Grandma takes Dragon aside. "Vincent, option A and option B are what they told me I had to pay anyway. It is not right. They caused the 1500 nuyen damage. They want paid 200 nuyen for causing 1500 nuyen of damage. It is not right. It is not fair."

Without taking his glare off the manager, Dragon answers in Chinese, "Don't worry Grandma, we'll worry about right and fair later. For now, Steve and I are just going to take care of this biz, aren't we Steve?"

Putting a familial arm on her shoulder, Dragon pats it calmingly and then says in an soft, icy tone, "Now see what you've done? You've gotten a poor old lady all worked up and upset." He gives a laugh, but it is anything but mirthful.

"If it was just any old lady, maybe I wouldn't give a drek," he says jokingly. His voice hardens. "But it isn't. So since you've gone and gotten my grandma upset, and you don't seem to be in a hurry to work this out, the plan's changed. Now if you want option A or B, you are going to apologize to her. Now. Nicely. And you'll convince me. Translation: You want any money, you apologize first, or I'm going to take that as you choosing option C. That is to say, we walk out of here, and you get to do whatever you want with that car you just wrecked. But you do it without any money. And oh yeah, don't think there won't be a service complaint filed. A very detailed, articulate service complaint. Complete with names, time, date, and store. Translation: all the data the boys upstairs need to have to know they have one very dissatisfied, very vocal ex-customer who has no problems badmouthing them to anyone and everyone who'll listen."

Tossing a casual, unconcerned glance at the mechanics (although his senses are still keeping a close eye on them), Dragon continues calmly, quietly, "And don't think I'll forget the part about your boys trying to intimidate an old lady and a small Chinese guy; that's us, in case you forgot."

Affecting surprise, Dragon pretends like he's shocked at this statement. "You mean, you thought I didn't notice them picking up pipes and wrenches, gathering round like a bunch of thugs on the street ready for a beat down?"

He grins evilly. "Oh believe me, I did. And you can bet I'll be sure to tell all the right, or maybe wrong, in your case, people about what 'service with a smile' means at this wonderful Ford Dealership. Yeah that's right. Come to the Ford Dealership where we'll not only wreck your car and try to charge you for it, we'll also try to intimidate and threaten you, and maybe even beat you for the cherry on top."

Shaking his head in mock chagrin, he looks up into the now thoroughly sweating manager's face. "Tut. Tut. Tut. My poor old grandma could've had a heart condition and died from all this stress. This could've gotten really ugly. I bet that would've looked lovely to your bosses, huh Steve?"

Leaning in close, he whispers, "You see where I'm going with this Steve? Life's about choices, and consequences. Let me repeat that for you, just in case you missed it. Choices. And consequences. Are you following me yet?"

Leaning back, Dragon spreads his (now shock glove covered) hands on the counter, all the time aware of everyone around him. "I'm going to do you a favor buddy, since you've been so helpful. I'm going to spell this out for you. Real clear like. Crystal. Like on a chip. You scanning me?"

Visibly worried at the idea his bosses might hear about this, Steve can only nod mutely. Dragon grins, a sadistic sort of grin. "Good. That's real good. Let's try this again. You can take option A or B, the modified versions. You can take option C. but there's a problem. No matter which one you take, I might still be feeling a little hosed off. Maybe hosed off enough to talk to some, no wait. Make that a lot of people. And believe me, by the time I finish talking to everyone I want to, someone's going to regret it." He drills Steve with his glare. "And it isn't going to be me."

Looking around like he's surprised by this realization, Dragon adds, "Well. That sucks, now that I think about it. In fact, it sounds downright harsh. So I tell you what. I'll cut you a break. I'll add option D. What's option D?"

Dragon leans in until he's practically in Steve's face. "Make. Things. Right. I'm sure you're a smart guy, Steve. I'm sure you can think of something to make me and my grandma here forget about all this unpleasantness and all the things I was saving up to tell the world."

He stands back and shrugs. "But hey, I could be wrong. Maybe you'll just insist on doing in the hard way." With a meaningful glance at the mechanics he adds, "For your sake, I hope you don't insist on doing things the really hard way."

He turns back to Steve. "And if you're smart, you won't even think about thinking the really hard way is the right way."

He casually winks at Steve, but it is anything but friendly. "So now that we've had this enlightening discussion, I believe the ball is back in your court." He cocks his head to one side expectantly. "So what's it going to be Steve?"

"Mrs.," Steve fumbles to find the name on the service order. "Mrs.," Steve pauses not sure of the order of the chinese name. "Mrs. Xiao Li," Steve makes an honest attempt to bow and fails miserably because of the raised service counter. He almost loses an eye to the spool doing its job impaling paperwork. Steve continues, " I am sorry for the misunderstanding." To Dragon he says, "I am sorry for the misunderstanding that upset your grandmother, please accept my apology."

The mechanics who had drawn up into a makeshift circle around Dragon drop their jaws almost as one. Steve indicates option A or B is perfectly suitable, and can't help adding, "As it was all along, sir. Is everything to your satisfaction?"

Apoc watches the hours tick by as he gets ready to go back to the soulcrushing "job" he has recently aquired.

