Torley hears conversation from down below, and catches the icy tone. "Sammy, you better keep watch in case things get ugly. I'll start the process on our friend's knees."

He takes out Sam's medkit and set it up beside Silence. The kit hums into action and analyzes the damage. Torley adjusts a few parameters, and scans the results. "Alright, let's see how well this works on you. It should help you heal faster. Magic will come shortly." He applies medication and bandaging as advised by the machine.

When he re-entered the hotel room, he stared at Torley for a long moment, *What have you done?* He gave the rest of the team pointed looks and placed his finger to his lips. He looked about the room meaningfully attempting to convey that there was a good chance they were being listened to. He rummaged through Snow's things as she was the teammate most likely to bring a white noise generator. If she didn't, then hopefully he'd find one among Jane's possessions. After that he had to find a place with a bit of privacy. He didn't want to discuss this in front of their 'guest.'

As O'Connor came in and signaled for silence, before starting to search in Snow's stuff, Sammy wasn't sure what he was looking for.
"Need anything," she whispered to him, standing close.

If he were to tell what, she will get a white noise generator from her own backpack and turn it on.
"What's going on," she asked.

O'Connor murmured thanks to Sammy. He still didn't want to say too much that Silence could hear, "Torley's charming new chummer downstairs has surveillance headware. Don't need him or anyone else knowing the idol's location. The three of us also need to have a team meeting."

To Torley, O'Connor's body language was at megaphone level. Words were unnecessary. He suspected that, unfortunately, Silence was getting the message, too. To him, Torley whispered, "We need to be cautious in our discussions. Some of those others I spoke of earlier are hot on the trail."

In a normal voice, "There. That should stabilize things. We'll see what a little magic can do for those knees." "Then we can complete the deal."

"I can try to scan for hidden nodes of extra listening devices," Sammy whispered, "I'm not good at it, but I know the basics. And I have quite good programs on my commlink."

While Sammy takes a look at the the wireless scene and the injuries, Torley acts on an idea that just popped into his head. He messages everyone, including Jane.

<<<Torley @ All: We have the thief in our possession. Interested third parties are circling our location. Acquiring location of the idol now. Have deal for same in place, but I have offered freedom to the thief after we get what we want. Need clarification on King's desire for the physical presence/remains of the thief. Would like to keep my end of the bargain if possible. Presence of other interested parties urges quick response, please.>>>

Jane responds quickly

>>Not sure who else you are talking to, Clementine and Snow are still in lockup, but the thief himself is a secondary concern, the idol they stole is the thing that will get us the invitation, if you just have the thief but not the item, do whatever you need to to get it. The thief alone is not going to help us, but if you need funds or other resources to negotiate with them, let me know. This invitation is a top priority.<<

Torley responds even more quickly. <<< Need clarification whether idol is enough or need thief too.>>>

>>You have the thief, can you get the idol without their help?<<

Torley, a master of non-verbal communication, is frustrated by the amount of effort it takes to communicate clearly by technological means. Torley is careful to not let any of that frustration show in his body language as he sends another message.

<<<We can get the location of the idol from the thief once we heal him of damage we did to him. Then it will be up to us to get the idol. How long that will take and how difficult it will be is yet to be determined.

I would like to be reminded whether the king demands the thief as well as the idol as payment for the invitation, or whether the idol by itself is enough. There is some confusion on our part regarding that particular piece of information, which piece of information is pertinent to how we proceed in the next few minutes. Please advise.>>>

>>The idol is all we need. If you need the thief's help to get the idol and you made a deal to let him go, I guess the king isn't getting the thief from us, I ain't sweatin' it.<<

<<Torley @ All: Thanks. That's all I needed to know. Deal for information is transpiring now. Logical to hang on to thief till item acquired.>>

<<And let me know when it will be psychologically best for me to heal him,>> Sammy added, while she kept looking for any bugs that may be planted in their room. She was also running her analyse program on her commlink to see if there was any funny business going on there. While she wasn't a hacker, she had been in the movies and contrary to most movie stars, she had listened to the talk of her agent about matrix security.

O'Connor sent a seperate text, <[Recipients: Torley, Starlet: Text Only] We've all been worried about Jane being tight lipped about our exit strategy. Torley, what odds do you place on this being a misdirection so that she can cut down on expenses, and have us executed for aiding and abetting an enemy of the state?>

Torley replies to O'Connor. <@O'Connor: I don't trust her fully, but that kind of scam would require her to get out of the country before we can implicate her along with the rest of us. We would likely see her maneuvering to do so. She knows that. I know it's our lives, but I'm betting on her for the moment. She knows how well I can swing a conversation in the right direction should she try something.>

Their guest on the bed speaks up, "Not to seem ungrateful, but wasn't there some magical healing supposed to happen?"

