Silk
[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

She bit back a yelp of pain as the sniper’s round impacted the back of her shoulder, causing her to stumble forward across the street. Silk kept her wits about her and disappeared around the corner of the building and into the shadows as the cloak came to life. The warmth of her blood spread down her back as she felt the bullet wound leaking. Luckily, it did not appear as though the CorpSec goons had any interest in tailing her. The one that was holding her at gunpoint simply coughed and hacked as he walked back over to where the other guards stood vigil over the troll.

[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

Silk moved gingerly to avoid doing any more damage to her shoulder…she guessed that the bullet was still lodged in there somewhere judging from the screaming pain. She clenched her teeth and tried to push the burning agony aside for a moment. Anger and adrenalin coursed through her and she was not looking forward to the crash when it drained away. For now it was time to see if she could do some damage to these fraggers who had put such a serious dent in her plans. Leaning against a grimy wall a short distance from the conflict she fought off another wave of dizziness and called in to the ether…

<<Aria, the bastards shot me… we need to teach these corp goons some professionalism and about not involving bystanders… could you forge an ‘officer down’ message in KE’s systems? That should set the hornets nest buzzing! I’d normally prefer to do something myself but I’m bleeding all over the pavement at the moment and it would be embarrassing to pass out at their feet!>>

Next she sent a message out to He-Who-Sees-Within. Although they’d only met a couple of days ago she felt that there was a measure of trust there already and his obvious interest and the fact that they were supposed to be meeting up for dinner later gave her some confidence in contacting him in her current condition.

<<Hi, it’s me… I’m sorry to have to drag you in to this but I’ve just been caught in some crossfire and I’m in no condition to go much further. I’m hoping you can help me out otherwise I really won’t be making dinner this evening! I’ll send you my current location…please…sorry, could you bring a medkit? I really hope you can come…>>

Finally she allowed herself to slip down to the ground, not even noticing the rancid smells wafting out of the storm drain next to her. Trying to keep her shoulder still she reached behind her with her good hand and pulled one of her spider drones out and sent it back to watch the fireworks…at least she would have some warning if one of the goons came to finish off what they had started…and if she was really lucky she would see them getting shot to shit by Knight Errant SWAT teams…

The Doctor
[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]
The Astral provided quick access for The Doctor to slip around for some limited recon work. He knew that whoever was in the apartment was outgunned, but could not be sure of the desperation they might have to win. Determining this fact would certainly help dictate their next course of action.

Slipping into the apartment was no great challenge. What he found there was not as he expected. In the far corner of the apartment were a trio of life forces huddled together on the ground. Two that were tall and one that was small. Roaming through the apartment were another trio of life forces for a total of six. One was a bit squat, the other two taller. The squat one and one of the taller ones appeared to be focused more on the door while the third roamed around the other rooms in the apartment.

Dahlia
A shrill, high-pitched shriek from Dahlia’s left threw her concentration off. Instinctively, she stepped away from the door and pointed her weapon down the hall to cover any additional threats. Instead, she was met with Asim standing in the hall. The boy clutched the gas mask in his hands tightly and his eyes were wide with fear. They shifted back and forth briefly from her to what remained of the CorpSec guard, as he though he could not look away from the carnage.

Copperhead
[January 6th, 2072; Dr. Ted‘s Black Clinic, Redmond]
The pair of trogs celebrated their good fortune and turn of events with an evening of heavy drinking and the kind of celebratory sex that made your left side numb the next morning. Cutter seemed to clearly still be out of it the next morning, but ended up crashing out and sleeping the morning away.

A quick call to Lenny resulted in a quick reply. <<Let me see what I got available. I’ll call you back in a bit.>>

With Lenny doing his research and Cutter unconscious for at least a couple more hours, she decided to make the trek to Dr. Ted’s clinic. Nurse let her into the clinic where she found Dr. Ted attempting to perform a bullet extraction without anesthesia on a an elf tagged up with go-ganger ink. The elf made all manners of noises as he writhed against the bonds that held him fast to the surgery table.

“Well don’t get shot up if you don’t like being in horrific pain,” Dr. Ted said to the patient as he, Nurse, and Copperhead finished him up. He handed the rabbit off to Copperhead who took off towards the back, as giddy as a schoolgirl troll could be at the idea of unlocking the secrets behind the rabbit’s magic.

She freed herself from her meat body and drifted around the aura of the rabbit until she began to interpret patterns in it. Probing it with her mind with the information she had already gathered finally unlocked what drove the magic behind the rabbit.

The little girl’s voice filled her mind again, “Bunny will make you feel better.” Except now the phrase was followed by a very wide-ranging sound of thank you’s. The tapestry of the astral came together to portray a short movie of a young girl in a hospital, wandering around to different beds in what looked to be a recovery ward. She wore a miniaturized nurse’s uniform and moved to assist the different resident. She sat down on the edge of the bed of a heavily bandaged troll and sat the rabbit on his stomach.

“Bunny always makes me feel better when I’m not well. He’ll help you too.” The child patted his hand and smiled warmly at him. With that, the scene faded.

The next was not so heart-warming. The roar of a motorcycle tumbled into her consciousness followed by the sound of many gunshots. For a brief moment she could feel fear wash over her, then adrenaline. The scene coalesced before her and gave her a far too clear picture of a human go-ganger running the child over on his motorcycle. At the moment of contact, it felt as though someone had ripped a portion of her soul out. A much younger Dr. Ted ran in from the side and curled up around the girl as she bled, far too injured to attempt to save. As her father wept, the last words she spoke were, “Bunny will make you feel better.”, as she handed over the rabbit.

A torrent of rage and misery washed over Copperhead from the Astral from the rabbit. She caught bits and flashes of Dr. Ted’s downward spiral after his daughter’s death. He did everything he could to drown it out in synthahol and the painkillers he had access to in his clinic. Every time he looked down at a wounded go-ganger on the table, it all came back.

Copperhead opened her eyes. Suddenly a lot of things made sense. Dr. Ted hadn’t even asked Cutter for payment when they brought him in. But the go-ganger that was on the table beforehand was unceremoniously given over to the Maid. Thinking back on it, she had thought it was taking him a very long time to take the bullets out of that elf without anesthesia. Much longer than it took for Cutter.

She looked down at the rabbit who stared back at her with glassy eyes. The feeling of sadness it imparted on her would likely hang with her for a little while.

Silk
[January 5th, 2072; Outside of the Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

The pain racking her body was at least keeping her conscious as she felt the blood seeping out of the wound. It only took a few seconds for Aria’s reply to come back to her, <<Done, stay out of the way. KE likely will not use much restraint.>>

A quick message to He-Who-Sees-Within returned a quick response as well. <<I can be there in a couple minutes, hold on! Send me your coordinates!>>

A satisfied smirk started to creep across Silk’s features as she heard the roar of engines closing in from the distance. A bit of puzzlement crossed her mind. It sounded like they were land-based, not the standard fare that KE would use for an extraction of their wounded in this shit-hole. She turned the spider-drone and caught a glimpse of an ocean of headlights coming down the street with the unmistakable roar of motorcycle engines. The troll go-ganger the other guards had stopped must have called for some back up of his own. Though KE’s forces were not yet there to shoot the shit out of them; the troll go-gang the Spikes did not make their remaining existences very comfortable. Two were summarily beaten beyond recognition, the third chained to the back of one of the bikes and dragged off through Redmond.

