Anna whistles in appreciation of Nova and then says "It would raise something alright, you are a hot piece of tail "

"I know of no connection to places in Salzburg. But I'd say we should definitely find out if there are any hideouts for infected in the area. As well as have a good look at the Steingasse. It appears to be directly at the side of the mountain, so there are probably plenty of good viewpoints. She must monitor it somehow, so I'd say we look at hotels with a good view, as well as the mountainside.

If we can narrow it down, asking spirits to help find her might become a realistic possibility - although she might have fled underground to avoid exactly that. I've heared Salzburg has some architecture underneath or inside the city's mountains. Or hills, whatever you want to call them."

Wraith also checked local Viennese news for any incident involving the chiphead-hideout where they had dumped the magical axe to lure the Harvesters into the Crusaders' lair. He hoped to read about a fire, a shooting or anything that indicated their plan had worked out.

bnc makes herself comfortable on a chair, then listens thoughtfully. Only when a short break arises, does she speak up.
"Kynos is not your friend, Anna. From all I can tell, you probably sucked his dick in the meanwhile but that still doesn't make him your or our friend. Besides, why would we have a cyberzombie with aggression issues do fragging recon? Maybe, I don't know, we could our two fragging deckers do the job? Sheesh, girl, how did you not get exed by now?"
bnc leans back.
"I do like Nova's approach, however. We have an advantage we might exploit: a relative.
The Kerstin I know was unthoughtful to the point of being outright dumb. Apparently, however, she has grown up after I've left and from what I can tell, she now acts in a professional, thoughtful and aware manner. Wish we could say the same about Anna.
What I'm suggesting: We might leave clues only she can read but look mostly unsuspicious to both Crusaders and those förböveln Harvesters. Maybe, if we give her the opportunity to build contact with us in a safe manner, she would bite the bait and talk to us?"

She turns to Sharkboy and shrugs. "Unfortunately, we haven't ever been to Salzburg, so I know of now places she would turn. In addition, she acts mucho grande more cautious than she used to, so I'm afraid, my knowing her will not be as much of a boon as you mighta hoped.
Why exactly are you all so sure that she'd monitor a door she won't use for another two weeks?"

Nova shrugged.

"Nobody's sure about that, but there is a decent chance, she wants to get intel about who is going in or out."

To Wraith she adds: "You have seen her, right? She is not staying in a hotel..."

"I think, the very first thing to do is to go near the place and have a spi... an angel of Wraith search for my- for Bean Si."
bnc pauses for a moment, fighting down another surge of emotion. After the blink of an eye, she adds in a businesslike tone. "If we're lucky, all we need is a magician who's seen her personally. Though I'm afraid it won't be that easy...

So what do you think about leaving bait snips?"
bnc bites her lower lip somewhat nervously.

Anna responds "I am not sure we should move much because we may be monitored by all the involved factions; We killed a harvester, raided the Crusader facility, took a million euro secret operative captive. We lost a powerful vampire mage that may have assensed some of our auras. In Redmond, I'd say that a team that has done all these things is too hot to move."

She ignores the comment about Kynos
"This is why I suggested someone else to do some legwork for us while we cool down. The cyberzombie is the only shadowrunner I know in this country that is not in this very room. He is a contact, not a friend, and to quell your insecurities... I did not blow him off." She looks at Wraith and then at bnc and says "bnc, what I do in my spare time is my between me and my lover. Jealousy does not suit you."

Nova nodded in bnc's direction. "Bait snips ... that was pretty much exactly what I had in mind, when I mentioned to gain her attention somehow. You should know best what might work. Of course, if Wraith can find her with his magic, that would be even better. Just keep in mind, that we will now be in the territory of people who have access to a high level of magic themselves."

"I'd like to try quietly contacting BeanSi at least for a little bit before we scout her target, with or without magic. Based on what's happened before, there's a small chance that other informed parties don't know that building is somehow related to her condition. If we send a spirit or angel, and it gets spotted, and it gets followed back to you as it tries to tell us what is happening, that will be a problem.

"bnc, you said that it might be possible to leave some clues that only you or her would notice. Where could we leave those that would catch her attention?

"I still think that while you guys are doing that, it may be best for me and someone else to be somewhere else and much more visible to keep people from looking for you. You've already been mixed up for her and attacked in a public place because of it."

