The Office
The interior of the home seems pristine and orderly. The furniture and decor down to the accents are all quality - nothing here is a knock off or a synth version of something people with nuyen to spare buy. As you move through the space you see while the decorations are designed to leave the space warm and inviting - there is nothing actually of a personal nature present. Everything here is set out like a staged home you see on the trids - tasteful and coordinating, hinting at what you could do with this dream home. The kitchen is stocked with a full set of dishes and cookware to satisfy even the more discriminating chef but the refrigerator stands empty of drink or food. You find full sets of linens in each room and spares stored away in closets - the pantry stands empty waiting to be filled.

The whole house is a mix of traditional and cutting edge. Every technological gadget is cleverly hidden or concealed preserving the illusion of traditional Japanese home. The shoji walls and doors are made from some sort of composite material that looks like rice paper but in reality is far stronger and durable. There are hidden storage areas for the house drones that clean and maintain the rooms. No expensive was spared in creating this getaway except for its location. It seems ridiculous to create this luxury retreat then drop it in the cesspool of the Barrens. You think the only reason it has remained untouched is its concealed location and the likelihood anyone would look here for something like this.

The one exception is the master bedroom. The wardrobe is packed with garment after garment, all silk. You see a variety of styles ranging from formal kimonos to the little black dress for cocktail parties. The bathroom is stocked with top of the line cosmetics and a set of make up is there to administer the traditional geisha appearance. There are an assortment of oils, lotions and perfumes lined up neatly. You look around and realize just the contents of this one room could feed a family of four comfortable for a few years or longer if they were frugal.

You find yourselves gathered together in the great room of the house staring at one another.

Cypher finished his work as the last of the team arrived and followed as they gathered in one room. He cocks an eyebrow at many of the team wearing strange shoes, while he's been stomping around in his boots.

"Those shoes are stupid."

Continuing on without missing a beat, the hacker keeps talking.

"Alright, so, welcome to the new offices of Dead Yaks incorporated or whatever we're called. The house is clear of bugs as far as I can tell, plus if you rip back the creepy half-see through wallpaper, you'll notice a wonderful shade of ugly negation paint. When you close the doors and windows, we become a no man's land all to ourselves. That said, we have plenty of work to get done.

"Zuzane is a psychotic, ex-stripper, bodyguard who screams bad-ass across the evening news. She turned a bad situation into a payout taking a chunk of wealth from a very bad man with very bad plans. She opened Kaska Investment Group to clear out some private stock of weapons, armor, and whatever other assets she squeezed out of probate without telling the courts the truth. The site we are hitting was owned by Tea House Enterprises, a small shipping company and then bought by Zuzane's former employer. It is in Federated Boeing's backyard, literally. Which means that any loud noises might wake up neighbors with enough firepower to make us wish it was only Knight Errant shooting us in the back of the head."

Cypher sends out AROs to the new team members and forwards the data packets from his data searches.

Request for Access

Results from data searches

Breeze arrived late and most likely the last person expected, he stumbled a bit to the front door as he was taking off his shoes seeming to be some what aware of the traditions of a home like this. He walks in slowly with a lot less energy than he had the two other times the group has seen him, he smiles his little mischievousness smile and plops down on one of the chairs near Strangeglove.

"Hey man...hey brother...hows it going"

He slowly moves his hand patting Strangeglove's strange glove.

He looks to the rest of the group nodding to each in turn, smiling the whole time.

He then looks up as Cypher begins to talk, listening intently to the information and slowly looking at the data packets that were produced the previous night.

"Do we have a map of the area, and the layout of the target building yet?"

Strangeglove is wearing a silk kimono over his body armor.

"Think we can clean this place out when we leave? This stuff is nice."

Looking to the troll's large cyberarm and back at Strangeglove, Cypher sighs. There were limits to how far he should push the people with the guns.

"Yes. It's in the data packet. Until the mages do that voodoo they do, I can't say how much it changed from what was filed. Magey folk, have you done your thing yet?"

He looks over towards Fat Man and Zerone.

"Take it up with Management if you plan on stealing everything not nailed down, it ain't my house."

Fat Man is wearing sandals, but either didn't want to bother with a kimono or couldn't find one that fit. He swallows a mouthful of Genuine Imitation Oriental Flavour Soysticks before replying to Cypher.

