<< Could they be headed for the facility? And could we get there in time to intercept them? Bikes are much faster than vans after all. Green lights or not. >>

She replies >> *I'll be there! Where is James? * Are you still at the safehouse? Can you get my bugout bag? It has all my shadowy things.


In the meanwhile, she says to Splitterbruch "Fun police has shown its ugly head, and I need wheels. my friend is kidnapped or something. she is probably not dead as they left a message. Gosh, how did they capture the little bitch? She is like super smart most of the time." She mumbled all stressed, and somehow excited about that turn of events.

She browsed the location provided by the team, and suggested "Shall I lead the cab there, or should I go buy a bike or something."

Splitterbruch was instantly sober: "Hop on my bike, I'll drive you."
And indeed true to his word the runner took her back in record time to meet the team.

Eliza replied: <<Based on available data, I fear, she could be already inside the facility. Your place was further away from hers than hers from the facility.>>

<< Guess it's time to inform Kerstin, then. She won't be happy about this turn of events, but we probably need to speed things up. >>

Anna gets down from the bike and grins to the team. She's still wearing the same black dress, with a short miniskirt and cleavage but her hair and makeup are a bit messed up by now."Say hi to Splitterbruch. " She says without explaining, but it does not take a genius to figure out that they hooked up.

She responds physically to Nova "Yes, let's inform her right away. Happy or not, they want to talk to her."


She texts a message to Kerstain but do not yet send it.

>>Kerstain, bnc was kidnapped, kidnapper left you a link number.

Instead, she shows the partial message to the team asking if they want to add anything else.

Back outside, Wraith lashed a furious kick against a dustbin to vent his anger. How could they - he - have made such a stupid mistake? There had to be a way to get her back before she disappeared into the lab. Hawk form? Projecting? It was pointless!
Visibly agitated, Wraith went through all his options while nervously scratching his head. He opened gridmap and pinpointed the vans last assumed position and half a dozen possible routes from there on, until he finally acknowledged the inevitable with a frustrated, angry groan - it was clearly enough to drive him up the wall.

Focus, Raph...
He acknowledged Splitterbruch's presence with a nod. If that guy was who Wraith assumed that he was, then here was no reason for animosity, he had helped them in the past.
He raises a 'thumbs up' at Anna's message. Knowing Kerstin's paranoia, the details should rather be discussed personally.

Anna sends the message to Bean Si... wondering what response she'll get. "Dammit... I like that bully" she thinks.

Kerstin's answer was marked by a quick succession of feelings - disbelief, despair, anger and madness.
<<why, Why, WHY??? Fragging idiots how could you let my fragging idiot of a sister get kidnapped when you fragging knew there are people out there who want me and her. I'm such a fragging idiot for leaving her when I just found her.
Give me the number. I swear, I'll tear Rosenberg apart, limb from limb and have his remains skull-fragged with a spoon.>>

Splitterbruch frowned: "Seems like she's in the perfect mood for good, rational decisions..."

<<@Kerstin @Eliza You can't protect those who don't want to be protected. This is the second time she's tried to separate herself. The first time she asked to be alone, and I overreacted to that request. She didn't ask the second time, and snuck off.

<<How long can we take to find bnc and get her back, before we have to go do a run to save Kerstin's life?>>

Eilza replied:
<<I understand, Sharkboy. There is no benefit in assigning blame right now. The good news is, that bnc was taken alive and unharmed. I was able to retrieve data from the drone in her room to that conclusion. There is a communications attempt, so it is likely that she will stay that way for now.
The Boss will be with you within the next two hours. He is gearing up for an assault. Mr. Splitterbruch, since you are here, we are offering you 10k and a favor to assist us in an impromptu raid. If you have gear you need for that, please gather it and report back within an hour.>>

Splitterbruch shrugged: "Sounds like fun and I like favors." He winked at Anna.

Anna texts Kerstin @ "Kerstin, I care for bnc too... More than is good for me." She says truthfully.
She pauses "You are not alone Kerstin, and it is likely a trap. You will get the number but once you are more in control... I do not want to lose you too. We cannot do it without you... We are amature in a field where you seem to write the book."

...
Then to Eliza "You are brilliant, Eliza it is good to have someone rational in the team that looks at all the angels. Is James functional? Can we hook him up with a big Antenna so that bnc would be able to find it if she ever gets a glimpse at the matrix? Perhaps implement a message for her in James? She cares about that drone as if he was family. I am quite fond of him myself actually. "

She sends these as matrix message, but she uses voice rather than text as she feels that it carries more emotional content.

