<<Alright, thanks for the effort. Looks like I have to make her call me first.>>
Kynos left the operations center and made his way back to where Sovereign had left his body. For now he could only wait until the mage was back, the storm was going or when/if Nyx reported back.

Simone has been working on the drone for a bit and her eyes are crossing so she removes her goggles and sits back in her chair, rubbing at her temples. She looks around her and smiles. She has made some good progress and several pieces of the drone are already taking shape. It will be as good as new once she is done.

She leaves the van to go use the restroom in the building and washes up. Heading back to the door, she stops to think then nods her head as she makes up her mind. She returns to her van and resumes her seat at the workbench but sends out a private text before restarting work. >>Sovereign [Simone]: I guess I cannot help it. I know that I was more or less a dalliance for you, but I really enjoyed the sex we shared. You are the best thing I have had between my legs in a very long time and more of a man than most I know. You scare me and intrigue me at the same time. I have seen your lover and can understand the physical attraction between you two. Fuck, if I was honest with myself, I would have to say I was attracted to her as well, so I guess I was a bit jealous of both of you. So here it is; if you can handle a bit of crazy woman in your life, I am willing to take any of your time that you want to give to me. If you are interested, come fuck me silly. I am in my van, working on Wheely's drone. And by the way, if you are truly interested and want even more crazy in your life, you can introduce me to your other lover and we can see where that goes.<<

"The legality of your action hinges on the word 'terrorist'. It wouldn't take a very good lawyer to turn that around, considering what is currently in the basement. It probably would only take a couple of minutes to turn the tables around, to go from a counter-terrorist operation to a cover-up." She snorted, cocking an eyebrow "What do you think would happen if the public at large learned what was going on here? You'd have a PR nightmare on your hands, especially considering that the federals would deny any involvement. And I'd bet they'd want to have a word with you for allowing it to come out in the light."

She let a few seconds go, then shook her head "So no, your best option at the moment would be to allow the farm to change owners without making a fuss. If you allow that to proceed without the need to involve a tribunal, I'm sure my employers would be willing to discuss terms that would benefit everyone. As for the 'collateral' damage..." She shrugged "Just put it under the profit and loss heading."

Ben smiles "You are good at this, but do aware I represent the Alliance we provide collaborative marketing, security and agriculture insurance. Even if this turns out to be a scandal. We are not responsible for their basement they had all the authorizations for that kind of facility. This is our problems and a scandal is in the cards as you insist on getting your ownership. Your friends made it easy to claim terrorism when they blew up a huge fireball in the middle of a densely populated greenhouse farm. So, no our position is a strong one.

Truth be told while collateral is a one time expense, security is a bit steep. Just giving you a heads up, you'll need to be creative to stay in the biz. At any case, here is the document of the commitments of Eggs! along with a compensation claim for the collateral damages of your heroic act. Once your employer sign these we can continue.

"I see." Nyx took a minute to think things through, not showing anything. She shrugged then "I'll have to relay all of that then. I'm not really empowered to sign any deal after all."

"Well you do what you need to do. The lawyers get released once a deal is formulated. These are my instructions"

(If Nyx wants she can roll negotiation, she can also roll knowledge in law/contracts (if she has any) for bonus dice in negotiation).

"I'll be sure to tell them that."



No relevant knowledge for this, so no bonus. The roll:
Negotiation: 15d6t5 5 meh.

Simone smiles to herself as she works on the drone and waits for Sovereign's reply to her text. She has never been quite so bold before and wonders about that. She chuckles a bit. After all, it is just as likely that he will laugh at her than anything else, but it does make her wonder what if...........................

Maxwell had taken the precautionary steps to drift as close as he could get to Nyx as possible. A bloody menstrual torrent of emotions flooded the car as the two exchanged dialogues. Spreading out as tentacles of shifting light and color. Going from hues of gold to red, and then to blue. The mages lazes about in boredom from his inability to interpret what the significance of that meant. Suddenly, he concocts a better, more practical idea. The car had a trunk after all. So why not manifest unnoticed and unseen in the back? He shivered at the deviousness of his subtle sleuthing. If only someone else could see the nasty, venomous smile he wore vehemently. Floating through the car, Maxwell fills the trunk with his astral form and manifests instantly. Even as a specter he felt cramped. But at least he could make out what Ben and Nyx were saying now. Again, this causes him to mentally pat himself on the back for thinking of such a novel idea. He'd have to brag about it later when he got the chance.

