I don't think Grease will change into his armor vest, sticking with the business suit. He'll keep his armament to pistols since we'll be in the UCAS sector. He will mention to Valkyrie in an aside about the Rotodrone (preferably so Stinger can't hear) so her group doesn't shoot it down out of hand.

I will send a message to the Beemer to be parked a few blocks away once we get the location of where we're going (scheduled to arrive a few minutes before us).

@Lobo: Feel free to post about Grease's crash- you're generally harsher and more realistic with the downside to Grease's bad habits

Other than that, I think we're good to go!

Reminder: Amy has no ID, real or fake. She better stay in the car as much as possible to avoid any situation where this becomes a problem. She has to keep her commlink in hidden mode even when in the open like that. She is wearing an armor jacket iirc, but I'll need to check. That would also be quite out of place considering where we're going.

Ok - btw, although I've been pretty lenient so far, I'm going to press a little bit here (should have done it before, to be honest, but it was the middle of the night, mostly in the Warrens).

The rotodrone is marked as a Lone Start drone - you haven't had time to repaint it or anything - are you sure you want to be flying that around your vehicle in daylight outside of the Warrens?

That's a good point. There's no way I can have it setup in the trunk of a vehicle, can I? Basically, if the drek hits the fan, I pop the trunk and it comes zooming out?

-DrZ

No worries - we can assume it is in the trunk.

Shall I keep going or is there any RP that needs to get done?

I'm totally fine if the answer is no, please keep going, I'm just giving the opportunity if you want it.

I'm good with moving forward.

With that said, I don't think any of us would be okay with Stinger traveling separately, particularly without one of our guns on him. I just don't see why Stinger, now basically free from our clutches, wouldn't call Valkyrie and renegotiate the deal while calling Lynx and letting him know what's going down. To me, the only leverage we ever seemed to have was the relative ease by which we could have killed Stinger, which we don't have any longer. There could very well be forces outside of our awareness that would keep Stinger from betraying us, but I'm not seeing it from Jack's perspective.

With that said, as long as we're not going to get screwed from the transportation arrangements, I don't have a problem with it.

Yes, the idea is to exchange Stinger's freedom for the data. We can't give one without having received the other. The idea of hiring Valkyrie is to supervise the transfer and insure that everyone is safe in doing so and that there is no foul play. But we won't give away our only negotiation chip (Stinger's life) just yet.

Him being in the other car won't screw you guys over - that isn't my intent.

However, I can see that in character you would refuse to let him out of your sight - so I'll modify it for him to ride with you, it makes more sense.

As long as Grease says there isn't anything else, I'll post the next installment.

ETA - adjusted the IC post.

I'm good- post away!

I'm going to leave my post where it is, Lobo. If you want to respond with a simple OOC post saying that it looks like it probably checks out or if you want to post a more in-depth IC post, just let me know. If you want the former, I'll edit my post to say that Jack checked it out, turned his link back on, and messaged the team that the data appears to be what Stinger said it was. Once the team is aware of the transaction, Jack will professionally tell Hammer that business is concluded.

Waiting in the car I don't really have this option, but I don't think it would be a bad idea to have Overkill check it, if at all possible. That said, I'm fine moving forward if that's too meta-gamey (since I'm not there and can't really suggest it); just something I thought of.

-DrZ

I had thought of that, but since we still have Overkill in a reserve capacity, I don't really have any way to get him the chip. I might turn the commlink's wireless on once Lobo replies and says that it does appear to be the information Stinger promised. I'd rather not just turn my commlink's wireless on and get it torched or send out some kind of distress call/homing beacon or something.

Yeah, it's tricky. Definitely make a copy, I would think. Additionally, if there was a way right after to have Overkill look at it that'd probably be best. If there's some databomb on it once we leave his apartment we could still go back to Valkyrie and let her know that Stinger didn't hold up his end of the bargain; her rep is important enough that she probably wouldn't want us badmouthing her around town.

I think that Jack has the right approach for taking care of the chip. Check it offline first. Copy it. Send copy over to Overkill. Double check chip and status of commlink later on.

Good call.

@Lobo: Do Amy & Jack get back to the cab safely? If so, I can post IC a semi-transition scene.

-DrZ

Yes - Hammer and his team leave and you all make it to the cab safely.

Jut FYI, I have Cherry Street in Commerce City showing in the Sioux sector. I had Highway 85 as the dividing line, which was what it appeared as on the map, at least to me.

follow 76 northeast past Barr Lake to where it intersects with 52

Cherry Street runs north south and connects 52 to 5th ave to 4th ave - all in Hudson in the UCAS Zone

It is very close to the sioux border though.