Seeing that Splitterbruch agrees to stay she grins mischievously at him. "I cannot wait to see you in action..." she says quietly.

Kerstin's reply was as vitriolic as could be expected: <<The FRAG do you think you can decide a thing like that? Give me that number or I'll cut it out of you. If my sister dies because of some mind games I'll burn this whole fucking city down...>>

Anna looked up and noticed across the street one of the big advertising billboards - the things any city dweller usually tuned out. So it took her a second to realize why she had noticed it now:
A giant portrait photo of bnc was displayed, unharmed but looking hollow with dark rimmed eyes.
The headline said: "Missing loved ones? We can help you find them! Call "Action Help", followed by a matrix commcode - identical to the number they had found.
Splitterbruch followed Anna's gaze and did the same doubletake: "Seems like they are anxious for you to call them."

Eliza replied: <<James is - as far as I can see functional but not operational at the moment. You'll have to disconnect the charger and boot him up with wifi enabled, so I can get some MARKs on him.>>

"It is a sucker's move they are anxious..." she says to herself with the sign. "Eliza, how did they get the sign so quickly? Did they leave some info? Nacl, do we have time to play with James? Or are we raiding the place like now."

"Oh what's the point of keeping the number from her? We need that call as well to find out what exactly he wants. He has bnc aa leverage, nothing stops him from hurting her to make us cooperate. This isn't something to play with."

Wraith sends Kerstin the number without much hesitation. There was too much at stake here for his taste.

As the stranger with the unusual name had so eagerly volunteered to join the fray, Wraith took it about time to start the round of introductions.
He approached Splitterbruch with an open hand.
"I'm Wraith, the team's other mage. What's to expect from you?"

"Well, of course she is in a bad mood. This is not what she planned for and it's her familiy. We have to wait for Nacl. He is calling the shots, as far as I'm concerned, even though I definitely want to help them. I still don't get how they found her, though. They must have been watching us the whole time, or had some way of finding her specifically, since they were getting right to her and not to us." Nova wondered.

She gives Splitterbruch a friendly pat on the shoulder, nodding to him. "Good to have you on board as well. My name is Nova."

"Oh hi, yeah, Splitterbruch. I'm the guy from whom Kersting bought her drone. Or rather, I was the delivery guy.
I'm an Aware as they call it - basic magic talent to perceive the astral - which also allows me to get a weapon focus..."
At that a cyber spur apeared from the hiden slide in his right arm.
"Anyway, I can take care of myself and I'm a fair hand at shooting people for a living."

Eliza answered Anna: <<Mitsuhama owns most of the billboards around here. I imagine they bought advertising space with priority. You have time to for James until the Boss arrives. He is currently driving on the Autobahn at way higher speed than I'd recommend.>>

Kerstin replied to Wraith: <<At least one of you with some sense. Thanks Raph.>>

Wraith received a link, so he could follow the ensuing conversation:

Kerstin: <<Rosenberg, what the frag do you think you are doing?>>
Unidentified Male: <<Dear Mrs. Burgstaller. How nice of you to call. I gather by now you learned that your sister is our guest at the moment. She is fine - at the moment.>>
Kerstin: <<What do you want?>>
Unidentified Male: <<We want our goods back that you stole from us. Nothing more, nothing less. By now you must have realized that the faction that hired you was also behind those so called Crusaders. There is no incentive to deliver anything to them. They betrayed you and your team.>>
Kerstin: <<The frag. You no perfectly well that your fragging blade caught me and I had to use the powder or I'd have died. There is nothing for you to retreive. All we got out from that run was our lives.>>
Unidentified Male: <<Precisely. And you now carry fully developed blood crystal implants that replaced the implants you lost through the regeneration and also granted you adept abilities. And all thanks to our prototype.
I'll make you a deal - a bargain at that: We'll let your sister go - unharmed - if you deliver yourself to us. We'll remove the blood crystals and take a few blood samples. Nothing your regeneration won't be able to fix.
If you do that, we'll call it even and you can go too.>>
Kerstin: <<Alright. I'm outside Salzburg right now, but I can be back in two hours.>>
Unidentified Male: <<If you say so. It's a good thing if a sister loves her sibling so much. You better hurry though - otherwise your loving sister might take it upon herself to take care of your debt.
Come to the Steingase 47. The entrance is open. Bring no weapons and cooperate. If you do that you'll be allowed to see your sister leave.>>