"I've just finished putting up wards on the vehicle we'll be using as our base to scout from. We'll need to wait until sunset to begin, so we should have something tomorrow morning."

Zerone bows politely to the new person who answers the door.

"Hello, Mr. Q. I am Zerone, it is nice to meet you." He stops mid-thought, scrunching his mouth to the side a bit he mulls over something in his mind.

"Well, I guess I should probably say Zero. That is my running hurdle? no...handle! That is my running handle, but I made the mistake of saying Zerone before... Zerone is my first name." He closes his eyes and laughs nervously, slightly embarrassed by the whole situation.

"Still, whether you call me Zero or Zerone, it is nice to meet you, Mr. Q"

He walks into the house and waves hello to the others. When Cypher asks about whether he and Fat Man had finished up astral scouting, he shakes his head.

"Oh, uh, no. We have not gotten the chance to work together on that yet, but we will soon. Also, um...I should probably mention that my running handle is supposed to be Zero...I never spoke up to change it..."

Eklipse sits, legs crossed, not quite in full lotus but as close as he can manage in his armor. He holds up a hand as Cypher distributes the files on Zuzanne, signalling for the decker to wait a moment before continuing.

He circles a finger around the room and finishes by pointing it at Q.

It is rude to point, but appropriate in this case.

"Before, we get too far into ze planning, zese people I am knowing, at least a little. You I am not knowing. So tell us, Mr Q, what skils do you bring to our group?"

"Zero it is," Q acknowledges, with a comforting smile.

Q circles around the group without disrupting Cypher's presentation and sits on Strangeglove's non augmented side. Noting Breeze's gesture to Strangeglove, "I'd missed Strangeglove's inclinations and am surprised with this society's openness." While feeling out the rest of the group through the flow of the meeting, he pays subtle attention to Strangeglove and Breeze's interactions.

@Strangeglove: It's in poor taste to ripoff people who've invited you into their house as guests. You can probably keep that kimono. Though you'll soon wear it out if if you continue wearing it over your armor.

To Ekilpse, without taking offense, "I'm skilled at negotiations, social engineering, and impersonation. I'm also mildly competent with illusions, magical healing, and turning opposing people into the team's assets. And yes I'll understand if the last one is a deal breaker," Q finishes evenly, watching the group's reaction to his innuendo of mind control.

Breeze's attention seem to waver as he looks around the room, his eyes a bit calm but distracted, he looks as people sit down, then he starts fiddling with something on his jacket, he seems to be trying to wipe something off but is unsuccessful, he continues with these motions for a good minute before he looks up as people talk and discuss business.

“There is good karma in this room, isn’t there good karma?”

He looks at the rest of the group, his eyes darting back and forth.

“Right? Good Karma…”

He takes a deep breath and relaxes in his chair.

“Infiltration is my gig boys”

He nods to himself as he begins to fiddle with one of his finger nails.

As each person enters the rooms after him, Jon appears to weigh them up on a scale determining their threat level.
He neither smiles nor frowns, but is cautiously polite if approached. His armored jacket hangs open and a duffel bag sits by his unshod feet. He stands where he can keep as many people in his view of the door as possible.

"If we're doing introductions, who are you Mr Broody and Suspicious?"

Cypher makes an off handed gesture at Jon.

Fleet, leaning up against the cabinets near the fireplace with arms crossed in what was probably the closest thing to a polite stance someone in heavy body armor could manage, speaks up at this point, the silver engravings in his tusks glinting a bit in the light as he nods towards Jon and Q.

"And since management sent you, mind telling uff what kind of history you have wiff them?" There's a slight slur to the lean hobgoblin's words, and anyone with any language familiarity can hear the underlying Arabic accent.

Lounging backwards, left arm supporting him, while sitting on a pillow Q takes a small sip of tea before replying, "If by 'Management' you mean those higher up the food chain than Widget, I know nothing of them. I was introduced to Widget by a mutual friend. Widget informed me that she had a job for me with an already established group. And since she came highly recommended, here I am. I'm presuming I'll be useful for at least this mission otherwise we'd have never been introduced."

Switching topics he quickly continues, "What's the connection between Zuzane and the Yakuza? Or is hunting Yaks sport for you all and she's serious business?"