O'Connor though Torley was overlooking quiet a bit and making several assumptions in his assessment, but let it drop. He knew if he pressed the matter, Starlet would back up Torley to shut him down. At the moment, with Silence present, they had to pretend to have a united front.

He turned to the thief when he spoke up. He shrugged and waved a hand a Starlet, "We're a bit short handed at the moment. When she's done checking for surveillance, I'm sure she'll fix you right up."

Torley adds, "So, at this point Silence, we've rescued you from the King's men, are guarding you from agents of other teams, one of whom is down the hall and will have to be dealt with, by us, and as soon as our teammate finishes her scan, she can lay hands on you to help your knees back to grasshopper goodness.

Now would be a good time to pay for all that with the info we require."

"I had thought our deal was for healing and then I would tell you of the idol, but since you have gone part way for me, I guess I can do as well for you. The theft was commissioned by Uzochi Oluleye, a tribal elder living in Agege, as a way to publicly shame Oni Adegoke and the Yoruba. You can easily find out where Oluleye is without me, but I can help you more if your mage can fix my knees completely."

Sammy was checking for any hidden nodes that would indicate listening devices. It was a lot slower than if Snow had done it, as she was a lot better at these things, but she was the best they had at the moment.

"Yeah, yeah," she said to their captive, "give me a minute, will ya."

As soon as she was done with the scan and had either pointed out the listening devices or concluded there were none, she turned to the guy.
"So knees, right," she said, "hang one, one new set coming up."

Concentrating she cast her healing spell, trying to heal as much as possible.

While Sammy does her mojo on Silence, Torley does a quick Matrix search on Oluleye and Agege. Nothing deep, just the surface stuff any ten year old could find.

No mechanical bugs were found, and natural ones are pointed out to the big lizard and it makes short work of them.

You don't find anything on the limited matrix you didn't already have (which is Lagos Chapter of the Feral Cities book, send me an email by pm if you don't have it).

When he is healed, he does some deep bends and other flexing, clearly happy with the results.

"Okay, here is what I can tell you, Oluleye has the idol in his home compound, with over two dozen heavily armed orks on the grounds. He is going to destroy it, I don't have details of the when or how, but maybe you can find that. I do know that members of his family, like his grandfather, don't want it around their compound, that it will bring bad luck."

"That's very helpful, Silence. Even a hint for alternate means to acquire the idol. Thanks. Now all we have to do is get out of here in one piece, including you. It wouldn't do for the other factions to get a hold of the same information through ... other means."

Torley looks to the other two. "So what's the plan?"

O'Connor started pacing about the room as he thought things over, "We need to find out when Oluleye plans to destroy the idol. That way we'll have a timeframe to work in. From there we should find out what we can about this grandpa that doesn't want the idol around. Maybe figure out who his favorite grandkid is, kidnap them, and make the old timer sneak the idol out for us."

"Got any ideas how we might learn that information?" Torley turns to Silence. "You know if grandfather lives with Oluleye in his compound, or separately?"

"Of course the grandfather lives in the compound, it's a family compound." Silence gives O'Conner a look, "The WHOLE family lives there."

O'Connor's face scrunched up at Silence's clarification at the compound being a familial residence and not just property the family owned. He turned to his teammates, "Great. Unless the two of you got really okay about collateral damage, then this just got way more difficult."

"I can start with an astral recon of the compound," Sammy suggested, "it won't give all the details of course, but it's a start. And of course if this idol has some magical properties, it will stand out on the astral. I also still have a spirit on standby to help me with that if needed. Where exactly is this compound?"

The last question was to Silence.

"I would be happy to take you there, it isn't far. You might even be able to see it in the daylight."

A red flag pops up in the back of Torley's mind. "Wow. You seem very interested in helping us. Do you like us all of a sudden?"

He gauges Silence's response carefully, looking to see if the adept is telling the truth or not.

Silence is not really offended by the directness "Just a young runner hustling for the next payday, you look like a good crew and you kept your word, so we are cool as far as I'm concerned, but if you feel differently I can frag off, no problem."

Nothing in what he says seems to be false.

"Works for me, I believe you, " says Torley. "Anybody have an issue with the young runner giving us a little extra?"

O'Connor bobbed his head side to side to indicate he was somewhat on the fence. He shrugged, "He could be useful, but this run is already on the razor's edge. Weighing risk versus reward, I'd rather cut him loose if either of you can ensure he doesn't warn the target. Starlet, looks like you're the swing vote."

"I'm sure we can come to an agreement," Sammy said, "we could use the help, with both Snow and Clem gone. And he has already got the idol out of the king's palace, so we know he has some skill. As long as he understands that we will deliver something to the king, whether it's the idol or him, I'm sure we can work together. I know his aura, my spirit knows his aura, so I'm sure we can find him back if needed. Unless he's willing to stay in that dark spot on the astral I noticed earlier. I think it's called Surulere if I managed to map it correctly in the real world. That's one place I would hesitate to go in."

Torley nods. "Alright, then. I guess the next step is to scout out the compound. My understanding of Igbo traditions leads me to believe anybody important will have some magical backup. So, scouting astrally won't necessarily be without risk. I don't have a better idea at the moment, though. Anybody else?"

O'Connor shrugged at the vote's outcome, "Welcome to the team then. That said, I need a moment with them." He looked to Starlet and Torley to propse means of securing Silence while they discussed the matter of Englebrecht in private.

Silence gives them the room, and goes into the hall with Peaceful. "I was just helping out a bit, if you need my services beyond that we are going to need to talk about payment at some point."

As soon as the room is clear, Torley pipes up. "Hear me out. this sounds crazy, but think about it. At first we thought this guy was tied to the people who wanted the idol. Part of their community. Igbo vs. Youruba. Whatever. But now, it looks like he is a simple contractor. A damn good thief at that, who snuck into a place sealed tighter than a nun's ..., well, tight with mundane and magical security. And then out again, with a special, holy, whatever, item. He almost got away from us, too, and others looking for him at the same time. The guy is good.

"Now we are faced with a closed community with lots of firepower and determination. We are going to have to figure out how to get in and out again without being shot up six ways from Sunday. If he can find a way to survive the King's stronghold, surely he can help us here. We are kinda short on firepower ourselves right now. Jane can damn well come up with some cash for Silence to get her the gewgaw she really wants back at the auction.

"I don't wanna die trying to save Jane some money."

Once Silence left the room, O'Connor turned towards Torley, "Whatever. I didn't want to trust him, but the two of you outvoted me. It's done. What we need to talk about right now is that racist drek stain downstairs and his boss. Who in the fragging hell have you gotten us tangled up with here?"

Torley holds hands out to the side. "Hang on, O'Connor. There are a lot of factions in on this auction thing, and a lot of them know more than we do, Including some who were at the viewing and rubbed their knowledge in our face. We got closer to this faction only because the son was involved with someone who would give us info if we found him. None of us had any way of knowing that fool's father was this powerful or in any way interested in the idol.

"Stupid saying, but 'It is what it is.' We just have to work around it."

"This guy might know everythimg about us. Hell, that goon refrenced that little dust up we had with Humanis in Puyallup. It took me a moment to even remember that even happened. He then made you and me, just you and me since we're white humans, one of those offers-they-can't-refuse. We're to screw over Jane and the rest of the team, bring him the Map, or we've made ourselves his enemy."

Torley shrugs, but the strain shows in his face despite his talents. Walls drop with intimates .. sometimes. "He's already our enemy. Men like that don't like loose ends. Were we to hand over the idol, we'd be dead in seconds. Fuck him. We stay a step or two ahead of his goons, and we stay alive. Life's been like that a long time for people like us. "

"You were really thinking about switching sides, Connor," Sammy asked, "besides, if we need to get rid of that idiot downstairs, I'm sure we can get rid of him. Lagos is a dangerous place, especially for bigoted idiots."

O'Connor gave Starlet a withering glare, equal parts furious and offended. She was lucky that being a teammate gave her a measure of clemency. He warned her, "Never question my loyalty or insinuate I'm a racist or would work with racists again. If I was considering taking that offer, I would not have told you about it.

You also never get to insult my conflict resolution skills again. Getting rid of the guy downstairs does nothing to solve the problem of his boss. Speaking of whom..."

He then rounded back on Torley, "I'd love to hear how you propose to stay ahead of a man we know very little about. What we do know is that he is a man of extreme wealth and means. In a very short span of time, he's seemingly gathered a great deal of information on us from connections half a world away just because you delivered a message to his son. We know that most of our team's existence offends his superiority complex, and you and I offend him as race traitors. Now having rejected his offer, you and I have personally slighted him."