Anna thinks "So now the clock is ticking even before we meet Nacl, way to go Wraith... " She shrugs and then asks "Rebooting is a bit fartouhcf

She looks at him and then adds "Oh, I am a mage, and I do counter spelling and health magic. I also conjure spirits,
Thinking of it, I should act the part. Which means that I am going to summon a spirit to help me, and then travel to bnc's room to see if I can find anything... Make sure that nothing bad happens to my body when I am here. Wraith..."

She looks at the mage and says "It might be an ambush... So you might want to send an angel or even come for backup. I'll hook James in a few minutes, with the help of the spirit. With the kind of personal we are up against, losing the surprise would be bad."

She does exactly what she said. First Anna augments her own intuition, then she summons a spirit to back her up. Then the two head toward bnc's hotel room and take a look to see if they find anything of interest. Anna works in complete cooperation with the spirit, and she instructs her to help her investigate the scene. (3 services remaining).

Anna found the story confirmed Eliza had told them:
No violence on the mundane, no magic used to get bnc out. On the astral though she could clearly make out the battle between the two spirits and the mercyless beatdown that had occured there. The spirit of men had clearly been called by someone from the Dr. Singer School tradition who had more raw magic at his disposal than Anna herself.

"I'll come with you. From what I could make out earlier, a hostile spirit intercepted Aeraziel, the spirit I called in Linz and now again to help bnc. It seemed to be gone, but sure, never hurts to take a better look..", Wraith agreed.

He hesitates for a moment before leaving the team without a mage for some time.
"Splitterbruch, I take it you would spot attackers or spies in the astral?"
After making sure, the team wasn't blind on the astral, he left with Anna.

Inspecting the brutal onslaught his spiritual companion had endured made a wave of guilt rush over him - guilt and anger.

Wraith witnessed the conversation with Kerstin and Rosenberg tense as a bowstring - he immediately shared everything with the team. The last, not very veiled threat about bnc made him furious.

"I'll tell Kerstin where we are, everyone cool with that?"
He sent a short message to Kerstin and - unless someone actually disagrees - sent her the location they currently where at.
@Kerstin
<<Kerstin, whatever you do, don't leave us out of your plans. We're right here and ready to frag him up>>

"I'm sure bnc will be thrilled when I make a heroic entrance in this mission to save her." And say 'I told you so'

He quickly introduced himself to Spittlesbruch. "Sharkboy, professional fighter and part-time runner."

Splitterbruch nodded at Wraith and Sharkboy and got into a watch position.

Kerstin replied:
<<Alright. I'll meet with you. But we have to move fast. We need to be in position when Max... I mean Nacl arrives. I want to hit them while they still wait for an answer.
Eliza, I know you have reservations about what you do and don't do. But just this once, please, make sure Bianca is taken away from here asap. No matter who is in your way.>>

Eliza replied: <<I won't promise you that, but I will organize suitable fast transport.>>

Kerstin sent the team another meeting location, quite close to the Kappuziner Berg.

Done with the astral, and certain that it is not a trap, Anna instructs her spirit to materialize and then guides it as to how to disconnect the charger from James and turn the Wifi signal on.

Again, Wraith immediately forwarded Kerstin's info to the team. He cursed inwardly. So much for prep time and binding a spirit.
"So that's where she wants to meet. Do we have all the gear we need with us?
Anna, you might wanna change...", he adds with a wink.

Returning to her body once James is activated she grins "You did fetch my bag like I asked, did you?"

Nacl arrived - ahead of schedule. He looked harried. When he saw the team he nodded:
"This has gone sideways in a spectacular fashion. I had to cut my negotiations short. If we assault them now, we not only have to get bnc out, but also secure whatever data and experimental stuff we can if there is ever to be a chance of healing Kerstin."

“So we need to delay or distract them from deleting or protecting that information as much as possible, then?

“Do we know where they’re keeping it? Is it with our decker, or separate?”

Once James is activated, Anna returns to her body - and informs Eliza that James is activated, charger disconnected.
Anna takes the time before Nacl's arrival to change into more appropriate clothes and to take off her sparkling makeup. She dresses in her bodyarmor, and then winks at Splitterbruch. She strangely feels kind of hot in body armor, perhaps because the rest are all in armor, it seats well of her and she is happy.