Dragon gives Steve a thin smile.

"Apology accepted." He slowly slides 200 nuyen across the counter. Leaving his hand on the nuyen, he asks, "Assuming the car can be fixed, how long would it take you?"

Steve stammers out that he is uncertain about the time frame, and they'll need to look again. Before he can blather on, Dragon raises a hand to stop him. "Here's what I'm going to do. I'll give you and your boys a week. If I don't get a call from you stating first, whether the car can be fixed, second, a repair estimate that includes the 1500 that is currently on the tab, then I will assume the car is junk and will leave it here. If I do receive a call with a reasonable estimate, well we'll burn that bridge when we get there."

Taking his hand off the nuyen, he guides Xiao Li out of the shop while giving a smirk to the mechanics. "Be seeing you around...boys." He is very prepared, just in case someone actually does something stupid.

When he gets to the door, he stops, turns, puts on a pair of mirrorshades, and grins. "It's good to know that I can look back on my experience here and feel...almost satisfied."

Leaving Steve to wonder just what he means by that, and what he will do, Dragon turns and walks out.

Renegade calls Dragon up on his cell phone. "Blender hired that decker and brought him back to the safehouse. Time to make some decisions. Can you be here in twenty minutes?"

Dragon answers his phone.

"Hey, had some biz to take care of. I gotta make a quick stop en route, but I'll be there ASAP. I can talk to you all via radio. I have plenty of channels and the encryption to make it safe. So either way, I'll be informed. Be there as soon as I can."

Guiding Xiao Li to his car, he says, "OK Grandma I gotta go to work. So I'm going to drive you home and then get going, ok?"

She gives him a quick kiss on the cheek, and says, "Be careful Vincent, I want you home safely."

He kisses her back. "I'm always safe Grandma, you know that."

Driving her home as fast as possible without drawing attention to himself, he then heads back to Apoc's warehouse, ready to get down to biz.

En route, he calls up Sybersnake. "Hey Syber, thanks for the info. I'll be sure to grab you some of those product codes. Oh and by the way, let me know where you want to go for dinner."

She winks at him. "Don't worry babe, I haven't forgotten. I think I'll keep you in suspense, just for a little while."

Grimacing playfully, Dragon smiles, "Great. Just great. Well I'll eagerly await our date."

She raises an eyebrow. "Date? I thought you were taken."

"Well...you know what I mean. Besides, dinner at a nice restaurant with a hot chick like you? That's a date if I ever heard of one."

She laughs. "I'm flattered. What about the girlfriend, won't she get jealous?"

Shaking his head, Dragon holds a finger to his lips. "Shhh...what she doesn't know won't hurt her" he replies teasingly.

Syber gives him a seductive smile. "Well then, I guess it'll just be our little secret."

Dragon returns her smile. "Gotcha. All right, I have to go. Catch you later."

"OK. Oh, and make sure you stay alive. I intend to collect on our date."

Grinning, he answers, "Wouldn't miss it for anything. Take care."

"You too. I'm out."

Syber disconnects, and Dragon drives the rest of the way to Apoc's in silence.

Preston heads out after he notes the information he needs to discover in his memory.

Shouldn't be too hard to find that stuff, maybe I should do a little extra digging too.

Getting back to the shop, he searches through the supply of icons for a suitable looking businessman icon and slots his credstick to pay for it. Sparing a moment to check for messages, he discovers the others have headed down to the Shark for a bit of R&R.

It's late anyway, so they'll probably be back soon. Still, I'll catch up with them later.

He heads out to find a street dataterm. Finding one in a relatively quiet area, he slots his credstick and jacks in.

Dragon walks into the warehouse. "Hey guys, sorry I'm late. Why don't you introduce me to the new guy, and then we can get this show on the road?"

Apoc the gracious host as ever, lets everyone into the shop. He's developed more detailed maps of the facility which are spread out over his table.

Looking at Renegade and Blender, Dragon asks, "Well, you guys are the breaking and entering specialists. You have any ideas for us to work with here?"

"Yeah," says Blender, "I think we should just send me in alone, with the rest of you waiting outside. Renegade can make me invisible, and I can climb quite well, so I can just grad everything we need and sneak out. The rest of you can just wait outside in case I need backup. Putting more people inside would just increase our chances of being spotted."

"Didn't someone say something about spirits or something? Wouldn't they spot you?" Apoc brings up, trying to remember what was said earlier in the planning.

"Yes," Renegade replies, "There is a fairly powerful air elemental guarding the warehouse. I would have to take it out in astral combat right before the intrusion is made. The good news is, th elemental has been permanently bound to guard the site, so its summoner won't necesarily be alerted when I kill it."

Dragon nods. "OK, I'd probably be more useful as backup in case things went wrong. What about their technological defenses?"

Dragon looks around. "Anyone? We've done all this resarch on them. Someone must have a plan by now. Apoc, you've had some good ideas. You got anything up your sleeve here?"

"I haven't seen too much of their stuff, but there are a good number of cameras on the joint. Not much in the way of scanners that I saw, though there was a sniffer in the employee entrance corridor," Apoc says.

"Do you think you or Iceblind could take care of the cameras?" Dragon asks.