OK, I was looking at Commerce City, not out in the boondocks. I remember now that he said it was in the northeast part of the UCAS. Funny, the area in Commerce City uses several of the same street names as that part of Hudson.

So that puts us about 20 miles or so outside of the urban core of Denver.

ETA: I added Stinger's house to the map in case anyone wants to see where we are. Zoom out and look for the farthest house to the north. (Also, use the "Original Map" link. The new version of maps has the colors screwed up for some reason. Not a fan of the new version, it's garbage).

You can find a no-tell motel east on Route 52 about 5 miles down the road.

BTW, I threw "Maple Street" out there just as a placeholder. If there's an actual location that makes more sense I'd be more than willing to edit my post. I just figured it'd make sense, given the naming conventions.
-DrZ

Ash Street is a few blocks off of Cherry, in case you want to change it. I don't know if it really matters though.

Let me know if you need anything - otherwise we are at free RP

Quick fix. No reason not to be consistent! Although now you need to change your post as well..

-DrZ

@Lobo: Sounds good. Let's wait for Chrome to get on to post Amy's reaction; then we can keep going. I think I may have some opinions from Grease's perspective.

OK, so checking back to our posts in June right before Grease entered the chip house, it looks like we were considering:

- Contacting Ramirez today and trying to setup a meet. This was in response to Truck's take-down, I think our deal with Stinger may have increased the importance of this. Given that our timetable has been pushed by the 9-hour long Stinger stalking, we can push for a meeting this evening. I think he prefers evening meets in any event. Maybe the Motel we met at before? Jack has Honeypot holed up there and he needs to check in on her.
- Amy thought she should spend some time with Sam.
- Jack wants to get some sleep. He had a split shift the night before taking down Truck and didn't sleep at all last night as he was providing overwatch for Grease.
- Grease is going to basically have some enforced sleepy-time in order to recover from his stun damage.

I agree with everything here. In the meantime, I will scheme how we can get Bradshere and Stinger. My only hesitation is that if we plan on completing the job, we should wait to contact the Johnson. With that in mind we should resolve our plan with that before we all crash and possibly go our separate ways.

I think we can still contact Ramirez and meet with him to provide him with an update. As long as we don't take payment, I think we can still complete the second half of the job.

I've got a contact in the ZDF Border Guard that we might be able to leverage to get the ZDF involved in a take-down. I think we might be able to get Bradshere there by pretending to be Stinger and sending him a message that Lynx is planning on betraying him. Lynx would be harder, but if we could figure out a way to dupe the commlink Bradshere uses to communicate with him, we might be able to fool him into a meet. It's a lot of Ifs though.

It occurs to me it might be good for us to get some non-lethal takedown weapons, if our goal is to bring these guys in. As it stands, I have 2 clips of gel rounds for my Light Fire, and 1 for my Smartgun. Some taser-type weapons may be a good investment.

We've got a decent amount of gel and S&S ammo for a variety of different weapons (mostly from Overkill). Full breakdown of team totals:

Gel: 32 Light Pistol & 92 SMG
S&S: 10 Hold Out, 197 Machine Pistol, 100 SMG, & 40 Assault Rifle

Personally, I'd rather figure out a way to trick them and have the ZDF roll-up everyone involved.

Well- that may be tricky given that we don't (right lobo?) Have any video of anyone but Lynx meeting with who we think is Bradshere. My guess is they tended to meet independently. I'm not sure how much we need to worry about the rest of Lynx's team, but we DID trash that rigger's van. It'd just be cleaner if we could figure out a way to get them all to the same place. I think our best bet is to rat our own location out and use ourselves as bait (with the ZDF ready to swoop in).

-DrZ

ETA: Do we think it's a good idea to have Amy go off on her own to see her kid; or should we all stick together? Wasn't she concealing us from searching spirits before?

Just checking in - whatever you guys need as far as questions answered just let me know - you still have some planning to do I think before we move forward (one decision will be are you all going home to your separate homes or checking into a motel to sleep)

Not rushing you at all - just letting you know I'm here in case you need anything

In answer to Grease's post:

1) The video you have is just Lynx making the various meetings.

2) The spirit stopped concealing you the moment you guys made contact with Valkyrie. On the other hand, if Falcon is having his spirit find Stinger, he is no longer heading in your direction.

The fact that we never investigated a few of the other crime scenes does make it more difficult to pin any of the blame on Falcon or Gutter (fittingly, the only person we can really pin a crime to other than Lynx is Stinger at this point). We might want to have Overkill do a solid search of the files to see if any of the crimes were captured.


The potential problem here is that the ZDF isn't likely to discriminate. We would have to have a rock-solid plan for getting away if we were going to attempt this.


