Okay, it says that you can read an RFID tag with a commlink, but you have to know where it is first. It also says that RFIDs that are set up for tracking periodically report back to the matrix their GPS location, if they're in range of the matrix, and that you have to use a radio signal scanner to find an RFID tag in the first place.

So if Riot was within 40m of the tag, he could read it, but not locate it's physical location. To do that, he'd need the radio scanner.

Clear as mud, I tells ya.

Yes.. so a Radio Frequency Scanner is a piece of hardware that gets treated as Sniffer Program equal to it's rating.

To me, that implies that if you have a Commlink AND the Sniffer and Scan software. You can do what the RFScanner can do.



And I can use my Commlink as an ad-hoc jammer (jamming on the fly rules) that will jam all wireless traffic, including radio transmitters.

Hopefully, Riot isn't within 40m of the things in the first place.

It's clear as mud. It does say you need a magical RF Scanner to find them, and yet they connect to the matrix. If the connect to the matrix, they send a signal. If your Commlink has a rfid reader, it can detect the RFID signal. If you're a hacker with the right software, you should be able to use your commlink as an ad-hoc rf scanner, just like you can use it as an ad-hoc jammer.

That does make rather more sense, as the 'link is the be-all, end-all of devices, and a RF scanner can be pretty cheap at a much higher rating, since it's a single purpose device.

I'll roll with that. So, y'got any scan/sniff software, Riot?

True, they are outside of the building, so the range would be an issue.

We'll as sabs pointed out, if that RFID chip is trying to actively connect to the matrix itself, then one would assume its logging onto whatever the nearest public node is to transmit it's info. Could I log into each public node, perform a scan, and see if I see the IDcode?

Scan = 6
Sniffer = 3

Do you have the AccessID code for the RFID? If you do that makes life way easier. You can run a Trace on the AccessID code, and gets it's location within 50 meters accurate.

Great for finding him if we do actually mount a raid, but from a recon perspective, not so good.

I never actually doubted he/they'd be there, given the missions are written for a 2 hr convention timeslot, they can't really afford to through people off with false leads. Wolf, on the other hand, is unaware of this.

Yes.

Yeah, I'll say with the slack time that you have, you can easily enough ensure that the RFID tag is in the building. Almost certainly on the 2nd or 3rd floor, but the accuracy isn't that fine.

AccessID is like having it's IP address and Mac Address. You can just do a traceroute to it effectively. What's worse, you can triangulate it's location. It's almost like having the keys to the kingdom.

If I can give Angel an idea of where it is. Could she project and find them with relative ease?

And possibly run into their mage?

Possibly, but how many mages just hand out in the astral plane or spend every 3 seconds assensing?

And I'm talking only if we attempt to make the grab, not tip our hand before hand.

Your certainty is vague enough that it would be just as easy for her to go astral herself and search those two floors. Nothing that would help a great deal.

I don't want to rush anyone. Just making it aware to everyone that I have no actions to perform until I hear word of the meet with the BC's. I will now be in VR readied to remote control the drone if the drek hits the fan.

Side note - they've sent their spirit support the meet, meaning just the 3 of them are probably hanging out in the room. So between me, Doc, Angel, and hopefully a spirit that Angel summons and then maybe my drone, we should have them outgunned and outnumbered. I don't advocate fighting, but I think we have an advantage if they force our hand.

Kim's all for a fight if they have kidnapped B, but I fear we'll lose in both places.

I'm sure Kreskin & Wolf would lose (since it would basically be Wolf vs 2 spirits and a runner). You guy's fight might be more evenly matched, but it will still be tough. They have the advantage of being hunkered down, and probably expecting someone to come looking for B. Also, if they can summon 2 spirits, we have no reason to think they couldn't have summoned more. We know they have a hacker of some sort, so I wouldn't be surprised if there were some drones among those nodes you detected, as well.

One way or another, though, we're going to have to save B. I'm not sure it helps our odds if everyone at the park comes back to DYI before that goes down, but if we come back with useful information (or a friend) it might.

