You're right, I did miss that! You have Influence Group 1 + Charisma of 7, so give me a roll at eight dice to see how he reacts to your attempt to renegotiate the contract and I'll insert that back into the thread of conversation.


And the distance is sizeable, though entirely doable in a two hour run. The biggest time sinks will be the transition across borders, which while easier at rush hour, are sure to be slower as well. Some points that are immediately obvious include that the CAS border is 20 minutes from here, and another 25 minutes, minimum to get to the Interstate. Once there, traffic will keep you down below max speeds, but the drive north wouldn't be much more than 15 minutes, plus another crossing into the UCAS. Tack on say another 10-15 to navigate to the address in Montbello.

Sorry, Kim wasn't negotiating at all... it was the dwarf

The uncouth dwarf with 1 die to roll. Assume the negotiation fails.

Edit: Having her roll would just risk a critical glitch.

Just say you took it. Your character would likely suspect he's the best at that sort of thing.

No Kim actually agrees with Mr. Johnson that the compensation is generous.
She thought the dwarf was rude.

I think he was referring to Cody, and the whereabouts of the envelope.

Yup, just saying that Blackhat should say he took it from her. And it makes sense that the dwarf was rude. She's uncouth.

You see? Trying to run two games at once is going to drive me over the edge.

If you need me to for completeness sake, Sleep, I'll put in some text where the Johnson talks you down.

LOL! At least most of the responses can be harvested between the two games right?

Yup, lets just roll on. We can meet at the van, do introductions and do some game planning as we head to the first border.

Palming roll incoming.

The dwarf was using logic, not trying to be persuasive. She expects the worst.... namely that one of you is gonna try and shoot the rest of us for all the nuyen yourself.

Paranoia is useful, but are you being paranoid enough?

Palming roll to conceal package (6 hits).
Not sure I even need to use edge to rerolls failues since I succeeded on about half of the dice.
Screw it, might as well make damn sure (1 more hit)

Also, Cody would like to buy 3 hits to steal the glass he had been drinking from on his way up the stairs. Its a little big (probably about the size of a grenade), so the concealability modifier is likely not a problem. He'll kind of hold it on the hand opposite the bar, and shield it from view with his body, as he casually strolls out.

J Packer can let me know if those hits are not good enough, but I'm not expecting trouble since even if they noticed, the Johnson might be willing to comp me a memento.

Not until I shoot first and accuse them of backstabbing me later.

Question about the van. I'm guessing no rigger adapt. Is it completely manual? Or can it be driven via remote control?

Did Riot just like 'Slick' better than 'Kreskin', or did you miss the part where Cody came up with a name?
Not that he'll object to Slick, I just want to make sure I respond appropriately.

Nope, just missed it because it wasn't bolded. My bad. Playing LOTRO while reading.

Lol, was working on a neat response, but I see you edited. Fair enough.

Because you didn't notice the dwarf toting a shotgun longer than she is tall?

Well, behind him and to the left.

IIRC, the shotgun wasn't out until we got into the van, right?

It's in a case. And it's dwarf sized. And will make you wish you didn't double cross her, damn dirty runners, can't trust any of em.

... but... what about those of us with the trustworthy quality?!?!

Does she include herself in that damn dirty runners category?

She'd kill you for a Klondike Bar..... or at least make it look like she killed you..... then charge you through the nose to patch you back up.

@Kim - You might want to include what it is you're going to do in the astral?

@All - The reason I wanted to use the coyotes is that whatever passage we'd be using, we'd at least be continually moving. The passages might be tight, but most of the time, they can fit cars (van might be too big, but maybe not). At a standard border crossing, you have to wait in line. That makes it really easy to get he spotted and surrounded. Sure there are border guards close. But probably not close enough. Again, the coyotes have very little incentive to backstab an organization that pays them well, espeically when it would cost them their livelihood. Since the Johnson would be covering the costs, its a free service, which is often faster, has less hassles, and allows us to bring our full firepower to bear in case of emergency. In public, we'd be hamstrung with our firepower. I'm just wondering if I'm missing something?

Regardless, I don't care which way we go, we'll just have to be on point to get through any adversity we come up against.

Since we're probably going to wait in line, what kind of roll would you want for me to analyze how often they scan the cars and attempt to place our van in a way that we'd not get scanned? I have vision enhancement and a Math CPU to help out.

@JP - Is one of the Coyotes going to answer Wolf?

I don't think you are missing anything, but I think its fair to consider that any illegal activity comes with additional risk. We didn't want to steal a car, because we didn't want any unnecessary heat on us, or to risk getting busted before we get to the border. I'm sure the coyotes are top-notch, but we can't assume that they never have any trouble crossing the borders, and that if anything happens there, the amount of heat that comes down on us will be strong (police security) and it will delay us significantly. The other concern is that by going with the coyotes, we'll be intentionally going into isolated areas which would make an attack by these unknown interested parties more likely, and more successful. Like you said, at the border they might find us easier since we'd be still, but they couldn't do nearly as much without bringing the force of the border patrol down on them.