Only two sniper rounds were fired off from two different locations before the Spikes returned fire with a salvo of small arms, machineguns, and an RPG. It was then that Silk had a realization. When Knight Errant arrived, things were going to get very interesting indeed.

[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

Fuck, thought Seti. Fucking fucking fucking fucker fucking fucker. With Asim screaming his lungs out in the hallway, it would only be moments before Dahlia...What? Releases a plague? Inject us all with toxins? Nerve Gas? Fucking fucking fucker fucking.

Seti jumped up, ran to Asim, and scooped him up in his off-arm, keeping the Predator--and more importantly, the trigger--away from the boy.
"C'mon, buddy, you do not want to be here right now." Seti carried the boy into the bathroom, and kicked aside the shower curtain, uncerimoniously dumping the boy into the bathtub.

"Asim, you've got to listen to me. Your sister and I need you to stay right here. Somebody is shooting at the apartment across the hall, and we don't want you catching any stray bullets, okay?" Seti heard a noise, and whipped his gun around...no, it was just that stupid emotitoy Asim won at the arcade today. It was just following its new owner around. Seti turned back to Asim.

"Okay, I'm going to put this mask back on you, okay? The attackers might use tear gas, and if they do, you don't want any of that stuff getting in your lungs; it hurts like a waterboarding." Seti tightened the straps on the mask. "Okay, I'm gonna put your little buster here in the tub with you. The tub will stop any bullets that come in, so just Stay. Here. Okay?" Once Asim began nodding, Seti rushed back out of the room to survey the damage.

[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

Dahlia felt like her stomach had just dropped out and her mouth went completely dry at the sight of her younger brother standing in the hall. Of all the times not to listen to your elder sister. It just had to be during a firefight and who knows what else was happening out there.

The rest of the world faded away. A dozen snippets of possible accidents and tragedies flashed in Dahlia’s mind’s eye like sparks from stray bullets. If the last of Dahlia’s flesh and blood, her last tether, was caught by a ricochet or some careless fucker’s hand then Dahlia would have nothing left. Nothing left save the viruses in her laboratory and the poisons in her knives.

Asim needed to be safe. He needed to be somewhere else, somewhere out of the line of fire. In the moments that Dahlia froze in horror, Seti already crossed the room and bodily picked up Asim before heading into another room in the apartment. Dahlia’s mouth was too dry for her to swallow, never mind shout out so much as a thank you.

With Asim out of harm’s way, Dahlia’s train of thought veered. Never mind her annoyance over the fact that her deposit was as gone as the men laying under her bookshelf. Whoever was out there had scared—terrified—Asim. Might have even hurt Asim if things had gone even slightly different. As the thoughts ran through Dahlia’s head, she didn’t shake, didn’t cry. But, anyone in the room would notice a distinct tightening of the woman’s jaw and a manic gleam in her eye as she turned back to the door and once again readied her pistol.

Someone was going to down more Narcoject than it would take to fell a whale. And only because Dahlia didn’t have worse on hand.

[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

Damn...hostage situation. Definitely a child being protected by the parents. Corpsec was probably called in because the apartment is held by a wage-slave of some sort. In a disembodied sort of way though, The Doctor was furious that a child and his parents were in danger. What could he do now? He could call one of his elementals...and geek the fraggers who were holding this family hostage. How would they react? No...better move was to get out...get to the others and warn CorpSec about the three and the wanderer.

The Doctor immediately thought of his meat bod and focused on returning to it. He would go back to the astal though and see if they couldn't coordinate a save with Corpsec.

Upon return to his earthly flesh, the Doctor cried out, "They've got hostages. Parents and a child. Three hostiles total. Two at the door; one wandering. I'm going back and see if I can get more intel. Tell the corp guys out there if you can."

[ooc: assuming that to get back to astral I have to wait till the next round]

Copperhead wipes tears from her eyes. She hugs the rabbit tight to her chest, then carefully rises and goes to find Dr. Ted.

Gulping back the lump in her throat, she hands the rabbit back to him. "It was your daughter's wasn't it. I saw...felt what happened to her. I'm sorry about what happened to her, but I wanted you to know dat dere is still like a little part of her soul in da rabbit. She is still wit you, helping da people who come here, making dem feel better."

She gives him a gentle hug. "Thank you for letting me find out what it is. I hope I can still come by and help you out, if dat's okay wit you?"

She leaves him staring at the rabbit, heading quickly out into the evening.

She swings by Lenny's lodge. She asks him what he knows about souls inhabiting spirits and puts up with his lecture on souls and ghosts. He always has secrets to tell. She picks up a formula for a stunbolt spell and some spirit binding materials. They also talk for a while about different foci and he tells her he'll keep an eye out for anything on the market.

For the next few days, while she studies the spell under Snake's nagging guidance, Cutter and Slater do some legwork. Cutter scouts out the MCT garage on foot, while Slater checks it out in the matrix. Cutter also picks up some non-lethal gear for the run including a pair of troll sized stun gloves some gel rounds for Copperhead's beaten up old shotgun. He even gets a buddy of his to outfit it with an ancient UCAS army external smartlink module and a new shock pad on the stock.

In the evenings, the make plans over synthahol and instasoy meals. Coperhead asks Slater if he can maybe fool the MCT system into letting her and Cutter in as cleaners or a maintenance crew. While he's working on that, and between sessions studying the spell formula, she also takes a swing past the garage in the astral.

Her days studying the rabbit seem to have sharpened her awareness of the spirit world. Everything seems somehow sharper and brighter, even the pain and misery of this part of town. She flies across the barrens at the speed of thought then drops down low as she approaches the garage. She floats cautiously around the garage, keeping at a careful distance and tries to spot any spirits or elements on guard duty.

[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

Fighting off the creeping cold, Silk waited for He-Who-Sees, splitting her concentration between the AR drone feed, a local news channel and her immediate surroundings. All hell was breaking loose with the rampant trogs, bludgeoned corp sec and the imminent arrival of Knight Errant. She vainly hoped that the carefully hoarded stash of gear in the Spirit would survive another encounter...she certainly wasn't going back for it herself at the moment. She considered just walking away, her mother had taught her to drop objects that posed a risk as there was always an opportunity to get more, but then she'd been a prime runner with ready capital and a massive web of contacts. She missed Balefire and its ready camaradarie, it would be good to be working in a team again...

Dahlia, Seti, The Doctor
[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]
The Doctor stopped and barked out the intelligence after returning from his quick jaunt from the Astral. He slipped back into the Astral and prepared himself to assist the CorpSec team in saving the parents and child.

The first figure that Dahlia caught sight of as she steeled her will to the firefight as a dwarf in a three-quarter length trench coat. He appeared to be edging towards the door of apartment opposite of hers. Tentatively, he peeked partially around the corner to try and look down the hall.

The child just sat in abject horror and likely shock as Seti explained to him what he needed to do. Before he stepped out of the room he turned back to reassure him again but noticed the child had not hunkered down. Moving back over, he nudged Asim down to lay in the tub where he would be better protected from all by the highest caliber and armor piercing rounds.

Copperhead
[January 6th, 2072; Dr. Ted‘s Black Clinic, Redmond]

Dr. Ted stood silently as Copperhead spoke to him. He shook his head slightly, “Can’t believe you could tell that from that rabbit. NURSE! Anesthesia, please.”