The spirits were probably searching more for Stinger than us. The spirit or the summoner has to have seen the object to be searched for or have a reasonable image of it. I would hedge my bet on Stinger being the target of any spirit-based attempt.

Also, I'm of the opinion that we head back to our places. We're rolling around the "safe" UCAS zone with Denver's Most Wanted and a lot of heavy ordinance. I'd actually feel safer in the Warrens.

ETA: I just noticed Grease's post about us transferring our equipment to the taxi and having it speed off. I guess we need to figure out which equipment we're keeping with us in the sports car. Not sure what the likelihood of us being successfully tracked by Lynx, but I imagine Jack would want to at least keep his SMG and pistol.

I don't have much to add.

There's no reason for concealing ourselves right now, and it would be difficult to maintain, but we do have astral (and physical) surveillance at least, so it's unlikely to be surprised, in any event.

Amy really wants to spend time with Sam, but at the same time the safest thing to do right now is probably to hurry to complete the run (and always stay together).

I think that Amy's desire to protect those she loves supersedes her desire to see her adopted child which she would never want to endanger.

I didn't want anything Stinger may have left in the cab to be used against us. That little concealed compartment was a nasty surprise. The cab is on the way to the bus station, I think; and will not pick up any passengers (much to their chagrin).

-DrZ

I figured we would scan the car with Overkill's bug scanner, but better safe than sorry. I guess we should probably send most of the weapons we've confiscated from them with the car (the Crime Spree and the Colt Agent) with the wireless turned off (although either of them might be evidence). I'm probably going to keep all of my own gear with me in the duffel bag. That shit cost a lot of money.

I guess I'll post IC to move our planning discussion along in the car.

I posted IC to move stuff along... sorry! Let's see if they cover the same ground, or we can respond back and forth IC. It's almost easier to just keep the discussion IC, so we don't have to recap as much. I agree we need to figure out what stuff stayed in the cab though, if any. I for one am concerned there's some nasty tracking device on the rotodrone we've got, so we want to double check that to be sure. Maybe I'll stop at the 2070 equivalent of Sherwin Williams and buy some spray paint.

We cross-posted. Let me edit my post to respond to you. For gear, Jack is keeping all of his stuff. He is leaving the Crime Spree and the Colt Agent in the taxi for now.

ETA: Also, how is Overkill in the car with us? Isn't he still on his motorcycle or did he reship into Grease's Hyundai and I just forgot about it?

This got glossed over a little I think - Overkill should still be on his bike, or at the very least have it on autopilot driving behind you.

I have Overkill in the front seat, fiddling with the chip. I can add a bit about his bike following, if you'd like. Seemed simplest this way.

-DrZ

No problem, really. I still think that gyroscope stuff is kind of nonsense, if cool for the game world. I think Overkill still has the burner 'link for Ramirez?

Yes - the idea of motorcycles driving around by themselves is a little silly, but there you have it

Also, yes, Overkill still has the burner.

Hey- they've got flying dragonflies, rotodrones with machine guns; and T-bird VTOLs. A motorcycle that can drive itself doesn't seem *that* crazy. Maybe it deploys little training wheels or something.

I've ridden motorcycles for 10 years, I think it would really need to be designed for that specific purpose. So much of riding a motorcycle is dependent on how a rider shifts their weight. But hey, it's fun!

How apropos! The article is only two weeks old. http://www.visordown.com/motorcycle-news--...cles/25400.html As you can see, the design is fairly radically different than a normal motorcycle.

Nice find with the article on the motorcycle

Should I write a transition scene to the motel - or do you have more to discuss IC first?

Also, as far as equipment (besides Amy, who, like a hermit crab, carries her home on her back) if we can update your equipment list on your next post (for those of you who dumped equipment into the cab).

I think our last gear postings are around Pg. 42 in the IC thread (right before we started setting up for the ambush).

I'm fine with a transition post, I don't think we have much more to talk about IC until we get in touch with Ramirez. Possibly setting watches. I'd really like to regenerate whatever Edge I can before any major fireworks, so I am avoiding taking a shift if possible.

I'm going to put my Gear List here for now until I post in the IC.

Amy can take a shift for half the total sleeping time. She's had more sleep than most up to now, so it makes sense. She also only needs to heal one box of stun, her box of physical is probably not going away until we're done with the run and she can finally rest for a full day.

And yes, Amy has all her possessions with her.. she's still travelling lighter than everyone else

Grease will do his best to stay awake, but likely will pass out and sleep off his stun. However (correct me if I'm wrong here), so long as he keeps his activity to a minimum he doesn't actually have to be asleep to recover stun damage, correct?

GEAR: