Nova was sitting on her bike, waiting for the whole team to be ready to go.

"That went pretty well, all things considered."

“Well, if you and Wraith say that you’re fine alone, you’re probably fine alone.

“If you end up wanting less life threatening work that’s also open to employing freakshows, or want to make to make this just a side gig, let me know and I’ll see if any wrestling promotions are interested. Most don’t care if your some mutant shark man as long as you can fight.”

Sharkboy waved before heading to the door. He looked around before exiting and saw bnc was still on the ground. He turns back around. “Ms. Black, would you help me carry her to the van?”

Before returning, Anna took a look at bnc - her emotions were so intense that it was impossible to not look at it that way. She returns to her body, and blinks at Sharkboy "Oh don't carry her, I'll keep her safe. Give me five minutes with her." Anna approaches bnc and handles her a handkerchief. Her body language is clear that she is not leaving her, not now. "Clear your face honey," she says calmly and places a supportive hand on bnc's shoulder. "Your sister is quite amazing" she adds quitely.

Wraith seemingly hadn't expected his whole team to comply and leave, and his prompt message came as soon as Sharkboy and Anna tried to comfort - or carry away - bnc.

@Sharkboy, Anna:
<< Cmon, lets leave hr. Said she wanted alone time. Shes no baby, she doesnt need us atm.>>

“She doesn’t need us, but we need her and Eliza to help set up and secure a virtual meeting space if that becomes necessary.

“You can comfort her in the van.”

Anna replies to Wraith >>>I do not leave my friend on the bread-crumb trail of the hottest criminal I met so far. She can get drunk and make poor life choices like the rest of us... if a bunch of Crusaders would not lynch her that is.

bnc glares at Anna defiantly for a moment. She then averts her eyes, calmly, void of any emotions. She stands, wavering, and steadies herself with both hands on Anna, looking at Anna with a mix of oh so many, many emotions. She holds Anna tightly.
And unloads a bolt of electricity into her, as soon as she holds her securely.

Being very fond of bnc, and her occasional lover Anna does not feel threatened by bnc. bnc is her friend, Anna is risking life and limb for her. She would not hurt her, not physically at least. After all, Anna is nothing but kind to bnc and is attentive to her needs. She warmly embraces bnc, and murmurs "it will be okay" when there is a sharp jolt of pain at her back. Anna falls down, unresponsive, her eyes narrowing at bnc, and the ultimate betrayal is suddenly evident to her senses as the young decker is unsurprised by Anna's demise, and is careful to disengage from her. Anna's mind grows foggy, and the world grows dark.

When Anna goes limp, bnc supports her lest Anna hurts herself when hitting the ground. Once the body is down, bnc turns to the others, especially Sharkboy. She screams "I told you to get the FRAG OUTTA HERE! FUCK OFF, all of you!"

bnc draws her gun. "Now", she insists in a deadly-calm voice.

Hearing the commotion, Nova got off her bike, where she was waiting, and headed back inside to see what the hell was going on there...

"You guys really don't know how to give someone some space, huh?"

Completely ignoring the gun in bnc's trembling hands, she headed over to Anna, her muscles still twitching occasionally from the shock, and picked her up to carry her to the van.

<< Yo, Eliza, could you please open the van for me? Thanks, darling. >>

Sharkboy has spent years fighting on streets and in rings. Someone pulling a weapon on him was hardly a shock anymore. Sharkboy immediately stepped forward and tried to rip the gun from bnc’s hands.

bnc cries out in anger and surprise as Sharkboy wrestles Tom out of her hand, but doesn't hinder Nova in any way. She glares at the wrestler with fiery loathing. "Now what, you self-righteous piece of shit? You gonna force yourself on me? Fuck you!"

And then bnc does something everyone knows that she knows can't succeed: She throws herself at Sharkboy.

Sharkboy snatches the gun from her, immediately unloads the magazine and the one in the chamber, and tosses the gun to the Nova.

When bnc goes to attack him he lets out a disgruntled sigh and lazily sidesteps her. Her attack grazes his arms, but he doesn’t even try to block with a shock pad. Instead he just moved to put her in a chokehold.

The meager girl looks and feels like no more than a doll in Sharkboy's arm, yet she wrestles. He can easily subdue her, but as soon as his attention goes elsewhere, she'd take any chance to hurt him.
"And now, drekhead?", she groans before Sharkboy closes the choke.

Sharkboy gets himself a better grip, but doesn’t cinch in the choke.

“We could awkwardly walk back to the van like this, or I turn you blue in the face for a second and carry you back to the van like a sack of potatoes. Maybe someone else has a more pleasant way of getting you to calm down,” he says looking at Wraith, “or maybe you can just tap out and I let you walk out to the van under your own power.