Nurse walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of synthesized whiskey. She walked over to him with a grim expression and handed it to him. With the rabbit in one hand and the bottle in the other, he looked back towards his office. “Nurse, I’m going to medicate. If anyone comes in and they’re dying, tell them to either sit on the Maid’s trapdoor or go to a different clinic. I’m closed.”

She offered a sympathetic pat on his shoulder as he walked away. A moment later the door swung shut and latched into place. Nurse laid a hand on Copperhead’s arm. “He’ll be alright. He’ll drink for a couple days then be back to his old self. He didn’t threaten to give you to the Maid so I think he likes you!” She smiles brightly at the shaman.

*

Her trip to Lenny’s was similarly enlightening as her time with the rabbit. She learned from his ramblings that changes on the Astral could be created by overwhelming emotion on the physical world. Sites of great tragedies, horror, love, fear, or any number of things can create a lasting impact. It seemed likely to him that the rabbit was ingrained with some of the girl’s love as she used to help her father tend to sickly patients. Her last selfless act combined with the grief of her father left a lasting imprint on the rabbit that gave it limited magical ability. After a few hours of his rambling, the Rat-Shaman produced the items she had come for and sent her on her way with a promise to keep an eye out for foci.

*

The astral recon work at the MCT garage did not appear to reap any major revelations of information. The only out of the ordinary feature about the garage was it did feature various wards to prevent astral intruders. Her ability to penetrate the building in the astral would be a lot more difficult than she had anticipated.

Silk
[January 5th, 2072; Outside of the Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

Silk was unsure how much time had passed but she began to feel the effects of the blood loss. Her own attempts to staunch the blood flow were difficult as the location of the bullet prevented her from reaching it easily with her other arm. She did retain enough of her consciousness to notice the VTOL’s swooping in from different areas. Knight Errant SWAT teams began to pour from the crafts into the adjoining streets. Strangely, this was met by cheering from the Spikes go-gangers.

It took all of five seconds for Knight Errant boots to touch pavement before the place erupted into a firestorm of bullets, grenades, teargas, and flash grenades. The SWAT teams always came prepared, but they were not expecting the armor-piercing rounds the Spikes made use of to tear into their crafts and through their ballistic armor. Silk did her best to stay small and assuming in a niche in the alley, trying to avoid scrutiny and any stray bullets as she waited for He-Who-Sees-Within.

[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

After waiting for a few moments for the ideal time, Dahlia took aim at the dwarf and fired her dart pistol. It certainly wouldn’t kill him if it hit, unless he was unlucky enough to be allergic to Narcoject. If the dart didn’t hit, hopefully Seti would be back in time to give the woman some back up.

[January 5th, 2072; Outside of the Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

Oh crap! The initial feelings of intense anger were being washed away by the pain in Silk's shoulder and the realisation that she had probably stirred things up a little more than she had intended. Mother had always taught her to think about the consequences of an action before taking it, although not so hard it prevented you from acting, and part of her regretted not taking a moment more to assess the situation. Still, they had attacked her...!

She turned as He-Who-Sees materialised out of the fog behind her...

"Thank the gods you came...I'm a mess!"

Copperhead returns to her body cursing at her lack of success. Snake is fortunately silent, hopefully off sulking at the lack of information she was able to find. She returns to her study of the spell formula. She can almost feel the first glimmers of understanding slipping through the folds of her consciousness. Maybe that is why Snake is going easy on her.

By the time Cutter gets home that evening, she has mastered the spell. She gives the big ork a hug and hands him a beer.

"Well I hope you and Slater had better luck than me. They got some wards up in the astral and I couldn't get past them. If Slater can't find a way for us to sneak in, we're gonna have ta fight our way in and out. And I don't really fancy dat."

Dahlia, Seti, The Doctor
[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]
“Ow! What the.. Fuck..” The dwarf looked across the hall at Dahlia. She smiled as the dwarf’s legs weakened and he began to slump to the floor. A flurry of activity in the apartment and the pounding of booted feet in the hallway yanked her attention in different directions. She looked into the far apartment to notice an elf looking around the corner from deeper inside of the apartment.

“Shit! He’s down!” The elf called out. It looked as though he held a SMG in one hand and that the CorpSec teams were regrouping for round two.

Copperhead
[January 6th, 2072; Dr. Ted‘s Black Clinic, Redmond]
Cutter returned her hug and accepted the beer before moving back into the apartment. “Well babe, it doesn’t appear that there is too much off with the place. Slater said he was able to penetrate their systems through a wireless connection. I’m sure there is probably closed networks in the facility but they do not seem too intent on protecting the place in general. We should be able to sneak in, sneak out; and Slater can doctor the surveillance for us.”

The ork drained half the can and let out a loud belch. “Reminds me, we should get some good beer one of these days.”

Silk
[January 5th, 2072; Outside of the Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]
While the riot was of intense interest to most onlookers, Silk found herself hoping to be gone as soon as possible. It did not take very long for He-Who-Sees-Within to locate her with her directions. The battle between Knight Errant and the Spikes raged hard just a few feet from them as he helped her to her feet.

“You certainly look like you’ve been through the wringer. We better get you taken care of.”

He helped her to the end of the alley where a beat up car sat. After helping her into the back, he lurched the wheel and sped off into the night.

“You still conscious?” He asked, a hint of concern in his voice.

[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

Seti "sliced the pie" as he exited the bathroom, making sure he knew everything within sight. Dahlia was pointing her little poison gun out the door; across the hall, a dwarf was collapsed on the floor, and an elf was starring into the apartment. The Doctor was still sitting on the floor. He needs to come out of that trance, Seti thought. We need fireballs more than we need recon right now.

"Shit! He's down!"

The elf was holding a compact SMG. "Mine now, corpsucker." He leveled the front sights of the Predator at the elf's forearm, slowly pushed his breath out, and squeeezed.

[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

A distracted, but peaceful smile came across Dahlia’s lips as she watched the Dwarf crumple to the floor into a chemically induced unconsciousness. But, there were more of them to take care of. If Dahlia got her way, she’d be able to question one of them personally after the firefight was over.

Thinking about the contents of her freshly filled medkit and chemical laboratory, the woman moved her gaze to the elf peeking out from the corner within the far apartment. She took quick aim with the dart pistol, hearing the click of a new dart settling into place—ready for firing. The smartgun icons on her goggles lined up--clear against the AR overlay of apartment numbers in the hallway, and the woman fired once.

Not bothering to see whether or not the missile hit its mark, Dahlia ducked back into the concealment and cover of her own apartment. Also hopefully out of the line of fire. She probably couldn’t out-gun the elf, and he did have an SMG. And that's what Seti was there for.

[January 5th, 2072; Driving away from the confrontation, Renton]

Silk stirred herself back to vague consciousness, wincing as she moved against a lumpy bit in the threadbare seat

“Yes, still here…look, I may be crazy but a kind of reverse self preservation is telling me to go back and find out what the hell was going on. I’m not going to get too close to KE and those trogs but I need to know why those corp goons attacked me, even if it was just wrong place and time. It’s what you don’t know in the shadows that will kill you! …No, please don’t object…” she interrupted him…

“I need to do this. I’ll send my drones in to the building that was being targeted, I shouldn’t be in any more danger than I am now…but if you could patch me up enough to stop me leaking all over the place and give me something for the pain I’d be eternally grateful! This is just all too close to some bad stuff from my past and I need to resolve it for my own peace of mind…”

Copperhead gives Cutter a big smile. "Darling, if we pull dis off we can afford real beer! Hell, we can probably even afford to move out of dis shithole of a squat. See if you can pick up some heavy duty cutters tomorrow and we go in through da fence and hope dat Slater is as good as he claims to be. I'll see if I can get us some magical support."