Minutes pass as the adept and negotiator showed their respective hands. A verbal poker game had been played. And from the looks of it, the adept not only lost but meekly conceded without putting up much of a fight. Bile filled Maxwell's heart and lungs like a clogged toilet. Just waiting to spew out with chunks of volatile toxicity. He had endured this farce long enough. High time he move in and give their representative a piece of his mind. Phasing into the backseat of the car, the mage anchors himself between the two of them and rebuttals it all. "How about we give you half of nothing! Better yet, we could waste the whole lot of you. You'll all end up like those orks. Their skin melted off like candle wax and they writhed in severe agony before they fell down and died." Maxwell pauses briefly as he was getting lost in the heat of the moment. He resumes, dour as ever. "Listen, Mr. Small Cock, i'm not interested in negotiating how much money i'm not going to be paying you. Neither is anyone else in our company. So, if you'd please, kindly let our associates through so we can all call it a day. If you don't then the next elemental I summon is gonna break you're arms and legs. And when you can't walk or move or do anything but shit yourself in fear, it's going to vomit a gallon of acid on you."

Nyx was appalled by the Mage's apparition and "offer". What was the point of negotiating if it was to end like that? She shook her head and shrugged: it wasn't like she could do much of anything at that point, that dude was a ticking time bomb, damaged beyond repair. Anything she could say would probably set him off, so she wisely decided to shut up, and wait for it to blow over.

Ben laughs with scorn and says "You runners are always so violent and dramatic. First, you will be paying to the last nguyen or you will legally lose the buissness that you semi legally acquired. It is called bankruptcy and you might want to look it up.
Second, if you perform any form of violence toward me then you will end up in jail mr. Rhodes. You have quite the bodycount behind you and your luck was that Yaks do not work with cops. Rest assured that the Alliance does and you will not get away with murder. You are not in Redmond anymore chummer so you better learn to act the part or stop wasting the Alliance's time and damaging its resources. "

He then looks at Nyx with an ice cold gaze. If his company was pleasent (up to her taste) before, he now seems to lack any form of facial expression. The way that he drive with sharper movements indicates that Ben is hurt or is angry.

"I am dropping you back where I picked you up, before your friends fuck it up even more. Take the deal, as it is the only one you will get.
My employer is unlikely to allow me further direct contact with you guys after you threatened me so this is goodbye. Perhaps I did not do you a favor by blowing off negotiations when I spotted that creepy elf that shadowed you."

With a small pause he continues,

"Try to sober up from the euphoria and ego trip and evaluate your position for what it is. The Alliance are your buissness partners, not your enemies. Our company is protected by law and you need the same law on your side to actually own a buissness. So as a final piece of advice, the problems that remain would not be solved with further violence. Your organization has commitments to the Alliance and your Finnigan tactics may work on small buissness owners, but not on cooperation. To be honest, it is exactly the kind of reputation that got the Alliance to interfere in your plans in the first place."

Nyx sighed "Like I said, I'm not the one deciding anything. I'll relay our conversation, then others will decide."

Ben nods bitterly and drives Nyx silently to where he picked her up.

Maxwell bursts out in raucous laughter. His ethereal body shaking at the hilarity of Ben's comeback. "Bwahahahahahahahahahaha! The only things you'll be getting is jack and shit! And Jack just left town!" After a few extraordinarily uncomfortable moments of Maxwell heckling the negotiator even further, he picks up where he last left off. "Nice try, but the only kind of mumbo jumbo that'll get me to go away is the magical kind. Unless that sad, tiny pecker of yours happens to be a wand then I got news for you buddy, I'm not going anywhere. Tell you what, why don't you go down to the local pharmacy and pick up a prescription of Viagra and go fuck yourself. Because I got way better things to do then waste my time killing a bunch of piss ants like you. But i'll happily oblige if that's your fancy."