“Your call, but we have a job to prep for, so make it a quickly.”

"You think you're so clever, asshole."
A sudden jerk goes through bnc's body as she activates her auto-injector and pumps a dose of Whoom right through her venes. Then her body goes limp like the afore mentioned sack of potatoes.
Over the group channel he hears "Follow me there, motherfucker."

James exits the van to roam through the city - alone.

In the meantime, Nova was using her first aid kit in the van to help Anna regain her consciousness.

Anna moaned in pain as she stirred. Her entire body was in pain, and she was in a different place. She moans, and mummers "Betrayer!"

”Sack of potatoes it is then.”

Sharkboy drapes her over his shoulder and carried her to the van. He muttered something under his breath in Spanish as he walked by Wraith and towards the van. Once he passed him he spoke into his mic and to Eliza.

“Eliza, bnc has jacked into her robot and run off somewhere. Do we force her back to her body, treat her as an enemy when she returns, or just allow her to interfere as she likes?”

He dropped bnc off at the van waiting for the response

Nova just shrugged.

"Yeah, she's a mess, but what did you expect, really? She wanted some time to process the whole thing, and you didn't let her. She even said 'please'. I do not know her well, obviously, but I do expect her to come around. It's her sister after all. Let her cool off. We still got til evening."

Anna shrugs and tries to keep calm - though she is outraged. She replies to Nova "Leaving her in that emotional state on the trail of Bean Si where some dangerous people may follow is asking for troubles. The woman is so hot that she can be lynched Crusaders for nothing more than walking the street. Worst yet, bnc would likely be too far gone into her drugs to even realize the dangers and protect herself. There is also the scenario of self-inflicted harm; she may do it given circumstances..."

She responds to Sharkboy "She is safe in James... Unlikely to overdose, can't get raped or killed. Would not be lynched by Crusaders. Some possibility of dumpshock if James gets hurt but given circumstances -this is the safest way to let her blow off some steam."

Anna's eyes were heavy, and her body ached, but she did not cast the painkiller spell because the unlikely event of drain WILL knock her out cold. "I am resting until the pain goes away or until I feel brave enough to make it go away. These electric gloves are nasty." Anna closes her eyes and tries to get some rest.

"What the..."
Wraith had hastily stepped back from his bike to the crew when the commotion started. When bnc and Sharkboy were wrestling, he had reluctantly raised an arm, as if hesitating to use a spell, but bnc had jacked into James before he could react.

When James runs away, his eyes narrow.
He folds his hands, as if in prayer, and communes with the spirit he had summoned back at the castle.
It seems my friend has gone astray again. She needs a guardian angel. I pray, follow the robot that just ran away and...
Ran away... That fragging slitch ran away ag.

No, wait. Don't. This was her own damn choice, now she is to bear the consequences.
When he removed his hands, James was already gone and the window to have a spirit shadow him likely expired. He couldn't fully explain why he hadn't sent a spirit after her. Perhaps it was simply caution - being followed by a spirit was a beacon on the astral, after all, and he wanted to respect bnc's wish for solitude. Perhaps it was a personal frustration and offence that his friend had abandoned them, or perhaps it was a deeply-embedded trust that bnc would - had to - return to finish the job when they needed her.

Wraith turned back to the team with a grim look. "Why did you push her like that?", he snarls angrily at Sharkboy and Anna. Whether he was angry at them for pressing bnc, at bnc for leaving or at himself for not intervening was hard to tell - likely a combination of all of the above.

Sharkboy was dismissive. “Because I wasn’t trained as a high school guidance counselor. Because leaving a crazed addict alone would be stupid. Because she’ll could be targeted like her sister is, again. Take your pick.

“Send a spirit after her if your so concerned.”

James moved through the train yard at a robot's breakneck speed. It didn't take long to reach the livelier parts of Salzburg again. Almost immediately she noticed a low flying rotor drone with the logo of the Salzburg Police.

The drone seemed to be interested in James, as the anthro drone parcoured it's way up and along the sidewalk with a cartwheel.

The flying police drone suddenly displayed an ARO: "Police Stop - pause your movement and ready for inspection."

Ugh, frag ... seriously? Dammit, why don't I just kill myself and save me the trouble..?

bnc quickly analyzes the drone in question before she acts.

The drone had been on auto pilot, but there was definitely a rigger behind the thing now - and one with a damn powerful rigger console it seemed.

bnc orders the drone's autopilot to go offline, continue to run and get back online as soon as possible, automatically reconnecting to her deck.
While this is happening, bnc attacks the drone.

The drone immediately began to follow the anthrodrone. The autopilot alone has no chance to shake the flying drone. bnc no longer received the message that the rigger sent at the drone, since it now was offline, but with her MARK she noticed that the drone was readying its weapon. It seemed the famous "zero-tolerance" policy of Salzburg showed its ugly face today.