After a few beers and some loud sex, they collapse into sleep. The next morning Copperhead is up early. She shakes Cutter awake and sends him out shopping. Then she has a wash and warms some soykaf for breakfast. Once she feels fully awake, she takes out the summoning materials she bought from Lenny. She moves around the squat in a slow sinuous dance, adjusting the seemingly random items that make up her lodge until she feels the presence of snake. She settles herself cross-legged in the middle of the room and slowly swaying side-to-side, mumbles and hums a song of power.

Dahlia, Seti, The Doctor
[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]
The dual shots at the elf from Dahlia and Seti both managed to find their mark. The dart impacting him did not seem to have the same effect that it did on the dwarf. His eyes looked heavy and they barely registered pain as Seti’s bullet tore into his gun hand. The SMG he was toting dropped to the floor and he let out a murmured gurgle as he slumped to the ground.

Screaming and crying could be heard from inside the far apartment, likely from the family that cowered in the corner. From the opposite corner the elf was standing by, the barrel of a shotgun inched around the corner and let loose a slug towards Dahlia’s apartment. It sailed past Seti’s head and thumped into the concrete. There appeared to be another humanoid behind the shotgun, either troll or orc. It was impossible to tell from the angle he was standing at.

Silk
[January 5th, 2072; Driving away from the confrontation, Renton]
He-Who-Sees-Within just blinked and studied Silk intently for a minute. “Well, I guess we can go back if you really want to do recon. I’d like to not get embroiled in the riot that is going on out front. I don’t know how much blood you’ve lost either, but you are definitely losing a lot of color. I can probably stop the bleeding but I can’t take the bullet out with this meager kit.”

He turned the car around and headed back towards where he had parked originally. Rummaging through the medkit beside him, he handed her back a needle with a liquid painkiller and a small packet of pills. “Don’t take them all at once. It’ll kill you.”

The car slid up into the spot it had vacated just a few minutes before. The sounds of screams, gunfire, and various other howls echoed through the alleyways as the riot appeared to have grown out from the courtyard in front of the apartment building.

Copperhead
[January 6th, 2072; Cutter and Copperhead‘s Squat, Redmond]
Cutter smiled and nodded at her. “I’m pretty sure we already have a pair of bolt-cutters in the stash. Sort of one of those tools you don’t want to really be without, ya know."

[January 7th, 2072; Cutter and Copperhead’s Squat, Redmond]
The morning saw the ork and troll wake to what should be a rather fruitful day. Cutter’s mentality had gone straight to work mode for the day. He spent his time checking and rechecking his gear, ammunition, whether his clips were loaded, and if his weapons were in prime condition. His buzz of activity did not distract Copperhead as she called out for assistance from Snake and his minions for the coming job.

Once they had settled in, they simply had to wait for some time to pass as they finished their final preparations.

Scar
[January 6th, 2072; Outside of the Summeroaks Apartments; Renton]
“Well, I didn’t plan on these fucks showing up but hey, what can you do?” Scar turned to another troll next to him and half-shrugged.

“SPIKES MOUNT UP AND ROLL!”

The cry of their chapter president echoed through the gunfire, alerting them all to the change in circumstances. Knight Errant was still going strong as was the Spikes, but if they were weakened too much they would be easy pickings for any rivals that tried to make a move. Knight Errant had finally figured out that there was no officer down, other than the ones that were down now. And were themselves organizing to fall back and regroup.

Scar picked his way through the mess of bodies and injured, picked up one of the wounded Spikes and put him on the back of his bike. He approached one of the CorpSec guards that was wounded and still conscious. The troll slipped the wrench from his belt and pounded him in the face a few times to help him into unconsciousness.

“Time to take a ride my man,” the troll said as he walked back to his bike, dragging the guard with him. A tow chain from a saddlebag was lashed around the guard’s ankles and fixed to the frame of the bike. The Harley Scorpion roared to life and Scar took off, leaving bits and pieces of the CorpSec guard on the streets of Renton as he headed back to Redmond.

[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

The single slug buried itself into the drywall of Dahlia’s living room with a solid crack—powerful enough to shake any picture frames hanging on the wall, if there had been any there in the first place. Since the walls were completely bare of physical or AR decoration, the only extraneous show that came from the round came in the form of a few flakes and chunks of drywall falling to the floor. Dahlia’s gaze zipped from the bullet buried in her wall to Seti, and then back out the apartment door to the barrel of the shotgun across the hall.

Even in the middle of the firefight, the rumbling of many booted feet didn’t escape Dahlia’s notice. One part of the woman’s mind noted that the CorpSec goons might have to be taken care of as well. A handful of grenades would be optimal right now, she noted. But, the Corp teams would have to wait. Dahlia took a few moments to line up the sights in her goggles and assure a better shot before squeezing the trigger on her dart gun once more.

[January 5th, 2072; Driving away from the confrontation, Renton]

"You're right of course...I don't really want to go back there, it sounds like a small war going on!"

Silk pulled out her spider drones from their carrying pouch and removed the fibre optic spool from the back of each...

"I'll set these off on a search pattern of the building that the corpers were targetting and then come back and pick them up in a couple of days and analyse whatever they've picked up...it'll either tell me something useful or it won't...I might be able to get Aria to tweak their search parameters if I give her access to their frequencies..."

She looked back to He-Who-Sees,

"Now please take me away on your white charger and dig this lump of lead out of me...I'm beginning to feel decidely woozy from those shots..."

As she tied off the binding on the spirit, a wide grin split her full lips. I fraggin' did it. I bound a spirit.

She didn't much care that she had only managed to finagle a single service out of the air spirit and that it was currently brooding like a rain cloud just above her head. She had done it. She could even feel a faint sense of approval from the hard to please serpent mentor. She had learned a new secret today.

She checked out her gear but Cutter had already cleaned and loaded her shotgun. Her 'new' shades flickered for a second as they interfaced with the gun's smartlink telling her the gun's safety was on and that it was loaded with five gel rounds.

She swayed for a moment, practising the forms of the new spell which she suspected they would need later. Then with a big grin, she gave Cutter a brief, passionate embrace and they headed out of the squat.

<<@Slater: You ready to roll knife-ears? This time your covering my ass. Just don't get distracted by it.>>

Dahlia, Seti, The Doctor
[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]
The dart sung through the air and struck the knuckles of whomever was holding the shotgun though it remained in place. Almost a second later, CorpSec guards flanked the door again. One yelled out in Japanese and tossed a flash grenade into the room. After it erupted, the team swarmed in trampling over the unconscious dwarf and moving towards whoever had the shotgun leveled at them. Her drug appeared to kick in as they rounded the corner as no sounds of gunfire erupted to greet them.