At this point, Nyx stays silent. There's nothing she can do at this point, one way or another. Well, except draw the ire of the insane man in the car of course. Waiting for this to blow over seems by far the smartest answer. She doesn't even look at the others, instead looking the clouds by the window, thinking of what she should do when all this is done.

When she is dropped back at the farm by Ben, she nods a bit sadly in his direction, and rejoins the others "They want us to pay for the damage, as well as insurance for the loss of life of their security forces. They will not want to hear anything else than 'we're ready to pay' and the lawyers won't be freed until then. In case we refuse, or if things take a more violent turn, they claim they'll have the legal ground to take everything back, which means we'll have nothing." She shrugged "I'm no lawyer, so I can't say anything on that side of things."

She paused a bit, before she concluded "If you have more questions, feel free to ask Rhodes. Oh and I think you don't need to involve me in whatever it is you plan to do. I'm no use in combat, and by the looks of things, Rhodes wants to take care of the 'negotiations'. I'll just find a place to sit down and wait for everything to be said and done out of your way."

"Not to cheapen your effort - but that is the worst possible outcome of the negotiation that we could have gotten.

We don't have any cash and at least I don't have any inclination to pay even a bent copper penny for any damages against these slavers.

Now, I don't know about you, but I intend to show the Alliance that they can't get away with this kind of drek.
Sovereign's storm will be in full force in a bit. We should use that to free the lawyers, or at least Finestra, followed by some more wholesale destruction. Those guys have vulnerable assets a plenty.

Right now they are nothing more than kidnappers and slavers. We haven't managed to find the boss lady through the matrix, but once Sovereign is refreshed and his spirit is free again, I'm sure he will be able to succeed where the matrix failed.
I'm sure, once we have her dangling from a roof the Alliance will change their tune - and if not we can start working our way down the hierarchy until they do."

Kynos looked both determined and murderous as he said that.

"The worst possible outcome? I wouldn't have guessed. Maybe tell that to your friend. His rant and threats didn't exactly help me find a middle ground we could all have agreed upon. So like I said..." she stretched her hands to the side "It's now completely out of my hands."

The mage follows Nyx back into his body. Unexpectedly, a few of the others were standing around in the same room that he left his body in. Discussing what had transpired with the negotiations and what their next plan of actions should be. He twists his neck from one painful degree to the next until a loud popping sound echoes in his ears and resonates down his spine. While still rubbing his neck he gets up and joins in. "I'm a bit disappointed you didn't realize what I had accomplished by telling Ben that his dick is as small as a flea. He let it slip that they have information and background knowledge on all us here. Or, at the very least just me. Secondly, they're insecure. Financially insecure I mean. After seeing the drone swarm up above us, the chrome and gear on the guards, the on-call rent-a-mage, and the onsite infirmary and armory. Not to mention what the overhead alone must cost them. I can reasonably say that they are banking a lot on this farm. Maybe not everything but enough to where they can't afford to lose it. However, it'd also be foolish to say that they don't have some kind of trump card they are waiting to use in case something like this were to happen. Ben couldn't help himself when he let that slip. He didn't so much as say it outright but he didn't have to either.

Now, here comes the fun part. I believe they still have enough pocket change leftover that if they wanted to raid the place and take it back from us they probably wouldn't have bothered with the niceties and all that to begin with. Don't know how successful they'd be at that attempt but I wouldn't put it pass them to try it at least. Minimizing collateral damage is probably going to be their number one concern. Why bother risk losing any more money when the can pull the big old Wizard of Oz trick and make themselves look more threatening than they really are. As long as we don't call their bluff and pull the curtain down on this giant charade then they got us by the short ones." Maxwell stops and looks at Kynos directly first, then at Nyx. "Of course, if we take that gamble and slowly ruin this place until nothing remains then what do we truly lose? We can't get paid if Mafia gets stopped at the gate. We potentially lose money if we give in and do what the Alliance wants us to do. The worst that could happen is that a bunch of 'freedom fighters' get charged with murder and arson. Real police get involved and we all get a little more infamous by the end of the day. Then again why the fuck should that matter? If you aren't used to running from the cops then how can you expect to run the shadows?"