Jon looks to Cypher, and thinks for a second then speaking with a heavy Amazonian accent.

“I apologize if I seem rude, I am not used to being in the criminal underworld, but it seems to me that a bit of suspicion can be the difference between life and death here. “

“As far as who I am, I was hired because my interests align with Management. I suppose I bring some experience in hand to hand combat and firearms. I’ve worked in security so I’m comfortable with security systems in general. How about all of you? We seem to have an interesting team, and I do like to know my other team members before combat.”

"I am pleased to meet our three new friends. I am called Fat Man, and am a student of the way and a follower of Guan Yu."

Turning to Q, Fat Man continues, "Might I inquire what way or tradition you follow?"

Emilio
As the group talks and introductions are being made you see an icon flare to life in your vision - an new message has arrived. With a thought you pull up a small window and see it's from Bakatare.

<< I do indeed know this person but only in passing. She was a protector of sorts for a shaman. Her employer was an arrogant man and bloated with his own sense of power and self worth. I frankly lost track of her after my business was concluded with him. I asked around and it seems she has turned his misfortune into opportunity for herself. I would not underestimate her ability or skill - she held her own with someone I would consider a seasoned master. >>

Zero
You receive a reply from the doctor.

<< I don't think it would be a problem to help you out - I hope everything is ok? I am very busy the next three days - I've run out of volunteers recently so its a little more challenging to find time outside of the clinic. Can you come by the clinic then either before it opens or just after? Let me know. >>

While the other's are talking, windows are opening up in Fleet's view, conveniently pressed to the side so that he could continue to monitor the discussion. But, that was the whole point of AR, wasn't it? He double-checks feeds from the Rotordrone and the interior of the wrecked building from the miniature flyspy's, letting the incoming 3D map, complete with structural density heatmap, forward itself through the link out to Cypher's comm.

<<Cypher[Fleet] - Interior map, thought it might be useful for plugging into the TacNet. Thinking about security...it's riskier going wireless, but considering how bad the blind is in some places, construction seems riskier. Thoughts? >>

With the slow-moving but nearly invisible blimp setting into it's rack, articulated arms tucking it away inside the armored shell, several of the vehicles outside start up, leaving enough behind that if the team needs a quick get-away, its there, but taking the rest back into the City at large, splitting up once a less hostile zone is reached. They meander along their sparate paths, finding parking spots as Horizon's newest advertising gimmick drifts free and into the sky, cameras already zoomed in and centered on the warehouse that was their next target.

He slumps briefly against the wall in the teahouse, insensate for upwards for 45 seconds while he searched for nodes in the area...security drones, badass ex-BDSM bodyguards, that sort of thing, and then blinked his eyes open again as he let the fairly invisible drone circle at a good distance from both the location and Boeing, the modified logic circuits poring over extraneous details and firing through a million decisions a millisecond to try and determine what in the landscape below it constituted something notable and what was just background noise.

[Edited 09/22/12 - 9:37PST]

Emilio's response to Bakatare is a mix of English and Japanese.

<<@Bakatare: Thank you very much for the information. I appreciate your offered wisdom.>>

"My name is Emilio. I'm good with guns and demolitions. As to how Zuzane relates to the Yaks, she doesn't directly. We are feeling poor, and she seems like a good baddie to provide us with seed money."

"That said, I've been asking around and my contacts note that she has worked on a bad-ass-bitch rep. She took out someone up the food chain. Not sure how much was flat-out skill and how much was surprise and ambush. So we will probably do well to supplant our skill with surprise and ambush."

Emilio grins.

"As Emilio pointed out, Zusanne is not affiliated with ze Yakuza. Consider her a training run if you vill. An opportunity for us to get to know each others ways of working and work out any of ze kinks in our tactics."

The night one smiles his disarming grin, taking in each of the new members including Breeze and Strangeglove.

"You can call me Eklipse. I am an adept and like Mr Broody and Suspicious over there, also have some skill in hand-to-hand combat. I can handle most automatic weapons although I prefer SMGs and have some experience in covert insertions."

"I'm tech-support and cyber-intel. Call me Cypher.

"As Eklipse said, we are running this job to get the kinks out of the system. That means that I need access to your comms and anything else that will have a Matrix connection while we are working. If you don't want to hand it over to me, turn it off."