Wraith glared at Sharkboy agrilly -although he couldn't really argue with what the wrestler said.
" If you two had just stopped pressing her, she wouldn't have freaked out.

No, I'm not sending a spirit after her, 'cause no one here needs a babysitter."

"But if one of us needs a couple of minutes for himself - just a few minutes, after all she's been through - then I want the rest of us to respect that. Goes for me, goes for you, goes for Miss Overprotective in there.", and he points at the van where Anna rested.
"We're not on a clock where every second counts. She'll be back in time."

But if she won't, she can go frag herself.

"We are on the clock now, and i am barely conscious after what she did. Can't you see that your old friend is completely lost? That she endangers all of us because her body is linked to a robot that is doing god knows what... Now let me recover, I am in a lot of pain."

“Yeah Well, until she does, it’s probably best that we restrain her meatspace body. Ms. Black or Nova should search her for any weapons. Can’t really have her coming back in the middle of the night, and pulling a gun on us, again.”

“Worst case scenario, it will be significantly easier for you or Ms. Black to choke her out when she’s already restrained.”

They really mean zero tolerance in Salzburg, huh? Frag it, zero tolerance it is then. I have no head for the lot of you.

bnc is angry. Using the Configurator, she loads her predefined Battle Configuration and unleashes a stream of very hostile code towards the drone.



She doesn't directly attack the rigger control - if she breaks a several-thousand nuyen tool, they'll do everything to hunt her down. She does, however, keep the Watchdog alert while she changes back to her Stealth configuration and reclaims control over James. Once he's back online, she tries to evade and avoid attention and search a place where she can keep her head low.

"Nova" she replies as she closes her eyes, and attempts to get some rest.

Wraith felt a rush of shame for having completely ignored the pain Anna must have been in."Right, sure. Rest."
He doesn't press the toppic any further.

Or so she planned to do - but bnc had missed in her anger, that while jumped in, the rigger and his RCC would take the brunt of her data spike. Thanks to his program loadout and his high end device - he was able to take this damage without going offline.
Her MARK on his machine told him, that he had given the command to fire.
James' Icon did not reappear.

bnc swears loudly (yet inaudibly as no one's there to listen) as she realizes that the drone took James down. A sudden anger flares up and for a split-second, bnc considers loading her Blackout program but then instead decides to go for Tantrum. If the spider's disoriented, it might by her some valuable time. Then she pulls the trigger again and sees with satisfaction that his lights go out.

Still cursing, bnc quickly orders a manned(!) taxi or a comparable service to fetch James and bring him away. She'll pay any price requested if the service is fast, discreet and doesn't ask (or answer) questions.

"A gun? If anything, I would be worried about her deck. That is her weapon. Either way, I would really prefer to not irritate her even further. We still need to do this thing, and we will need her back in a more stable state by then," Nova replied to Sharkboy. "We all got our burdens to carry. Hers just caught up with her today."

"Anyways, are we leaving? We are not waiting here for that drone to come back, right?"

“Well she installed her deck inside her head, and I’ll take that out if hints come to that. For now let’s just focus on the weapons she pointed at me and used to incapacitate Ms. Black. Maybe also take away any drugs or medical supplies you recognize as dangerous.

“We can do that while we get on the road. The Autopilot can get us where we need to go.”

There were of course taxis to be had - but unfortunately most of them were autocabs without any way to pick up a drone lying on the pavement.
James had fallen about a km away from her current position - not far for a car, but that did also apply to a police car.
At least GOD had not yet taken an interest in her and there wasn't yet a response from a police decker.

Grinding her teeth, bnc decides to swallow her pride. She calls Wraith on a private channel.
"Wraith, schick bitte einen deiner Engel an die Kreuzung Bayerhamer Straße/Gnigler Straße. James liegt dort. Schaff ihn bitte weg und versteck ihn. Ich erklär's dir später. Danke. afk für 3 sec"
She then reboots her deck and reorients herself.

bnc's call surpriesed Wraith, yet he acted instinctively fast. He couldn't let James fall into ememy hands, after all."Was...? K. Stopp, warte! Wenn ich das mach, mach du die Kameras dort blind, klar?"

The rest of the crew saw Wraith curse at his bike, then he took to communing with his spirit, while at them meantime looking for a suitable hiding spot.

I humbly ask you for your aid in a task impossible for us humans.
Down that street lies a drone. You'll find an apparent human with a dead aura, yet with traces of... affection. It's held dearly. Take it, hide both of you and fly off as high you can, far away from prying eyes, to a secluded area. There's a forest north of the city, left of the big street, hide it there.

If necessary to show his spirit the area where James went down is far away, he'll project there to help it find James.