"Hm. I'm still sceptical that we can set a bait that only she will notice, but if we find a way... Yeah, then that'd probably be the best solution. I agree that scouting the area bears quite a risk. If your bait-plan works out, all the better."


He turned to Anna:
"But we should be ready to search for her on by magical means, and I think I can actually show you how Bean Si looks from the astral plane.
I can weave a... uhm, telepathic connection. Between several people, if needed. With that link, we could exchange thoughts, memories... any kind of mental image. Meaning I can show you my memories of her aura, from way back when we worked together, and you'll see it as if you had seen her yourself. Should help you and your spirits recognize Kerstin."

"That sounds very useful. Can you show us non-mages those images as well? Just for curiosity's sake. Sounds like an interesting thing you won't be able to see every day. Well, unless you are... yeah, you get it."

Anna looks astonished "You can do that? Wow, the implications... ". She looks at Nova - "If it work both ways, then I can show you better things like your own aura, or how a city looks from high above the mana sphere."

"I've heard once, that you can make something similar to photos from that place beyond the mundane, maybe it would be similar to that?"

At first, Wraith seems surprised, perhaps even offended by Nova's idea, but thenn he thinks about it for a moment and nodds hesitantly."Yes, it works in all directions, but it ain't a trid projector. I usually can't keep it up for very long, so let's do the important stuff first. But... apart from that, no problem with showing it to mundanes, I guess."

Towards Nova: "Ah, yeah, I know those cameras, but they're nothing in comparison. They're more like... Imagine recreating Mozart with nothing but a cheap digital music-creator on your comlink. Sure, it tecnically contains the same things, but you can never catch all the different facettes."

Looking into the round and raising one hand into the middle:
"Ready? Your hands, then."

Excited Anna holds Wraith's hand, and she strokes it gently before she holds it just to fee bnc's suspicion.

bnc casts a dark look at Anna, then laughs. "Oh Barbie-doll, you have no idea. My jealousy destroys people. But I sincerely doubt, you will ever see any of it."

She turns to Sharkboy. "You're right. Us showing up in the Steingasse might just as well serve to lead our enemies to her. I'm not sure as to where to leave the baits, however. We have no clue at all where she might be, though I do like the idea of doing some intel about whether or not there are nests of infested in Salzburg, too. I will see to it. Although she might be wary of going there as we might not be the only ones to consider this.
Another possibility would be ... (bnc quickly looks up a word) trawling. If we, say, design a motif that anyone else would red as a symbol for, dunno, anarchos or Nazis or feminists or trollists or whatever the fuck has an ism out there, but she might read as a message from us, and we have people spray it all over Salzburg ... or just put AROs on walls here and there ... that might just work. But it's gonna be difficult to pull off."

bnc takes Wraith's hand. "Wait ... you're telling me that you can show me Kerstin's aura??"

"So, what have been her interests? What might be something, she is willing so stick her head out for? Do we expect her to stay in hiding all the time, or does she actually sneak out here and there? Will that be more during the night, in a stealthy way? I guess so. We need to start somewhere..."

"Whatever they were," bnc says darkly, "They aren't any more. She's changed. She's a monster now."
And I made her into it.
"I know nothing of her desires now, but one thing: She'll have to feed. And for that, she'll have to hunt."

Wraith waited for all interested ones to get rady before murmuring "Lord, you speak to the hearts of all men. Bestow this boon of godspeech upon your humble servant."

The feeling that his participating fellows now experienced could best be described like the moment you take off your ear plugs after a long time and suddenly realize that there are many more sounds around you than you thought - only that the sounds also came with visions, smells and movements. Most of these scenes seemed to be too vague and far away to see understand a thing, as if hidden by a bank of fog. But after a few moments, one vision emerged cristal-clear from the cacophonic mist:

They saw themselves walking through a city at night and right in front of them walked a well-built, muscular young woman - their target, Kerstin. Human and without the crystals, yet the similarities were there. Seconds later, the vision changed and their whole field of view seemed to blurr: The colors around seemed to shift, walls and parked cars became pale, dead and grey, while the woman in front of them had turned into a vivid shillouete of strong colors: Wine-red, dark green, deep ocean's blue and more colors than the mundane eye had ever seen in one place merged together into an expressionistic, pulsing aura.
"... see? That's her, seen through astral eyes.", Wraith said with a concentrated look in his face.