More of the CorpSec guards filtered into the apartment from the hallway locking it down. A half-helmeted head came through the ruins of Dahlia’s door and inspected the bodies of the two that had been taken out by the blast. He barked something in Japanese and opened the remains of the door.

“Please excuse. We get our men and leave,” his English was halting, but good enough to understand. A flurry of activity from the other apartment saw the CorpSec team escorting the civilians and dragging the unconscious team out.

Silk
[January 5th, 2072; Some Clinic on the Edge of Renton]
He-Who-Sees-Within chuckled quietly to himself and wheeled the vehicle away hard. He drove quickly, but not recklessly as they crossed Renton. It took about ten minutes of bleeding and painkillers for them to reach what sort of passed for a medical clinic. With some effort, the two of them got her from the car and into the clinic. It was a fairly nice place when one considered that it was not corp-funded.

Two nurses quickly helped her to an operating table where an emergency doctor extracted the wad of metal that had been lodged in her body. The anesthetic was not incredibly good, but when coupled with what she already took she was floating in and out of delightful consciousness.

That is where she would lay for the rest of the night. The next morning found her groggy, laying half-clothed in a hospital bed with He-Who-Sees-Within passed out in a nearby chair.


Copperhead
[January 7th, 2072; Cutter and Copperhead’s Squat, Redmond]

Copperhead was quite pleased with herself with her accomplishment. She even felt a warm rush of approval from the Snake spirit that guided her. The bond with the spirit was fairly weak and she knew it was tenuous, but still; success is success. A quick gear check and a grope of Cutter saw the pair head out of their squat and out to do the job they were commissioned to perform.

<<@Slater: You ready to roll knife-ears? This time your covering my ass. Just don't get distracted by it.>>

<<@Copperhead: Yes yes, just what I want. A scaley-assed troll. Probably be the same as fucking a cheese-grater.>>

<<@Copperhead, Slater: How do you know what fucking a cheese-grater is like Slater?>>

<<@Copperhead, Cutter: Ghost damn it, you know what I meant.>>

<<@Copperhead, Slater: Oh no please, fill us in.>>

Cutter turned to Copperhead and snickered as Cutter’s last reply returned only silence on the air. The pair grabbed the truck that Cutter was borrowing and drove down near the garage. He pulled it over and parked a few blocks away.

“Really shouldn’t be hard to get into. We can cut through the fence and go through the side door provided dipshit cuts the fence’s power so we don’t get fried.”

[January 6th, 2072; Some Clinic on the Edge of Renton]

Well that was fun… Silk mused to herself, still feeling a little spacey, although lucid now at least.

“Will I live?” she half joked “my shoulder still feels like I’ve been hit by a troll! …and I hope it wasn’t you that removed my armour, we don’t know each other that well yet…” she smiled to take any sting out of her words. “Thank you for the rescue though!”

[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

"Hold on, now," Seti interrupted the CorpSec guards. "You can't just start a war in a civilian apartment building and walk away like nothing happened! Who's going to be making repairs, here?" He gestured at the damaged doorway, and the bullet-ridden walls. "Doors aren't cheap, you know! I hope you're prepared to heavily reimburse us for the trouble you've caused!"

In the pauses between breaths, he quickly tapped out a message on his commlink's AR keyboard. <<Fighting appears over. Every1 check in.>> Sending it to all the meeting's participants, he refocused his attention on the CorpSec guard. "What the hell could these guys," gesturing across the hall, "have even done to justify this level of force, anyway?"

[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

As the CorpSec team entered Dahlia’s apartment and removed the remains of their men, the woman’s dart pistol fell to the ground. The burned corpses, the neighbors across the hall, and the unconscious people being dragged out of that apartment were all just as forgotten as the pistol. Dahlia moved at a pace that placed her in the living room one second, and in the bathroom within the span of a few heartbeats. Her shoes clacked over the linoleum flooring in a hurried series in staccato. As the woman bent over the tub holding her brother, her voice was obviously tinted with worry and anxiety.

"Asim? Little brother?" She almost pleaded, reaching for the boy’s wrist to take vital signs.

[January 6th, 2072; Some Clinic on the Edge of Renton]

Silk gently moved her shoulder, surprised at the amount of mobility she had considering a high velocity round had slammed in to it the night before. She looked across at He-Who-Sees...

"I need to get back over to that apartment block and see if my car is still in one piece and hopefully before Knight Errant impound it as evidence! I can pick up the drones too and see what they can tell me. I know it's a lot to ask after everything you've done for me already but would you mind running me back there? I promise to try not to get shot at again!"

Dahlia
[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

Dahlia’s gun fell to the floor and she stepped over the carnage to rush into the bathroom. No bullets had passed through the walls of the bathroom and Asim lay curled up in a ball in the bottom of the bathtub. His face was still obscured by the gas mask that Seti had fixed onto him. The boy was shaking and she could clearly catch the scent of urine as she leaned in to check on him. He responded to her touch by grabbing her wrist tightly and trying to push her away.

Beneath the mask she heard a muffled voice, but could not quite make it out.

Seti
[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

Seti’s interruption was met with the soft-spoken guard holding up his hands and smiling at him. “It is okay. We pay for damages.” The CorpSec guard fished around in a side pouch and produced a silver credstick. “Cover all damages good and a little more as gift.”

He turned and barked something in Japanese at the crew milling around him. They responded by working quicker to clean up the remains of their team members and withdraw. The smiling guard stood outside of Dahlia’s doorway with two other guards to ensure that no one could step out while they were finishing the clean up of the area.

The last people to be half-escorted, half-dragged from the apartment were the wage-slave and his family. The man and woman babbled in Japanese while the little girl simply looked as if she had been crying. The woman looked at Seti and said something in Japanese to him. Though he could not understand what she said, he did have a great understanding of the look in her eyes. The look of abject fear and terror. A look that did not really belong on someone’s face that was successfully rescued.

For the first time, he really stopped to assess the situation. The CorpSec guards were dressed, armed, and performed like CorpSec guards; but as he looked for an identifying insignia that all units would have had, he realized there was none. It was at that point that he realized something was very wrong with the current situation and circumstances.

Silk
[January 6th, 2072; In Renton]

The pain Silk was in stood at a dull throb thanks to the myriad of painkillers that were currently flowing through her system. One of the doctors that was currently working the client walked over to her with a plate of light food. “You’ll want something in your stomach for taking the pain medication so it doesn’t make you sick. Be careful not to over exert yourself much as your shoulder heals and change the bandaging as necessary.”

He slid over a half-tray and set it down in front of her. “You are free to leave at any time but I highly suggest eating first and exerting great care from here on out. Especially not to get shot again.”

Once her questions were done (if any), he turned and headed back to making his rounds amongst the patients.

He-Who-Sees-Within laughed at her request and nodded. “Of course. When you’re done eating and ready to go I can run you back over. Figuratively that is. Don’t need that on top of the bullet wound I don’t think.”

Just before stepping out of the borrowed truck, Copperhead touches the Dragon's tooth on the necklace around her neck. She wasn't really certain it was a dragon's tooth, but the sutaining focus was magical if a little on the weak side. She sways as she hums a little chant to clear her mind, pushing a tiny bit of mana into the tooth. It was not much, but would hopefully enough to give her an edge in combat if things went bad. She then calls her bound air spirit to her. Be ready.