Blissfully unaware of any sort of negotiations, Simone is still in her van, working on Wheely's drone. She keeps an eye on the weather, as there is only so much the lightning rod on the roof of the van can do. Finally, she gets on the team code. >>Team [Simone]: Say, the storm out here is continuing to build. Not sure I have seen one quite like what looks to be brewing up. What is our plan here? The bad guys might use the cover of a storm to try to take this place back.<<

<<Simone, get to Sovereign's room. We have a meeting about our next steps.>>

Kynos turned to Nyx: "As I said, I don't blame your efforts, but since those guys literally didn't concede anything and instead even came up with demands - that we can't and don't want to fulfill... yes, this is the worst possible outcome, short of them keeping you as a hostage. Which by the way, you'd entirely deserve after I explicitly told you not to get in a car with them. I'm not a big negotiator myself, but even I know that you don't let the other side dictate your environment if you want show strength."

He looked at Sovereign again:
"The problem is that we can't afford slowly. If we give them time to patch their security up again they can remove us without trouble. Right now we have them in the ropes - that's why they tried to negotiate in the first place and why they are taking hostages - they are playing for time.
Wreaking havoc while we free the hostages must be within our legal rights as - especially if we are freeing our lawyers. If they can't spin that right in a court I don't think the Mafia should bother with them in the first place. Besides, Finestra is a valuable contact. I'd hate to lose her."

Nyx shrugged "After what happened here? We didn't need a show of Strengh, but of Trust. Which went by the window by now."

She shook her head "I'll let you plan what you want to do, you do not need me to plan how to blow things up and kill others." At that, she walked out of the room and went somewhere quiet - and out of the way - to plan where she wanted to go next. Since she had been spotted, and identified, by some people in Seattle, she would have to leave town. Nothing kept her here anyway, especially considering that her skills were useless here.

Seeing the message to Simone, Wheely head for Sovereign's room. It's not like he has much to do besides reviewing the news on the Matrix and playing some games. He mets Nyx on her way out.

"Hey, is everything fine, meeting's over already?"

Nyx shook her head "For me yeah, but if you want to plan how to shoot, kill and destroy, you'll be right on time. Since I neither can nor want to help for that, I didn't feel the urge to stay. At this point, the faster it ends, the faster I'm out."

"Oh. I can't say I'm really keen on shooting but we might not have much of a choice given what's brewing outside. I take that negociations didn't end well."

Nyx snorted "If you can call that negotiations. Our very dear Mage thought it wasn't going well so chose to rant, insult their negotiator and threaten to kill everyone." She shrugged "So now, the only solution is agree to what they want, or kill and destroy until someone gives up. You probably know Kynos and Maxwell by now I suppose, so probably know what option they're choosing. I'd say they're not aware of the long term consequences of such actions, which should make them completely unemployable pretty fast for anything but kill-destroy missions, but... I suppose they just don't care about what happens tomorrow, much less a month from now. And even if they did, since the only thing they want to think about is who to kill and what to destroy to get what they want, they're probably perfectly fine with it. Myself, I don't want to have anything to do with any of that, so I'll sit that one out."

"Sounds sensible, although I don't like not being paid I hate even more not being alive. Maybe I should talk to those two to see what are they planning exactly. Do you think we would be able to sit this one out though? The Alliance might flag anyone in the building as an enemy, even if we sneak out."

"Apparently, they want to destroy every drone in the vicinity, then start to blow up the farm piece by piece." Nyx shook her head "Oh, and let's not forget the kidnapping of the Alliance leader to 'convince' her subordinates to cooperate." She sighed "And you may be right that the Alliance will probably flag everyone here as an enemy. In fact, they're going to present us as a terrorist group, and any action they take will be presented as a mean to remove that threat. So basically, we're fragged. That being said, the Alliance probably won't really care about us specifically. They want their farm, either to belong to them, or to work along a set of rules the previous owners agreed to. I don't think they'll be interested in hunting us down if we disappear. Well, except probably those who took part in that kidnapping business, if it happens. They won't like the destruction thing, but know it would be pointless to have us cough up the money. Instead, they'll take that out on our employers. Now, as far as they are concerned... Did you want to work for Casa or anyone he's trusted by?"

"Didn't have any contacts with Casa before that and to be honest I'm regretting more and more not having a direct cash rewards instead of his percentage thing. As for getting out my car can blend in the background and they seems more eager to prevent anyone getting in than anyone getting out. There is also the possibility of trying the sewer but it sounds risky and I would rather not left my car behind. If you have other options it would be a good idea to have a backup plan when things will go wrong."

"Percentage or flat number, in the end odds are it'll be zero anyway." She shook her head "I didn't plan anything yet, but I suppose the best time to disappear will be when they start to blow things up. At that time, they'll pay even less attention to anyone trying to leave."

Simone carefully secures her tools and the drone parts before leaving and locking the van and returning to the building. She spies Wheely and Nyx off in a side room and waves at them as she proceeds to the meeting room. She catches the last bit of what Kynos is saying, but her eyes are on the scary mage. he has not replied to her message so he either has not had time or has blown her off. In any case, the ball is in his court, so to speak, and she will wait for an answer of some kind.

She leans against a wall and watches the others, which seems to be a small group given that she passed two on her way to the meeting. She waits for a break in the conversation before saying anything. "Sorry, I was up fixing Wheely's drone and missed the call for a meeting. Can I get a brief run down on what is happening and when we are getting paid?"

"Well I will get my car ready just in case, now that Simone is here I will join the others to see if there is any way to salvage this." that said Wheely join Simone in the room.

"Hey, I doubt Nyx will join us she seems less than thrilled about going all gun blazing. And I must admit I have my reservations as well."

Simone looks around in surprise. "Whoa, it seems I have indeed missed something. What is this about guns blazing? I thought that part was over and we were just waiting for our employers to show up and pay us?"

Kynos turned to Simone first:
"Basically, our negotiation was a snafu. Now I was just suggesting we free our lawyers and Finestra and take out a few more security assets of the alliance and finish this up by returning the favor of kidnapping and take their president in for a little discussion."

He turned to Wheely: "If you two are done discussing when to stab the team in the back I'd love to hear your suggestion how we should solve this situation without pissing off our employer the Mafia and at the same time getting paid for our considerable efforts.

I tolerate bitching only if it is accompanied by constructive solutions.

And by the way: I'm still receiving all the security feeds from this installation."

Wheely rolls his eye "Drama much? I wasn't planning to just run away without notice I'm here to discuss about that. Can't vouch for Nyx of course but I think she made it pretty clear that she won't have anything to do with that if we just murder everyone.

My problem is that the screw up is on the mafia, it wasn't our job to get their lawyers in and now we have to take considerable risks without getting anything extra to cover that. And what if the alliance just execute the lawyers while we raid them and blame it on us? What if Lone Star or Knight Errants decide to check by themselves what the commotion is about? There is just too many dangerous variables and Casa doesn't look like willing to get his hands dirty to help us."

"I'm still not hearing a solution except for "run away, abandon ship".

I agree that we got the short end of the stick by going for a percentage. That was a mistake, caused by bad information, but we can't really do anything about it now.
But rolling over just because the opposition tells you you have no chance is entirely against my nature.

I hope they don't kill the lawyers, but I won't cry about it much if they do. Losing Finestra would suck, she is quite capable in her job. Getting her out is my priority before we do anything else. That is, by the way, the same courtesy I'd extent to anyone in this team, no matter their yellow bellying."

Kynos replied.

"I don't know Finestra that well but I will trust your judgement on that. At least can we agree that getting the lawyers safe and sound here is our priority? From the little I understood of their legal tricks it should be enough to end up all claim from the alliance on the place right?

What I don't want is to mess with the Alliance more than needed and from what Nyx said you were planning to pretty much wipe them out. The first fireball was more or less covered but a second one is bound to attract something nastier than these guys."