Cypher pings a list of nodes in the area and tasks one of the agents with finding the rest of them.

"Back to the planning, mage types are doing their ghost fly-by to check the layout against what I gave you and any magic stuff they need to worry about. Fleet, I'll need a separate car down there to do my work and find the real node. Their public one is a sham, placeholder. Does anyone have questions about the data packets?"

To Zero: "It must be nice not having a name. But if you're calling yourself Zerone, having your handle be Zero isn't really subtle or anything. It's like if your name was Robert and your handle was Bob. Now, if your name was Zero and you called yourself Bob, that would be sneaky. Like, if you needed a name, I'd call you Mzuka."

To Breeze: "Yeah, I'm feeling it. I think this is gonna be good. I dig all the cars n' drones n' stuff. I hope all these mages can wreck stuff. Long as they can keep a handle on their shit."

Responding to Eklipse's interrogation of Q: "You should see it, Q just walks up to people and tells 'em to do stuff, and they do it. It's crazy. You don't hardly have to kill anyone if he's around, unless there's a whole bunch of people."

To Q: "I dunno, if we leave anything it'll probably just get stolen when we leave anyway. How long have you seen a pile of loot last without someone standing over it with a gun?"

To Broody Jon: "Broody, what corp? You on payroll, or 'ja get kicked out?"

Fleet
As you watch the group talks and introductions are being made. You see the streams of data begin to flow in and you see the correlation begin. You see the alerts from the nearby corporate facility - warning of restricted airspace and the usual threat of violence if violated. You pull up the sensor suite on the aerial drone and begin to piece together an idea of the external security of the site.

You see sensor clusters on the building itself and clear signs of infrastructure to support rail drones along the roof line. You see drones deployed form the nearby Federated Boeing site. They have eight drones circling their airspace - nothing fast but clearly loaded down with sensors. You assume feeding back into a security network and most likely manned. You see little evidence of foot patrols on the target site but they do have the area just around the building cleared for a distance of 20 meters from the edges of the structure. You see the public node that Cypher found and you begin to run the scan for hidden nodes.

The area blooms around you with results - you quickly limit the results to the target site and see there are 32 hidden nodes on the site. 10 of which are appear to be mobile as you watch the scan be updated over time. You think at least 15-20 of those are probably drones attached to the building security system. The mobile ones are either drones up and running a patrol circuit or actual people moving around inside. The exterior of the warehouse looks well maintained and there are clearly visible locking mechanisms on the doors - more than likely something additional to a maglock - additional scanners of some sort.

Looking over the larger site - you think if you keep the noise on the light side and not cross over into Federated Boeing's security buffer you should be fine - one snag might be the security on site having a plan to do just that. Tossing a grenade or rocket their way would bring them down hard on the site to secure it from further harm to their holdings and assets. Low profile would be key - too big of a force displayed and they may just drop a dime to Knight Errant to make spill over doesn't happen.

Fat Man
As the group begins to talk and share information, you feel a distortion along the edges of your awareness - a spell of some sort was affecting you but you feel it being pushed back from you. Looking around you see Q is wearing some sort of disguise and you see a shimmer then it fades from sight. Some spell was also obscuring his visage - it's difficult to tell his true appearance but you are aware he is trying to prevent it from being seen.

Emilio
You look over each person and are immediately struck by something odd in Q's face. You are pretty sure he is wearing some sort of disguise.

Strangeglove
As the silk slides across your skin and the clean smell of some woman washes over you - you notice that Q's face looks strange - fake almost. As you look closer you realize he's wearing some sort of disguise obscuring his true features.

Cypher
As you look over the team and this place - you feel the stirring of lives and memories not your own. You hear light liquid laughter at the corner of your face brushing against your beard - her delicate hand pausing at your wrist as she pours more tea into your glass. You smell the small flowers woven into her black hair and hear the delicate glass bells chime as she moves.
Pushing it back and away - you realize this place was probably someone's mistress hideaway. Trying to keep the lives from washing over you - you dive back into AR looking to distract yourself and check the house for hidden nodes.

Your agent finds several and quickly remove the ones for the runners assembled and find just one for the actual house. One node pops out at you - it seems to be connected to the troll with the cyberarm. The agent has tagged it as a security risk.