Anna responds with compassion"She is sick, and needs help. There is enough of her left, I can feel it."

Then Wraith's spell catches her by surprise, Anna carefully observes the aura in her eyes mind and assenses it in an attempt to memorize it or to study something about the woman who possessed it.



"Wow..." she mutters quietly as the images enter her mind.

bnc's hand closes tighter around Wraith's. He can feel a distinct change when he shifts to astral perception. At the beginning, bnc was unsecure but then she sucks in the image greedily. She studies the dark patches where Kerstin's muscle replacement runs through her body, takes in the vibrant aura of her big sister with a glistening in her eyes that goes beyond seeing Kerstin again, as she was back in the days. She doesn't let go for some ten or fifteen seconds, then rips herself apart from the image and stands, eyes averted from the group. She steps one step away from the others, towards the closest window and looks silently through it, as she leans on the sill.

Sharkboy joined hands with the others, but a bit hesitantly. It was all a bit much for him to take it. It was the first time an experience with magic had made him curious to explore it.

Nova was quite curious about this. Sure, she had seen some trids that 'showed' how it was supposed to look like on the astral, but that was likely not even close to the real thing. Well, not that she would really be looking into the astral space either, but it was close enough. Certainly fascinating.

Wraith waited a few seconds before pulling his hand back. "So...we're connected. Now as long as you don't go too far away, you're all part of the net.
If you want to show the others something: Think about the vision very clearly and then just kind of... uhm, push it outwards. You can imagine tossing the scene into a river and letting it float away, or something. The spell will do the rest.
Got the aura, Anna?"
He then won't continue the scene with Kerstin any further, seeing bnc's reaction.
While speaking, he gently - and not without pride - patted the place where he wore his little crucifix-necklace.

Anna shares the images of Seattle as she cruises high above the living city and its forested surroundings. The city is teaming with lights and has darker spots of pollution surrounded by living forests and an ocean with plenty of marine life. It is spectacular to her eyes. "This freedom of movement is the best thing about being a mage."

... she thinks for a moment and then says "Yes, I got it memorized."

"Is there any way to block spam?" bnc asks without turning from the window.

Sharkboy takes the question literally.

"You're the decker. Don't you have some programs that handle that kind of stuff?"

bnc turns around and raises an eyebrow at Sharkboy.
"Can't hack magic links. Sorry to disappoint you. I'm just horrified by the idea that she might shove dick pics of Wraith right into my brain."

Anna shrugs "Fine... be like that. Its naive of me to think that I get to share what I feel when I explore the world with my mind." She stops sharing, and serious up "So what do I do now that you showed me the lost sister's aura?"

Sharkboy felt a bit dumb for not understanding the metaphor, and his fist inclination was to play obtuse.

"What's wrong with Wraith's dick pics? Is there someone else's dick you'd want put in your head?"

Unfortunately for his satisfaction, he was to be an intimidating and serious professional for the duration of this job.

"Oh, of course. I can imagine that would be awkward.

"Was it at least useful in giving you some ideas for how to try and secretly contact her?"

bnc shoots Anna a look and opens her mouth to respond. Then she pauses a split-second and says instead: "Sorry." For a moment, she considers saying something more but then she decides that has to be enough. As a kid of the barrens, bnc muses, Anna should be more used to rejection. So bnc responds to Sharkboy instead. "No but that wasn't the plan either. He was showing you what she looks like and Anna what her aura looked like before it was warped and twisted by an HMHVV infection we don't know drek about.

So, unless you have a big deal of new ideas, I'd say we continue the meet after I've done some research about infected parts of Salzburg. Also, I need to rep my deck.
Let's say, 6pm, same place? If you come up with ideas 'til then, that's awesome. I might be able to provide one clue or another she'll understand but I've no inkling whatsoever where to place them. I'll dig through the news - both lighty and shady - to find out whether someone's been eaten by a crystal ghoul."
She walks over to the door briskly, then turns. For a split-second, her facade crumbles, then she regains control. "If you'll excuse me ... Ah, and does one of you honeys know the Heal spell? Dumb bitch of an eighteen-year-old me installed a fraggin' headware deck."

Anna replies "I SHOULD be able to deduce what she looks like now, perhaps if I observe similarly infected people and try to aham... understand exactly how their infection changes their aura - then I may be able to do the equivalent of a sketch artist. I... never tried it before actually. Having some idea of her current aura would mean that I could send spirits to look for her, or look for her myself. Not the most promising direction, but perhaps we do not have plenty of better directions?"

Wraith cast an overly sour look at bnc when she mentions his dick pics, but he clearly had to suppress a grin. A second later, a telepathic image of a middle finger raised at bnc appeared in the group's shared consciousness.

"Yeah, I hope this can help you or a spirit find her, if needed. But do we agree that we're trying the uhm, trawling approach first? Less risk of exposing her, after all. If we can't come up with a good plan for that, or if it fails, then I guess spirits are our last resort. That's what we needed to inspect her aura for. If we ask a spirit to help search someome, we need a... Mental representation. Spirit needs to know what the person looks like, and as spirits' eyes usually are astral, we needed her aura.", he explained.

"Wha... Yeah, I can heal wounds, but it's not my forte. Are we talking cracked-open skulls or mending cuts?"

Anna replies with a thumbs up emoji to the mental association, then she thinks at the team. Talking seems suddenly strange when they can just think at each other. "I am an health mage... What do you need? "

Sharkboy quickly comes to dislike the link, but tries to not think too much about the reasons why. "So when can I sever this telepathic link from you guys?"

"Job goes to Anna, then", Wraith approved.
He turned towards Sharkboy: "Anytime, we should be done here. I've shown you all I had and... wait!", and the young mage almost facepalmed himself. "Wait, I saw her another time. Well, not really, but Andreas did. The merc we interrogated in that forest. When I clawed my way through his memories, I saw him chasing Kerstin. Here...", and he shared the scene with the rest of his team.
"... that's how she looks now."

"Someone who heals the access port I've got to carve. Will I find one of you two during the next couple hours in the hotel? A bad healer will do, too. It's only gonna be a small, clean wound.
Ah, and Wraith: Don't you have that pain suppressor spell? That'd make it a lot nicer, if you will."

When Wraith creates the image of Crystlin in bnc's head, she stands completely still. Hardly any sign of emotion can be read on her face, only the stillness.
The stillness one knows from people who visit a KZ or watch scenes their mind cannot yet comprehend.

"You are going to do WHAT?"

bnc takes that as a yes, nods curtly towards the group as a whole and then again towards Wraith, her gaze lingering on him for a split-second to give him time to answer her request about the painkiller spell. She then leaves the room.

Wraith nods at the question if he'll stay at the hotel, but adds with a concerned look "Suppress pain? No, my magic can't do that."


" I'll sever the connection, so if you know anything the team needs to see, now's the time.", he says towards the whole team, then, after a couple of seconds, he closes his eyes and and the brimming cacophony of others' thoughts ends.

Anna sighs "I'll do that... You crazy self mutilating person."

"I know a great doc in Munich, in case you need help with that ware," Nova mentioned, not quite sure what bnc was going to do to herself.

"I have some dopadrine to numb the pain, but I don't know how aware you need to be during this. I don't think dopadrine really covers actual head-splitting, either"

bnc declines the offer of drugs, indicating that it's only a cut and that she'd done this a couple of times already.

Back in her room, she undresses and lays herself into the tub and wraps herself into a warm blanket. She then Jumps into James to open her head far enough to retrieve the damaged cyberdeck. She unpacks her gear and brings the deck back into shape, before she inserts it into the still motionless body's head again and tends to the wound.

Once the deed is done, she dives into the matrix to do research about infected in Salzburg and cases of homicide, cannibalism or mysterious disappearings in both the legal and the illegal parts of the web.

Searching the Salzburg Grid shows that the border city has a lot of money flowing through it. Tourism and Catholizism are the two watchwords around here. There is a functioning welfare system operated by the Caritas and quite an effective police force, the Bishop's Guard. They are all trained to deal with magical threats - including infected like vampires, making the city particularly unwelcoming to runners, infected and anarchists.
The most prominent citizen is Nebelherr, the German dragon, who bought the Schloss Hellabrunn, including the park and the zoologic garden.
Incongruently to the magic opposing Archbishop, the University Salzburg does have a study course for hermetic thaumaturgy.

