They tell me I'll know for sure, one way or another, by Friday. I'll hold out until the following Monday before I assume they're just sending me a form letter.

Okay, I've given the IC a bit of a read-through.

Before I screw anything up, is this a reasonable summary of what's intended?

You'll arrive early (6:20ish) and Kreskin and Wolf will get out and go to the meet proper, while Kim, Riot and Doc remain in the van just in case, and Riot continues to probe the commlink.

Good?

Exactly. The van will be parked less than a block away. Rear doors facing the meeting location, so the drones can go play if shit goes down. I assume, Wolf and Kreskin will patrol the place a little, but they can roll perception checks when they're ready for that.

Once I succeed or fail with the commlink, I'm going to start running scans for all the nodes in the area. Then I'll start scannign for hidden nodes every minute. If I find any nodes, I'll report them.

The van should be near the DIY place. If the meeting isn't successful, drones do primary recon then Riot/Doc/Kim decide whether an extraction is possible/advisable.

Personally, I have no objection to the van and drones being available for the meet but the above is the plan as I understood it.

Same here. If we're at the meet, and need to pull the card that says we know where B is, and just signaled our team to extract him if the Cats don't back down... that threat won't carry a lot of weight if our whole team is just down the block, and will take as long to get to B as the Cats would (probably longer, since we don't know which container he's in).

I'm not opposed to changing the plan, necessarily, but I thought the plan was that the van would drop Wolf and Kreskin off, who would look around a bit as we approach on foot (although, personally, the more people they have in ambush for us, the better) because Wolf and Kreskin are basically the distraction. Riot, Angel, and Doc would then head to DYI and Kreskin and Wolf would meet them there later if things went well, or signal for them to move early if things went less well.

I can leave my roto drone nearby to you guys if you want us to head to the DIY. My only concern is that without Wolf, the extraction might not be advisable regardless of any situation. But we'll drop you off and head up to the DIY.

@JP - is there a place that the roto drone could be hidden near the meeting spot?

Leaving a drone sounds fine, but wait for our signal to send it in. I expect things to look bad before they actually get bad. The drones might make a good sub for Wolf at the extraction, too, but if (for example) we see all 4 cats at the meet, though, you may not need to worry much about not having Wolf there.

Like I said, in an ideal situation, we won't actually need you to move in on B during the meet (we'll wait until Kreskin and Wolf catch up to you), but we need to have people in the area - either to back up our threat, or to notice if they try to move B before then.

Also, we left the Aztech dagger in the van earlier, let's keep in there... and on the off chance you guys do move on B, it would be totally awesome if you left the dagger stuck in something where he was being kept.

Sounds good.

We'll drop them off, hide the roto. I'll need to patch thru to the roto via your commlink Kreskin, since I'm probably going to be outside the 4 KM signal reach of mine.

We'll park at the DIY, not too close, but survey. I'll let you guys know if the hack works out. Otherwise, I'll start scanning for nodes at the DIY.

Patching is fine, Kreskin can set up an encrypted connection to both of you and route it... but if you're outside the range to the drone, you'll be outside the range to Kreskin too.

In both cases, I don't think patching is necessary, because as long as you're in relatively urban areas (like Denver) both the drone and your commlink should have a signal to the matrix through various random mesh nodes set up. You could "call" your commlink from anywhere in the world, as long as you know its commcode IDs or whatever, and both if you have a wireless connection to the Matrix.

It's like having two computers that you want to network. They don't need to both be within wifi range of one another (although they could be), they just both need an internet connection, and you need to know how to address one of them from the other (like an IP address, or hostname).

Correct. The lower of the two signal ranges indicates the range at which you can have a direct connection without passing through any intermediaries.

Heading in to work in a few, will have an IC post up to get the ball rolling soonish.

Well, since I'm not a matrix guru, Riot will do whatever a prudent hacker/rigger would in the situation to all him to control the drone but not leave too many tracks and or call a shit storm on either group.

Even crosslinking through the public access Matrix isn't going to leave you wide open - someone would have to isolate your communications and hack them, they just have more nodes of opportunity to find them being routed through. I think you're being safe.

Brief pause at the end of my last IC post, to see if any of you want to do anything fancy. I'll give it a few to allow for that, then advance the story to the time of the meet.

Only think I'll need is at 6:50 to know the result of my probe. Two probes in VR using edge, total of 16 success to date at of that point. After, I'll hope to AR and observe the DIY, see if I notice anything coming in or out. Probably safe to assume Doc would be too, if you want to roll for her.

Thanks for the reminder, I'd have forgotten your probe. I'll add it in, next post, regardless of other outcomes.

Plus, you'd have to do the same thing if you routed through Kreskin (to get your 'link to talk to his), so I think it's fine.