Yeah, I meant in the message that I sent was (in clearer terms):

If things don't work out, then it would be easier to ambush them outside of the DIY than to have to storm the castle, so to speak. As much as I'd like Wolf there to help, I'd rather attack when they have just the 3 of them and the face and 2 spirits still coming back than to face all 6 of them. Grenades tend to do better in open spaces than closed spaces.

but!
Chunky Salsa!

Flashbangs, flashs, smokes, etc, not HE, unless shit gets real.

Also, the spirits can effectively get back instantaneously. So wherever shit goes down first, I would expect at least 2 spirits.

Eh, a turn to get there. A turn to materialize. Battle's over?

I've seen fights go that quickly, yes.

90% of the ones I've seen. Then again, we aren't as bad ass as 400 bp characters with a handful of karma.

I don't suppose the sense motive is sufficient to differentiate between if we're making fools of ourselves by barking up the wrong tree verses her knowing somewhat what we're talking about, but not believing all of the details?

A few scenarios are running through my head, but a lot of them involve us having chased down a red herring.

So far it still looks like B went with them willingly.

That was one of the things I was thinking. Extraction of some sort made sense from the beginning, but then other clues look strange... probably looking just as strange to this Black Cat, right now.

Seems like to many signs pointing to the Cats for this to be a red herring.

Could be that, too. If that's the case, I was hoping to salvage the effort by convincing them that someone is trying to set them up to take the heat for this, and maybe get us some help on getting back on track... since, at the moment, they are our only lead.

This hacker and the Black Cats aren't working together. The Black Cats are doing the job for someone. The hacker might be doing a different job for the same employer. Either case, someone is trying to screw Falcone....Mr. B is just the bargaining chip. Maybe the hacker hired the Black Cats?

Maybe. In my head, if they did it, the Black Cats are just Runners, so by definition, they are deniable assets. They might have been told to "extract" Mr. B, and it makes sense that they would not have been told for what purpose they were doing this. It would also make sense if it was just part of a grander design, and that that plan wasn't shared with the runners who only did the first step.

Basically, we need to identify if they know about the job to steal B (and will cop to it) but don't know about the rest of it, or if they didn't even do the stealing of B. If it is the former, they might be able (but may not be willing) to help us find who is behind it by pointing us at who hired them (maybe a johnson, maybe the boss). If it is the latter, they are not immediately able to help us find out who is behind it, but they would be a lot more motivated to track down whoever is using them as a diversion.

What will we do if Falcone wants B back before midnight the next day?

Gotta do the job - but Kreskin will advocate we be nice about it (and not shoot to kill, etc). The Cats will have to try to stop us, and hopefully they'll show us the same courtesy. We're probably outmatched a little (since we're below 400 BP characters), but we do have some tactical advantage:

At least we confirmed that the black cats have B, and that he's not in any immediate danger. They (probably) don't know that we necessarily care when he gets back (assuming they believe we're primarily trying to figure out who is behind it), and they also (probably) don't know that we know where their safehouse is. We also know they won't want to risk B's life to keep us from getting him, since if anything happens to him, both of us fail our missions.

Well, know what we know that they need to keep him safe, presumably they were hired by Ares because they wanted to pump him for info about his mob involvement...or well that's my guess anyway. They're not going to kill him at all if we need to take him by force. Hey would be super screwed over if it happened. So we can take him by show of force, knowing that they won't just off him. Sounds like we got plenty of advantages.

@JP - does there look like alternative back entrances? Or just the front one? Roto-drone cycled the joint.

If the BC we're talking to is willing to help us, we can hopefully nail down who hired them - or if they don't know, maybe at least we can find out what they were asked to ask him about, or what it was they were searching for in the room. Those are both probably important clues as to who hired him.

Though, it seems like if it was Ares, they would have no reason to bluff a ransom, and no reason to try a real ransom. They could just deal with the situation in-house, and it would be a lot less messy.

If the ransomer actually intends to give B back, then he must suspect that Falcone would actually be willing and able to pay 250,000. Of course, maybe he doesn't intend to give B back (and intends to back up his threat), and he just told the BCs that to get them to accept the job. Dunno.

Well lets look at the clues.