All in all, Salzburg is considered the most secure city in all of Austria.
Consequently, there is no known infected community to be found and all missing persons cases are very stringently pursued.
Discretion seems to be a very important part of operating in the Mozart city...

The only interesting bit of news is an item about a brawl at one of the university taverns, where a student from a Burschenschaft got roughed up a week ago. The private blog post mentioned that a mummed woman didn't liked to be called a muslim whore and kicked the guy's teeth in before leaving the place. It's name: Urban Lemon Chili, Kitchen&Bar.

Anna said "I'll numb your pain consequence-free, your body will just increase its endorphins to block the pain. Can't believe you are operating on yourself. If you are going to do this often I will study a surgery spel that opens your body without a cut. They use it to operate on awakened to not damage their holistic cohision. Perhaps the augmented should be careful, no idea though."

Meeting done, Anna walks to the gym and trains on the treadmill and several other basic exercises.

6 pm

After a meal, a proper shower, a Heal spell and some valueable time alone, bnc returns to Anna's room and waits for the others in silence. Once everyone's arrived, she shares the information she's found.

"Apparently, we've got two ways to go from here. One is the Urban Lemon Chili, and I recommend we go there tomorrow.
The other is our trawling approach. I have drawn a first sketch of what I think should make her aware of us without attracting unwanted attention. Before I tell you which clues I've left, let's first see how many of them you can find. Especially Wraith should be able to see all but one.
There it is:"
As there is no matrix connection, bnc has brought a sheet of electronic paper to display the sketch. It feels awkwardly medieeval.

Clue for Kerstin

"What do you think?" bnc asks somewhat giddily. She seems to be proud.

"Something about throwing boners in the garbage." Sharkboy scrathed at the back of his purple hair. "If I spoke any German I imagine I'd maybe make out more of it."

"It says Tell us your favorit pirate-broadcaster to win a trip to beautiful Reutte, Tyrole. That's a hint at Kerstins former boss.", Wraith translates while staring at the image thoughtfully.
"I like it. The Be - No - Coward might be a little too on the nose... but then again, it's Kerstin. Better safe than sorry. I don't get the meaning behind the hammer and stuff, but the bold CRUSH hints at that poor orc-fella, I guess?"

Anna performs the spells to ease bnc's pain, and fix her head. Strange head implants have no reasonable way to take out, why put the deck inside the head, and not in a bag or something? Paranoia? anti theft? To feel like you have super powers? Who knows...

Afterwards, she completes her training, and returns to her room for a shower and then spends the rest of her time studying. She waves at bnc a little "Hi" suddenly distracted from the arcane text she was studying. The rest show up shortly after, bnc must have called a meeting. Anna listens intently to what bnc discovered and then says "So Bean Si decided to go Muslim...? This is quite smart actually - these girls cover themselves so much that it should not be very difficult to
mascarade as one. "

Then, she gives the hint a glimpse but does not comment.

"Not quite. Something about throwing Bones in the garbage. It's one of those memories that connect us. Bones was the name of someone who ... was very unpleasant. Towards me. Kerstin beat him up badly, took a photo of her art and then disposed him into a garbage bin. It's a thing basically none except for the two of us know. So, if the Be No Coward phrase catches her attention and the other clues make her realize what's going on, this one will confirm her it's really me.

No, Reutte is no hint at her boss. It's the place where our last action took us. You remember, don't you? The thing with the reporter who got caught by König Mundl. Then there's Crush, you recognized him.

I don't think it will raise too much awareness. My nickname is unknown to our enemies, as far as I know. It looks like an ad for pirating but in reality, it delivers four clues to make even her realize what' going on. In addition, if she follows the ARO she'll come to a site where she can 'join the competition'. And from the answer, we'll know which one Kerstin is. Unless we had a great many more fans than I thought when we Ran for the pirate channel.

What do you say? I think it might work!"

To Anna bnc says: "I think you got that wrong. Someone called her a muslim whore because she was all wrapped up. That doesn't mean she actually tried to pass as a muslim. Only means someone couldn't distinguish between a mummed woman and a muslima."