If you were out on the street at night, and thought someone was following you, would you rather duck into a public place like a store, or an abandoned alley? It probably depends on how you wanted to deal with the problem. If you were going to try shooting the guy with a shotgun, the alley is probably the better option, but if you just want to lose him, or at least make sure he's less likely to shoot you in front of a dozen witnesses, I'd go with the store. Then again, I might not, if I was still holding that shotgun.

Was still shuffling through all the intercharacter byplay. I've posted a lead for you in the IC thread.

I agree, to a degree. I don't really care to head through border. Neither are really all that safe given the circumstances. That's why I'm trying to time us between scans (if they are even doing them at this point). I don't even have a gun at this point, so I'm cool with the more public route personally. Riot would rather use a coyote or smuggling route, since well, that's how he usually moves sensitive goods.

Tossed a question out IC, but I don't think Kreskin has the skills necessary to answer it himself.. so I wanted to hint that someone else ask.

If this is a situation where we can obscure our goods and lay down a slick cover-story, I think we're clear. If we have to drive through a giant MAD scanner (or something more sophisticated that won't just beep at the metal on the car), then we probably want to pull over before we get into that line.

Once you are there, you could stay back, out of the queue, and evaluate whether or not there is a regular pattern to how often cars get pulled into the high intensity lane if there is a pattern. I think I'd make it a logic roll, with the included Math CPU bonus.

Do we have a hacker?

EDIT: Looks like the closest we have is Riot making do with Cracking 1. Might come in handy later, but not at a border crossing.

I got 9 dice for hacking with most of the standard programs, I'd need to be in VR tho.

Also, to help answer your question about what they'll do at the border, I'll roll a Border Patrol Procedures Knowledge Check and then do the Logic + Math CPU check...assuming we go that route.

That's not a big problem, if we end up waiting in line for a half-hour... but I'm not sure I would want to risk anything less than a dedicated hacker or TM against border security. If an alarm gets tripped, our wait would get a lot longer, and they would get a lot more careful in their checks.

Your experience with those procedures indicates that the system is designed around most folks just getting a SIN scan, and a verbal interrogation as they pass, with either a SIN being questioned or shady behavior earning a trip through the scanners. And your quick scan of what's going on up ahead (we'll put you at the crest of a hill that's far enough back from the border to do a quick evaluation) is that there doesn't appear to be a pattern of how many they pull aside.

Are you handling SIN scans by the book (in which case we can all expect 0-1 hits), or do we think our rating 3 fakes are up to snuff?

Edit: Actually, I should go read up on how SR4A does those tests, we might be rolling 6 dice instead of 3.

My assumption is, with 5 fake SINs that need to pass, one of them will fail, and we'll get flagged... unless JP is going to abstract the thing, or have us make a single roll

Edit: Yeah, taking a look at the RAW, assuming the scanner is ~ rating 3-4, it'd be about 50/50 odds... 5 times in a row. Making our odds of getting through without raising any eyebrows roughly 3%.

Your rules-fu is strong, BlackHat. That's how I'm running it. Thus far, I've rolled utter and complete drek for the guards when you guys have passed through getting to the meet, but that could change...Remember that they have to beat your roll for the whole charade to fall apart, but on a tie, they're just a bit more suspicious.

You all know my position on the matter. Wolf's got the coyote prep'ed for us? Changing plans? Also, getting held up at the border is going to slow us down tremendously. A battle is gonna last 5 minutes in a smuggler's route. We trip security at the border, might take an hour.

Yeah, the odds of both sides either failing or glitching is pretty high. I think if we do go through, it might make sense to break into smaller groups, so that if the guards get lucky (or if someone mouths off), the whole team doesn't get shook-down and interrogated.

That, or switch to the coyote plan, which I am okay with, too. Both have pros and cons, and at this point, I say we just pick one and commit to it.

Would my thrillseeker flaw tempt me to do with the coyote or to go thru the border?

I'm 100% against splitting up. It never works. If you make it thru, but the van gets stopped, you won't make it to the drop in time anyway.

I'm gonna give everyone a little time to respond. For Wolf to say he's got a location to meet the coyote. I'm about to piss some people off (in IC) and detour to the coyote.

Edit - he posted, I'm changing directions. Opps, Angels not there....oh well!

~lol~ Kim will be thrilled when she can't find her body.

Don't worry, Kreskin will keep it safe for ya.

Also, isn't that what watcher spirits were invented for?

Also, I can't really read it on the map, but is Sloan Lake far from here? (I'm guessing its near the border, so we're probably mostly in the right direciton, but it'd be good to know if we're loosing an hour driving through rush-hour traffic to meet this guy).

I was under the impression we've been driving for some time. The time stamps were incorrect. As of post 65 I was driving towards the border. It's only been a few minutes tho.

Now that you've made that decision, it's about ten minutes away from where you were before.

And I'll gladly let Kim snap back before you make the decision to drive away with her corpse - she just need to decide if she's going to do any assensing while she's there, or just come back to report what she saw upon arriving.