"Sure - as I said, that was my priority from the start.

But I also explained to the Alliance what would happen if they kept up with this bullshit - and I don't utter empty threats.
There are always consequences.

You and Irris could get together and create a nice documentary about the slaving operation going on here. If we get this out in the matrix, that should buy us some room to maneuver in regard to Lonestar.

Fuck the Alliance."

Kynos said and started to call up Finestra:

<<This whole thing is getting ridiculous. We are going to fetch you. Can you give us a trace to your position?>>

"Ok I've already took some pictures earlier it won't take long to push them in the Matrix with a catchy title. If things go really south though I doubt I will be able to hold my own in a firefight with so many people, with some preparations though… maybe taking control of a couple of their shiny cars. Did you find anything to take control of the farm's drones? They could make a good distraction too.

I really hope it will be worth it…"

Simone watches the byplay but stays pretty much silent until it seems to be over. "I tossed my hit into this ring when we started. It is more violent than I had expected, but we are runners, not shop keepers, right? Still, I would prefer a diplomatic solution to this if we can make it happen."

"Sure Simone. I hate to waste my own ammo, too.

Oh by the way, Wheely: You could make a second video. One in which the legality of our operation is explained in detail - and that the other compounds likely have the same thing going on. I'm sure we could distribute that with a few gangs who'd love to get their hands on that real estate in a fashion that let's them keep it.

Maybe the Alliance will be more accommodating to our demands if we tell them about that option. They'll probably be too stupid to do so, but still. Once we release it, they should find their remaining security to be quite a bit under attack."
Kynos smiled evilly.

Wheely can't help but smile at the suggestion "That would be pretty fun to watch but I don't think we have anyone here good enough with legal lingo to convince people, even gangers, to attack highly securized farms.

What we need right now is informations, how many of those guys are outside, where do they keep the lawyers, what kind of weapons should we expect… I can do a sweep in the Matrix but it will take too long to find everything they are carrying on them. I could find the lawyers position if I have one of their comm."

"Half an hour ago, Finestra was still able to communicate. I hope that is still the case. I just asked her for her position, but just in case, here is her comcode. If you can find her too, I'd certainly appreciate it.

And regarding the gangers: I don't think we need lawyer lingo to get them rolling. Just the facts that there is likely a slaver operation going on, that their security provider was attacked and is currently not operational and that their drones are therefore vulnerable right now. And of course that it is quite legal for citizens to take care of this as long as the new police force isn't officially on duty. Hell, we could tell the Brain Eaters that right now hacking and stealing armed security drones would be particularly easy. "
Kynos replied

"Good points, probably worth a try. I will see what I can put together but convincing people isn't my strong suit."

"Neither is it mine - unless I can threaten them directly. Which is why I usually leave plans like this to the specialists - provided they don't run off."
Kynos shrugged.

"I will try to see with Nyx for that, she said she didn't want to gun people but I don't think she is away at the moment.
Also I will keep the car ready, in case we need to make a quick getaway."

Looking at the three others Wheely adds:
"Anything else before I start working on all that?"

As the storm brews and you pass the time with debating - you see a bunch of cars heading toward the complex. Finestra texts you >> I do not know what you said to these guys but they releases us. Casa does not seem very happy though. Apparently they made some kind of deal with the Alliance, at any case try not to blow us up as we approach you will be meeting him in person short enough.

<<Glad to hear it. Those guys wanted to bribe us to betray you and your boss. We refused and threatened to escalate if they don't release you. Actually we still are working on some ways to put pressure on the Alliance, so before Casa finalizes his contract, he might want to talk to us first. You know, the guys he hired to capture the base and who followed the plan exactly as agreed.>>
Kynos switched channels and called up Casa, including the team: <<Hey, what's up, I heard you aren't happy with out behavior? What exactly is your problem?>>

Casa said >> You are fine had I a problem with your behavior I'd tell you. A bunch of collateral damage which we'll be liable for but well you did what you had to do to get the job done. The complications come from the Alliance controlling all of our distribution pipeline and other buissness stuff. We can talk more in detail as to how we want to continue from here.