Stepping out the van, she draws her staff and flicks it back and forth in a practiced move to extend it to it's full length. Cutter is already moving towards the garage and she hurries after him while trying to be as stealthy as possible.

Keeping her voice low, she whispers into her commlink, "We're ready to roll Slater. You got us covered? Coz, if my man gets fried by the fence, I'll take it out on your skinny ass."

Waiting for the elf's response, she then nods to Cutter. Not that she needs to as he is on the same channel, but she does it anyway. After all, that's how they do it in the trids.

Cutter cuts through the fence with the heavy duty bolt cutters and the two slip through the opening towards the trucks.

[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

Dahlia’s jaw visibly clenched as Asim tried to push her away. Dahlia was not a very strong person, but she could hopefully at least take care of a child who was in obvious shock. The woman let Asim briefly push her away before attempting to remove the gas mask on his face. What to do. What to do. Treating patients who were in physical shock was much easier. At least they didn’t move around so much. The woman was obviously taking more care with her younger brother than she would have on any other person. As she began trying to take her mask off of Asim’s face, she continued talking.

“Little brother, it is Dahlia. It is your big sister. The people who were fighting outside of the apartment are going away, and it is safe now.”

Would there be lasting damages from this, Dahlia wondered? She began weighing the pros and cons of bringing Asim to a psychologist for therapy. It certainly created the risk of an information leak. But, on the other hand, if Asim needed it…

/cast CPR.

Seti
[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

Seti’s interruption was met with the soft-spoken guard holding up his hands and smiling at him. “It is okay. We pay for damages.” The CorpSec guard fished around in a side pouch and produced a silver credstick. “Cover all damages good and a little more as gift.”

He turned and barked something in Japanese at the crew milling around him. They responded by working quicker to clean up the remains of their team members and withdraw. The smiling guard stood outside of Dahlia’s doorway with two other guards to ensure that no one could step out while they were finishing the clean up of the area.

The last people to be half-escorted, half-dragged from the apartment were the wage-slave and his family. The man and woman babbled in Japanese while the little girl simply looked as if she had been crying. The woman looked at Seti and said something in Japanese to him. Though he could not understand what she said, he did have a great understanding of the look in her eyes. The look of abject fear and terror. A look that did not really belong on someone’s face that was successfully rescued.

For the first time, he really stopped to assess the situation. The CorpSec guards were dressed, armed, and performed like CorpSec guards; but as he looked for an identifying insignia that so many of them had, he realized there was none. It was at that point that he realized something was very wrong with the current situation and circumstances.

Silk
[January 6th, 2072; In Renton]

With the help of He-Who-Sees-Within, Silk made her way back across Renton to where she had left her vehicle. It would figure. The one day she takes it out of storage, it gets stuck in the middle of a riot and probably shot up. She watched quietly out the car window as the buildings slipped by. There was a good number of husks of vehicles both on the side of the road and periodically in the middle. A little navigation was always necessary to make it through these areas in one piece.

He-Who-Sees-Within pulled the car to a stop alongside of the road about a block away from where her vehicle was. It looked as though the street and courtyard were fairly cleaned up, though the building hit with an RPG still showed signs of smoldering.

“Hey, it looks like there’s some Knight Errant guys standing guard over your car.” Silk leaned towards the front windshield and looked intently for a moment. There did appear to be two Knight Errant guards on either side of her car with a KE hover-vehicle parked off to the side.

Dahlia
[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

The child did not struggle against her as she pulled the gas mask off. Asim looked up at her with wide eyes, pointing down the hall to where the smears of the two exploded soldiers had landed. The boy was lightly shaking and continuously looked back and forth between her and the stains on the floor. He buried his face into her stomach and hugged around her waist tightly. Asim was clearly shaken by the experience.

Copperhead
[January 7th, 2072; the Corporate Truck Depot]

“By the Ghost, you bitch as much as the ork does,” Slater’s voice came back over the comm. “The power for the fence is cut.“

Cutter gave Copperhead a toothy grin as the pair created a hole to gain access to the truck yard. It looked as though there were five rows of approximately ten trucks in place. Singular CorpSec guards made rather lazy patrols through the area. The ones she could spot did not look as though they were very much into their assigned duty. Periodically, one would stop and check a location but for the most part the four patrolling guards seemed to have their heads in the clouds.

The pair currently found themselves holed up behind some crates near the corner of one of the bays that had been left open.

Ink
[January 6th, 2072; the Lodestone; 11:32 P.M.]

The throbbing beat emanating from within the Lodestone resonated within Ink’s mind. Though the good Doctor had wanted him to process some points about his new studies; he found it quite difficult with the deafening roar of the newest synth-dance music beckoning to passersby.

It had been a fairly slow night for him; parked a few cars, help throw out a drunk that was getting a bit too unruly, did some dishes. Not a glorious job by any stretch of the imagine, but it was honest cred and he would hopefully be able to figure out what he wanted to do in the long run.

“Hey kid! Grab a mop and bucket and clean the puke off of Booth 12 please!” Ink looked over his shoulder to visually confirm the voice he recognized. The troll who worked under Jimmy to help run the establishment gave him a curt nod and a wave. No one was really sure what his real name was anymore. He earned the nickname Moe for the foot tall electric blue Mohawk he wore. It clashed terribly with his own reddish skin and clothes, but it seemed to be the way the Moe liked it. Moe was likable enough as far as trolls go, but Ink had seen him beat a would be robber near to death after being shot twice.

Ink sighed to himself. He couldn’t wait to figure out his calling so he wouldn’t be mopping up drunkards’ puke anymore.

[January 6th, 2072; the Lodestone; 11:34 P.M.]

Heaving a heavy sigh, Ink went to the closet to grab the mop they used for "biologicals."

Valet, damnit. I'm a fragging valet, not custodial help...

Had he known that he'd have to do a little bit of everything, including the revolting, to keep his job - and damn if there weren't a dozen guys lined up waiting to take his place - he might have given Jimmy's offer a pass. Instead he wheeled the bucket over to 12. He and Moe had already extricated the drunk and his friends from the table, and given them the bum's rush with extreme prejudice, so all that was left was the contents of the guy's gut.

Thank God, just beer this time. No soyawings... I wonder if Doc knows a spell that'd help clean this kind of drek up...

He splashed a goodly quantity of the heavily chemically-treated water onto the tabletop and the synthivinyl seat, and onto the floor, hoping to dilute the sour stink some, and then applied the mop with a will, unconsciously moving the handle in time to the beat of the music.

[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

Seti turned away from the terrified eyes. Life in Renton, he thought. There was nothing he could do for the little girl, not now. Not against an armed, trained exfiltration team, not with as little as he had. Kos Omak. The bitter taste of bile threatened to overwhelm his mouth; he resisted the impulse to spit in the sink. Instead, he pocketed the cred stick, and promised himself that if anyone ever tried to take Asim, he'd burn half of SeaTac down to get him back.

He leaned against the wall, listening to the efficient sounds of cleanup, and sighed resignedly. It didn't really matter what the Japanese neighbors had done. The CorpSec goon had an accent, a real-sounding accent, which maybe meant Mitsuhama, maybe meant Renraku. One of the corps big enough to move foreign officers to Seattle. Which meant too big to fuck with; not right now.

He blew out his sigh through clenched teeth and pursed lips, and waited for people to start checking in.