Strangeglove lifts his arm to his face and sniffs several times. Sticking his arm under Q's nose, he asks, "Does this smell like FasTea to you? For being so clean they didn't do the laundry. Where'd we get this place anyway, AirBNB for hit squads? Who keeps a house like this in the barrens anyway. It's weird. Maybe there's a bondage dungeon in the basement. Anyone seen any secret doors?"

Jon tosses his comlink over to Cypher..
"have at it"

Then Jon looks over to Strangeglove,
"No I didnt work for a corp, but dont worry I am on no one's payroll besides management"

He pauses then looks around

"your right it is a weird place for a house like this, but I assume the barrens is ideal for those who want privacy and can afford the safety, typical evil geniuses I assume"

Jon smiles as if he was trying to make a joke but is unsure how to do it.

As Q is about to answer Fat Man, Strangeglove thrusts his arm right under Q's nose, almost belting him in the face. "It's called Plum Blossom and is very expensive; the owner wanted it to smell that way."

Strangeglove squints slightly at Q, the characteristic gesture of someone activating vision magnification.

"Kumandizi...?"

Strangeglove stiffens as his eyes dart around the room, and with casualness so obviously forced as to be almost comical he turns to Jon, "Yeah, uh, evil geniuses. Probably... corp."

Conversational gambit cast, he stands with exaggerated nonchalance, and goes to lean against the wall near the door.

<<@Breeze @Zerone: That's not Q, it's someone disguised as him. Breeze, who do you trust here? Zero, be alert and don't let him cast anything.>>

<< Fat Man[Q] I'm a practioner of Shinto, though not very pure. I've had to learn much on my own and have studied Buddism, Christianity and even Wuxing. I don't know of Guan Yu, but I'm always interested in learning the paths others travel. >>

In response to Cypher opening up the discussion, Q asks, "Is there a list of known associates? People that could be with her even if she's not affiliated with any specific running group? And I can ask around quietly what sort of things she moves and whose circles she moves in since this suggests she's Awakened and been working her way to becoming a seller and fixer."

"Separately, what are all of your thoughts on asking any of Zuzane's old targets if they've lost anything that they'd dearly want returned or repaid. Say something stolen that hasn't been fenced yet or a scar or death repaid with some interest?"

"And am I correct in assuming that this hit instead of just a theft?"

<< Cypher[Q] I'd appreciate a bit of explanation before handing over my commlink. It has sentimental value and I'm not found of letting it go." >>

Q sighs mentally at Strangeglove's exaggerated acting and what it portends. "I'm definately going to have to work on strengthening my spells. And find out who unveiled me. Let's try to nip this in the bud before he tells too many friends. SG never did well with magic and it'd be a shame to lose such an easy friend." Q glances subtly around the room while listening to the responses to his questions.

<< Strangeglove[Q] So I've obviously spooked you. I have to apologize for the deception, but with a mug like mine I get that reaction quite frequently. And yes, I'm still the same person who ran that Reraku subsidiary job with you; I'm still the same guy you convinced to eat one of Simon's live mice after you got me tripping that one time. >>

Jon begins to wonder
"What have I gotten myself into, is this really a group that can hunt anything beyond the nose on their faces?"

Though he does appraise and appreciate the grenade launcher Strangeglove is carrying, he nonchalantly glances down to his bag to make sure its unzipped and ready to open if his weird behavior is a threat.

Zero
You feel the rippling sensation pass across your consciousness - some sort of magic was unraveled before it could affect you. Looking around you see no outward sign of what it could have been.

Watching Strangeglove lose his cool and trying to recover it facing Q and the shift of focus from talking to the distant look of managing an AR interface, Cypher sighs.

"Everybody chill. SG, Q, now would be a bad time to wig out and start tossing mind mojo or grenades. Talk it out. Out loud...or walk now and we pretend we all never met."

Watching the rising tension in the group milieu, Fleet casually straps his helmet back on and settles the shotgun a little bit in it's quick-grab holster across his back. Slight motions trigger the AR interfaces in the rings so that he can concentrate on watching the impending violence.