Once I come out of VR, I'll be addressing Angel and her outburst. I just thought it was something that might be better discussed in person, not via instant messaging.

Just make sure you're following it all correctly. Plenty of it is "internal dialogue" with her cat mentor spirit.

Oh yeah I know. But later portion was quite odd. I'm just going to ask if she's alright. It would appear to Riot that perhaps issues with people being taken against their will (or forced to do things against their will).

Cool. I just know that I had to read it through twice or three times before it all clicked.

JP, wanna put the probe results in then Riot can speak to Kim before you post the meet?

And let us know if we see them leaving or not leaving the DIY?

Yeah, remind me what Riot's stealth rating is? And are you looking for a regular, security or admin account?

Sighs....3..... /cry

Well with 16 hits, I guess if can get admin rights I will.

Lol. Yeah, GL.

(double-post)

MIssed your edit...

Okay, I'll run that out in IC momentarily.

I missed yours. Also, as you gain success, can you opt to buy the level of access you deem appropriate? For example, I roll a few times, get 12 success, enough to get security but not admin, could I just go, eh, I'll take security access? Or do you have to declare your intent, then that's what you have to get?

PS - I know I basically wasted 2 edge rolls, but I had to try...figured there'd be something the trouble if I did succeed.

Since that determines the threshold of the test, I think it ought to be declared in advance. I can see it working the other way, but that's my feel for it.

I have no relevant skills or knowledge to even begin to give an informed option. It doesn't say that you have to declare, that its just increased threshold for various levels. I guess I envisioned it as, I'm poking around, looking for holes. I see some, but they only give me user access (lower threshold), but I'm looking for the big fish admin account loop hole. Doesn't really matter to me to be honest. Isn't it some 90% of the time you're trying to get admin access anyway.

Also, can I assume that once Riot manages to create an admin backdoor, he then uses it? Because I'll tell you right here that the probing does not trigger any attempts to find you - it's all external at this point.

Well sure, otherwise you're in there with a basic user account, and can't see anyone else's data! You wind up having to hack your way into promoting your access, and that's just more chances of getting caught.

Yeah, as soon as I create, I'll login and run analyze node

http://www.catchyourhare.com/diceroller/
Pword Armor
10d6 - 6,5,1,2,3,6,1,6,2,5 = 5 success - looking for paydata and somethign that links his commlink to his RFID chip. I'll thing about how to get that to link up after that. Maybe jsut the RFID idcode, so I can track it form my own link? Not sure if that works.

How would you prioritize your search? Paydata first, or RFID first? I will likely split it into two attempts.

Well analyze node should yield both? Read the section on Matrix Perception on page 228 and let me know what you think. I'm heading out to lunch with a business partner. Be back in an hour or so. But RFID first, then Paydate 2nd.

Got it, thanks for the link. I'll provide a good bit of detail, and let you decide how you're handling it. I'll edit it into the flow of the larger post, since it happens ahead of time.

Must be writing chapter 2 of your novel! And that sounds like a good plan.

Ah, I see JP edited his IC post.
Kim is just waiting for things to happen.

Man I need to get my stealth program up...

So does that mean my can tell the RFID chip is somewhere in the building, just need to get a lot closer since its signal rating is so short? Or do I have no clue?

You got what you thought might be a couple hits, but when you tried to pinpoint a location, they faded.

A question or two for you good sir. It looks like analyze node only really yields information if you are logged into the node, other than just seeing how many nodes there were. If I want to find the RFID chip, do I need to get closer and run some scans? Or does it look like its signal getting jammed?

How I'm reading it is that you need a radio frequency scanner, I believe they're called, and you must be in range of the chip. RFID tags have a relatively low Signal strength.

Hmm, that's how I'm reading it too. Only think I see is on p. 329.



But I wouldn't be able to pinpoint the location of it with a commlink, I'd need the radio scanner for that. Hmmm...anyway I can jury rig or make a hot fix on my commlink to make an ad hoc radio scanner?

Is she the one that summoned the spirits?

I'll give you a shot at it, but I'm thinking it would be a hardware + logic test, with a threshold of 8 and an interval of 30 minutes, so it's not something you could whip up in a heartbeat.

I should have said that earlier. It seems entirely unlikely as she is not Awakened.

You should totally be able to use your commlink.





So if he has the scan and sniffer programs, he should have a shot.
Problem of course is that RFID's have a range of 40m.
But! If that RFID is within 40 meters of a Commlink that's actively on the Matrix, then said RFID is on the matrix too.

Reasonable. Is there away I could use sniffer to figure out which storage room their in? If I had Wolf and Kreskin have her ask a question inwhich she'd need to send them a message and I could intercept it, would that help me find their location? Or not really.

But that second quote about treating it as a Sniffer is directly from the Radio Signal Scanner description, right?