"Quietly?" Apoc asks. "No. Unless he finds 'em on the 'trix, they're CCSS. There's no quiet way to invade one of those."

Dragon thinks for a moment. "OK, the cameras are CCSS, but what about the power? That should be connnected to the Matrix. No power, who cares about the CCSS? If he can make it look like a normal malfunction or problem, that buys us time to work without triggering too many warning bells."

"Feel free to try. Never know until you try it," Apoc declares.

"But theoretically, it should work, right?" Dragon presses.

"If we want to shut off the power, which I think sounds like a pretty good idea," Blender says, "I think we would be better off doing it physically, rather than through the matrix. Someone, probably Dragon, could cut the power lines connecting the warehouse with the loacal substation. We'd have to try to make it look like an accident, of course. But from what I understand, that would be easier than decking into the city electrical system."

"That's a possibility, but I wasn't thinking about shutting off the power via the city's electrical grid. I was thinking about doing it through the warehouse matrix. But you have a point, doing it physically will probably be easier. Any ideas where to get the info on the physical line?" Dragon replies.

Iceblind adjusts a couple of his settings, switching back out of masking mode and letting his body fade back from near transparency to a more opaque ice.

There is a momentary beep of an incoming internal call, then the telecom terminal lights up to reveal the head and shoulders of Preston's icon, Iceblind. The opaque ice is offset by the scarlet eyes set into the figure's eye sockets.

"Greetings gentlemen, this is Iceblind, with a status report.
It would appear that our mutual friend's hospital records have been doctored. Difficult to say who by, but it was done well. The warehouse itself does not seem to be on the 'trix at the moment. Oh, and the safehouse isn't Matrix safe- your system needs beefing up.
As for the power idea, some records would be useful, and I can do a search for those if that would assist. The only problem I foresee with that plan is that they may have some form of backup generator. Given the doctoring of the records, and the fact that that may or may not have been done by warehouse 'staff', I can't guarantee accurate public records.
Of course, I can always try the city power grid if you want, couldn't tell you how dark it is there yet. Advantage is that a power overload would probably look more like an accident, and might drek up any backup power they have."

With that, Iceblind pauses to take a glance from side to side.

"You know, I don't think this monitor is doing my icon justice."

Dragon looks at the monitor. "Can you print us the stuff you found in regards to Mr. J's hopsital records? While we're looking at that, take a look at whatever you have to to see if we can get that power overload idea to work."

Looking back at Renegade, he asks, "Can you deal with that elemental while Blender goes in, as well as give him any magical assistance you can?"

Turning to Apoc, he asks, "OK, so they aren't connected to the Matrix. Any ideas for dealing with the tech defenses beyond overloading them all and shutting them down?"

Apoc shrugs. "Couple of spells should do the trick... can't fight that kind of tech with tech, really. Not if you want to be quiet."

Iceblind pauses briefly, looking offscreen, then vanishes and is replaced by the hospital records of the client.

"As stated, well doctored. Your power crisis is under investigation."

"Iceblind you mind printing that off for us?"

Sunday, April 19

Looking over at Blender and Renegade, he says, "OK guys, so you two got a plan to get us in and out? Why don't you lay out the day we move, what you want us to be doing, and what you guys will be doing? It's Sunday, so if we're going in on the weekend, we better get cracking. Either way, we probably don't want to wait past tomorrow to make our move, so the sooner we're set and ready to roll, the better."

"Only problem with the weekened is that the place is on lockdown. If we don't strike soon, though, the codes might change." Apoc looks to be at a loss for ideas.

Dragon nods. "Yeah. I say unless anyone has any serious objections, we make our move on monday. Any issues with that?"

"Sounds good."

Dragon looks at the team. "OK, so here's what I'm hearing. Renegade is going to help Blender sneak in, with me on the outside running spotter and backup, and Apoc working the inside. Anything in particular you guys want Apoc to do? Also, quick question, won't taking out the elemental draw attention? Is there a way to get around that?"

Everyone's attention seems to have drifted. It's been a long day and night, lots of waiting and legwork, and people are tired. Dragon goes and grabs some soykaf from the kaf machine for everyone, then paces in front of the table.

"OK, let's try this again. I am running spotter and backup. Apoc will be the inside man. Blender and Renegade will take care of insertion, Blender actually going in, Renegade with magical support and taking out the elemental. Question, will taking the elemental out alert anyone, namely it's summoner? Iceblind will run Matrix cover. If there's anything you want done via Matrix Blender, let him know. We move Monday during Apoc's shift. When is your shift Apoc?"

Holding up a hand to forestall his response, Dragon continues, "Does anyone have a problem with this plan, and is there anywhere we'd like to go into more detail on? If not, we'll just run with it, since we've spent several days doing legwork, and unless anyone has anything else to do, I say we just go." Gesturing to Apoc, he says, "Please go ahead." Then he sits back down.

Friday, Mayday (May 1)

"Gut check time," Blender says. "Let's do this. Everyone get your gear together. We leave in ten."

Renegade gathers his gear and gets in the van.

Dragon packs his stuff, double checks his weapons and ammo, and then hops in the van as well.