<<Cypher[Fleet] - Initial foray out at the sight returning this. I've got a ton of nodes...I can put you on sight in one of the Hyung's...you prefer protection or stealth? I've got a nexus available as well, I use it for large scale operations. You're welcome to use it if it would help, or dump agents and the like. >>

A data packet containing all of the information he'd acquired so far from the site was attached to the message, along with the specs on the nexus tucked away in one trunk or another.

Upon hearing the suggestion to talk it out, Emilio raises one eyebrow in waiting expectation. He also assesses the state of his Predator and sights the exits from the room.

Cypher's warning draws Eklipse's attention.

What the hell is going on now?

In a blink of an eye, he moves from lotus position to a ready stance in the middle of the room. His knees are slightly bent, one facing towards Q, the other away from him. His left hand is tight against is belly, palm up. His right is held out before him in a vaguely 'come hither' gesture. His eyes blink quickly, taking in Q, SG, Breeze and Broody.

Blink. <<@Tacnet: Priority 1 / Q / Geek the mage.>>

<<@Fat Man, Zero: Counterspelling on me, Cypher, Fleet and Emilio . Can you see if Q has spells active? Can you shut them down and stop him from casting more?>>

<<@Cypher: Shut Breeze, SG, Broody out of the tacnet. Preferably without them knowing.>>

Blink. <<@Tacnet: Priority 2 / SG / Cybered troll, heavy weapons.>>

<<@Fleet: Got anything nearby that can take down a cybered troll?>>

Blink. <<@Tacnet: Priority 3 / Breeze / Gun bunny.>>

Blink. <<@Tacnet: Priority 4 / Broody / Melee specialist.>>

He focuses on Q, his tone stern.

"If you are trying to impress us by mindfragging my team members, I suggest you stop it right now. Drop your spells and no-one gets hurt."

Jon Looks around, feeling the tension in the room, and raises an eyebrow.
He slowly pulls out his cell phone in an attempt to be unthreatening and attempts to contact his supervisor with management.

Seriously, what kind of unprofessional punks am I being saddled with? better call management for direction and find out why they think this team is any good. I've worked with teams who hate each other, but never one close to all out combat. Perhaps its the difference between professionals and amateurs. Will never be able to find her if I either die or wipe out a bunch of potential coworkers

Emilio's hand goes to his side arm and he looks at Q.

<<@Tacnet: He also has some sort of disguise on. I can't see through it, but it's there.>>

As he's just about to speak to Cypher, Q is interrupted by Eklipse sudden combat stance. Seeing the readied violence before him, Q sets his cup down slowly and slides it up against Strangeglove's abandoned sitting cushion, while Eklipse speaks sternly, "If you are trying to impress us by mindfragging my team members, I suggest you stop it right now. Drop your spells and no-one gets hurt."

Show this dog his place! Quiet!

In the astral, the two red pinpricks, which can only be eyes, flare brightly with actual flame before being smothered by the shadows. Q is tense, fearful and angry. You notice that absolutely none of this makes it to his face or body posture.

Q meets Eklipse's glare with a level, contemplative gaze more appropriate to debate than near violence. "I've not touched Strangeglove with my power, as the other mages present can verify," he says with a nod towards Fat Man and Zero. "It would serve no purpose for me to make Strangeglove react in that fashion, and his actions are hardly the those of a "mind fragged" person. He doesn't like magical surprises and when my Veil was broken, he got a look at my less than attractive features. It is not the face he knows me as and has most likely caused wild speculation as to whether or not I'm still Q."

"And I'm hardly going to drop my defenses when faced with such an overt threat. Would you please take a few steps back while I speak with Strangeglove and resolve this?"

With the situation quickly escalating, Cypher reaches out to the new place in his brain to activate the wired reflexes. His attention turned inward for a second as neurons were taken over by cybernetics. The hacker's brain spun through commands, adjusting the feeds to various new members.

He contemplated cutting through firewalls, but that would be the equivalent of drawing a gun. Someone else would need to take that first step.

"I'm not going to grenade anything, I was trying to be subtle before everyone got all twitchy."

Strangeglove seems mildly cross that his attempt at social-fu has failed. Coincident with his words, the grenade launcher is in its usual place, hanging by a sling on his back.

"He didn't mindfrag me. He probably can't mind-anything, because it's not Q, it's someone with a Q mask."