She meets Nacl ready to go, all dressed up for action. "Kerstin, any plan for attacking? What are the consequences of going right now and not waiting."

Nacl shook his head: "I doubt it - they wouldn't want to lose the research if it's their day to day testing facility. Too much raw data not yet backed up.
According to the plans they have a kind of holding pen adjacent to the main lab inside the max security part of the facility. There's no reason for them not to put her in the most secure location they have."

Kerstin replied:<<There will be more guards - and Dr. Rosenberg himself. There won't be crowds around in costumes to blend in and they'll expect me. Aside from that... smooth sailing
My plan is to go in and let them take me in. They have to show me bnc before I surrender. I'll give the sign and you start the assault. After that... I hope Eliza has your getaway transport ready.
Your best bet is to hit them indiscriminatley - I'll heal, they won't. So don't hesitate to throw a few grenades around if you can get bnc to safety.>>

Anna adds "To make things worse, they used a mage with more raw magic than myself and Wraith to back their kidnapping.
My guess is that vampire dude that escaped us, which means that we will need to be very aggressive because raw power is on their side."

“How heavily armed can we expect the local talent to be?
“And how far inside the facility are our targets? How close to each other are they?
“Is there any point going in quietly and trying to avoid whatever laser tripwires or camera they have?”

Wraith cursed at Anna's warning about the vampire mage.
Yeah, smooth sailing my ass. He now regretted not having probed Assault deeper to find out what kind of spells Dr Johann specialized in. Probably too many to anticipate anyways.
"So, we need to get bnc first, and then reach their data hub with her hopefully awake and able, protect her while she extracts the data, and leave, right? What about other exits that we could use? A base like that surely has emergency exits not too far from the main lab."

Kerstin replied: <<Dr. Johann. Yes, he is... like Dr. Rosenberg's pitbull. He too has taken the crystal infusion. I think he and I are so far the only ones who haven't died from it. He was a concern when I first staked out the Vienna lab. Favorite student of Rosenberg as he is a mystic adept. Loads of power and loads of ego. If you see him, shoot him. But since he is an adept, it's damn near impossible to surprise him.

The lab guards have standard loadout for Mitsuhama: Armor jacket, heavy pistol and/or a submachine gun. In an emergency they take out FBAs and assault rifles.

There are three sublevels. bnc is most likely on the lowest and most secure level. You'll have to rapel down the elevator shaft. Once down there, you should find everything we want on the same level.

If you can manage to go quiet it certainly would help surviving longer - but in this situation I doubt it. They are forewarned. All we can hope for is that they don't expect such a massive escalation. Shock and awe - if you are detected, start shooting and don't stop until you get out again.
There are four exits in total. They expect me at the southern entrance at the Steingasse. Northern entrance is the vehicle door, but it's very well protected. West entrance is most accessible from the street - it's the personell entrance.
Smack on top is the fourth entry - or rather exit. It's an emergency exit and allows air evacuation from atop the Kapuzinerberg, next to the Kapuzinerkloster.>>

"Yeah, we tried that but it didn't work out too well.
We might consider the exit on the roof. Anna has a levitation spell and I can change us into birds. At least the lighter ones, might need spirits for the rest. They won't expect us to be airborne so quickly, maybe we could surprise them with that and reach or escape vehicle from there.

How far underground is that lowest floor, can we still communicate with the outside - mainly Eliza and our ride - from inside?"

<<The Kapuzinerberg is at its highest peak 200m above the city. The exit lies at 110m - and that's just down to ground level Steingasse. The three sublevels are another 24m down. The upwards shaft has an emergency staircase and an elevator, so not particularly easy to navigate even if you can fly. Also it's easy to get trapped if someone waits for you above.
Also also, this evacuation elevator is not directly connected to the downwards elevator, but stands alone. We'd have to traverse about 50m through the ground floor of the underground complex.>>
Kerstin replied.

"Uh... right.

"Got a map?"

"We need some edge... I am not sure we can pull it off when they expect us, and I am not a big fan of leaving a trail of bodies in our wake. Let's look for alternative and unpredictable plans instead.

Kerstain perhaps you can convince them to get bnc outside and turn yourself in...
The rest of us will execute your original plan, and bust you out during the party. If we are lucky, they'll be less alert. "