[January 6th, 2072; On a Street in Renton]

Silk stood irresolute, watching the Knight Errant officers. Hopefully they had just assumed the car was from a passerby who got caught up in the incident…if they’d searched it thoroughly and found the hidden compartments she could very well be screwed, particularly as she was considering going up and talking to them…

<<Aria, you around angel? I could use your help with a bit of evidence planting if you can? Can you hack the nearest hospital or clinic admissions and put me in there as a minor gunshot victim, discharged this morning? Might want to slip it into a report to KE too just to cover the bases, you can use my SIN…It’s risky but I need to go and reclaim that car and it seems the best way is to brazen it out and claim I fled the scene. They might not even check but I don’t want to appear as anything other than an upstanding citizen, even if I am a student!>>

[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

Dahlia threw the gasmask aside, not even looking where it landed. Her eyes softened as Asim pointed down the hall and buried his face in her stomach. “Yes, I know. I know,” she murmured, hugging the boy back and smoothing his hair in the most reassuring way she could think of. She looked around the bathroom, thinking of the bullet-hole ridden living room and the destroyed furniture. Looking back at the shaking young boy in her arms, Dahlia frowned. It was time to move. She couldn’t let Asim face the memory of those men splattered against the wall every morning before going to school, and every afternoon when he returned.

Not to mention the fact that someone might want to inspect the apartment, thus running the risk of revealing her laboratory. Accessing the VR in her goggles, Dahlia began a search for some real-estate. It was time for Asim to move to a nicer neighborhood, anyway.

Copperhead smiles at Slater's bitching. For an elf he seemed on the level and Cutter trusted him so that was good enough for her.

Partially hidden behind the crates, she scratches at her head to seat her trode net better and loads up Mr. O's file. Then she scans the nearby trucks for any of the license numbers on the file while Cutter keeps an eye out for security.

Seti
[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

The situation Seti had found himself in was not sitting favorably with him. It was hard telling what the exfiltration team was after with the people they secured or the runners that were present in their home. Either way, it wasn’t likely to be very good.

The call he had put out for a check in went largely unanswered by a majority of the team. A quick glance into the living room revealed that the Doctor had somehow slipped out and away during the melee. Hard telling with the way magicians handled their business.

<<Yo, this is Scar. Took a graze across the stomach but it ain’t shit. Otherwise, I ain’t dead.>> The sound of the troll go-ganger’s harsh voice echoed in Seti’s mind as he contemplated his next move.

(OOC: After this point I had planned on the scene ending. So let me know if you have anything else you want to absolve or do rp wise.)

Silk
[January 6th, 2072; In Renton]

It only took a brief moment for Aria’s message to flicker in on Silk’s AR. <<After your call last night, I took the liberty of tying a fake SIN to your car and issuing a protect property order. The Knights there now should be under orders to release it to Mr. David Krenshaw’s assistant this morning. Congratulations on the new job, Miss Thomas.>>

Aria flashed a warm smile at Silk through the AR feed.

Dahlia
[January 5th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments, Renton]

Dahlia’s mind drifted through many different thoughts as she half paid attention to the search real estate. Any number of locations seemed to be available in different neighborhoods. Asim kept his face buried in her stomach and she could tell the boy was weeping from the way his shoulders move and his breath drew erratically.

The sounds of the combat team seemed to be getting much quieter until they finally died out altogether.

(OOC: I realize this isn’t very expansive but I didn’t have much else planned for this scene at this point other than you wrapping up RP. Seattle is a big place, I will need specifics on what you are looking for in a new home if you plan to.)

Copperhead
[January 7th, 2072; the Corporate Truck Depot]

Copperhead fed the license numbers into her display and scanned each of the trucks that were in the front row. The AR indicator blinked that a match had been found on the third truck from the east side. Their position behind the crates in the southwest corner did not permit them a great view of the rest of the trucks to find the other four that were due to be marked.

(OOC: Unless you have other methods available to you, I’m assuming you’re probably going to need to move. If you intend to move, please send an Agility + Infiltration roll.)

Ink
[January 6th, 2072; the Lodestone; 11:32 P.M.]

The grunt work of a job was almost never done it seemed like. The stench of the drunk’s stomach contents was enough to make about anyone heave. Whatever he had in his system clearly did not agree with him. He wheeled the bucket and mop back to their maintenance niche and proceeded to clean it out. Ink’s mind wandered to the various happenings of the past few days and what he had to look forward to. Where he was working towards trying to be.

At least he wasn’t pushing BTLs or Awakened drugs to people like some of his former associates. He set the mop handle back against the wall and headed back out towards the floor. The sight that was in front of him gave him pause as he did. The bar area was seemingly half-real and half-faded. There appeared to be structural columns of a dull, gray energy in places where there was none. Different pieces of furniture looked to be present in the area and the patrons were a mix of who he had left behind and several other meta-human figures.

[January 6th, 2072; the Lodestone; 11:32 P.M.][/b]

Ink stopped immediately, and rubbed his eyes.

Somebody put psychedelics in the french onion soup?

It was enough like when the Doc had taught him the basics of assensing and seeing into the astral that he thought maybe he'd accidentally flipped over. He tried to do so again, making the transition from astral sight to normal sight...

[January 6th, 2072; the Lodestone; 11:32 P.M.]

The young man rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and tried to clear his vision. The moment his hands moved away from his face, reality shifted slightly again. This time the grey aspects of the area had disappeared. The ethereal columns that supported the ceiling were now gone as was the different furniture he had noticed around the bar area. The glowing figures still moved around the room, stood casually chatting with one another, and some danced together in an older style he was not familiar with.

Ink stood and tried to take in all of the information when he realized his own body was feeling abnormal. The hairs on the back of his neck stood, his stomach turned, a chill gripped his spine and shook him hard. The physical affects were punctuated by an overwhelming feeling of dread and doom that played on the edges of his reasonable mind, trying to draw him into paranoia.

[January 6th, 2072; the Lodestone; 11:33 P.M.]

Old habits die hard, and Ink responds like he was still in the joint. Looking from side to side, he finds the nearest wall and puts it to his back.

What the hell is going on here??

"Moe! Can you, er, c'mere?"

Man, I hope he's not in on whatever's going on...

Copperhead nudges Cutter and points at the truck. She counts down from three on her fingers and they hussle as quietly as they can towards the first truck. Then while Cutter attaches the bug, Copperhead peeks around the back of the vehicle and checks the numbers on the next row.

Seti, Dahlia
[January 6th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments]


The trio had slept very lightly in the living room over night, mostly crashing out wherever they had landed while trying to keep Asim calm. The boy periodically had crying spells in his sleep and tossed and turned against Dahlia. It was easy to forget the first impact of seeing a human body rended beyond recognition when one was constantly immersed in violence.

Dahlia’s eyes flicked open with the dawning sun eliciting a half-groan of irritation at the disturbance. Upon closing her eyes she noticed the light sound of beeping of the audible indicator of her commlink. Checking the AR display revealed two new messages waiting for her. The first was a hit on her real estate search. The property was a three bedroom, two story townhouse in the University District featuring a large walk-in closet in the master suite. The physical location of the property was nestled fairly deep in the twisting and turning streets where students and wage-slaves resided. It was not a remote location, but it was very out of the way.

The second message she clicked open was a plain text message from an Anonymous sender.