O'Connor's small measure of patience was running out, *Why couldn't these two have been the ones arrested? If Clem and Snow were here, we could be working the problem. But no, I'm stuck with the idiots that don't even see this as an inconvenience.* He growled in fustration, " You say this changes nothing? Everything has been different since we took this job. You both need to wake up and realize we're in the big leagues now. We're not just small fish in our own small ponds anymore, insulated by our irrelevancy. The enemies we make now might not just go away once we skip town. Neither of you think much of my intelligence, so how am I the only one that sees the knife's edge we're teetering on?"

Torley feels a momentary pang of sympathy for O'Connor. Someone who has been at the receiving end of a lot of drek lately, and who feels he has limited options for how to deal with it.

"O'Connor, there is no insult here directed at you. We are all trying to figure out what to do next. You say Englebrecht has figured us out in a short span of time, but what was he doing here in Lagos in the first place, a man like him, a racist, powerful man like him in this Black city? He's not here for the climate. He is here for the same reason Jane and a bunch of others like her are here. For the auction. And like so many others like Jane, he probably has been gathering intel on the other players and their squads for a long time. Yeah, that burns. But he wants the same idol we do. Why? Because without it, his competitor, Jane, can't get into the auction. If we get it, he is facing another bidder for the thing he wants. He needs to react to our actions, or potentially lose out in this step of whatever grand scheme we've been brought into.

"We can only act on the intel we have, and on the directions of the one paying us gives us. What we have that the goons who work for the likes of him don't have is flexibility. Like drawing in just the kind of talent we need when it falls in our lap. Almost literally. Like, instead of being a horde of thugs like the ones who rounded me up when I was alone, we are a well rounded team with talents they don't have. You, Sammy, me, and maybe Silence if we allow him. We're the ones making the decisions to which they have to react.

"Knife edge? Damn right. Why are we in this business if we can't deal with that? We're good. We're better than they are. You're better than they are. We can go where they can't because we aren't limited like they are. Talent-less, bigoted thugs chase after us like they have since we were first in this business. Now's our chance to zig when they expect us to zag. Silence and what he has told us is that zig. Silence is hanging with us now because he is safer with us than out there alone. We know something they don't because of him. Let's act on it while they are in the dark. One step ahead, now.

"You are an excellent planner, O'Connor. Let's use what we know to get two steps ahead."

"My apologies," Sammy said, "Why don't you two check on that while I do my astral recon. They might have astral defenses in that compound, but we should know about those as well before we go there. And as much other stuff we can try to find out."

If there were no objections, she would go back, ask Silence where exactly the compound was and then make herself comfortable before slipping out of her body and go on the astral. There she would move towards the compound, but staying at a distance at first to check out any astral defenses, wards and patrolling spirits they might have. She had to evaluate those before she would move closer.

Neither seemed to see the totality of the situation as he did, and he knew that Torley was greatly misunderstanding and underestimating Englebrecht and his enforcers. Racists were more than willing to make deals with their "inferiors" if it expanded their bottom line or advanced their agendas. In prison, he'd seen skinhead and ork gangs work together to push the NAN gangs out of lucrative markets.

He was also awestruck by Torley's audacity at presumed superiority. Torley was gifted at reading people, but it was now obvious he had severe blind spots and biases. By his own assessment, the enforcer downstairs was anything but talentless or stupid. That said, Torley and Starlet were at least willing to indulge him, so he'd take that tiniest of victories.

He went to reply to Torley when a wave of fatigue over took him. He stumbled forward. He caught himself, but only just. He suddenly realized he'd been ignoring that his limbs were shaking, and that he had a massive headache. He'd been drawing heavily on his powers on little sleep and little food for a full day, give or take a few hours. He was on the verge of an adrenalin crash. He headed for his bed, "Yeah, we need a plan, but maybe after a nap." He passed out before he finished collapsing, quite literally, onto the mattress.

"Well, that's that, then." O'Connor's abrasive attitude is almost refreshing to Torley, who rarely gets anything but pleasantness from those with whom he interacts. In the end, it is abrasive, though.

Torley calls in Silence. "Looks like we can use your help. The one who negotiates payment is back at the King's palace. I'm sure she can find the cash for a new, useful set of services, especially since part of our team is enjoying the hosting talents of the city's constabulary." Actually, he's not certain of that, but Torley keeps that tidbit to himself. He does feel he can negotiate on behalf of Silence if necessary. A talented local is a damn useful asset.

"Once we've had a rest, 'cause it's been a long night and day, any chance you can get yourself and Sammy up on the roof to see the location?"

"I can do my astral recon from here," Sammy said, "in fact, it would be better to do it from here. That way my body is at least safe."
Looking at O'Connor and then the darkness outside, she added.
"But tomorrow is time enough."