter through. We have company coming. A single guard. Hide yourselves if you can. I am only going to drop him if he makes one of us.

Wraith steps into the corner of the room and blends in like his namesake.

Trace settles in what he hopes is an unused corner then freezes. His mind continues to be active though as he summons his will and prepares a spell.

Jack curses silently and presses back into a corner behind some of the machinery, not quite completely confident in the magic making him invisible.

:: The guard approaches the lobby area and pauses a bit, before heading towards the data storage door. The soft sound of a card swipe and the authorizing beep that followed is unmistakable as everyone holds their breath. The door swings open and the bright beam of a flashlight pierces the room briefly before he reaches up to a small transciever on his shoulder. ::

"Do me a fave and hit the lights. This place creeps me out..."

:: As the lights flicker on, his eyes almost immediately lock onto Trace's form as he reaches for the baton swinging from his waist. ::

"Hey.....!"

:: The attack is viscious and instant. The moment the word begins to escape his mouth, Sully whips out a long thin baton that snaps softly as it extends to it's full 4 feet then with a momentary twirl, it connects with the side of the guards neck, cutting off his word of alarm as it momentarily prevents the flow of blood to his brain. With eyes suddenly void of consciousness, he drops to the floor with an unceremonial thump. ::

:: As Sully breaths in meditatively, the smoothness of her actions shows her dedication to her martial art. After a pause though, her ears pickup the string of chatter coming through the small transceiver unit attached to the guards shoulder. It sounds as if ihis buddy is relating a story about the barhopping he did over the weekend, unaware that his buddy is no longer listening. ::

Wraith turns to Jack, "Plug in and lock the video feed they have outside the security room. Quick!"

He then moves over to the guard and picks up his transceiver, "Alright guys, heres the plan. We can use his security access and biometrics to break into the security room. As soon as that door opens we all unload before they have a chance to move. Lets move now though, cause it won't take them long to come looking for this guy."

Wraith stands quickly, throwing the guard over his shoulder and carrying him fireman-style. "I'll carry him, you hold his hand to the maglock to open the door. Lets go."

Sully takes a moment to transfer the radio unit to her gear. The other guard is still clueless at this point. I like the plan so far except for the unloading bit. I would prefer a completely silent take down. If you can get the door open I can drop him.

Trace nods two the two runers. "Wraith, Sully go, I'll stay here and watch Jack, time is of the essence hereso hurry."

Jack works quickly, locating the most obvious location to plant the jack and splicing wires through the tap into the jackpoint. A few moments later, he plugs the jack into the deck, powering up and slipping in, still holding his breath and hoping the tap was placed correctly.

Wraith nods to Trace and moves to follow Sully, saying under his breath, "When I say we unload, that doesn't mean I take off my silencer."

Sully chuckles at the flair of ego. You'd be surprised how much noise a silenced gunshot makes.

:: As the heated yet near silent argument play's out, Jack's nimble fingers splice into the data storage unit with the ease of a practiced veteren. However, it becomes immediately obvious of a slightly overlooked problem. The data network is a closed system and seems to simply connect the data towers to the small terminal in the corner. ::

He hovers in the system for a moment longer, searching to verify that the system was indeed closed, and that there was no other access nodes, perhaps hidden in the system.

This is freaking ridiculous! This is either tha most paranoid office in tha entire city, or tha cheapest company in the world. Who doesn't network an office?

Can you jack into the maglock? That should be connected to the security network.

Jack pulls the tap, cursing quietly under his breath as he steps over to the door, resisting the urge to simply pry the maglock case off with a screwdriver. He splices the tap in, rebooting the deck with an aggrevated flick of a finger.

:: With a heavy sigh, you recognize the iconography of the security grid and a smirk touchs your face. It's a well laid out system, but it seems to concentrate too much on order and organization making your task of finding what you need surprisingly simple. After a moment, you realize this is a packaged product. The company probably just purchased a kit so to speak and the architecture is probably identical to the majority of low level security systems sold throughout the metroplex. ::

:: The one thing that prickles at your brain is why would a facility that seems so ultra typical be hiding heavily guarded data banks, pulled quite intentionally off the main server base. Your curiosity gets the better of you when you notice an access point that seems to be heavily modified from the general feel of the rest of the security. It's as if someone spliced in a new function into the system and then coated it with security protocols. After a moment of analysis, you realize, it's the control mechanism for the vault, and it has so much IC guarding it, it's like they were hiding the secret of who killed Dunklezan behind that node. The only thing you are able to determine is that the access point appears to be routed through Graves' office. ::

:: It's amazing how fast your mind works in the matrix. Not even 5 heartbeats have passed before you have left the overly guarded node and tap into the resources available to the security office. Before you lies a grid highlighting the several different cameras and with a start, you realize that the light from the room is casting a rather suspiscious shadow for the camera in the data room. ::

Shying away from the heavily protected node, Jack went to work, killing the lights in the storage area to get rid of the odd shadow, looping the camera's over about 10-15 seconds or so, and then struggling back to surface in his body long enough to relay to the team.

"Lights were me, camera's are down. I'll trigger the door to the security center in 6 seconds, be ready."

Sully takes a position by the door, leaving plenty of room for Wraith and unconsious guard. She again focuses outward trying to take in as much detail as possible thtrough her senses. Ready here, good work on the sec system Jack.

Wraith takes up a spot on the other side of the door, then lifts the guards hand and places it onto the biometric sensor, waiting for the door to beep.

:: As you stand poised and ready, you can make out a conversation on the other side of the door. It takes you a moment to realize the guard is still most likely alone, just talking on the phone. ::

"Let me talk to her a sec..."

"Katy..it's your daddy. How are you dear?"

"Did you have fun on the plane?"

"Aw..that's my girl...tough as nails. Be good and listen to your mother."

"I love you too dear..let me talk to Mom again."

"So, you guys settled in yet? You're taking the train tomorrow right? Im so sorry I couldn't come. They've been really bitchy about the sec around here the last two months. Probably all about that stupid prototype Graves has been keeping hushed up...naw...nothing to worry about. Who cares two licks about the latest in racing gear? I'll see you when you get back...maybe even treat you to dinner at the Needle. Say hello to your mother for me. Luv you too. Bye."

<deleted>

Sully cringes inside hearing the exchange. Katelin needed money to live and thrive. Without the nuyen no chance at something better. She wouldn't be killing him just knocking him out, he would see his family again. She made amends between jobs so this would be one more "hunt" she would have to do to balance the scales. He's chatting with the little wife, I'll go as soon as he hangs up. She laces her voive with sarcasm and acid, got to do the dance and play the part. She flys into action when the phone conversation is ended. Go.

:: As the door opens, the guard looks up and leans back in his chair, expecting his partner to saunter in after his paranoia inspired rounds. ::

:: His eye grow wide as you take two steps inward and plant the baton squarely at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. His eyes bore into your's for a moment, the surprise turning into pain and then blank of all though, he sinks deeper in the chair as a huge bruise begins to spread up his neck and under his chin. ::

Wraith looks over at Sully, "Nice work."

"Jack, we have the security room. Why don't you head over here and jack directly into the main system?"

:: The security office is large enough to comfortably seat 4 guards. The rear wall facing away from the door is covered floor to ceiling with electronic surveilance feeds. In the center is a computer terminal displaying some sort of video game and 4 of the 16 feeds are linked to display a large view of the Horror Late Flick on channel 7. ::