The hacker infiltrated the systems after the grab and posted the ransom, which doesnt make sense. If the BCs had a hacker, they would have hacked the systems during the grab, to erase any evidence. Obviously they didn't, otherwise we wouldn't have the video footage. The hacker is a third party to the situation. I can think of three reasonable explanations:

1. Ares hired him, demanded the ransom, knowing that Falcone would trying to rescue him, hopefully involving the mob at some point, which would prove what their trying to prove, that he's working with them.

2. Falcone has an enemy in town from Seattle. If we looked at some of FCC's other interests, we might be able to find similar hacking attempts. The dude was looking for blackmail or paydata at Falcone's expense. Imagine his surprise when he saw this security footage.

3. This enemy, finds out Ares is going to have some executes stay at Falcones's ranch. He does some legwork, finds out Mr B is dirty. He tips off Ares, who hires the BCs. The BC do the run, get Mr. B. Then, having used Ares as his pawn, this enemy then blackmails Falcone.

Man, #3 sounds pretty crazy and about right. I don't know how to track him down though. My trace didn't work.

The only reason I can think of that Ares would not handle B directly is if they're not sure if he's dirty, and want to be able to deny any involvement and have him still happy with his job, if it turns out they were wrong. That might be the case, but it seems like they probably wouldn't have kidnapped him, they just would have hired some people to keep an eye on him and find some proof, then once they had proof, they could make him disappear a lot easier on their own premises than off.

The idea that Falcone has an enemy who just got lucky and noticed a completely random extraction seems similarly hard to swallow - but still possible.

It could be one of his own security guys for all we know, who saw the job take place, chose not to stop it, and now they're extorting their boss.

We could probably think up a million random scenarios and never hit the right one. We need to get some clues about what the BCs are after to guide us in the right direction.

That's why I think #3 is the most reasonable. The dude is an ex-fixer. He got out of the game, went legit. Someone he messed over has to be behind this, because otherwise there's no other logical motivation. I suppose, the enemy might be a rival Corporate Consulting firm though, not someone from his past. Either way, its and enemy who's orchistrating it.

It's obvious, Falcone's getting setup, and its not by Ares.

Edit - This assumes Ares is behind the kidnap, which if I'm following the clues, its the most likely situation. As you put so eloquently.

Let's just see how it goes. Finding who's behind it is only an extra 1k, although admittedly a 1k I'd appreciate. Extra money or not, if we can get through this without firing a shot I'll be happy.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. If we ambush them, we can take them without a fight. As for reps, we can wear masks/face protection. Should cover our identities, unless we pick you guys up and do it all together (which is why I hate splitting up the team).

The simplest explanation I can think of is that someone just wants some information (related to Ares) from B. They hire the BCs to get it and send a ransom note in the hope Falcone thinks it’s about him, so he won’t inform Ares.

I would say that would be the best, but the mob ties are obviously important. It's more like what BH said, Ares hired BC's as third party so they could assertain if he's working with them or not. The hacker/ransom part is still throwing me for a loop. It's disjointed and doesn't flow with the initial kidnap/extraction. If they were linked, it would have happend as the kidnapping occurred or shortly thereafter. Not multiple hours later.

I actually said that didn't make sense. If Ares wanted to figure that out, they would have hired a team to watch him, not kidnap and interrogate him.
Unless they were worried he was going to do something bad very soon, anyway.

EDIT: I did say the only way it made sense for Ares to use a team, was for the deniability, but I still think they would have hired the team to do something less... risky.

It would really help a lot if we knew what info the BCs want to get out of B.

Which I am sure we will get out of them, shortly.

I must have misread what you posted. That would make more sense. But then it wouldn't make for an interesting run now would it?

Edit - Doesn't matter anyway I suppose. Sometimes it better not to know who's behind things. Let's just get B and be done with it.

For the team doing the surveillance, it might. Imagine, you're tailing a corp exec and he's just going about his business, then he goes to some strange fetish diner, then he's chumming it up with known mobsters, then a van pulls up and all kinds of heavy weapons are being exchanged (which that team might want to take for themselves!).

That sounds pretty awesome, actually.

Well not from our current side I meant.