‘You and your associates have cost me a very important resource. An action I do not appreciate. Though, I also have great respect for individuals that get their duty done. I would like to arrange a meeting with you and your associates for a potential job offer. I will be dining tonight at 8:00 P.M. at Tsuyaki’s Tea House in downtown Seattle. It is a very public space, your safety is assured in numbers. I would advise against bringing weapons, it is a high-end restaurant and you will be subject to scrutiny on entrance. Inform the host you are there to join the business party of Mr. Fuji.’

She stared blankly at the AR display for a couple minutes before the sound of someone impacting the remains of her door jarred her and Seti awake.

Silk
[January 6th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments]

Silk’s night and the next day seemed to have gone from strange to even stranger. The Knight Errant guards did a cursory questioning of Silk and moved to be on their way. It appeared they had more important things to worry about than standing guard over her car. She slid the car off the road and slipped into the apartment building to pick up the bugs she had deployed when the fight broke out. Her tracking device let her hunt down their signal with relative ease in the building.

She was so intent on her AR display she barely caught herself before plowing through a half-exploded door. Silk blinked and checked the display. It appeared that one of her bugs was inside someone’s apartment; with very low juice. She could hear some stirring in the apartment on the other side of the door.

Copperhead
[January 7th, 2072; the Corporate Truck Depot]

The duo moved fairly quietly between the trucks, stepping as lightly as a troll and a cybered out ork could muster. Cutter slid partway beneath the truck the truck and worked on getting the bug attached. An examination of the second row of trucks matched two more of the vehicles that they needed to bug. They sat in the center of the row just a few trucks down from their current hiding place. She strained to hear any possible footsteps but it seemed that the guards were either not moving or fairly far away from their current position.

Ink
[January 6th, 2072; the Lodestone; 11:33 P.M.]

Moe wandered over to Ink and leaned in next to him, scrutinizing him closely. “Why the frag are you leaning up against the wall like that? Boy, you’re as stiff as a board. What’s wrong with you..”

The troll chomped a bit on the end of a half-smoked cigar and studied him intently.

Ink
[January 6th, 2072; the Lodestone; 11:33 P.M.]

"So, you're not seeing it, then? The people, the dancing... It's like a black and white trideo or something..." He looks up at Moe's face, then back down at the scene.

Ink
[January 6th, 2072; the Lodestone; 11:34 P.M.]

The troll leaned in closer to Ink to the point where he could feel the troll's breath on his shoulder. Slowly, Moe turned his head and looked around the room. "Man, I don't see shit except the normal shit that's here. You feelin' alright man?"

[January 6th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments]

Silk paused for a moment, although it seemed as though the corp goons were long gone she wasn't about to blunder in to a wrecked appartment, there could be any sort of scavanger in there. The drone was a priority though if she wanted some idea as to what the hell went down last night...she drew the taser out of the holster in the small of her back and slipped out of the coat she had borrowed. This time she would be prepared...she faded from view as the ruthenium circuits made her look like the ratty corridor around her...

"Hello...is there anyone in there?" she called through the door

Ink
[January 6th, 2072; the Lodestone; 11:34 P.M.]

"Nope, I'm sure not feeling alright," Ink says. "Something's just not right here..."

He pulls out his 'link and taps out a message with trembling fingers.

<<[Ink]@DrTobiasKatzTmD: Doc, you believe in ghosts? Cause I think there are some here at the Lodestone right now...>>

After he sends the message, he holds up the 'link to see if he can get a picture or video of what's going on...

Copperhead holds up two fingers and and points out the nearest van to Cutter then to the one next to it and to herself. She then makes a 'gimme' gesture with her chromed hand and takes one of the bugs from him. On another three count they both move out towards the next row of trucks.

[January 6th, 2072; Summeroaks Apartments]

Dahlia had to pause a moment after reading her second message. Just what resource had she destroyed? The only thing in shambles was her apartment. Unless…the other combatants had been the resource? Oh dear, how awkward. But, too bad for this Mr. Fuji. Dahlia couldn’t have cared less for the lives of those who had traumatized her beloved younger brother. But, she’d probably also go to that meeting. Whoever this ‘Mr. Fuji’ was, he had the resources to find her within hours, and he sounded displeased. For Asim’s safety, she’d go, and probably drag Seti with her.

Pensive, Dahlia took her goggles from the spot on the floor where she’d left them in order to sleep. As they settled into place across her eyes, a feeling of slight security settled over her. She was at home behind these lenses and the diagnostic information they provided. As the woman peered around her apartment, she wondered if she shouldn’t invest in some better goggles, or at least something with thermographic or night vision. She’d have to call some people to ask about better securing Asim’s next home. Perhaps reinforcing the walls, doors and windows?

The sound of someone hitting the remains of her door nearly caused Dahlia to bolt upright. Licking her lips, Dahlia slowly eased herself upright, gently replacing the blanket on Asim before taking an experimental step forward. With one leg, she nudged at Seti, hopefully waking the sniper, and reached towards her own dart pistol.

“Yes, there is someone in here,” Dahlia replied. Her first instinct would have been to kick open the door and Narcoject whoever was outside into oblivion. But, then again, might this be a third party between ‘Mr. Fuji’ and her?

Ink
[January 6th, 2072; the Lodestone; 11:34 P.M.]

<<@Ink: William, have you not been paying attention? There is no “believe”. There either is, or there is not. And since you yourself have access to the Astral, you should know that there are ghosts. Speaking of, remind me to tell you of the Shattergraves of Chicago sometime. Fascinating place. As for your place, if you’re seeing ghosts then it is likely haunted. And your feed, it shows me nothing. Probably because recording Astral phenomenon with traditional means does not necessarily work. Relax, my boy. Take it as a learning experience and keep your defenses up.>>

Moe walked back over to where Ink was standing with a rock glass of a brownish fluid emitting green smoke. “Here, drink this Ink. It’ll knock that sickness straight out of you. An old recipe me mother used to make when we came down with something.”

He left the drink in Ink’s hand and turned to walk back behind the bar. Moe paused and turned back around and gave a final piece of advice. “Keep your eyes closed when you drink it, you’ll probably want to hold your nose, and for the love of Dunkelzahn do NOT spill it on the floor. Jimmy will be pissed.”

Copperhead
[January 7th, 2072; the Corporate Truck Depot]

The pair of trogs moved deftly through the corporate truck hangar as stealthily as they could manage. Copperhead and Cutter slid up under their respective trucks and fixed the tracking beacons in place. Only two more to go and the pair could extricate themselves from their current job. Looking around, Copperhead spotted a pair of boots walking along the trucks about three rows to the west of her. The guard showed no signs of urgency and was likely taking a foot patrol.

Cutter turned and looked at Copperhead, pointing behind him and off to the side. He took the second tracking beacon and rolled it across the floor between the two trucks to her. The ork then turned and eased himself out from under the truck.

Ink
[January 6th, 2072; the Lodestone; 11:35 P.M.]

"Yeah, sure thing Moe. I'll... get... in a minute." He sets the glass on the nearest table and takes a minute to run through a brief exercise that Doc had taught him to center himself.

His breathing even, Ink walks out to the floor where one of the ghostly images is standing. Feeling like an ass, he addresses him. "Say, been some time since you were here last..." he says, tentatively. At the same time, he tries to assense the figure, and get a read on just what he might be.