Turning to Q, Strangeglove continues, "Simon put the mouse video on ViewTube, so probably everyone has seen it by now. If you're Q, what'd Cherry tell you when we were at my place over on 4th?"

Eklipse pivots on his left foot, taking precisely one step backwards and dropping into a more defensive stance. His weight shifts back onto his right foot and both hands come up to chest height in a slightly more defensive posture.

Blink. <<@Tacnet: Alert / Priority 4 target drawing weapon / Alert cancelled / Device identified as commlink not weapon / Threat level reset to low.>>

He spares a glance at Jon to confirm the tacnet's assessment, then returns his attention to Q.

"If you are who you are claiming to be, zen answer ze question."

Breeze looks back and forth at the coming tensions, he lifts his arms starts scratching at his head and after a few moments looks up again starting to mutter...

"Vibe man, the vibe"

He continues like this as the exchange moves...

"Ruining my ride man"

Tensions escalating and suspicions drawn, Breezes seems to draw inwards as if not really paying attention, he sees the message coming in from Stragenglove but isn't really sure what to say, then suddenly he looks up like he has been on alerted to something, he snaps up to a standing position, his left arm raised to the ceiling, with his index finger extended...

"I know what is going on here!!"

He points his extended index finger at everyone

"I'm thirsty..."

He puts his arm down and starts moving towards the kitchen.

"A hasty man drinks his tea with a fork."

I can hardly blame Q for wearing a disguise, since I'm hiding things from him...and this is about to get violent for no good reason.

"Nobody here is being magically manipulated. That is an illusion covering Q that fools mundane senses, and it hardly warrants a violent reaction."

Turning to Strangeglove, Fat Man continues, "He is probably the same person, since his aura was calm until everyone started panicking. He's a skilled magician and you're a mundane - you might not have noticed last time."

Although...his aura does seem rather sinister, but I don't think anyone needs to hear that right now.

While talking, Fat Man prepared to block any hastily-thrown spells, just in case.

As things seem to quiet down, Jon closes the uncompleted call and puts the phone away.
" are we ready to act like professionals and complete the job yet? "

At the sound of Strangeglove's voice, Q slowly rotates around, still seated on his cushion. He stops immediately at Breeze's sudden movement; when it's obvious that he is no threat Q continues turning to face Strangeglove. At the mention of embarrassing evidence being online, Q rubs his forehead in chagrin, muttering, "That fucker!" Looking back to Strangeglove, he becomes confused when Cherry is mentioned. "You want to talk about her?"

Seeing Strangeglove's insistent look, Q sighs and continues, "She got all weepy over some crap she was getting from her boss, told us her life story, got pissed when we wouldn't let her go out for whatever her drug of choice was and then got all hot over your sword, which you really shouldn't leave lying around. After that I wasn't really paying attention." Q finishes with a good job smirk.

<< Strangeglove[Q] If you mean her wanting to play Princess and the Troll, I think that's best left private. How many people do you want knowing that you'll dress in costume for tail? >>

Becoming serious again, "You've known I can use magic and that I've the ability to become invisible, I've even used it on you before. It's only a small step to altering your appearance instead of making it disappear."

"That wasn't… uh, I didn't..."

Those with thermographic vision see the flush concealed by Strangeglove's dark skin.

"Why the hell are you wearing a mask of your own face? Did you get messed up or something? You shoulda told me, now I look like an asshole 'cause you're wearing a mask of your own damn face like a freak."

The danger had passed for now. Tension flows out of Eklipse and he folds himself back onto the couch, cancelling the tacnet alerts.

"My apologies, Herr Q. I do not like ze surprises and SG seemed genuinely concerned about your identity. I was only concerned for ze safety of ze team. Cypher, you were about to go through ze data. Please continue."

<<@Cypher: And you can restore tacnet access to the rest of the team.>>

He opens the files the decker had sent and spreads them across his field of view. His hands move in short, controlled gestures. He isn't wearing AR gloves, but the gestures help him focus his mind on manipulating the information floating in his AR display.

Breeze comes walking into the room a few moments later with a glass of water in his hand and a confused look, he looks back the way he came from then back to the room everyone is in, what did I go into that room for?, he looks down at his hand and notices the glass of water, Oh right! I was thirsty.

"So fellas, you all done being a bunch of tossers?"